History: 1850-present
Adams, I. (1999). Agent of influence: A true story. Toronto: Stoddart.
The title says that this book presents a true story. Indeed, the historical facts about the death of the Canadian Ambassador to the Soviet Union, John Watkins, during an 1964 RCMP interrogation and its subsequent coverup appear to be historically accurate. Similarly, the attempts of the counter-intelligence division of the CIA, under the directorship of its paranoid ultra-rightist chief James Jesus Angleton, to remove “KGB operatives” such as prime ministers Lester Pearson and Harold Wilson seem to have really happened. If it is true, as alleged in this book, that Prime Minister Pearson abandoned his friend Watkins in order to protect himself from a CIA plot directed against himself, we have a sorry and sordid bit of history indeed.
The wooden writing style and juvenile embellishments in the semi-fictional body of the text reduce the book’s credibility; in fact, the fictional dialogue and invented characters get in the way of our understanding what we know for sure about what happened. An epilogue clarifies things somewhat but cannot rehabilitate the fictional part.
The title says that this book presents a true story. Indeed, the historical facts about the death of the Canadian Ambassador to the Soviet Union, John Watkins, during an 1964 RCMP interrogation and its subsequent coverup appear to be historically accurate. Similarly, the attempts of the counter-intelligence division of the CIA, under the directorship of its paranoid ultra-rightist chief James Jesus Angleton, to remove “KGB operatives” such as prime ministers Lester Pearson and Harold Wilson seem to have really happened. If it is true, as alleged in this book, that Prime Minister Pearson abandoned his friend Watkins in order to protect himself from a CIA plot directed against himself, we have a sorry and sordid bit of history indeed.
The wooden writing style and juvenile embellishments in the semi-fictional body of the text reduce the book’s credibility; in fact, the fictional dialogue and invented characters get in the way of our understanding what we know for sure about what happened. An epilogue clarifies things somewhat but cannot rehabilitate the fictional part.
Alexander, R.M. (1995). The 'girl problem': Female sexual delinquency in New York, 1900- 1930. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Describes a number of case histories from a girls' training school. Lots of unwed mothers. In part, this is a tale of thwarted mating effort and it is clear that not all of the fallen wanted to be saved. Not nearly so good or so revealing as Bartley's book reviewed below. Part of the problem is the limited amount of data available in the training school records.
Describes a number of case histories from a girls' training school. Lots of unwed mothers. In part, this is a tale of thwarted mating effort and it is clear that not all of the fallen wanted to be saved. Not nearly so good or so revealing as Bartley's book reviewed below. Part of the problem is the limited amount of data available in the training school records.
Alperovitz, G. (1995). The decision to use the atomic bomb and the architecture of an American myth. N.Y.: Knopf.
A wealth of old (suppressed) documents pertaining to the decision to bomb Hiroshima and, even more inexplicably, Nagasaki, has recently come to light. The author presents them in excruciating detail so that the reader knows, minute by minute, when folks like Truman were lying. And lie they did. If you have a flicker of faith that democracy is a superior form of government or that the Western powers are well intentioned and you want to maintain that faith, this is not the book for you.
Why did Stimson (who was Secretary of War, a position that included that of National Security Adviser at the time) become chief apologist for the decision? Here was a guy who pressed upon Truman and that snake in the grass, Byrnes, the consensus view of the joint chiefs, the scientists, and the American government before the bomb was dropped that the bomb was unnecessary to win the war quickly; that if it were to be used, a demonstration would suffice, that it would set a poor moral example, and would create an unparalleled arms race. If you have the patience to wade through this mass of detail, a more or less satisfactory answer awaits you.
A wealth of old (suppressed) documents pertaining to the decision to bomb Hiroshima and, even more inexplicably, Nagasaki, has recently come to light. The author presents them in excruciating detail so that the reader knows, minute by minute, when folks like Truman were lying. And lie they did. If you have a flicker of faith that democracy is a superior form of government or that the Western powers are well intentioned and you want to maintain that faith, this is not the book for you.
Why did Stimson (who was Secretary of War, a position that included that of National Security Adviser at the time) become chief apologist for the decision? Here was a guy who pressed upon Truman and that snake in the grass, Byrnes, the consensus view of the joint chiefs, the scientists, and the American government before the bomb was dropped that the bomb was unnecessary to win the war quickly; that if it were to be used, a demonstration would suffice, that it would set a poor moral example, and would create an unparalleled arms race. If you have the patience to wade through this mass of detail, a more or less satisfactory answer awaits you.
Anderson, J.L. (1997). Che Guevara: A revolutionary life. N.Y.: Grove Press.
A very absorbing biography. Even though the book runs 768 pages and we know how it turns out, it is difficult to put down. The author has interviewed just about everybody concerned who is still alive, covered a vast store of documentary evidence, and organized this mass of material into a readable and even suspenseful account. The pictures are well selected.
Che was a physically fearless, honest, romantic, photogenic, and ambitious young man. He very gradually adopted a revolutionary strategy and its ideology to combat colonialism and dictatorship in South America. Che embraced communist ideology with an awesome thoroughness and consistency. This consistency, his willingness to sacrifice himself and his friends for the revolutionary cause, and his personal magnetism would have made him a saint in a Catholic era. Instead, he ended up a secular revolutionary, squandering his life and those of his comrades in an amateurish and ill advised attempt to export the Cuban revolution.
This account of Che’s life leads one (or at least me) to the depressing thought that idealism is just the flip side of naivete. Despite all of Che’s experience of the world, he really believed that an altruistic socialist man (as Che himself assuredly was) could be created through force of arms and bloody struggle. “Abandon self interest or I’ll kill you” could have been his motto.
The success of the Cuban revolution depended not only on the failures of the Batista regime and the near-sightedly selfish colonial policy of the United States but on incredible blind luck and the ruthlessness of the guerillas in their dealings with the peasants (this was sure as hell not any spontaneous uprising of the peasantry). Unfortunately, it takes more than luck, ruthlessness, hard work, and good will to run a country successfully.
The description of the interactions of Fidel and Che with the Soviets is perhaps the most interesting and least well known part of the Cuban revolution. Interesting, but not something to inspire confidence in the competence of world leadership.
A very absorbing biography. Even though the book runs 768 pages and we know how it turns out, it is difficult to put down. The author has interviewed just about everybody concerned who is still alive, covered a vast store of documentary evidence, and organized this mass of material into a readable and even suspenseful account. The pictures are well selected.
Che was a physically fearless, honest, romantic, photogenic, and ambitious young man. He very gradually adopted a revolutionary strategy and its ideology to combat colonialism and dictatorship in South America. Che embraced communist ideology with an awesome thoroughness and consistency. This consistency, his willingness to sacrifice himself and his friends for the revolutionary cause, and his personal magnetism would have made him a saint in a Catholic era. Instead, he ended up a secular revolutionary, squandering his life and those of his comrades in an amateurish and ill advised attempt to export the Cuban revolution.
This account of Che’s life leads one (or at least me) to the depressing thought that idealism is just the flip side of naivete. Despite all of Che’s experience of the world, he really believed that an altruistic socialist man (as Che himself assuredly was) could be created through force of arms and bloody struggle. “Abandon self interest or I’ll kill you” could have been his motto.
The success of the Cuban revolution depended not only on the failures of the Batista regime and the near-sightedly selfish colonial policy of the United States but on incredible blind luck and the ruthlessness of the guerillas in their dealings with the peasants (this was sure as hell not any spontaneous uprising of the peasantry). Unfortunately, it takes more than luck, ruthlessness, hard work, and good will to run a country successfully.
The description of the interactions of Fidel and Che with the Soviets is perhaps the most interesting and least well known part of the Cuban revolution. Interesting, but not something to inspire confidence in the competence of world leadership.
Andrew, C. (2009). The defence of the realm: The authorized history of MI5. Toronto: Penguin.
This is a very fat history of the MI5 branch of the British Secret Service. MI5 dealt with German spies in WWI and WWII, post-war communist spies, Irish terrorists, and Arab terrorists. By far, MI5’s greatest success was during the second war, when it successfully turned virtually all German spies in England into double agents. A remarkable coup, that unfortunately couldn’t be turned into political capital for use in inter-agency competition for money and status because MI5’s activities and, even existence, were secret.
The covert nature of intelligence work inevitably causes problems for intelligence agencies. When should one believe the statements of an agency part of whose mandate is duplicity? There are thus endless conspiracy theories and mistaken notions about MI5—indeed, the book documents a very large number of occasions when the public and many politicians had quite wrong ideas about a variety of contemporary events. One of the most surprising and unnerving of these was the MI5 discovery in 1985 that the Soviet Union was convinced that Reagan was planning an imminent nuclear attack.
Intelligence work tends to attract and, in some cases, create individuals with paranoid and fanciful ideas. Peter Wright, an MI5 employee, became convinced that the DG of MI5, Peter Hollis, had been a Soviet spy. This conviction was spawned by the decades-long failure to find the identity of the last member of the “Cambridge 5” group of traitors in MI5—he eventually was found to be a minor spy named Cairncross. The more important spies were already known: Philby, Burgess, MacLean, and Blunt. Wright’s accusations were widely publicized and caused great embarrassment. Of course, many people still believe them.
Successive British governments intermittently pressed MI5 to do something about often nonexistent threats, to transgress restraining laws and policies, and to gather information that could be used to improve their political fortunes. MI5 required personal influence with government ministers to provide reassurance, to resist unlawful extensions of its practices, and to obtain the funding to do the job it was actually supposed to be doing. All difficult—if there are no incidents, is it because of successful counter-intelligence or because there is no threat? Many of the incidents described in this book sound like they were lifted directly from episodes of “Yes, Minister”.
The problems of interpreting intelligence data appear to be worse in totalitarian regimes. The spies from these regimes are very reluctant to report facts at variance with the beliefs of their political masters—to do so invites suspicion that one has been “turned” and leads to getting oneself shot. There is thus a big barrier that prevents government leaders from learning something new or different about their opponents.
In sum, there is much of interest buried in this tome. It’s too long, however, and too much of it is devoted to detail that only bureaucratic insiders would find of interest.
This is a very fat history of the MI5 branch of the British Secret Service. MI5 dealt with German spies in WWI and WWII, post-war communist spies, Irish terrorists, and Arab terrorists. By far, MI5’s greatest success was during the second war, when it successfully turned virtually all German spies in England into double agents. A remarkable coup, that unfortunately couldn’t be turned into political capital for use in inter-agency competition for money and status because MI5’s activities and, even existence, were secret.
The covert nature of intelligence work inevitably causes problems for intelligence agencies. When should one believe the statements of an agency part of whose mandate is duplicity? There are thus endless conspiracy theories and mistaken notions about MI5—indeed, the book documents a very large number of occasions when the public and many politicians had quite wrong ideas about a variety of contemporary events. One of the most surprising and unnerving of these was the MI5 discovery in 1985 that the Soviet Union was convinced that Reagan was planning an imminent nuclear attack.
Intelligence work tends to attract and, in some cases, create individuals with paranoid and fanciful ideas. Peter Wright, an MI5 employee, became convinced that the DG of MI5, Peter Hollis, had been a Soviet spy. This conviction was spawned by the decades-long failure to find the identity of the last member of the “Cambridge 5” group of traitors in MI5—he eventually was found to be a minor spy named Cairncross. The more important spies were already known: Philby, Burgess, MacLean, and Blunt. Wright’s accusations were widely publicized and caused great embarrassment. Of course, many people still believe them.
Successive British governments intermittently pressed MI5 to do something about often nonexistent threats, to transgress restraining laws and policies, and to gather information that could be used to improve their political fortunes. MI5 required personal influence with government ministers to provide reassurance, to resist unlawful extensions of its practices, and to obtain the funding to do the job it was actually supposed to be doing. All difficult—if there are no incidents, is it because of successful counter-intelligence or because there is no threat? Many of the incidents described in this book sound like they were lifted directly from episodes of “Yes, Minister”.
The problems of interpreting intelligence data appear to be worse in totalitarian regimes. The spies from these regimes are very reluctant to report facts at variance with the beliefs of their political masters—to do so invites suspicion that one has been “turned” and leads to getting oneself shot. There is thus a big barrier that prevents government leaders from learning something new or different about their opponents.
In sum, there is much of interest buried in this tome. It’s too long, however, and too much of it is devoted to detail that only bureaucratic insiders would find of interest.
Anonymous; Boehm, P. (Translator). (2005). A woman in Berlin: Eight weeks in the conquered city. A diary. Picador.
This is required reading for anyone interested in sexual coercion. These matter-of-fact memoirs put flesh on abstract theories concerning the differing sexual strategies of men and women. A compelling story and highly recommended.
This is required reading for anyone interested in sexual coercion. These matter-of-fact memoirs put flesh on abstract theories concerning the differing sexual strategies of men and women. A compelling story and highly recommended.
Barris, T. (2014). The great escape: The untold story. Toronto: Dundurn.
This is the amazing story, popularized by the movie of the same name, of how 80 imprisoned airmen escaped from a prisoner of war camp in Poland near the end of WWII. The ingenuity and persistence of the escapees is truly astonishing. They dug a 400-foot tunnel literally under the noses of their captors— solving questions of what to do with the sand they removed, how to breathe in the tunnel, and how to evade the microphones buried by the Germans to pick up digging noises.
The airmen were treated very well by the Germans, these were nothing like the death camps. There was mail from home and red cross parcels containing food, luxuries, and contraband. One of the problems the prisoners faced on the outside was avoiding being lynched by the citizens whose families they had killed and whose houses they had destroyed.
The movie is mostly accurate but the camp was in Poland, not Germany, there were fewer Americans involved in the escape, and no motorcycle chase. The book tries to present all the relevant material so there is a lot that distracts from the story line and far too many characters to keep straight.
This is the amazing story, popularized by the movie of the same name, of how 80 imprisoned airmen escaped from a prisoner of war camp in Poland near the end of WWII. The ingenuity and persistence of the escapees is truly astonishing. They dug a 400-foot tunnel literally under the noses of their captors— solving questions of what to do with the sand they removed, how to breathe in the tunnel, and how to evade the microphones buried by the Germans to pick up digging noises.
The airmen were treated very well by the Germans, these were nothing like the death camps. There was mail from home and red cross parcels containing food, luxuries, and contraband. One of the problems the prisoners faced on the outside was avoiding being lynched by the citizens whose families they had killed and whose houses they had destroyed.
The movie is mostly accurate but the camp was in Poland, not Germany, there were fewer Americans involved in the escape, and no motorcycle chase. The book tries to present all the relevant material so there is a lot that distracts from the story line and far too many characters to keep straight.
Bartley, P. (2000). Prostitution: Prevention and reform in England, 1860-1914. NY: Routledge.
A very nice account of the efforts to protect and reform girls of the lower classes. As in the Alexander book, not all of the girls wanted to be reformed and a lot of other people (like the police) thought criminalization of the sex trade was a misplaced and sometimes counterproductive policy. The redemptive efforts were made by organizations comprised of pious middle class women. Ironically, the money made by the husbands of these women allowed the husbands the leisure and resources to philander with young girls of low socioeconomic status and their wives the resources and leisure to try to prevent it.
On the one hand, there was very real economic and sexual exploitation of poor girls and, on the other, very paternalistic and heavy handed interventions designed to render fallen girls fit for domestic service. In the end, the reader appreciates that there really wasn't a neat solution to the problem at hand. Much of this history is reminiscent of other attempts to deal with crime, mental illness, and alcoholism during the same and slightly later period (see particularly D.J. Rothman's fine book, Conscience and convenience: The asylum and its alternatives in progressive America, 1980, Harper Collins).
A very nice account of the efforts to protect and reform girls of the lower classes. As in the Alexander book, not all of the girls wanted to be reformed and a lot of other people (like the police) thought criminalization of the sex trade was a misplaced and sometimes counterproductive policy. The redemptive efforts were made by organizations comprised of pious middle class women. Ironically, the money made by the husbands of these women allowed the husbands the leisure and resources to philander with young girls of low socioeconomic status and their wives the resources and leisure to try to prevent it.
