Benjamin Thomas White
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btwhite.bsky.social
Benjamin Thomas White
@btwhite.bsky.social
1.6K followers 390 following 81 posts
Researching and teaching refugee history.

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btwhite.bsky.social
Rhys Machold in Jewish Currents on the myth of Israeli "security innovation":

jewishcurrents.org/the-myth-of-...
Screenshot of text: Indeed, most modern states’ militaries would have no difficulty carrying out similar airstrikes on a place like Lebanon, which lacks air defenses, and almost any state could impose an aid blockade and shoot starving people in an occupied enclave such as Gaza. What ultimately prevents other states from doing these things in plain sight, or for such prolonged periods of time and with such intensity, is not a lack of technological prowess, but of weapons, funding, and political will. Looking at matters this way, it becomes clear that Israel’s true “innovation” in this moment is political: the feat of securing unique access to an endless supply of Western weapons, intelligence, and most of all, political backing, all of which have given it a destructive capacity that may truly be unprecedented in modern history.
October 29, 2025 at 3:13 PM
btwhite.bsky.social
(Original here.)
Screenshot of original news story headlined 'Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai wins Nobel Literature Prize', with a photo of a mature man quite closely resembling 'Hide the pain Harold' (who is actually a Hungarian man named András Arató), in roughly the same position to the right of the picture.
October 9, 2025 at 2:02 PM
btwhite.bsky.social
I can't be the only person to have thought of this.
Screenshot of news story headlined 'Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai wins Nobel Literature Prize accompanied by an image (closely resembling that on the original story) of 'Hide the pain Harold', an internet personality – a widely circulated stock photo showing a mature man sitting at a laptop, holding a mug, and giving a rather pained smile.
October 9, 2025 at 2:01 PM
btwhite.bsky.social
His 1934 book, La Trace de Rome dans le désert de Syrie, was a milestone in Roman history, and even more so in aerial archaeology.
Title page of La Trace de Rome dans le désert de Syrie, illustrated by a woodcut showing a biplane soaring over a hilly landscape.
September 11, 2025 at 7:31 AM
btwhite.bsky.social
Imperial frontiers were also the subject of his archaeological research, carried out with the assistance of the 39th Aerial Observation Regiment.

Here he is aboard a Potez 25 TOE.
Black-and-white photograph of a biplane flying high over a landscape of fields and hills.
September 11, 2025 at 7:26 AM
btwhite.bsky.social
It starts with Antoine Poidebard, Jesuit priest, intelligence agent, and pioneer of aerial photography in the French-speaking world.

Here he is (centre) with captain Thomas and their sergeant mechanic in front of a Potez 25 TOE in June 1932.
Three men stand in front of a biplane, two in the uniforms of aviators (with helmets and goggles) and one in the uniform of ground crew. The middle figure, an aviator, is an older man with white beard and a walking stick.
September 11, 2025 at 7:20 AM
btwhite.bsky.social
I think I won't.
Screenshot of excerpt from Netflix homepage showing text 'We think you'll love these' and an image of the series 'My Oxford Year', boak
August 30, 2025 at 7:38 PM
btwhite.bsky.social
I liked Jack Shenker's review of Nick Bano's book in the latest @lrb.co.uk. But I didn't like this bit, which thinks it is celebrating – but is actually belittling – a historic victory for tenants' rights.

Let me name Mary Barbour.
Screenshot of a paragraph of text, reading as follows: In​ 1915, faced with mass resistance to rent hikes, profiteering landlords in Glasgow attempted to deduct tenants’ debts directly from their pay packets by making claims in the small debt court. When legal summonses were issued, a march led by local women brought the streets to a standstill. ‘Glasgow witnessed a demonstration the like of which had never been seen before,’ the trade unionist and future Communist Party MP Willie Gallacher remembered. ‘From far away Dalmuir in the west, from Parkhead in the east, from Cathcart in the south and Hyde Park in the north, the dungareed army of the proletariat invaded the centre of the city.’ Panicked by the growing militancy, figures at every level of government – from David Lloyd George, the chancellor, to George V – insisted that the landlords back down, lest civil unrest spread. A week later the government introduced a Rent Restrictions Bill.
May 7, 2025 at 11:57 AM
btwhite.bsky.social
Yes, that is what I am, that is what I am doing.
Screenshot of short excerpt from a poem, reading (with line breaks preserved) as follows: the sad historians are trying to make sense of things through the convolutions of their brains.
May 7, 2025 at 10:30 AM