Word: gibbon
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
When civilizations are flourishing, historians have noted, religion is generally at a low ebb; when civilizations disintegrate, religion thrives. Does this mean that religion is a fatal parasite on civilization? Yes, suggested 18th Century Historian Edward Gibbon.* No, says Historian Arnold J. Toynbee: on the contrary, civilizations are merely steppingstones in the progress of religion...
Historian Edward Gibbon considered the 14 months he spent at Oxford "the most idle and unprofitable of my whole life." And Henry Adams thought little more of Harvard: "Four years at Harvard College . . . resulted in an autobiographical blank, a mind on which only a watermark had been stamped...
...flats adjoining the Musi River, in a 50-mile enclave only recently cleared by the Dutch of Indonesian insurgents, Palembang started refining stored crude left by the Japanese. The wells, some dynamited and others partly .destroyed by fire, were just beginning to flow. But tough, ruddy-faced Harry A. Gibbon, who had led Standard's task force to Palembang, hopes to have them in full production soon. By summer, he expects" to have Palembang turning out its prewar 45,000 barrels...
...Gibbon had planned his operation with care. With food and equipment stacked up in Java and Singapore, Gibbon and 25 oilmen had entered Sumatra soon after war's end. They combed the Japanese prison camps for some 650 Dutch and Eurasian Standard employees. But it was not until the spring of 1946 that Gibbon got his first U.S. shipment of steel and heavy equipment, and was able to begin rebuilding the plant...
...attract workers in a country that had three currencies, all of them worthless in native eyes (Dutch guilders, Japanese "banana money," Indonesian rupees), Gibbon paid his 4,000 laborers partly in food, partly in credits to be redeemed when the currency is stabilized...