On the one hand, there was very real economic and sexual exploitation of poor girls and, on the other, very paternalistic and heavy handed interventions designed to render fallen girls fit for domestic service. In the end, the reader appreciates that there really wasn't a neat solution to the problem at hand. Much of this history is reminiscent of other attempts to deal with crime, mental illness, and alcoholism during the same and slightly later period (see particularly D.J. Rothman's fine book, Conscience and convenience: The asylum and its alternatives in progressive America, 1980, Harper Collins).
Beal, B. & Macleod, R. (1984). Prairie fire: The 1885 Northwest Rebellion. Edmonton: Hurtig.
This is the definitive history of the 1885 rebellion. The government could easily have averted the crisis if it were more competent and less high-handed. The Métis of the northwest, previously buffalo hunters, had turned to farming and primarily wanted the title of their river lots confirmed. They gradually lost patience with the dithering government, the French Métis were particularly concerned--the Scotch Métis (the Gaelinds) were unhappy but less radicalized. Meanwhile, the Plains Cree, Woods Cree, Blackfoot, and Sioux had been forced onto reservations (ever wonder where the South Africans got the idea of Apartheit?) where they were rapidly disappearing through starvation and disease. Aboriginal numbers did not recover until the 1940s.
The Métis became progressively more agitated as the government ignored their petitions, eventually a small delegation travelled to Montana to invite Louis Riel to help. Riel was educated and had stood up for them in the Manitoba crisis of 1880. He was a pious Catholic who developed very eccentric religious beliefs with which he became progressively more preoccupied during the rebellion.
The actual number of combatants was very small. This wasn’t a guerilla war like the Boer War: The Métis were tradition bound peasants. Because they had soundly defeated a superior force of Sioux warriors by circling their wagons and digging trenches a generation earlier, they were committed to an entirely defensive “strategy”. The strategy was, of course, suicidal against superior fire-power, including gatling guns and cannon. The Aboriginals, like the Métis, had no concept of controlling territory or attacking supply lines, and were even more disorganized and divided among themselves. Neither Métis nor Aboriginals had much in the way of arms and ammunition, and the latter had absolutely no food reserves. This is not to say that the Mounties, hastily recruited Canadian troops, and volunteers were master soldiers--for example, their leader, Middleton, was notorious for issuing opaque orders to his officers. Middleton later fell from grace when it was revealed that he had misappropriated some furs during the rebellion (even though the furs were subsequently stolen from him). Middleton went back to England where the story was not known.
Although many of the principals escaped to the US after the fighting, those who surrendered or were captured were dealt with by the primitive justice system. The judge who tried most of the cases really didn’t understand some of the principal legal issues and, in any case, the juries tended not to waste much time considering the merits of the cases. You can read transcripts of many of the trials in (Canada. Dept of the Secretary of State. (1886). Trials in connection with the North-West Rebellion, 1885. Memphis: General Books). The Aboriginals were dealt with much more harshly than the Métis.
Famously, Riel was hung (although the government privately hoped that he would escape from prison and it was widely rumoured that it would permit an escape). The execution set in train the eventual fall of the Tories in Quebec.
This is the definitive history of the 1885 rebellion. The government could easily have averted the crisis if it were more competent and less high-handed. The Métis of the northwest, previously buffalo hunters, had turned to farming and primarily wanted the title of their river lots confirmed. They gradually lost patience with the dithering government, the French Métis were particularly concerned--the Scotch Métis (the Gaelinds) were unhappy but less radicalized. Meanwhile, the Plains Cree, Woods Cree, Blackfoot, and Sioux had been forced onto reservations (ever wonder where the South Africans got the idea of Apartheit?) where they were rapidly disappearing through starvation and disease. Aboriginal numbers did not recover until the 1940s.
The Métis became progressively more agitated as the government ignored their petitions, eventually a small delegation travelled to Montana to invite Louis Riel to help. Riel was educated and had stood up for them in the Manitoba crisis of 1880. He was a pious Catholic who developed very eccentric religious beliefs with which he became progressively more preoccupied during the rebellion.
The actual number of combatants was very small. This wasn’t a guerilla war like the Boer War: The Métis were tradition bound peasants. Because they had soundly defeated a superior force of Sioux warriors by circling their wagons and digging trenches a generation earlier, they were committed to an entirely defensive “strategy”. The strategy was, of course, suicidal against superior fire-power, including gatling guns and cannon. The Aboriginals, like the Métis, had no concept of controlling territory or attacking supply lines, and were even more disorganized and divided among themselves. Neither Métis nor Aboriginals had much in the way of arms and ammunition, and the latter had absolutely no food reserves. This is not to say that the Mounties, hastily recruited Canadian troops, and volunteers were master soldiers--for example, their leader, Middleton, was notorious for issuing opaque orders to his officers. Middleton later fell from grace when it was revealed that he had misappropriated some furs during the rebellion (even though the furs were subsequently stolen from him). Middleton went back to England where the story was not known.
Although many of the principals escaped to the US after the fighting, those who surrendered or were captured were dealt with by the primitive justice system. The judge who tried most of the cases really didn’t understand some of the principal legal issues and, in any case, the juries tended not to waste much time considering the merits of the cases. You can read transcripts of many of the trials in (Canada. Dept of the Secretary of State. (1886). Trials in connection with the North-West Rebellion, 1885. Memphis: General Books). The Aboriginals were dealt with much more harshly than the Métis.
Famously, Riel was hung (although the government privately hoped that he would escape from prison and it was widely rumoured that it would permit an escape). The execution set in train the eventual fall of the Tories in Quebec.
Beevor, A. (1998). Stalingrad: The fateful siege: 1942-1943. London: Penguin.
A tale too horrible to contemplate. The numbers of dead boggle the mind. More people died in Russia during the second war than live in Canada in the present day. Stalingrad is about starving in the cold as a prisoner or under fire. It didn’t make much sense to surrender on either side, regardless of how hopeless and miserable one’s situation. I suppose that it’s one’s duty to know about the largest battle ever fought and one that changed the course of the war.
A tale too horrible to contemplate. The numbers of dead boggle the mind. More people died in Russia during the second war than live in Canada in the present day. Stalingrad is about starving in the cold as a prisoner or under fire. It didn’t make much sense to surrender on either side, regardless of how hopeless and miserable one’s situation. I suppose that it’s one’s duty to know about the largest battle ever fought and one that changed the course of the war.
Beevor, A. (2002). The fall of Berlin 1945. London: Penguin.
This is bleak reading. I now understand the black quip that a woman who survived the fall of Berlin told me was circulating at the time–“if you’re going to be raped, you might as well lie back and enjoy it.” The corresponding Russian joke, recounted by Laurie in his biography of Sakharov, concerns a soldier who can’t get an erection with his wife after returning from the war. He instructs her to stand up and put on her clothes–when that doesn’t work, he says “fight!” The Russian soldiers had become more discriminating in their victim choice by the time they entered Berlin. They went into the bunkers and cellars with flashlights and chose their victims according to the appearance of their faces.
Probably the most macabre scene is that of the young children amusing themselves by spinning the corpses hung on lamp posts. The most interesting aspect is the self delusion practiced by the fanatics among the Nazis.
This is bleak reading. I now understand the black quip that a woman who survived the fall of Berlin told me was circulating at the time–“if you’re going to be raped, you might as well lie back and enjoy it.” The corresponding Russian joke, recounted by Laurie in his biography of Sakharov, concerns a soldier who can’t get an erection with his wife after returning from the war. He instructs her to stand up and put on her clothes–when that doesn’t work, he says “fight!” The Russian soldiers had become more discriminating in their victim choice by the time they entered Berlin. They went into the bunkers and cellars with flashlights and chose their victims according to the appearance of their faces.
Probably the most macabre scene is that of the young children amusing themselves by spinning the corpses hung on lamp posts. The most interesting aspect is the self delusion practiced by the fanatics among the Nazis.
Beevor, A. (2004). The mystery of Olga Chekhova. N.Y.: Penquin.
Some folks are luckier than others. Olga and her brother, composer Lev Knipper, survived the Russian Revolution, the civil war, the Stalinist purges, and the Second World War. Olga traded on her family name in Nazi Germany, becoming Hitler’s favourite movie star. Her brother likely recruited her as a “sleeper” spy for the Soviet Union. After all this, Olga returned to Russia and was not shot!!
Some folks are luckier than others. Olga and her brother, composer Lev Knipper, survived the Russian Revolution, the civil war, the Stalinist purges, and the Second World War. Olga traded on her family name in Nazi Germany, becoming Hitler’s favourite movie star. Her brother likely recruited her as a “sleeper” spy for the Soviet Union. After all this, Olga returned to Russia and was not shot!!
Beevor, A. (2006). The battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939. London: Weidenfield & Nicolson.
This book could be described as magnificent on several levels. After reading a number of Beevor’s books, I imagine him as a man with a head the size of a mutant giant pumpkin. The level of detail at his command is truly astonishing even though he tries manfully not to burden the reader with trivia.
As is often the case, political polarization led to irresponsible rhetoric in which both sides of the political spectrum were radicalized. This radicalization spiralled Spain into an incredibly destructive civil war—the principal actors were like sleep walkers moving toward a cliff. Or, as Beevor suggests, people took their apocalyptic political visions so seriously that they thought it was better to see the country ruined than to have it go over to the other side.
Essentially all of the data on the Spanish Civil War are now in. The publication of secret Soviet documents and relentless investigations of Spanish historians allow us to see clearly the lies, half-truths, and propaganda in the contemporaneous context of the war and the republican-dominated historical accounts that followed. Beevor treats all this with studied even-handedness. As a result, one is at a loss as to whom to despise most—the ruthless, duplicitous, and vicious left, the nutty, callous, and brutal right, or the hypocritical and impotent middle. The hopelessly romantic and impractical anarchists did predictably poorly in this mix while the criminal elements (many “liberated” from prisons) did rather better.
There is a very perceptive selectionist explanation of how the newspaper accounts were shaped. For example, in places where the reporters spoke no Spanish, the news stories were shaped by the upper classes because only they (not the peasantry) spoke the reporters’ languages. Because reporters were “imbedded” usually on the republican (left) side, they naturally slanted their stories from that perspective; they did so as well because of prior conviction—a number were communists, sometimes secretly, sometimes openly. There was a great deal of media manipulation on both sides. The republicans eventually won the global propaganda war but the nationalists had already won over the constituencies that really mattered—the conservative elite of America and England.
The backwardness of Spain relative to other European countries at this time is remarkable. As just one pathetic example, the Spanish were too proud and too dumb to dig trenches!! There was boundless incompetence, petty infighting with tragic consequences, and a lot of corruption on both sides. The German, Italian, and Russian “advisors” treated Spain like a banana republic governed by idiots.
This book could be described as magnificent on several levels. After reading a number of Beevor’s books, I imagine him as a man with a head the size of a mutant giant pumpkin. The level of detail at his command is truly astonishing even though he tries manfully not to burden the reader with trivia.
As is often the case, political polarization led to irresponsible rhetoric in which both sides of the political spectrum were radicalized. This radicalization spiralled Spain into an incredibly destructive civil war—the principal actors were like sleep walkers moving toward a cliff. Or, as Beevor suggests, people took their apocalyptic political visions so seriously that they thought it was better to see the country ruined than to have it go over to the other side.
Essentially all of the data on the Spanish Civil War are now in. The publication of secret Soviet documents and relentless investigations of Spanish historians allow us to see clearly the lies, half-truths, and propaganda in the contemporaneous context of the war and the republican-dominated historical accounts that followed. Beevor treats all this with studied even-handedness. As a result, one is at a loss as to whom to despise most—the ruthless, duplicitous, and vicious left, the nutty, callous, and brutal right, or the hypocritical and impotent middle. The hopelessly romantic and impractical anarchists did predictably poorly in this mix while the criminal elements (many “liberated” from prisons) did rather better.
There is a very perceptive selectionist explanation of how the newspaper accounts were shaped. For example, in places where the reporters spoke no Spanish, the news stories were shaped by the upper classes because only they (not the peasantry) spoke the reporters’ languages. Because reporters were “imbedded” usually on the republican (left) side, they naturally slanted their stories from that perspective; they did so as well because of prior conviction—a number were communists, sometimes secretly, sometimes openly. There was a great deal of media manipulation on both sides. The republicans eventually won the global propaganda war but the nationalists had already won over the constituencies that really mattered—the conservative elite of America and England.
The backwardness of Spain relative to other European countries at this time is remarkable. As just one pathetic example, the Spanish were too proud and too dumb to dig trenches!! There was boundless incompetence, petty infighting with tragic consequences, and a lot of corruption on both sides. The German, Italian, and Russian “advisors” treated Spain like a banana republic governed by idiots.
Berg, A.S. (1998). Lindbergh. N.Y.: Berkeley.
A gripping and satisfyingly long biography of a man who had a truly remarkable life. It is a tragic story on several levels: the horrible kidnap of the Lindbergh’s first child, Lindbergh’s political naivete and frankness that led to his association with the Nazis in the public mind, the growing emotional sterility of his once close marriage, and his embrace of the ecological movement toward the end of his long life. A conversion that inexorably led him to the conclusion that his enormously successful lifelong support for aviation had been fundamentally misguided.
Lindbergh was as incredibly lucky in his early flying career as he was hard working in his private life. He went from being a nobody to being the most famous and celebrated person on earth literally overnight. No one else in history has attracted the attention of ordinary people and the paparazzi as did Lindbergh. For all of his personal qualities and amazing experiences, the most memorable part of the book is the depiction of the endless crowds and their behavior towards him both when he was perceived as a hero and a villain.
A gripping and satisfyingly long biography of a man who had a truly remarkable life. It is a tragic story on several levels: the horrible kidnap of the Lindbergh’s first child, Lindbergh’s political naivete and frankness that led to his association with the Nazis in the public mind, the growing emotional sterility of his once close marriage, and his embrace of the ecological movement toward the end of his long life. A conversion that inexorably led him to the conclusion that his enormously successful lifelong support for aviation had been fundamentally misguided.
Lindbergh was as incredibly lucky in his early flying career as he was hard working in his private life. He went from being a nobody to being the most famous and celebrated person on earth literally overnight. No one else in history has attracted the attention of ordinary people and the paparazzi as did Lindbergh. For all of his personal qualities and amazing experiences, the most memorable part of the book is the depiction of the endless crowds and their behavior towards him both when he was perceived as a hero and a villain.
Bernstein, W.J. (2004). The birth of plenty: How the prosperity of the modern world was created. Toronto: McGraw-Hill.
Pitched at a high school level but interesting nonetheless. In a nutshell, the argument is that four factors—property rights, scientific rationalism, effective capital markets, and efficient transport and communication—are necessary and sufficient conditions for the development of wealth in a nation. The four factors first came together in 16th century Holland, followed by English speaking countries about 1820. This argument, long familiar to economists, has not been assimilated by those outside the field so that its implications are often missed or misunderstood. The example of historical Spain, impoverishing itself in spite of, or perhaps because of, its vast quantities of plundered gold is a compelling example of how states that depend upon military conquest and/or raw materials fail economically. The rapid rise of the German and Japanese economies after their devastation during the Second World War are stunning examples of how robust economies can be when the four factors are in place.
All this makes it interesting to contemplate the effects of globalization on the world economy and how the wealth-producing institutions might best be exported to those nations that presently lack them. One also wonders whether great concentrations of wealth can undermine the very conditions that created the wealth in the first place.
Want some déjà vu—how about this quote?
“Thomas Bonham, a physician, practiced in London. Henry VIII had authorized, and Parliament had confirmed, the right of the London-based College of Physicians to license doctors in the city. Although Bonham was clearly competent to practice, it was his misfortune to have trained in Cambridge. The College exercised its monopoly power and excluded Bonham. The College then fined and imprisoned him."
