Economist, Aug 18, 2018 (I)

choi

(1) Surviving Russian history | Tale of the Century.
https://www.economist.com/books- ... -of-russian-history
(book review on Conor O'Clery, Shoemaker and his Daughter; One ordinary family's remarkable journey from Stalin's Soviet Union to Putin's Russia. Doubleday Ireland, 2018

Note:
(a) Transylvania
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transylvania
(section 1 Etymology)
(b) "Every Russian family, no matter how apparently normal, has lived through enough upheavals to fill a book. What befell O'Clery's [in-law] relatives also happened to millions of others, in an age of collective suffering and survival that defines comprehension.
(c) "The story proper begins in Nagorno-Karabakh, where the Gukasyan family [the in-laws, but long before the marriage], ethnic Armenians, do well in the Communist Party"
(i) Nagorno-Karabakh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagorno-Karabakh
(is mostly mountainous and forested;  a disputed territory, internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but populated by Armenians: "Azerbaijan has not exercised political authority over the region" since 1988; section 1 Etymology)
(ii) Karabakh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karabakh
(section 1 Etymology)

(d) This book is "about everyday [Soviet] people trying to navigate a system that frustrates them yet provides them with priceless opportunities. 'In the Siberia of thh 1980s, a city-dweller can spend the day in a mad search for sausage and the evening listening to a sublime piano recital by Svyatoslav Richter,' Mr O'Clery writes."
(i) The review talks about the Soviet Union in present tense, not past tense.
(ii) sublime (adj):
"2: inspiring awe or admiration through grandeur, beauty, etc
3:  Informal  outstandingly or supremely such  <a man of sublime taste>"
https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/sublime
(iii)
(A) Svyatoslav Richter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sviatoslav_Richter
(1915 – 1997; a Soviet pianist born in modern-day Ukraine whose paternal grandfather was German-born and moved to Ukraine)
(B) The German surname Richter: "Middle High German rihtære (from rihten to make right). The term was used in the Middle Ages mostly to denote a part-time legal official." Dictionary of American Family Names, by Oxford University Press.

choi

(2) The Enlightenment's flagship | There Were Dragons; The story of a voyage that redrew the map -- and the ship that completed it.
(book review on Peter Moore, Endeavour; The ship and the attitude that changed the world. Chatto & Windus, 2018)

Quote:

"Endeavour was more than merely the first English vessel to reach New Zealand and Australia's east coast. She was also a floating laboratory, a vast seed-bank and an international observatory. Along with sails and anchors she carried telescopes, microscopes. two artists and several scientists. Endeavour was the spirit of the Enlightenment under sail.  She was also much less elegant than is Mr Moore's immersive account of her life, from acorn to ending. The ideals she came to serve belied her earthy beginnings. * * * Endeavour had been designed to carry not intellectuals but coal. * * * Yet when Britain decided to seek out Terra Australis, she was the craft chosen for the perilous undertaking.  * * * A century before Cook, Dutch seaman called Abel Tasman [1603–1659; the first known European explorer to reach what are now (on Nov 24, 1642) Tasmania and (Dec 13, 1642) New Zealand, and to [1643] sight the Fiji islands: en.wikipedia.org; he did not sight Australia] had returned with reports of a land whose people were 'rough, uncivilised, full of verve.'

"This enjoyable book breathes life into characters better remembered for their namesakes than themselves: Tasman (Tasmania), Louis Antoine de Bougainville [1729 – 1811; French admiral] (bougainvillea) * * * [the ship] Endeavour limped on, transporting first food to the Falkland islands, then troops to the American war of independence, before finally being scuttled off the coast of Newport, Rhode Island, in 1778.

Note:
(a) There is no need to read the rest.

(b)
(i) Enlightenment/ Age of Enlightenment/ the Age of Reason: "French historians traditionally place the Enlightenment between 1715 (the year that Louis XIV died) and 1789 (the beginning of the French Revolution)."
en.wiktionary.org for "Age of Enlightenment"
(ii) James Cook (1728 – 1779; captain of British navy; conducted 3 voyages of exploration: first voyage (1768–71) on Endeavour (but not the subsequent two)  Wikipedia
(iii) HMS Endeavour "was launched in 1764 as the collier Earl of Pembroke, and the navy purchased her in 1768 for a scientific mission to the Pacific Ocean" and renamed it Endeavour.  En.wikipedia.org for HMS Endeavour.
(iv) The country name Australia came from Latin Terra Australis (16c.), a hypothetical "land of the south" or "southern land." Hypothetical, because people thought land masses in the northern hemisphere were balanced by those in the southern hemisphere.

Latin-English dictionary:
* australis (adj; from Latin [noun masculine] auster south + -alis suffix to convert a noun to an adjective): "southern"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/australis
(v) New Zealand
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand
(section 1 Etymology; UK declared sovereignty over entire New Zealand in 1840 (before, no country had claimed it) )
(A) Zeeland
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeeland
("hence its name, meaning 'Sealand' ")
(B) Dutch-English dictionary:
* zee (noun feminine): "sea"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/zee

(c) Googling "from acorn to ending" shows that this review is the oly that uses this combination. Supposedly, the acorn is used to mean an seed that grows.
(d) Bougainvillea
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bougainvillea

(e) "scuttled off the coast of Newport, Rhode Island, in 1778"
(i) "In the fall of 1776, the British saw that Newport could be used as a naval base to attack New York (which they had recently occupied), so they took over the city." en.wikipedia.org for "Newport, Rhode Island."
(ii) After Battles of Saratoga (Sept 19 to Oct 7, 1777; US victory), France signed treaty with US and entered American war of independence. The 1788 saw preparation of a two-prong attack on Newport, with US from the land and French from the sea. UK pre-empted the latter by sinking surplus ships, including Endeavour (which by that time had been renamed again). The battle over Rhode Island did not materialize, because "the British abandoned Newport, wanting to concentrate their forces in New York."  en.wikipedia.org for "Newport, Rhode Island."