"In 1610 Bonham brought a charge of wrongful imprisonment against the College. Coke presided and ruled in favor of the doctor. Although Coke agreed that the College had a duty to license physicians in order to protect the public from incompetent practitioners, he ruled that the College had unjustly deprived Bonham, who was clearly well trained, of an essential liberty—the ability to make a living. By so ruling, Coke asserted almost two hundred years before Adam Smith and three hundred years before the Sherman Antitrust Act, that free markets, unencumbered by monopoly power, were also an essential right. Ruled Coke, ‘Generally all monopolies are against this great charter, because they are against the liberty and freedom of the subject, and against the law of the land.'"
The College of Physicians had attempted to cloak its monopolistic behavior behind its status as a guild. The public face of the medieval guild was that of guarantor of high professional standards. In reality, guilds were cartels that restricted entry into a trade or profession and kept prices high……No judicial body, he [Coke] ruled, should be allowed to preside in a matter involving its own interests.”
Pitched at a high school level but interesting nonetheless. In a nutshell, the argument is that four factors—property rights, scientific rationalism, effective capital markets, and efficient transport and communication—are necessary and sufficient conditions for the development of wealth in a nation. The four factors first came together in 16th century Holland, followed by English speaking countries about 1820. This argument, long familiar to economists, has not been assimilated by those outside the field so that its implications are often missed or misunderstood. The example of historical Spain, impoverishing itself in spite of, or perhaps because of, its vast quantities of plundered gold is a compelling example of how states that depend upon military conquest and/or raw materials fail economically. The rapid rise of the German and Japanese economies after their devastation during the Second World War are stunning examples of how robust economies can be when the four factors are in place.
All this makes it interesting to contemplate the effects of globalization on the world economy and how the wealth-producing institutions might best be exported to those nations that presently lack them. One also wonders whether great concentrations of wealth can undermine the very conditions that created the wealth in the first place.
Want some déjà vu—how about this quote?
“Thomas Bonham, a physician, practiced in London. Henry VIII had authorized, and Parliament had confirmed, the right of the London-based College of Physicians to license doctors in the city. Although Bonham was clearly competent to practice, it was his misfortune to have trained in Cambridge. The College exercised its monopoly power and excluded Bonham. The College then fined and imprisoned him."
"In 1610 Bonham brought a charge of wrongful imprisonment against the College. Coke presided and ruled in favor of the doctor. Although Coke agreed that the College had a duty to license physicians in order to protect the public from incompetent practitioners, he ruled that the College had unjustly deprived Bonham, who was clearly well trained, of an essential liberty—the ability to make a living. By so ruling, Coke asserted almost two hundred years before Adam Smith and three hundred years before the Sherman Antitrust Act, that free markets, unencumbered by monopoly power, were also an essential right. Ruled Coke, ‘Generally all monopolies are against this great charter, because they are against the liberty and freedom of the subject, and against the law of the land.'"
The College of Physicians had attempted to cloak its monopolistic behavior behind its status as a guild. The public face of the medieval guild was that of guarantor of high professional standards. In reality, guilds were cartels that restricted entry into a trade or profession and kept prices high……No judicial body, he [Coke] ruled, should be allowed to preside in a matter involving its own interests.”
Blum, H. (2016). The last goodnight: A World War II story of espionage, adventure, and betrayal. NY: Harper/Collins.
Betty Thorpe was the daughter of an army officer and his socially ambitious wife. She was beautiful and sexually adventurous and married to a plodding British diplomat from whom she soon became estranged. Her husband was posted to Spain at the beginning of the civil war where Betty performed some heroic feats to rescue some of her imprisoned friends.
Next they were posted to Poland just before the Nazi invasion. Betty was recruited by American intelligence and began her espionage career. She managed to obtain very important information in Poland and later from the Spanish Embassy in Washington DC. She obtained information primarily by getting her targets to fall in love with her. Because of her beauty and bravery, she managed to make an important contribution to the allied war effort.
When her cover was eventually blown and her espionage career ended, Betty turned out to be ill-suited to civilian life and was never as alive or happy as she was leading the life of a female version of James Bond.
Fast-paced thriller spy story! By the way, the last person to bid you goodnight is the one you should most worry about.
Betty Thorpe was the daughter of an army officer and his socially ambitious wife. She was beautiful and sexually adventurous and married to a plodding British diplomat from whom she soon became estranged. Her husband was posted to Spain at the beginning of the civil war where Betty performed some heroic feats to rescue some of her imprisoned friends.
Next they were posted to Poland just before the Nazi invasion. Betty was recruited by American intelligence and began her espionage career. She managed to obtain very important information in Poland and later from the Spanish Embassy in Washington DC. She obtained information primarily by getting her targets to fall in love with her. Because of her beauty and bravery, she managed to make an important contribution to the allied war effort.
When her cover was eventually blown and her espionage career ended, Betty turned out to be ill-suited to civilian life and was never as alive or happy as she was leading the life of a female version of James Bond.
Fast-paced thriller spy story! By the way, the last person to bid you goodnight is the one you should most worry about.
Boyko, J. (2010). Bennett: The rebel who challenged and changed a nation. Toronto: Key Porter Books.
Bennett (1870- 1947) became the prime minister who personified the “progressive” in the oxymoronically named Progressive Conservative Party. He created the CBC and the Bank of Canada; he improved old age pensions and unemployment insurance. The author argues strongly and in the main, persuasively, that history has given Bennett a bum rap. All that most people know about him is that he set up the notorious work camps for unemployed young men during the depression and is associated with “Bennett buggies”—cars that were drawn by horses because people couldn’t afford gas.
Bennett had an incredible appetite for work, in addition to a very unhealthy appetite for food and aversion to exercise. He had a formidable intellect and was extremely well read. He became a lawyer and used his mental gifts to make money, a lot of money, wheeling and dealing and representing large corporations.
Bennett was an anglophile, like his life-long best friend Max Aitkin (later Lord Beaverbrook). He eventually retired to England, purchasing an estate near Beaverbrook’s and receiving a peerage, becoming Viscount Bennett of Mickleham, Calgary, and Hopewell. Mickleham was where his English estate was located, Calgary, where he spent most of his career, and Hopewell, the area in New Brunswick where he spent his childhood (home of the famous rocks). Bennett made a large contribution to the war effort in his adopted home.
Surprisingly for a corporate lawyer and successful investor, Bennett was generally on the side of the little guy. His view was that finance and business had to be regulated in order to preserve capitalism and its attendant economic benefits by protecting the public from the avarice and short-sightedness of capitalists. Bennett understood and deplored the scams in which the economic and political elite colluded. Coupled with his views on public policy was his practice of philanthropy—often secret, philanthropy. It was no secret, however, that he often financed the campaigns of the Conservative party out of his own pocket.
There was also a darker side to Bennett, a character flaw that, as in a classic tragedy, led to his political, and to some extent, social downfall. Bennett was not only among the richest person in most gatherings, he was almost always the smartest, and he did not suffer fools gladly. One of the reflections of this is a series of radio broadcasts he made while prime minister, explaining his decidedly left and progressive policies to the nation. Amazingly, Bennett, with his complete command of finance and economics, did not talk down to the electorate but forthrightly explained his set of Keynesian ideas. It’s hard to imagine a politician seriously trying to explain important and complex issues to an entire country.
Bennett did not delegate much to his intellectual inferiors and this cost him in his own party and provided the opposition liberals under Mackenzie King an opportunity to pillory him as an autocrat. Bennett also had a mercurial temper and, once angered, held a grudge. Over time, some prominent conservatives became disaffected and a revolt split the party, leading to its defeat. Bennett got blamed for the depression but his progressive agenda, first decried, was later adopted by that master politician, Mackenzie King, and his successors.
Bennett (1870- 1947) became the prime minister who personified the “progressive” in the oxymoronically named Progressive Conservative Party. He created the CBC and the Bank of Canada; he improved old age pensions and unemployment insurance. The author argues strongly and in the main, persuasively, that history has given Bennett a bum rap. All that most people know about him is that he set up the notorious work camps for unemployed young men during the depression and is associated with “Bennett buggies”—cars that were drawn by horses because people couldn’t afford gas.
Bennett had an incredible appetite for work, in addition to a very unhealthy appetite for food and aversion to exercise. He had a formidable intellect and was extremely well read. He became a lawyer and used his mental gifts to make money, a lot of money, wheeling and dealing and representing large corporations.
Bennett was an anglophile, like his life-long best friend Max Aitkin (later Lord Beaverbrook). He eventually retired to England, purchasing an estate near Beaverbrook’s and receiving a peerage, becoming Viscount Bennett of Mickleham, Calgary, and Hopewell. Mickleham was where his English estate was located, Calgary, where he spent most of his career, and Hopewell, the area in New Brunswick where he spent his childhood (home of the famous rocks). Bennett made a large contribution to the war effort in his adopted home.
Surprisingly for a corporate lawyer and successful investor, Bennett was generally on the side of the little guy. His view was that finance and business had to be regulated in order to preserve capitalism and its attendant economic benefits by protecting the public from the avarice and short-sightedness of capitalists. Bennett understood and deplored the scams in which the economic and political elite colluded. Coupled with his views on public policy was his practice of philanthropy—often secret, philanthropy. It was no secret, however, that he often financed the campaigns of the Conservative party out of his own pocket.
There was also a darker side to Bennett, a character flaw that, as in a classic tragedy, led to his political, and to some extent, social downfall. Bennett was not only among the richest person in most gatherings, he was almost always the smartest, and he did not suffer fools gladly. One of the reflections of this is a series of radio broadcasts he made while prime minister, explaining his decidedly left and progressive policies to the nation. Amazingly, Bennett, with his complete command of finance and economics, did not talk down to the electorate but forthrightly explained his set of Keynesian ideas. It’s hard to imagine a politician seriously trying to explain important and complex issues to an entire country.
Bennett did not delegate much to his intellectual inferiors and this cost him in his own party and provided the opposition liberals under Mackenzie King an opportunity to pillory him as an autocrat. Bennett also had a mercurial temper and, once angered, held a grudge. Over time, some prominent conservatives became disaffected and a revolt split the party, leading to its defeat. Bennett got blamed for the depression but his progressive agenda, first decried, was later adopted by that master politician, Mackenzie King, and his successors.
Braun, A. & Scheinberg, S. (Eds.). (1997). The extreme right: Freedom and security at risk. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.
There is a rightist international conspiracy that threatens to take over Western civilization. Well, maybe not a conspiracy or at least not a widespread conspiracy. Well, maybe not an immediate threat but they're dangerous. Not sure just how dangerous....... It's more dangerous in the Soviet Union, well, then again, maybe not....
A whole book to tell us what anybody could learn by reading the newspaper once and a while. Sure a let down after books like Enemies of Freedom and the Authoritarian Spectre.
There is a rightist international conspiracy that threatens to take over Western civilization. Well, maybe not a conspiracy or at least not a widespread conspiracy. Well, maybe not an immediate threat but they're dangerous. Not sure just how dangerous....... It's more dangerous in the Soviet Union, well, then again, maybe not....
A whole book to tell us what anybody could learn by reading the newspaper once and a while. Sure a let down after books like Enemies of Freedom and the Authoritarian Spectre.
Bricker, D. & Wright, J. (2005). What Canadians think….about almost everything. Toronto: Doubleday Canada.
Cram full of facts but I’m not sure that I have much more insight into what Canadians think having read them. The great difficulty in surveys is in framing a question that means something. For example, 78% of Canadians say they believe in God. What does this mean—do they believe in some divine principle of the universe, a vengeful, jealous old man up in the sky, or something yet different, such as the Easter Bunny? After a chapter of talking about belief in God, we finally find that 77% of Canadians say that God is an impersonal spiritual force, while 17% view God as a person.
Regardless, one can’t help reading these facts. Top day-to-day irritants of Canadians: Traffic (42%), someone reading over their shoulder (18%), people who crack their knuckles (16%), getting sand in one’s bathing suit (11%), socks with sandals (2%--but 14% in Quebec).
Cram full of facts but I’m not sure that I have much more insight into what Canadians think having read them. The great difficulty in surveys is in framing a question that means something. For example, 78% of Canadians say they believe in God. What does this mean—do they believe in some divine principle of the universe, a vengeful, jealous old man up in the sky, or something yet different, such as the Easter Bunny? After a chapter of talking about belief in God, we finally find that 77% of Canadians say that God is an impersonal spiritual force, while 17% view God as a person.
Regardless, one can’t help reading these facts. Top day-to-day irritants of Canadians: Traffic (42%), someone reading over their shoulder (18%), people who crack their knuckles (16%), getting sand in one’s bathing suit (11%), socks with sandals (2%--but 14% in Quebec).
Brown, F. (2010). For the soul of France: Culture wars in the age of Dreyfus. NY: Knopf.
As you probably know, Dreyfus was a Jewish army officer who was wrongfully convicted of spying for the Germans on the basis of fabricated evidence and sentenced to Devil’s Island. He eventually was granted a retrial, raising a controversy that split France.
This is a very good read with topical relevance—the anti-Dreyfusards sound something like the Tea Party people of the United States but even more like the National Socialists in the Weimar Republic. Catholic priests in particular were prone to offer bloodthirsty recommendations for solving the problem of the (amazingly tiny) Jewish minority. I won’t spoil this story by summarizing it further but offer a few choice quotes.
“The flood of foreigners, the unproductiveness of wombs, the immolation of aristocrats, the triumph of secularism, the shaming of the army, all figured as portents of decadence in radical right-wing lamentation. How could a country sapped from within and deficient in numbers wage war, win back its lost provinces, and bulk larger among nations? To unreconstructed anti-Dreyfusards that was the question, and the future might never have looked bleaker to them than on August 30, 1898, when Colonel Hubert Henry killed himself after confessing that he had fabricated the documents used to incriminate Dreyfus. But, as we have seen, belief trumped evidence. The suicide soon inspired a fable according to which Colonel Henry, far from soiling his uniform, had, almost alone, braved a Jewish world conspiracy.” Pp. 248-249.
“While priests tended increasingly meager flocks, charismatic priests who specialized in the conversion of ‘distinguished minds’ flourished. To Zola’s way of thinking , these conversions suggested a revival of the Romantic mal du siècle. “Pessimism twists people’s guts, mysticism fogs their brains.”... “The charge of ‘bankruptcy’ or ‘decadence’ was commonplace among writers disposed to portray science as a small, desert kingdom bordering the wide, lush expanse of the ‘unknowable’. P. 252.
As you probably know, Dreyfus was a Jewish army officer who was wrongfully convicted of spying for the Germans on the basis of fabricated evidence and sentenced to Devil’s Island. He eventually was granted a retrial, raising a controversy that split France.
This is a very good read with topical relevance—the anti-Dreyfusards sound something like the Tea Party people of the United States but even more like the National Socialists in the Weimar Republic. Catholic priests in particular were prone to offer bloodthirsty recommendations for solving the problem of the (amazingly tiny) Jewish minority. I won’t spoil this story by summarizing it further but offer a few choice quotes.
“The flood of foreigners, the unproductiveness of wombs, the immolation of aristocrats, the triumph of secularism, the shaming of the army, all figured as portents of decadence in radical right-wing lamentation. How could a country sapped from within and deficient in numbers wage war, win back its lost provinces, and bulk larger among nations? To unreconstructed anti-Dreyfusards that was the question, and the future might never have looked bleaker to them than on August 30, 1898, when Colonel Hubert Henry killed himself after confessing that he had fabricated the documents used to incriminate Dreyfus. But, as we have seen, belief trumped evidence. The suicide soon inspired a fable according to which Colonel Henry, far from soiling his uniform, had, almost alone, braved a Jewish world conspiracy.” Pp. 248-249.
“While priests tended increasingly meager flocks, charismatic priests who specialized in the conversion of ‘distinguished minds’ flourished. To Zola’s way of thinking , these conversions suggested a revival of the Romantic mal du siècle. “Pessimism twists people’s guts, mysticism fogs their brains.”... “The charge of ‘bankruptcy’ or ‘decadence’ was commonplace among writers disposed to portray science as a small, desert kingdom bordering the wide, lush expanse of the ‘unknowable’. P. 252.
Burtt, E.A. (1939). Types of religious philosophy. NY: Harper.
I recently re-read this book 40 years after I first read it! In my senior undergraduate year, I had asked a favourite philosophy professor to recommend a few of the philosophy books he thought were the absolute best. He recommended this one and Lovejoy’s Great Chain of Being, which I also recently re-read.
The purpose of Burtt’s book is to outline the philosophy of the great Western religions. The text is wonderfully clear and well-organized. Burtt is scrupulous in first sympathetically and convincingly describing each type of religious thought—he includes fundamentalist Protestantism, liberal Protestantism, orthodox Catholicism, as well as some forms of atheism and agnosticism. One would swear he believes each religion or philosophy he describes. Then he deftly and succinctly presents the weaknesses and problems in each. I liked this book as much as I did the first time I read it. However, I didn’t remember quite how devastating Burtt’s critiques were. No wishful or fuzzy thinking here.
I recently re-read this book 40 years after I first read it! In my senior undergraduate year, I had asked a favourite philosophy professor to recommend a few of the philosophy books he thought were the absolute best. He recommended this one and Lovejoy’s Great Chain of Being, which I also recently re-read.
The purpose of Burtt’s book is to outline the philosophy of the great Western religions. The text is wonderfully clear and well-organized. Burtt is scrupulous in first sympathetically and convincingly describing each type of religious thought—he includes fundamentalist Protestantism, liberal Protestantism, orthodox Catholicism, as well as some forms of atheism and agnosticism. One would swear he believes each religion or philosophy he describes. Then he deftly and succinctly presents the weaknesses and problems in each. I liked this book as much as I did the first time I read it. However, I didn’t remember quite how devastating Burtt’s critiques were. No wishful or fuzzy thinking here.
Cameron, S. & Cashore, H. (2001). The last amigo: Karlheinz Schreiber and the anatomy of a scandal: Toronto: Macfarlane, Walter, and Ross.
This is a well written, infuriating book about how financial grease shmoozily applied to politicians’ hands makes the economic world go round. Schreiber is currently in Canada fighting extradition to his native Germany with the help of his Tory friends Frank Moores and Elmer MacKay and Liberal amigo, Marc Lalonde. Schreiber was intimately involved in the Airbus scandal and closely associated with Mulroney and his associates in this and other business dealings. It was the Canadian end of the Airbus scandal investigation that led, insanely, to the debacle of Justice Minister Allan Rock’s public apology to Brian Mulroney and the humiliating and shameful spectacle of the Canadian taxpayers covering Mulroney’s legal fees.
The only worthwhile thing to come out of this mess so far was a CBC skit presented by This Hour Has 22 Minutes. The skit depicted two goofy mounties rubbing their hands with glee about the Mulroney investigation. An interviewer inquires as to how they could be happy with this obvious and very expensive failure. They reply that it was really a bargain because even the briefest thought by the Canadian electorate that Mulroney would be brought to justice was priceless.
The German side of this investigation, involving Airbus, arms deals, and influence peddling, has brought down many Christian Democratic politicians. It’s a little late in Canada but the investigation continues.
This is a well written, infuriating book about how financial grease shmoozily applied to politicians’ hands makes the economic world go round. Schreiber is currently in Canada fighting extradition to his native Germany with the help of his Tory friends Frank Moores and Elmer MacKay and Liberal amigo, Marc Lalonde. Schreiber was intimately involved in the Airbus scandal and closely associated with Mulroney and his associates in this and other business dealings. It was the Canadian end of the Airbus scandal investigation that led, insanely, to the debacle of Justice Minister Allan Rock’s public apology to Brian Mulroney and the humiliating and shameful spectacle of the Canadian taxpayers covering Mulroney’s legal fees.
The only worthwhile thing to come out of this mess so far was a CBC skit presented by This Hour Has 22 Minutes. The skit depicted two goofy mounties rubbing their hands with glee about the Mulroney investigation. An interviewer inquires as to how they could be happy with this obvious and very expensive failure. They reply that it was really a bargain because even the briefest thought by the Canadian electorate that Mulroney would be brought to justice was priceless.
The German side of this investigation, involving Airbus, arms deals, and influence peddling, has brought down many Christian Democratic politicians. It’s a little late in Canada but the investigation continues.
Caputo, P. (2002). Ghosts of Tsavo: Stalking the mystery lions of East Africa. Washington, DC: National Geographic.
A somewhat strange but mostly interesting little book from the author of Rumours of War. The book is weak when Caputo tries to make it into a popular science essay—he interviews scientists about some not very interesting theories and laments his (very evident) lack of biological training. The historical part of the book, on the other hand, is very good. The author evokes the sense of being stalked by giant cats (very scary), and tells some very interesting tales about lions preying on humans. One lion, for example, preyed upon people coming from a particular bar. The lion probably interpreted drunken walking as a symptom of poor health because lions routinely use disturbances in gait to select their victims. Now, one would think this bar would quickly go out of business but no--it must have been a very good bar! The lions of Tsavo seem to have come by their predilection for eating people honestly. They live on the route of the old slave trade where the dying were left behind.
A somewhat strange but mostly interesting little book from the author of Rumours of War. The book is weak when Caputo tries to make it into a popular science essay—he interviews scientists about some not very interesting theories and laments his (very evident) lack of biological training. The historical part of the book, on the other hand, is very good. The author evokes the sense of being stalked by giant cats (very scary), and tells some very interesting tales about lions preying on humans. One lion, for example, preyed upon people coming from a particular bar. The lion probably interpreted drunken walking as a symptom of poor health because lions routinely use disturbances in gait to select their victims. Now, one would think this bar would quickly go out of business but no--it must have been a very good bar! The lions of Tsavo seem to have come by their predilection for eating people honestly. They live on the route of the old slave trade where the dying were left behind.
Carter, S. (1997). Capturing women: The manipulation of cultural imagery in Canada's prairie west. Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen's University Press.
Carter documents several cases in which women were abducted by "wild Indians" and how their accounts of their treatment were altered and changed over time to suit the political agenda of disenfranchising and marginalizing Aboriginals in the prairies. Covered in most detail is the Frog Lake incident. In 1885, nine White and one Métis man were murdered at Frog Lake by Wandering Spirit, war chief of a group of Plains Cree led by Big Bear. Two of the widows of the men killed were taken with Big Bear's group and lived with them for two months before their escape with a sizeable party of Métis. The women's initial descriptions of how they were treated markedly changed (or was changed for them by ghost writers) in a manner most unfavourable to the Cree and those who had helped them in Big Bear's camp.
The racist treatment of the Métis and Aboriginals that grew with White settlement in the prairies is documented by changes in marriage patterns. While it was common for Whites to marry Aboriginal women earlier, it became less and less common with time, although cohabitation remained common. White men would frequently live with Indian women and then abandon them and their shared offspring. This pattern is most clearly seen in the relations of members of the North West Mounted Police with Aboriginal women. However, marriages still occurred in small numbers. For example, my grandfather, a member of the NWMP, married a Métis woman who had been adopted by a Scot who was the Hudson's Bay Factor at Nelson House in Northern Manitoba.
Carter is somewhat less convincing in her argument that the status of women was not appreciably less than that of men among the Aboriginals of the West. Contemporary accounts predating the period covered in her book, such as Alexander Mackenzie's, paint a different picture.
Some interesting hoaxes concerning children being kidnaped by the Aboriginals are also described. In all, an interesting exploration of racism in colonial environments.
Carter documents several cases in which women were abducted by "wild Indians" and how their accounts of their treatment were altered and changed over time to suit the political agenda of disenfranchising and marginalizing Aboriginals in the prairies. Covered in most detail is the Frog Lake incident. In 1885, nine White and one Métis man were murdered at Frog Lake by Wandering Spirit, war chief of a group of Plains Cree led by Big Bear. Two of the widows of the men killed were taken with Big Bear's group and lived with them for two months before their escape with a sizeable party of Métis. The women's initial descriptions of how they were treated markedly changed (or was changed for them by ghost writers) in a manner most unfavourable to the Cree and those who had helped them in Big Bear's camp.
The racist treatment of the Métis and Aboriginals that grew with White settlement in the prairies is documented by changes in marriage patterns. While it was common for Whites to marry Aboriginal women earlier, it became less and less common with time, although cohabitation remained common. White men would frequently live with Indian women and then abandon them and their shared offspring. This pattern is most clearly seen in the relations of members of the North West Mounted Police with Aboriginal women. However, marriages still occurred in small numbers. For example, my grandfather, a member of the NWMP, married a Métis woman who had been adopted by a Scot who was the Hudson's Bay Factor at Nelson House in Northern Manitoba.
Carter is somewhat less convincing in her argument that the status of women was not appreciably less than that of men among the Aboriginals of the West. Contemporary accounts predating the period covered in her book, such as Alexander Mackenzie's, paint a different picture.
Some interesting hoaxes concerning children being kidnaped by the Aboriginals are also described. In all, an interesting exploration of racism in colonial environments.
Cassidy, D.C. (2005). J. Robert Oppenheimer and the American Century. NY: PI Press.
On the one hand, one feels that Oppenheimer is picked on (the tall poppy syndrome?)—One can imagine people saying “he didn’t win the Nobel you know, he frittered his time away learning Sanscrit and drinking too much.” However, Oppenheimer does, even granting envy, come across as a less than heroic figure during the post-war American communist hunts. I think that people are disappointed that an apparently left-leaning and urbane scientist failed to protect science from the politicians, failed to protect his friends and himself from right-wing opportunists, and failed to move nuclear policy in a more sane direction. Oppenheimer and his wife Kitty were extremely ambitious. In the end, his reputation suffered because of what he was willing to do to satisfy this ambition.
The cynicism and the aggressive imperial nature of post-war American foreign policy and the complicity of leading American and European scientists (cf. Simpson, 1998) does not at first appear to be the focus of this book but emerges gradually from Oppenheimer’s biography. Big science as a tool of big business and the big military, coordinated in a short-sighted way by a reckless, ignorant, and amoral government. What a mess and what a legacy!
Reference
Simpson, C. (Ed.). (1998). Universities and empire: Money and politics in the social sciences during the cold war. NY: Norton.
On the one hand, one feels that Oppenheimer is picked on (the tall poppy syndrome?)—One can imagine people saying “he didn’t win the Nobel you know, he frittered his time away learning Sanscrit and drinking too much.” However, Oppenheimer does, even granting envy, come across as a less than heroic figure during the post-war American communist hunts. I think that people are disappointed that an apparently left-leaning and urbane scientist failed to protect science from the politicians, failed to protect his friends and himself from right-wing opportunists, and failed to move nuclear policy in a more sane direction. Oppenheimer and his wife Kitty were extremely ambitious. In the end, his reputation suffered because of what he was willing to do to satisfy this ambition.
The cynicism and the aggressive imperial nature of post-war American foreign policy and the complicity of leading American and European scientists (cf. Simpson, 1998) does not at first appear to be the focus of this book but emerges gradually from Oppenheimer’s biography. Big science as a tool of big business and the big military, coordinated in a short-sighted way by a reckless, ignorant, and amoral government. What a mess and what a legacy!
Reference
Simpson, C. (Ed.). (1998). Universities and empire: Money and politics in the social sciences during the cold war. NY: Norton.
Cesarani, D. (1998). Arthur Koestler: The homeless mind. London: Heineman.
Koestler led an unusual life. He was by turn a Zionist, a communist, an extremely influential anticommunist, a popularizer of science, a popularizer of mystical thinking, and a crusader against capital punishment and the British practice of lengthy quarantines for immigrant dogs. He was a reporter and novelist but preferred to be thought of as a scientist. His last great cause was parapsychology. Koestler moved constantly over space, living in Hungary, Israel, Germany, France, England, and the US, and across the political spectrum from left to right. He was on the run from the Nazis, was interned in a Spanish prison, and, towards the end of his life, heaped with honours, including an honorary doctorate from Queen’s.
Koestler may be best remembered for his novel Darkness at noon, based on the Moscow show trials of the thirties, his own experience in the Soviet Union as a visiting communist, and his Spanish prison experience. This book was extremely effective in undermining the growing communist influence in Western intellectual circles and is a cold war classic. I highly recommend it.
The biography is very long and the moral that Cesarani wants us to understand (Koestler must be understood as a Jew) is needlessly repeated throughout. Nevertheless, this book may increase your self esteem. If you worry that you drink to much, bully your spouse, don’t think at all clearly, alienate your friends, misrepesent your past and current life, make a fool of yourself in public, drive recklessly, neglect your child, are disloyal, are rude, are racist and sexist, are promiscuous, a spendthrift, and fail to benefit from experience, you will gain comfort from the understanding that your sins and pecadilloes pale in comparison with Koestler’s. Koestler was a chronic drunk driver, I lost count of the accidents he was in, and a serial rapist. He was way in over his head in the science end of things but maintained his intellectual reputation anyway. He was, in sum, incredibly selfish. Perhaps the real moral is that once one establishes a big enough reputation, one not only gets a large harem but the privilege of being able to get away with publishing junk.
Koestler led an unusual life. He was by turn a Zionist, a communist, an extremely influential anticommunist, a popularizer of science, a popularizer of mystical thinking, and a crusader against capital punishment and the British practice of lengthy quarantines for immigrant dogs. He was a reporter and novelist but preferred to be thought of as a scientist. His last great cause was parapsychology. Koestler moved constantly over space, living in Hungary, Israel, Germany, France, England, and the US, and across the political spectrum from left to right. He was on the run from the Nazis, was interned in a Spanish prison, and, towards the end of his life, heaped with honours, including an honorary doctorate from Queen’s.
Koestler may be best remembered for his novel Darkness at noon, based on the Moscow show trials of the thirties, his own experience in the Soviet Union as a visiting communist, and his Spanish prison experience. This book was extremely effective in undermining the growing communist influence in Western intellectual circles and is a cold war classic. I highly recommend it.
The biography is very long and the moral that Cesarani wants us to understand (Koestler must be understood as a Jew) is needlessly repeated throughout. Nevertheless, this book may increase your self esteem. If you worry that you drink to much, bully your spouse, don’t think at all clearly, alienate your friends, misrepesent your past and current life, make a fool of yourself in public, drive recklessly, neglect your child, are disloyal, are rude, are racist and sexist, are promiscuous, a spendthrift, and fail to benefit from experience, you will gain comfort from the understanding that your sins and pecadilloes pale in comparison with Koestler’s. Koestler was a chronic drunk driver, I lost count of the accidents he was in, and a serial rapist. He was way in over his head in the science end of things but maintained his intellectual reputation anyway. He was, in sum, incredibly selfish. Perhaps the real moral is that once one establishes a big enough reputation, one not only gets a large harem but the privilege of being able to get away with publishing junk.
Chancellor, E. (1999). Devil take the hindmost: A history of financial speculation. Toronto: Penquin.
There are remarkable similarities among the periodic collapses of speculative bubbles from the sixteen hundreds onward: Investments are made in riskier and more exotic ventures, insiders generally profit at the expense of outsiders, people often think that the government cannot afford to let some capitalist venture fail, and so forth. The development of new financial instruments that I cannot understand, like derivatives of derivatives of...., and trading on the internet will inevitably lead to greater financial instability and more pervasive effects of speculative bubbles.
It is hard to see the financial market as a rational way of valuing things (as often argued) in this little history.
There are remarkable similarities among the periodic collapses of speculative bubbles from the sixteen hundreds onward: Investments are made in riskier and more exotic ventures, insiders generally profit at the expense of outsiders, people often think that the government cannot afford to let some capitalist venture fail, and so forth. The development of new financial instruments that I cannot understand, like derivatives of derivatives of...., and trading on the internet will inevitably lead to greater financial instability and more pervasive effects of speculative bubbles.
It is hard to see the financial market as a rational way of valuing things (as often argued) in this little history.
Chang, I. (1998). The rape of Nanking: the forgotten holocaust of World War II. N.Y.: Basic.
Definitely not for the weak of stomach. The best estimate of the number of murders is about 330,000 in 7 weeks. Very ironically, the chief hero to emerge from this godawful mess is a German nazi!!!
There was a story about two crazy kids in the army reported in the Japanese newspapers. They were having a high spirited and good natured competition to see who could behead 100 prisoners first. It was reported like a soccer game.
The general in charge of the invading army became severely ill shortly before the fall of Nanking. He had circulated orders prohibiting looting or abusing the population. One wonders whether it would have made a difference if he had been present but also what he knew that would have motivated him to write such a memo.
The Japanese have never apologized for this massacre, although the number murdered dwarfs the number killed in both the atomic explosions.
If you have sexually sadistic interests, you will enjoy this book.
Definitely not for the weak of stomach. The best estimate of the number of murders is about 330,000 in 7 weeks. Very ironically, the chief hero to emerge from this godawful mess is a German nazi!!!
There was a story about two crazy kids in the army reported in the Japanese newspapers. They were having a high spirited and good natured competition to see who could behead 100 prisoners first. It was reported like a soccer game.
The general in charge of the invading army became severely ill shortly before the fall of Nanking. He had circulated orders prohibiting looting or abusing the population. One wonders whether it would have made a difference if he had been present but also what he knew that would have motivated him to write such a memo.
The Japanese have never apologized for this massacre, although the number murdered dwarfs the number killed in both the atomic explosions.
If you have sexually sadistic interests, you will enjoy this book.
Collins, A. (1988). In the sleep room: The story of the CIA brainwashing experiments in Canada. Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys.
This is kind of an update/branch plant version of John Mark’s (1979) book The search for the “Manchurian candidate”: The CIA and mind control: The secret history of the behavioral sciences. The careless and radical tinkering with the lives of the mentally ill by the charismatic and ambitious Dr. Ewen Cameron of the Alan Memorial Institute who happened to be president of the American Psychiatric Association was secretly funded by the CIA during this period. Pretty good for a guy who started out at the Brandon (Manitoba) Psychiatric Hospital. His therapy involved lots and lots of shock treatments, endless sleep induction, and autosuggestion. All evaluated with a protocol that could better have been designed by a child.
Outlandish treatments? I can remember as a boy psychiatric hospital attendant being told by a psychiatrist that the young high school principal we had just admitted because of an acute psychotic episode would be given multiple regressive shock treatment and then retrained. I remember wondering who ran the retraining program at the hospital because I’d never heard of it. Unlike most of the stories involving Cameron’s patients, however, my story does have a happy ending--the principal did get enough shock treatments to put him in a wheel chair for awhile but when they stopped he rapidly got better (the curative effects of a wheel chair? Spontaneous remission? You choose--(note that retraining is not one of the alternatives).
The book presents a very nice portrait of psychiatric attitudes towards women in the fifties and the colonial relationship between Canada and the U.S. Some interesting snippets of Hebb’s view of his famous sensory deprivation experiments and his opinions of his colleague Cameron.
This is kind of an update/branch plant version of John Mark’s (1979) book The search for the “Manchurian candidate”: The CIA and mind control: The secret history of the behavioral sciences. The careless and radical tinkering with the lives of the mentally ill by the charismatic and ambitious Dr. Ewen Cameron of the Alan Memorial Institute who happened to be president of the American Psychiatric Association was secretly funded by the CIA during this period. Pretty good for a guy who started out at the Brandon (Manitoba) Psychiatric Hospital. His therapy involved lots and lots of shock treatments, endless sleep induction, and autosuggestion. All evaluated with a protocol that could better have been designed by a child.
Outlandish treatments? I can remember as a boy psychiatric hospital attendant being told by a psychiatrist that the young high school principal we had just admitted because of an acute psychotic episode would be given multiple regressive shock treatment and then retrained. I remember wondering who ran the retraining program at the hospital because I’d never heard of it. Unlike most of the stories involving Cameron’s patients, however, my story does have a happy ending--the principal did get enough shock treatments to put him in a wheel chair for awhile but when they stopped he rapidly got better (the curative effects of a wheel chair? Spontaneous remission? You choose--(note that retraining is not one of the alternatives).
The book presents a very nice portrait of psychiatric attitudes towards women in the fifties and the colonial relationship between Canada and the U.S. Some interesting snippets of Hebb’s view of his famous sensory deprivation experiments and his opinions of his colleague Cameron.
Cook, T. (2008). Shock troops: Canadians fighting the Great War 1917-1918. Vol. 2. Toronto: Viking Canada.
425,000 soldiers served as part of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, about 61,000 died during the war. Of the 345,000 men who served at the front, about 7 out of 10 were killed or wounded. Given Canada’s population of less than 8 million at the time, the losses were proportionate to what the Americans suffered during their civil war. These figures do not include the many soldiers who died after the war’s end from their wounds, particularly lung damage from mustard gas. The war is generally credited with creating a Canada independent of Britain.
This was the first industrial war. Because massive artillery, machine guns, barbed wire, and shovels gave an extraordinary advantage to the defenders, a stationary front developed, such that the major battles were fought in a charnel house made of mud. The horror was beyond belief.
Currie was the lead Canadian general. He was competent and very hard working, although not appreciated by his troops. He was seen as lazy (he was fat) and too willing to sacrifice his men to impress his superior, Haig the (ill-fated) British general. It appears, however, that Currie and his fellow-officers were very much in the forefront of reforms in organization and logistics that were conducive to greater battlefield success. Regrettably, this success led to the Canadians being given ever more difficult assignments and in the end, the Canadian infantry was pressed too hard—to the breaking point.
The magnitude of the sacrifice, the “butcher’s bill,” later seemed not to be justifiable by any possible result. The contemporary saying was that “Britain would fight to the last Canadian”, despite Britain’s own horrific losses. One is reminded of the “stab in the back” rumours among the defeated Germans that contributed to Hitler’s post-war ascendancy. There is even the remarkable spectacle of Currie defending his war record in a libel suit against a small town Ontario newspaper many years after the war.
Although the reader can’t possibly keep the various army groups straight, the battles are clearly described and their results linked to the changing tactics used by both sides. The book quotes extensively from letters that soldiers wrote home during their time in the trenches and consequently, it is very, very sad. The letters do convey, however, what the front was actually like.
As children, we used to sing the smutty songs that the soldiers had sung in France—I still recall some of the endless lyrics to “inky dinky, parlez vous.” I was born in 1944, so many of the men of my father’s generation had served in the Second War. But there were lots of old guys still around who were veterans of the First War and even a few ancient guys from the Boer War. It was natural for us boys to not only play war with toy guns and toy soldiers but to practice marching. I often used to wonder whether I would be brave enough to do my duty when my time game. Thank God I never got to find out.
425,000 soldiers served as part of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, about 61,000 died during the war. Of the 345,000 men who served at the front, about 7 out of 10 were killed or wounded. Given Canada’s population of less than 8 million at the time, the losses were proportionate to what the Americans suffered during their civil war. These figures do not include the many soldiers who died after the war’s end from their wounds, particularly lung damage from mustard gas. The war is generally credited with creating a Canada independent of Britain.
This was the first industrial war. Because massive artillery, machine guns, barbed wire, and shovels gave an extraordinary advantage to the defenders, a stationary front developed, such that the major battles were fought in a charnel house made of mud. The horror was beyond belief.
Currie was the lead Canadian general. He was competent and very hard working, although not appreciated by his troops. He was seen as lazy (he was fat) and too willing to sacrifice his men to impress his superior, Haig the (ill-fated) British general. It appears, however, that Currie and his fellow-officers were very much in the forefront of reforms in organization and logistics that were conducive to greater battlefield success. Regrettably, this success led to the Canadians being given ever more difficult assignments and in the end, the Canadian infantry was pressed too hard—to the breaking point.
The magnitude of the sacrifice, the “butcher’s bill,” later seemed not to be justifiable by any possible result. The contemporary saying was that “Britain would fight to the last Canadian”, despite Britain’s own horrific losses. One is reminded of the “stab in the back” rumours among the defeated Germans that contributed to Hitler’s post-war ascendancy. There is even the remarkable spectacle of Currie defending his war record in a libel suit against a small town Ontario newspaper many years after the war.
Although the reader can’t possibly keep the various army groups straight, the battles are clearly described and their results linked to the changing tactics used by both sides. The book quotes extensively from letters that soldiers wrote home during their time in the trenches and consequently, it is very, very sad. The letters do convey, however, what the front was actually like.
As children, we used to sing the smutty songs that the soldiers had sung in France—I still recall some of the endless lyrics to “inky dinky, parlez vous.” I was born in 1944, so many of the men of my father’s generation had served in the Second War. But there were lots of old guys still around who were veterans of the First War and even a few ancient guys from the Boer War. It was natural for us boys to not only play war with toy guns and toy soldiers but to practice marching. I often used to wonder whether I would be brave enough to do my duty when my time game. Thank God I never got to find out.
Cook, T. (2010). The madman and the butcher: The sensational wars of Sam Hughes and General Arthur Currie. Toronto: Penguin.
Sam Hughes was a domineering populist Ontario politician who “shot from the lip”. He became a powerful minister in Borden’s WWI cabinet because of his enormous energy and bullying behavior. As Borden remarked about his champion recruiter, “On matters which touch his insane egotism, he is quite unbalanced. On all other matters able and sometimes brilliant.”
As the war dragged on, Hughes appeared more and more unbalanced. The British war office thought him quite mad. He attempted to promote his favourites and cronies to generals, meddled in army decisions, and unflaggingly pursued lost causes, like the Canadian-made Ross rifle (that was prone to jam). He became an inveterate Monday morning quarterback who advanced naive schemes that he believed would turn the tide. Gradually, many of the rank and file turned against Hughes. Borden at long last emasculated him and insulated the rest of the war effort from him.
Hughes, however, was a very good hater and adept at spreading innuendo and outright lies about people he had come to despise for causing his political demise. Among these were former favourites, like General Arthur Currie. Currie had risen from obscurity in the peacetime militia on account of his indefatigable labour and attention to detail. Currie was a very fast learner who benefited from his mistakes on the battlefield. He was a staff man, beloved by those who worked closely with him. Unfortunately, he didn’t look like a general—he was blimpish (and became more so as all he did was desk work) and lacked a moustache—and despite being socially skilled, was stilted and aloof with the troops. Currie became one of the most successful allied generals of the war by assiduously adopting newly developed tactics. He accepted but attempted to minimize the casualties that were required for victories. For Currie, preparation was everything.
The casualty rate and horrors of trench warfare embittered many Canadian soldiers and civilians. How to account for the “butcher’s bill”? Rumours that Currie had kowtowed to the British and needlessly sacrificed Canadian soldiers at the end of the war to advance his own career began to fester. A declining Sam Hughes circulated these rumours and eventually included them in a bitter tirade in the House of Commons. No one in the shocked House sprang to their feet to defend Currie.
So, instead of returning to a hero’s welcome, Currie was given a distinctly subdued reception and then offered a largely ceremonial position. McGill University saved the day by offering Currie (who had never attended university) the principalship. It was an inspired choice. Not only was Currie a great fundraiser, he used his formidable organizational talents to McGill’s great benefit. Less importantly, but remarkably, Currie quickly learned most of the students’ names.
It wasn’t, however, a fairy-tale ending. Currie, even after he shed his weight, had health problems and suffered from what is now known as post-traumatic stress. And the rumours continued. In 1928 (14 years after the war!!), the old charges were rehashed in the newspaper of the small Ontario town of Coburg. Currie sued for libel. In a sensational trial that left Currie totally exhausted, his reputation was finally vindicated.
A good book—much more readable than Cook’s previous books.
Sam Hughes was a domineering populist Ontario politician who “shot from the lip”. He became a powerful minister in Borden’s WWI cabinet because of his enormous energy and bullying behavior. As Borden remarked about his champion recruiter, “On matters which touch his insane egotism, he is quite unbalanced. On all other matters able and sometimes brilliant.”
As the war dragged on, Hughes appeared more and more unbalanced. The British war office thought him quite mad. He attempted to promote his favourites and cronies to generals, meddled in army decisions, and unflaggingly pursued lost causes, like the Canadian-made Ross rifle (that was prone to jam). He became an inveterate Monday morning quarterback who advanced naive schemes that he believed would turn the tide. Gradually, many of the rank and file turned against Hughes. Borden at long last emasculated him and insulated the rest of the war effort from him.
Hughes, however, was a very good hater and adept at spreading innuendo and outright lies about people he had come to despise for causing his political demise. Among these were former favourites, like General Arthur Currie. Currie had risen from obscurity in the peacetime militia on account of his indefatigable labour and attention to detail. Currie was a very fast learner who benefited from his mistakes on the battlefield. He was a staff man, beloved by those who worked closely with him. Unfortunately, he didn’t look like a general—he was blimpish (and became more so as all he did was desk work) and lacked a moustache—and despite being socially skilled, was stilted and aloof with the troops. Currie became one of the most successful allied generals of the war by assiduously adopting newly developed tactics. He accepted but attempted to minimize the casualties that were required for victories. For Currie, preparation was everything.
The casualty rate and horrors of trench warfare embittered many Canadian soldiers and civilians. How to account for the “butcher’s bill”? Rumours that Currie had kowtowed to the British and needlessly sacrificed Canadian soldiers at the end of the war to advance his own career began to fester. A declining Sam Hughes circulated these rumours and eventually included them in a bitter tirade in the House of Commons. No one in the shocked House sprang to their feet to defend Currie.
So, instead of returning to a hero’s welcome, Currie was given a distinctly subdued reception and then offered a largely ceremonial position. McGill University saved the day by offering Currie (who had never attended university) the principalship. It was an inspired choice. Not only was Currie a great fundraiser, he used his formidable organizational talents to McGill’s great benefit. Less importantly, but remarkably, Currie quickly learned most of the students’ names.
It wasn’t, however, a fairy-tale ending. Currie, even after he shed his weight, had health problems and suffered from what is now known as post-traumatic stress. And the rumours continued. In 1928 (14 years after the war!!), the old charges were rehashed in the newspaper of the small Ontario town of Coburg. Currie sued for libel. In a sensational trial that left Currie totally exhausted, his reputation was finally vindicated.
A good book—much more readable than Cook’s previous books.
Crews, F. (2001). Postmodern pooh. NY: North Point.
A series of papers from a fictional post-modernist English literature conference. It starts out a little slow but the later papers are quite funny. Crews is very sharp—showing a good grasp of sociobiological thinking in Renee Francis’s contribution Gene/meme covariation in Ashdown Forest: Pooh and the consilience of knowledge in which the emerging and rigorous field of biopoetics is presented. One can discern the individual identity of some of the targets of Crews’ satire even from outside the field; there is, for example, a hilarious caricature of Harold Bloom, the octogenarian literary critic (who seemingly produces a weighty tome a fortnight). A very funny little book.
A series of papers from a fictional post-modernist English literature conference. It starts out a little slow but the later papers are quite funny. Crews is very sharp—showing a good grasp of sociobiological thinking in Renee Francis’s contribution Gene/meme covariation in Ashdown Forest: Pooh and the consilience of knowledge in which the emerging and rigorous field of biopoetics is presented. One can discern the individual identity of some of the targets of Crews’ satire even from outside the field; there is, for example, a hilarious caricature of Harold Bloom, the octogenarian literary critic (who seemingly produces a weighty tome a fortnight). A very funny little book.
Crozier, L. & Lane, P. (Eds.) (2001). Addicted: Notes from the belly of the beast. Greystone Books.
A collection of autobiographical stories concerning addiction by a varied group of writers. Although there are a variety of addictions covered, one can think of them as stories being told around an AA circle. Some are remarkably well written but a few are just as remarkably poorly done. I can get my head around alcoholism, drug addiction, maybe even computer game addiction, but for the life of me, I can’t empathize with an addiction to gambling, even though it’s very common—I just don’t get it. There’s even a chapter on the fictional “sex addiction”. There’s a certain sameness to the stories that will be familiar to anyone who is addicted to something or is related to someone who is.
A collection of autobiographical stories concerning addiction by a varied group of writers. Although there are a variety of addictions covered, one can think of them as stories being told around an AA circle. Some are remarkably well written but a few are just as remarkably poorly done. I can get my head around alcoholism, drug addiction, maybe even computer game addiction, but for the life of me, I can’t empathize with an addiction to gambling, even though it’s very common—I just don’t get it. There’s even a chapter on the fictional “sex addiction”. There’s a certain sameness to the stories that will be familiar to anyone who is addicted to something or is related to someone who is.
Dawkins, R. (2006). The God delusion. NY: Houghton Mifflin.
Dawkins debunks the intellectual and moral arguments that have been used to support belief in God. Dawkins argues that atheism is the only defensible position and that agnosticism results from a failure of moral courage, political correctness, or confusion. While it is true, as Dawkins asserts, that the supernatural aspect of religion, in particular the belief in an anthropomorphic being, is simply childish and that the historical effects of religious belief have been primarily negative, it cannot be proved that some sort of a God doesn’t exist. Part of the problem is that there are many definitions of God. In the end, I just don’t think that notions of God and religion are of any substantive interest—although they are of cultural and historical importance. I think that makes me an agnostic.
Dawkins writes entertainingly but works in very well trodden ground. Most of the arguments for the existence of God and their refutations were well known in antiquity. In the twentieth century, for example, Bertrand Russell provided a lucid summary of these arguments in Wisdom of the West (for high school students) and Why I am not a Christian and A History of Western Philosophy (for the adults). The most sophisticated evaluation of familiar Western beliefs that I have read is in Burtt (1939). Types of religious philosophy. The familiar arguments for atheism achieved the most notoriety when advanced by Madalyn O’Hair, who was for a long time the most famous American atheist.
There are only so many arguments for the existence of God and only so many fallacies that can be found in each. It’s a pity that a large portion portion of the world is not educated enough to want to move on. Pardon my elitism.
Dawkins debunks the intellectual and moral arguments that have been used to support belief in God. Dawkins argues that atheism is the only defensible position and that agnosticism results from a failure of moral courage, political correctness, or confusion. While it is true, as Dawkins asserts, that the supernatural aspect of religion, in particular the belief in an anthropomorphic being, is simply childish and that the historical effects of religious belief have been primarily negative, it cannot be proved that some sort of a God doesn’t exist. Part of the problem is that there are many definitions of God. In the end, I just don’t think that notions of God and religion are of any substantive interest—although they are of cultural and historical importance. I think that makes me an agnostic.
Dawkins writes entertainingly but works in very well trodden ground. Most of the arguments for the existence of God and their refutations were well known in antiquity. In the twentieth century, for example, Bertrand Russell provided a lucid summary of these arguments in Wisdom of the West (for high school students) and Why I am not a Christian and A History of Western Philosophy (for the adults). The most sophisticated evaluation of familiar Western beliefs that I have read is in Burtt (1939). Types of religious philosophy. The familiar arguments for atheism achieved the most notoriety when advanced by Madalyn O’Hair, who was for a long time the most famous American atheist.
There are only so many arguments for the existence of God and only so many fallacies that can be found in each. It’s a pity that a large portion portion of the world is not educated enough to want to move on. Pardon my elitism.
Deichmann, U. (1996). Biologists under Hitler. Harvard University Press.
A much more genteel story than Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners (no killing babies or any real messy stuff) that is entirely consistent with Goldhagen's thesis. German biologists welcomed the culling of their Jewish colleagues for their own advancement, pitched their research toward racist goals (not necessarily opportunistically because they were on-side in any case), and, in general, did their research and science as usual right to the end of the war.
The quality of the science did suffer, partly because of the isolation of German scientists during and after the war.
Konrad Lorenz was an enthusiastic collaborator. Tinbergen, in Holland, was traumatized but brave and, if not forgiving, was committed to working for the good of post-war Europe; he appears to have been a thoroughly admirable man.
Most of this book reads like a PhD thesis but there is a letter printed as an epilogue that is particularly moving.
A much more genteel story than Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners (no killing babies or any real messy stuff) that is entirely consistent with Goldhagen's thesis. German biologists welcomed the culling of their Jewish colleagues for their own advancement, pitched their research toward racist goals (not necessarily opportunistically because they were on-side in any case), and, in general, did their research and science as usual right to the end of the war.
The quality of the science did suffer, partly because of the isolation of German scientists during and after the war.
Konrad Lorenz was an enthusiastic collaborator. Tinbergen, in Holland, was traumatized but brave and, if not forgiving, was committed to working for the good of post-war Europe; he appears to have been a thoroughly admirable man.
Most of this book reads like a PhD thesis but there is a letter printed as an epilogue that is particularly moving.
Dowling, L. (1994). Hellenism and homosexuality in Victorian Oxford. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
It is interesting how close homosexuality came to being accepted in upper class Victorian England. Hellenism was presented as an alternative to Christianity to the upper classes at Oxford and Cambridge. Part of this Hellenism was homosexuality or homosexual pedophilia. The Uranian poets celebrated homosexual love more and more openly. Within Oxford, the tutorial system was designed to foster attachment between the students and their tutors--if not platonic attachment--still innocent attachment.
Not surprisingly, all was not innocent and there were several anticipations of the Oscar Wilde tragedy that brought the whole Hellenistic edifice crashing down. Dowling knows her stuff and presents it with a sure touch. First rate.
It is interesting how close homosexuality came to being accepted in upper class Victorian England. Hellenism was presented as an alternative to Christianity to the upper classes at Oxford and Cambridge. Part of this Hellenism was homosexuality or homosexual pedophilia. The Uranian poets celebrated homosexual love more and more openly. Within Oxford, the tutorial system was designed to foster attachment between the students and their tutors--if not platonic attachment--still innocent attachment.
Not surprisingly, all was not innocent and there were several anticipations of the Oscar Wilde tragedy that brought the whole Hellenistic edifice crashing down. Dowling knows her stuff and presents it with a sure touch. First rate.
Dubinsky, K. (1993). Improper advances: Rape and heterosexual conflict in Ontario, 1880- 1929. University of Chicago Press.
Although the author tries mightily to illuminate heterosexual conflict in Ontario around the turn of the last century, the quality of the data available is such that one ends up primarily with a series of anecdotes from court records and newspapers, with no idea how representative these vignettes are of what actually went on. Nevertheless, worth a quick read, if only to document the similarity of sexual coercion of a century ago to what occurs today.
Although the author tries mightily to illuminate heterosexual conflict in Ontario around the turn of the last century, the quality of the data available is such that one ends up primarily with a series of anecdotes from court records and newspapers, with no idea how representative these vignettes are of what actually went on. Nevertheless, worth a quick read, if only to document the similarity of sexual coercion of a century ago to what occurs today.
Dunk, T.W. (1991). It’s a working man’s town: Male working class culture in Northwestern Ontario. McGill-Queen’s University Press. Kingston.
This book is about working class guys who work steadily in paper mills and grain elevators, or more seasonally in construction and lumbering. Although later than my Thunder Bay cohort and of less antisocial and more employable propensities than many in my old circle (of admittedly younger) friends, these guys, self-styled “the boys”, were certainly recognizable to me—the bar fly behavior, anti-intellectual dismissal of things bookish and embrace of things “common-sensical”, the norms of easy reciprocity, and the style of humour are exactly as I remember them.
Dunk attempts to explain the nature of this male working class culture using Marxist theory. It’s been a long time since I’ve read anything Marxist and I found the approach very interesting. Marxism isn’t really scientific in the sense of attempting to produce and evaluate falsifiable predictions. It is nevertheless, a highly disciplined and intellectual world-view that allows one to understand or at least feel that one understands a very wide range of social phenomena. Not history, not science, but something else—maybe a cross between ideology and philosophy.
This book is about working class guys who work steadily in paper mills and grain elevators, or more seasonally in construction and lumbering. Although later than my Thunder Bay cohort and of less antisocial and more employable propensities than many in my old circle (of admittedly younger) friends, these guys, self-styled “the boys”, were certainly recognizable to me—the bar fly behavior, anti-intellectual dismissal of things bookish and embrace of things “common-sensical”, the norms of easy reciprocity, and the style of humour are exactly as I remember them.
Dunk attempts to explain the nature of this male working class culture using Marxist theory. It’s been a long time since I’ve read anything Marxist and I found the approach very interesting. Marxism isn’t really scientific in the sense of attempting to produce and evaluate falsifiable predictions. It is nevertheless, a highly disciplined and intellectual world-view that allows one to understand or at least feel that one understands a very wide range of social phenomena. Not history, not science, but something else—maybe a cross between ideology and philosophy.
Durschmied, E. (2002). The hinges of battle: How chance and incompetence have changed the face of history. London: Hodder & Stoughton.
Some evolutionary psychologists have argued that military incompetence is an adaptation designed to keep one from getting killed, but that isn’t the kind of incompetence being discussed here. There is a very interesting discussion of Stalin keeping secret from the Germans and his allies an enormous army in the East that was unleashed at Stalingrad. Here, as in Beevor’s book, the superiority of the Russian T-34 tank is stressed.
In all, an entertaining romp through history. Durschmied covers Attila’s last great battle in 451, the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the first use of cannon, Napoleon’s 1805 victories, the English debacle in Afghanistan in 1842, Custer’s last stand in 1876, the Zulu defeat of the English in 1879, the 1916 Easter Uprising in Dublin, the faked 1939 Polish attack on Germany, Stalingrad in 1942, and the defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu.
Some evolutionary psychologists have argued that military incompetence is an adaptation designed to keep one from getting killed, but that isn’t the kind of incompetence being discussed here. There is a very interesting discussion of Stalin keeping secret from the Germans and his allies an enormous army in the East that was unleashed at Stalingrad. Here, as in Beevor’s book, the superiority of the Russian T-34 tank is stressed.
In all, an entertaining romp through history. Durschmied covers Attila’s last great battle in 451, the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the first use of cannon, Napoleon’s 1805 victories, the English debacle in Afghanistan in 1842, Custer’s last stand in 1876, the Zulu defeat of the English in 1879, the 1916 Easter Uprising in Dublin, the faked 1939 Polish attack on Germany, Stalingrad in 1942, and the defeat of the French at Dien Bien Phu.
Dyer, G. (2004). War: The new edition. Toronto: Random House.
The first edition of this book was originally written to accompany a 1985 CBC documentary. It is an unsentimental and chilling description of the evolution of warfare from small groups of men fighting over food and women through total warfare. Dyer knows something about evolutionary psychology, economics, and history. We learn, for example, that officers in all armies must be willing to spend their men to achieve military objectives. Not too many men though, because after a certain proportion of men are spent, the fighting force becomes ineffective through “shell shock,” “battle fatigue,” and outright mutiny or desertion. If potential recruits were to read this book, the armed services would get precious few volunteers. Written to the same end as Shaw’s Arms and the Man but modern social science rather than a play.
A well-written, fast paced narrative with excellent photographs.
The first edition of this book was originally written to accompany a 1985 CBC documentary. It is an unsentimental and chilling description of the evolution of warfare from small groups of men fighting over food and women through total warfare. Dyer knows something about evolutionary psychology, economics, and history. We learn, for example, that officers in all armies must be willing to spend their men to achieve military objectives. Not too many men though, because after a certain proportion of men are spent, the fighting force becomes ineffective through “shell shock,” “battle fatigue,” and outright mutiny or desertion. If potential recruits were to read this book, the armed services would get precious few volunteers. Written to the same end as Shaw’s Arms and the Man but modern social science rather than a play.
A well-written, fast paced narrative with excellent photographs.
Dyer, G. (2014). Canada in the great power game: 1914-2014. Toronto: Random House.
Dyer is resolutely unsentimental and sensible, thus recognizing the precariousness of the international order and the many constraints on Canadian foreign policy. He argues that NATO is a destabilizing force in international politics and that the UN, although inevitably doomed to weakness, remains our best hope for postponing the next catastrophic war.
One wonders what the supporters of Stephen Harper’s ludicrous bellicose posturing would make of this book. Interesting that the Canadian military was disturbed enough by Dyer’s previous book and TV show on this topic to launch a PR counteroffensive.
Dyer is resolutely unsentimental and sensible, thus recognizing the precariousness of the international order and the many constraints on Canadian foreign policy. He argues that NATO is a destabilizing force in international politics and that the UN, although inevitably doomed to weakness, remains our best hope for postponing the next catastrophic war.
One wonders what the supporters of Stephen Harper’s ludicrous bellicose posturing would make of this book. Interesting that the Canadian military was disturbed enough by Dyer’s previous book and TV show on this topic to launch a PR counteroffensive.
Dylan, B. (2004). Chronicles. Volume One. Toronto: Simon & Schuster.
Clearly written by a bright guy lacking a university education and editor, as illustrated by the awkward organization of this book and its occasional misuse of big words. Dylan, as he has often pointed out, is a musician, not a philosopher or an academic social critic. However, the artlessness and lack of organization of this book is somewhat appealing because it makes it appear as if the reader is getting the straight goods on what Dylan thought over his long career. The book is much more interesting when describing his early life and career than his later career, making one think of how autobiographical memories are more vivid and densely laid down in late adolescence and early adulthood. I had known how fans relentlessly invaded Dylan’s privacy but was nevertheless surprised by the extent of it.
Clearly written by a bright guy lacking a university education and editor, as illustrated by the awkward organization of this book and its occasional misuse of big words. Dylan, as he has often pointed out, is a musician, not a philosopher or an academic social critic. However, the artlessness and lack of organization of this book is somewhat appealing because it makes it appear as if the reader is getting the straight goods on what Dylan thought over his long career. The book is much more interesting when describing his early life and career than his later career, making one think of how autobiographical memories are more vivid and densely laid down in late adolescence and early adulthood. I had known how fans relentlessly invaded Dylan’s privacy but was nevertheless surprised by the extent of it.
Eduardo, L. (2005). Mistresses: True stories of seduction, power and ambition. London: O’Mara.
Not as titillating as one might desire but I found it of some interest anyway, partly because I had heard the names of some of these women but really didn’t know anything about them. There are some real adventuresses in this group and the story of some of their lives wouldn’t be believable if presented as fiction. Many also went through one hell of a lot of money and died broke. Women covered include Lola Montez (adventuress with a whip) and La Belle Otero (the suicides’ siren).
Not as titillating as one might desire but I found it of some interest anyway, partly because I had heard the names of some of these women but really didn’t know anything about them. There are some real adventuresses in this group and the story of some of their lives wouldn’t be believable if presented as fiction. Many also went through one hell of a lot of money and died broke. Women covered include Lola Montez (adventuress with a whip) and La Belle Otero (the suicides’ siren).
Einarson, J. (with Ian Tyson and Sylvia Tyson). (2011). Four strong winds: Ian & Sylvia. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.
I was a big fan of Ian and Sylvia’s early music. They, like many of their contemporaries, failed to make the electric transformation and survive Beatlemania. Ian turned rancher and much later had a successful country career. Sylvia did stuff on CBC and had a largely Canadian singing and composing career both as a solo act and part of a trio. After a long separation, Ian and Sylvia had their “Mitch and Mickey” moment at a Mariposa Folk Festival reunion.
This book could have used some editing because it is unevenly written and repetitious. One learns some interesting things though. Ian was a bit of a rounder, a relentless womanizer, and very right-wing—in short, an authentic cowboy. Sylvia, on the other hand, was an urban book worm. They didn’t actually become a couple until they had been a performing as a duo for a considerable time.
I was a big fan of Ian and Sylvia’s early music. They, like many of their contemporaries, failed to make the electric transformation and survive Beatlemania. Ian turned rancher and much later had a successful country career. Sylvia did stuff on CBC and had a largely Canadian singing and composing career both as a solo act and part of a trio. After a long separation, Ian and Sylvia had their “Mitch and Mickey” moment at a Mariposa Folk Festival reunion.
This book could have used some editing because it is unevenly written and repetitious. One learns some interesting things though. Ian was a bit of a rounder, a relentless womanizer, and very right-wing—in short, an authentic cowboy. Sylvia, on the other hand, was an urban book worm. They didn’t actually become a couple until they had been a performing as a duo for a considerable time.
Ellis, J. (1998). One day in a very long war: Wednesday, 25th October, 1944. London: Random House.
I’m sure you have often wondered exactly what was going on in the month of my birth. Of course, my parents had to return to the village of Flin Flon to be taxed, three wise guys came from down east following the aurora borealis..... but this book is about the war.
The idea of describing a single day around the world during the war works very well as an expository device, although in order to be understandable, the author actually has to describe the entire month. One gets a much better feel for what a staggeringly enormous enterprise the war actually was from this approach as opposed to much larger volumes covering smaller theaters of action. Imagine how long a list of those killed during the war would be.
Some interesting information that I didn’t know. For example, the Canadians fighting near Antwerp in the Battle of the Scheldt lost 3,650 men killed, missing, or wounded in 29 days from one division (111 men per day). This is almost as high a casualty rate as the infamous Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) in 1917 where four Canadian divisions lost 15,654 men (119 men per division per day). Although this is a high casualty rate, one must remember that most of the dying during the Second War occurred on the Eastern front. For example, the Soviets accounted for 90% of the German Army’s killed and wounded during the entire war.
There was a lot more graft and profiteering going on than I was aware of previously. Big time stuff on the Western front.
All in all, a good book.
I’m sure you have often wondered exactly what was going on in the month of my birth. Of course, my parents had to return to the village of Flin Flon to be taxed, three wise guys came from down east following the aurora borealis..... but this book is about the war.
The idea of describing a single day around the world during the war works very well as an expository device, although in order to be understandable, the author actually has to describe the entire month. One gets a much better feel for what a staggeringly enormous enterprise the war actually was from this approach as opposed to much larger volumes covering smaller theaters of action. Imagine how long a list of those killed during the war would be.
Some interesting information that I didn’t know. For example, the Canadians fighting near Antwerp in the Battle of the Scheldt lost 3,650 men killed, missing, or wounded in 29 days from one division (111 men per day). This is almost as high a casualty rate as the infamous Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) in 1917 where four Canadian divisions lost 15,654 men (119 men per division per day). Although this is a high casualty rate, one must remember that most of the dying during the Second War occurred on the Eastern front. For example, the Soviets accounted for 90% of the German Army’s killed and wounded during the entire war.
There was a lot more graft and profiteering going on than I was aware of previously. Big time stuff on the Western front.
All in all, a good book.
English, J.H. McLaughlin, K., & Lackenbauer, P.W. (Eds.) (2002). Mackenzie King: Citizenship and Community. Toronto: Robin Brass Studio.
An edited book with chapters on various aspects of King’s life. King came of age in Berlin, Ontario, and had strong ties to the German community there. These ties gave him faith that Germany and the British Empire would, in the end, be friends. Well, during WWI, Berlin renamed itself “Kitchener.”
In 1897, King went to the University of Chicago to do graduate study in activist sociology. He was heavily involved with Jane Addams’ Hull House settlement in working class Chicago. King also became romantically involved with a nurse. His mother disapproved of the nurse and his social activism, writing: “I have built castles without number for you. Are all these dreams but to end in dreams? I am getting old now Willie and disappointment wearies and the heart grows sick. Sometimes when I hear you talk so much [about] what you would do for those that suffer I think charity begins at home.” After this King became more emotionally attached to his mother and never had a girlfriend again. He gave up his activism for a more conventional political career and, after getting his Harvard PhD in economics, a more conservative worldview.
Many years later “King could see in his own behaviour that he had “sold out”: he had become a lackey of the capitalist class he had once ridiculed, the Rockefeller family in particular. His retreat into the spirit world is probably best understood as his way of dealing with the failure he knew he had become, by the standards of the man for whom he was named.” (p. 207). The latter being his maternal grandfather, William Lyon MacKenzie, the leader of the 1837 rebellion in Upper Canada.
F.R. Scott of McGill University summed it up thusly:
W.L.M.K.
How shall we speak of Canada,
Mackenzie King dead?
The Mother's boy in the lonely room
With his dog, his medium and his ruins?
He blunted us.
We had no shape
Because he never took sides,
And no sides
Because he never allowed them to take shape.
He skilfully avoided what was wrong
Without saying what was right,
And never let his on the one hand
Know what his on the other hand was doing.
The height of his ambition
Was to pile a Parliamentary Committee on a Royal Commission,
To have "conscription if necessary
But not necessarily conscription,"
To let Parliament decide--
Later.
Postpone, postpone, abstain.
Only one thread was certain:
After World War I
Business as usual,
After World War II
Orderly decontrol.
Always he led us back to where we were before.
He seemed to be in the centre
Because we had no centre,
No vision
To pierce the smoke-screen of his politics.
Truly he will be remembered
Wherever men honour ingenuity,
Ambiguity, inactivity, and political longevity.
Let us raise up a temple
To the cult of mediocrity,
Do nothing by halves
Which can be done by quarters.
(F.R. Scott)
Dennis Lee was briefer in Alligator Pie.
William Lyon Mackenzie King
William Lyon Mackenzie King
Sat in the middle & played with string
And he loved his mother like anything--
William Lyon Mackenzie King.
(Dennis Lee)
When all is said and done, however, it should be remembered that maudlin and ostentatious attachment to mothers was not at all uncommon among middle class men, that belief in the spirit world was widespread in Europe and North America, and that a number of historians consider MacKenzie King, for all his caution and warts, to be among the greatest of Canadian Prime Ministers.
An edited book with chapters on various aspects of King’s life. King came of age in Berlin, Ontario, and had strong ties to the German community there. These ties gave him faith that Germany and the British Empire would, in the end, be friends. Well, during WWI, Berlin renamed itself “Kitchener.”
In 1897, King went to the University of Chicago to do graduate study in activist sociology. He was heavily involved with Jane Addams’ Hull House settlement in working class Chicago. King also became romantically involved with a nurse. His mother disapproved of the nurse and his social activism, writing: “I have built castles without number for you. Are all these dreams but to end in dreams? I am getting old now Willie and disappointment wearies and the heart grows sick. Sometimes when I hear you talk so much [about] what you would do for those that suffer I think charity begins at home.” After this King became more emotionally attached to his mother and never had a girlfriend again. He gave up his activism for a more conventional political career and, after getting his Harvard PhD in economics, a more conservative worldview.
Many years later “King could see in his own behaviour that he had “sold out”: he had become a lackey of the capitalist class he had once ridiculed, the Rockefeller family in particular. His retreat into the spirit world is probably best understood as his way of dealing with the failure he knew he had become, by the standards of the man for whom he was named.” (p. 207). The latter being his maternal grandfather, William Lyon MacKenzie, the leader of the 1837 rebellion in Upper Canada.
F.R. Scott of McGill University summed it up thusly:
W.L.M.K.
How shall we speak of Canada,
Mackenzie King dead?
The Mother's boy in the lonely room
With his dog, his medium and his ruins?
He blunted us.
We had no shape
Because he never took sides,
And no sides
Because he never allowed them to take shape.
He skilfully avoided what was wrong
Without saying what was right,
And never let his on the one hand
Know what his on the other hand was doing.
The height of his ambition
Was to pile a Parliamentary Committee on a Royal Commission,
To have "conscription if necessary
But not necessarily conscription,"
To let Parliament decide--
Later.
Postpone, postpone, abstain.
Only one thread was certain:
After World War I
Business as usual,
After World War II
Orderly decontrol.
Always he led us back to where we were before.
He seemed to be in the centre
Because we had no centre,
No vision
To pierce the smoke-screen of his politics.
Truly he will be remembered
Wherever men honour ingenuity,
Ambiguity, inactivity, and political longevity.
Let us raise up a temple
To the cult of mediocrity,
Do nothing by halves
Which can be done by quarters.
(F.R. Scott)
Dennis Lee was briefer in Alligator Pie.
William Lyon Mackenzie King
William Lyon Mackenzie King
Sat in the middle & played with string
And he loved his mother like anything--
William Lyon Mackenzie King.
(Dennis Lee)
When all is said and done, however, it should be remembered that maudlin and ostentatious attachment to mothers was not at all uncommon among middle class men, that belief in the spirit world was widespread in Europe and North America, and that a number of historians consider MacKenzie King, for all his caution and warts, to be among the greatest of Canadian Prime Ministers.
English, T.J. (2007). Havana nocturne: How the mob owned Cuba and then lost it in the revolution. NY: HarperCollins.
The mafia, like other American corporations (such as United Fruit and Freeport Sulphur), bribed Cuban officials in order to obtain permission to exploit the country. Of course, the chief Cuban colluder was Batista. The mafia invested a great deal of money in building up gambling and prostitution enterprises to serve the American tourists who flocked to the new luxurious Havana hotels. It was just like Vegas, but without meddling from the American government.
Meyer Lansky, the brains behind the Cuban venture, was less bloodthirsty and more averse to publicity than his colleagues but nevertheless willing to benefit from their brutality. Business people love monopolies.
There were some trickle down economic benefits for Havana and, in particular, musicians and entertainers had lots of work. Lansky’s crew even trained up some locals as card dealers (no cheating was allowed because it was both unnecessary and bad for business). The countryside, however, remained desperately poor. Revolutionary acts, such as bombing, were increasingly frequent and were bad for business.
Lansky and his colleagues believed that either Batista would remain in place or, once the unpleasantness was eventually over, that the new regime would see the benefits of money flowing from tourism and graft. Not only were they wrong, the revolution succeeded suddenly, almost overnight. The mafia lost a lot of money.
A very nice evocation of a vanished era and a great read for a Cuban beach.
The mafia, like other American corporations (such as United Fruit and Freeport Sulphur), bribed Cuban officials in order to obtain permission to exploit the country. Of course, the chief Cuban colluder was Batista. The mafia invested a great deal of money in building up gambling and prostitution enterprises to serve the American tourists who flocked to the new luxurious Havana hotels. It was just like Vegas, but without meddling from the American government.
Meyer Lansky, the brains behind the Cuban venture, was less bloodthirsty and more averse to publicity than his colleagues but nevertheless willing to benefit from their brutality. Business people love monopolies.
There were some trickle down economic benefits for Havana and, in particular, musicians and entertainers had lots of work. Lansky’s crew even trained up some locals as card dealers (no cheating was allowed because it was both unnecessary and bad for business). The countryside, however, remained desperately poor. Revolutionary acts, such as bombing, were increasingly frequent and were bad for business.
Lansky and his colleagues believed that either Batista would remain in place or, once the unpleasantness was eventually over, that the new regime would see the benefits of money flowing from tourism and graft. Not only were they wrong, the revolution succeeded suddenly, almost overnight. The mafia lost a lot of money.
A very nice evocation of a vanished era and a great read for a Cuban beach.
Etzioni, A. (1999). The limits of privacy. N.Y.: Basic.
An unbelievably boring read. Etzioni argues that privacy is often over-valued in comparison to other societal goods. He presents very convincing arguments on issues like the desirability of revealing the results of AIDS testing of neonates to their mothers and the dangers of computer encryption. But, even if convincing, the book is just so tedious. It would make a fine pamphlet.
An unbelievably boring read. Etzioni argues that privacy is often over-valued in comparison to other societal goods. He presents very convincing arguments on issues like the desirability of revealing the results of AIDS testing of neonates to their mothers and the dangers of computer encryption. But, even if convincing, the book is just so tedious. It would make a fine pamphlet.
Evans, R.J. (2008). The Third Reich at war 1939-1945. London: Penquin.
Exceptionally well done and readable. Despite all that has been written, there are still surprises. For example, Hitler was told by his economic advisors in 1942 that the Axis powers would lose the war based solely on a comparison of the number of tanks and planes produced monthly by the combatants. However, Hitler, like many in high Nazi circles, persisted in wishful thinking that was close to delusional.
Extensive quotes from the diaries of Germans from disparate backgrounds provide interesting insights. Most Germans, in contrast to the completely indoctrinated (usually younger) people, knew the war would be lost early on. Many viewed the allied bombing as a sort of just world retribution for the crimes that Germany had committed in the east (you can’t keep crimes of that magnitude a secret because far too many are involved). For similar reasons, Germans were afraid of what the Soviets would do to Germany after their inevitable victory. The ideological fanatics believed that the Fuhrer would either produce the promised secret weapons or finally convince the Western allies to unite with Germany to fight the Soviets.
Exceptionally well done and readable. Despite all that has been written, there are still surprises. For example, Hitler was told by his economic advisors in 1942 that the Axis powers would lose the war based solely on a comparison of the number of tanks and planes produced monthly by the combatants. However, Hitler, like many in high Nazi circles, persisted in wishful thinking that was close to delusional.
Extensive quotes from the diaries of Germans from disparate backgrounds provide interesting insights. Most Germans, in contrast to the completely indoctrinated (usually younger) people, knew the war would be lost early on. Many viewed the allied bombing as a sort of just world retribution for the crimes that Germany had committed in the east (you can’t keep crimes of that magnitude a secret because far too many are involved). For similar reasons, Germans were afraid of what the Soviets would do to Germany after their inevitable victory. The ideological fanatics believed that the Fuhrer would either produce the promised secret weapons or finally convince the Western allies to unite with Germany to fight the Soviets.
Eyman, S. (2010). Empire of dreams: The epic life of Cecil B. deMille. Toronto: Simon and Schuster.
I won’t review this book. Try as I might, I couldn’t get into it. Maybe I just don’t care about deMille. To rephrase what people are prone to say when breaking up—“it’s me it’s not the author”.
I won’t review this book. Try as I might, I couldn’t get into it. Maybe I just don’t care about deMille. To rephrase what people are prone to say when breaking up—“it’s me it’s not the author”.
Frank, T. (1997). The conquest of cool: Business culture, counterculture, and the rise of hip consumerism. University of Chicago Press.
Here is the central thesis of this interesting but disconcerting little book. “Not only does hip consumerism recognize the alienation, boredom, and disgust engendered by the demands of modern consumer society, but it makes of those sentiments powerful imperatives of brand loyalty and accelerated consumption.” P. 231.
The book provides a number of examples of cool marketing strategies, accompanied by some good pictures. Here’s one of the examples: “Pepsi’s strategy was obvious. It would imbue its model consumer, its Pepsi Generation, with characteristics that were at odds with, if not outright antagonistic to the paradigmatic personality of the Coke order: noncomformity, daring, enthusiasm for the new, and a passion for individual liberation through product choice. Pepsi would identify itself with cultural dissent. As Volkswagon had just a few years before, Pepsi took up the cultural cudgels against mass society for hard-headed corporate reasons. And in its attack on the cola of conformity, Pepsi soon gained an ally in the social ferment then taking place.” P. 172.
Even though short, some of the book has the repetitious ponderousness of the thesis that it came from.
Here is the central thesis of this interesting but disconcerting little book. “Not only does hip consumerism recognize the alienation, boredom, and disgust engendered by the demands of modern consumer society, but it makes of those sentiments powerful imperatives of brand loyalty and accelerated consumption.” P. 231.
The book provides a number of examples of cool marketing strategies, accompanied by some good pictures. Here’s one of the examples: “Pepsi’s strategy was obvious. It would imbue its model consumer, its Pepsi Generation, with characteristics that were at odds with, if not outright antagonistic to the paradigmatic personality of the Coke order: noncomformity, daring, enthusiasm for the new, and a passion for individual liberation through product choice. Pepsi would identify itself with cultural dissent. As Volkswagon had just a few years before, Pepsi took up the cultural cudgels against mass society for hard-headed corporate reasons. And in its attack on the cola of conformity, Pepsi soon gained an ally in the social ferment then taking place.” P. 172.
Even though short, some of the book has the repetitious ponderousness of the thesis that it came from.
Frankfort, E. (1983). Kathy Boudin and the dance of death. N.Y.: Stein & Day.
Che Guevara had many imitators, such as Kathy Boudin of the USA.
Kathy was an underground weather person who almost got blown up in a secret bomb factory and was later arrested for participating in a Brinks truck robbery in which a number of people were killed. The police stopped the robbers who were driving a car pulling a U-Haul van. Kathy convinced the (black) cop to put down his shotgun, whereupon one of her accomplices jumped out of the van and shot him dead. Kathy ran off down a highway until stopped by an off duty correctional officer, whereupon she started screaming that she wasn’t the one who had done the shooting.
Kathy, like many of her underground radical friends, had wealthy and influential parents. Kathy’s father was a lawyer who spent his career defending well known leftist activists. Her upbringing on the affluent moral high ground is presumably responsible for her incredible sense of entitlement and self righteousness documented in this book.
Does Kathy maintain solidarity with her poor black criminal accomplices/freedom fighting colleagues? Well, to mix a metaphor--Does the pope shit in the woods? Nevertheless, there is some suspense in this book--Does daddy save the day?
Che Guevara had many imitators, such as Kathy Boudin of the USA.
Kathy was an underground weather person who almost got blown up in a secret bomb factory and was later arrested for participating in a Brinks truck robbery in which a number of people were killed. The police stopped the robbers who were driving a car pulling a U-Haul van. Kathy convinced the (black) cop to put down his shotgun, whereupon one of her accomplices jumped out of the van and shot him dead. Kathy ran off down a highway until stopped by an off duty correctional officer, whereupon she started screaming that she wasn’t the one who had done the shooting.
Kathy, like many of her underground radical friends, had wealthy and influential parents. Kathy’s father was a lawyer who spent his career defending well known leftist activists. Her upbringing on the affluent moral high ground is presumably responsible for her incredible sense of entitlement and self righteousness documented in this book.
Does Kathy maintain solidarity with her poor black criminal accomplices/freedom fighting colleagues? Well, to mix a metaphor--Does the pope shit in the woods? Nevertheless, there is some suspense in this book--Does daddy save the day?
Garth, J. (2003). Tolkien and the Great War: The threshold of Middle-Earth. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
This book is written for Tolkien scholars and was way too detailed for my taste—tedious even. Tolkien was interested in fairies and ancient European languages as a boy, making the beginnings of the Lord of the Rings very early. There was a very long gestation, however—the Hobbit was first written for Tolkien’s children rather late in his career and the Trilogy followed that.
This book covers Tolkien’s boyhood, his war-time service as a signals officer in the Battle of the Somme, and the beginnings of his post-war career. Tolkien was part of a foursome, an Oxford literary society known as the Tea Club and Barrovian Society (TCBS). The TCBS was tragically mutilated during the war. It is very sad to see the loss of innocence among these young men of the English upper classes.
This book is written for Tolkien scholars and was way too detailed for my taste—tedious even. Tolkien was interested in fairies and ancient European languages as a boy, making the beginnings of the Lord of the Rings very early. There was a very long gestation, however—the Hobbit was first written for Tolkien’s children rather late in his career and the Trilogy followed that.
This book covers Tolkien’s boyhood, his war-time service as a signals officer in the Battle of the Somme, and the beginnings of his post-war career. Tolkien was part of a foursome, an Oxford literary society known as the Tea Club and Barrovian Society (TCBS). The TCBS was tragically mutilated during the war. It is very sad to see the loss of innocence among these young men of the English upper classes.
Gathorne-Hardy, J. (1998). Alfred Kinsey: Sex the measure of all things: A biography. London: Chatto & Windus.
Strangely, the title of the book on the dustcover and cover does not agree with that on the frontispiece of the book. This is not a well written book. The author irritatingly takes great pains at every opportunity to inform his English readers how different trivial things are in far off America. Nevertheless, one can’t miss with a character like Kinsey. An inveterate collector--first of galls, then of sexual histories, then of sexual partners--Kinsey worked incredibly hard his entire life.
Kinsey was a sexually repressed youth who stayed involved with the scout movement well into adulthood (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). When he became sexually liberated, he really went to town..
One can’t help but admire Kinsey for his herculean efforts and his many kindnesses to strangers, although Kinsey did not countenance disagreement from colleagues or subordinates very well. Any resemblance between Kinsey and other entomologists who study human sex is purely coincidental
Strangely, the title of the book on the dustcover and cover does not agree with that on the frontispiece of the book. This is not a well written book. The author irritatingly takes great pains at every opportunity to inform his English readers how different trivial things are in far off America. Nevertheless, one can’t miss with a character like Kinsey. An inveterate collector--first of galls, then of sexual histories, then of sexual partners--Kinsey worked incredibly hard his entire life.
Kinsey was a sexually repressed youth who stayed involved with the scout movement well into adulthood (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). When he became sexually liberated, he really went to town..
One can’t help but admire Kinsey for his herculean efforts and his many kindnesses to strangers, although Kinsey did not countenance disagreement from colleagues or subordinates very well. Any resemblance between Kinsey and other entomologists who study human sex is purely coincidental
Gay, P. (1998). Pleasure wars: The bourgeois experience: Victoria to Freud. N.Y.: Norton.
Why I finished reading this book is something of a mystery to me. It is the last of a long series on the 19th century bourgeois experience written by one of the more credulous biographers of Freud (I definitely don’t recommend the biography).
Maybe I finished it because it reminded me of books I read when in high school. I particularly remember reading Martin Eden by Jack London; a book that concerned the relationship of a (very juvenile and romanticized) “intellectual” to the uncomprehending and unworthy bourgeois. Martin Eden, having risen from the working class on the basis of pure intellect, kills himself because nobody understands the big ideas underlying his writings. Great stuff when one is a naive 14 year old. Apparently, 19th century fiction and high cultural writing is full of this stuff, much of it even more juvenile that I had imagined.
Much of the Pleasure Wars describes the 19th century debates about the degree to which the bourgeois can learn to appreciate ART. For example, sometimes they didn’t really understand why they liked pictures of nudes (Gay thinks Freud did though, having laid bare the bourgeois unconscious). Much of this reminded me of the high school art courses I took that were designed to de-Philistine us. We memorized the names of the impressionists (the pointillists let the eye mix the colour), Picasso’s periods, and so forth. Although I still remember that Rembrandt invented trap door lighting, I think I remained one of the despised bourgeois (which is why I just bought a van).
I could be wrong, but I thought that there has been some pretty sophisticated research done on aesthetics that allow predictions to be made about what people will like. If this work exists, it sure doesn’t inform the Pleasure Wars.
Why I finished reading this book is something of a mystery to me. It is the last of a long series on the 19th century bourgeois experience written by one of the more credulous biographers of Freud (I definitely don’t recommend the biography).
Maybe I finished it because it reminded me of books I read when in high school. I particularly remember reading Martin Eden by Jack London; a book that concerned the relationship of a (very juvenile and romanticized) “intellectual” to the uncomprehending and unworthy bourgeois. Martin Eden, having risen from the working class on the basis of pure intellect, kills himself because nobody understands the big ideas underlying his writings. Great stuff when one is a naive 14 year old. Apparently, 19th century fiction and high cultural writing is full of this stuff, much of it even more juvenile that I had imagined.
Much of the Pleasure Wars describes the 19th century debates about the degree to which the bourgeois can learn to appreciate ART. For example, sometimes they didn’t really understand why they liked pictures of nudes (Gay thinks Freud did though, having laid bare the bourgeois unconscious). Much of this reminded me of the high school art courses I took that were designed to de-Philistine us. We memorized the names of the impressionists (the pointillists let the eye mix the colour), Picasso’s periods, and so forth. Although I still remember that Rembrandt invented trap door lighting, I think I remained one of the despised bourgeois (which is why I just bought a van).
I could be wrong, but I thought that there has been some pretty sophisticated research done on aesthetics that allow predictions to be made about what people will like. If this work exists, it sure doesn’t inform the Pleasure Wars.
Gilbert, M. (1965). The European Powers 1900-1945. New York: New American Library.
A concise, somewhat moralistic, summary of this period. Because of its brevity, however, it shows nicely how the second war was a continuation of the first.
A concise, somewhat moralistic, summary of this period. Because of its brevity, however, it shows nicely how the second war was a continuation of the first.
Glassner, B. (1999). The culture of fear: Why Americans are afraid of the wrong things. NY: Basic.
What are the wrong things that Americans fear?—“crime, drugs, minorities, teen moms, killer kids, mutant microbes, plane crashes, road rage, & so much more.” Much of this isn’t very surprising to anyone with a nodding acquaintance with current criminology and some of the cases aren’t as clear cut as the author suggests but, nevertheless, the book makes a compelling case about how misleading, sloppy, sensationalistic, and biased the news media are. The examples are simply appalling—the best of which is the nonexistent phenomenon of “road rage”.
What are the wrong things that Americans fear?—“crime, drugs, minorities, teen moms, killer kids, mutant microbes, plane crashes, road rage, & so much more.” Much of this isn’t very surprising to anyone with a nodding acquaintance with current criminology and some of the cases aren’t as clear cut as the author suggests but, nevertheless, the book makes a compelling case about how misleading, sloppy, sensationalistic, and biased the news media are. The examples are simply appalling—the best of which is the nonexistent phenomenon of “road rage”.
Goldhagen, D.J. (1997) Hitler's willing executioners: Ordinary Germans and the holocaust. NY: Vintage.
I've read some depressing books in my day but this one takes the cake. Basically, the author argues that the vast majority of ordinary Germans wanted to be rid of the Jews, liked to terrorize them, and thought it was a real nifty thing to humiliate, abuse, and slaughter them. The Nazis do not appear on this account to be out of step with the rest of Germany at all. I can't evaluate the author's thesis about whether the Jews were victimized more than say, gypsies, the retarded, or the slavs but it hardly matters. This book bummed me out for months.
I've read some depressing books in my day but this one takes the cake. Basically, the author argues that the vast majority of ordinary Germans wanted to be rid of the Jews, liked to terrorize them, and thought it was a real nifty thing to humiliate, abuse, and slaughter them. The Nazis do not appear on this account to be out of step with the rest of Germany at all. I can't evaluate the author's thesis about whether the Jews were victimized more than say, gypsies, the retarded, or the slavs but it hardly matters. This book bummed me out for months.
Goldstone, P. (2001). Making the world safe for tourism. New Haven: Yale University Press.
This is a very uneven book about big business tourism. There are a few very funny vignettes that call to mind the phrase “When I hear the word ‘culture’ I reach for my gun”. Unfortunately, large parts of the book somewhat pointlessly recount the author’s travels and are accompanied by photographs too small to be worthwhile. Sad descriptions of the effects of tourism in Ireland, Turkey, and the Middle East. In all, a cynicism engendering read. The Middle East sounds hopelessly and angrily divided–after the demolition of the World Trade Towers, quelle surprise!
This is a very uneven book about big business tourism. There are a few very funny vignettes that call to mind the phrase “When I hear the word ‘culture’ I reach for my gun”. Unfortunately, large parts of the book somewhat pointlessly recount the author’s travels and are accompanied by photographs too small to be worthwhile. Sad descriptions of the effects of tourism in Ireland, Turkey, and the Middle East. In all, a cynicism engendering read. The Middle East sounds hopelessly and angrily divided–after the demolition of the World Trade Towers, quelle surprise!
Goodwin, D.K. (2013). The bully pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the golden age of journalism. Toronto: Simon and Schuster.
Roosevelt led an amazing and adventurous life of manic energy. Though born to a life of privilege and a member of the Republican Party, he fought strenuously against the political corruption caused by unbridled corporate capitalism. Taft, a lawyer and later Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was Roosevelt’s closest colleague and friend. Roosevelt chose him to be his successor as president. Arguably, Taft was more successful as president than Roosevelt had been in advancing the progressive agenda of limiting the power of the trusts; he was, however, much less successful in promoting himself and his achievements—in part because he was unmotivated to do so. In view of this failure to sell himself, it is of interest that Taft was almost universally loved—not liked but loved—by the many who knew him, including Filipinos, Cubans, and political opponents.
The Progressive Movement was aided enormously by the “muck-raking” journalists who exposed the exploitation of the workers by unscrupulous predatory capitalists. During this period, the progressives made some real progress against the trusts. As we know in 2015, this progress was incomplete and much of it was temporary.
Goodwin has produced a readable book from her massive research effort. The story of Roosevelt and Taft’s relationship and ultimate break is both tragic and dramatic; it could have been the sole focus of the book and placed against the backdrop of the war against the trusts. Perhaps the book would have been even better therefore if the material on the journalists had been put into a separate book.
Roosevelt led an amazing and adventurous life of manic energy. Though born to a life of privilege and a member of the Republican Party, he fought strenuously against the political corruption caused by unbridled corporate capitalism. Taft, a lawyer and later Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was Roosevelt’s closest colleague and friend. Roosevelt chose him to be his successor as president. Arguably, Taft was more successful as president than Roosevelt had been in advancing the progressive agenda of limiting the power of the trusts; he was, however, much less successful in promoting himself and his achievements—in part because he was unmotivated to do so. In view of this failure to sell himself, it is of interest that Taft was almost universally loved—not liked but loved—by the many who knew him, including Filipinos, Cubans, and political opponents.
The Progressive Movement was aided enormously by the “muck-raking” journalists who exposed the exploitation of the workers by unscrupulous predatory capitalists. During this period, the progressives made some real progress against the trusts. As we know in 2015, this progress was incomplete and much of it was temporary.
Goodwin has produced a readable book from her massive research effort. The story of Roosevelt and Taft’s relationship and ultimate break is both tragic and dramatic; it could have been the sole focus of the book and placed against the backdrop of the war against the trusts. Perhaps the book would have been even better therefore if the material on the journalists had been put into a separate book.
Gotlieb, A. (2007). The Washington diaries 1981-1989. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.
Alan Gotlieb was a celebrity Canadian ambassador to Washington in the era of Ronald Reagan. He gave and attended zillions of dinners and soirées. According to his account, he was a tireless and effective advocate for Canada, particularly in connection with NAFTA, a device he considered Canada’s only defence against American protectionism. Although most Americans and government officials seemed to neither know nor care, Canada was by far the US’s largest trading partner and Canada was perennially in danger of having its various economic sectors inadvertently ruined in recurring fits of US protectionist sentiment. Gotlieb is convincing in portraying the American governmental system as without a centre of coherent authority—he uses the term “ungovernable”—perhaps the most striking symptom of this is the predominance of narrow, parochial, political concerns in congress. The Canadian government, however, was not far behind—there were dramatic policy shifts according to who was in power, and members of cabinet frequently pursued their own idiosyncratic political agendas. All of this reinforces the view that democracies are particularly ill-suited for achieving long-term objectives or policies, even those that are simply economic or political.
Through vivid examples, Gotlieb portrays the press in both countries as frequently sensationalist, spectacularly ill-informed, and occasionally vindictive. It’s a wonder anyone wants to serve in government. Sometimes, however, the press did have something real to gossip about, as when Sondra Gotlieb (Alan’s wife) slapped one of their servants when preparations for a big party went awry. This incident raises the issue of the behaviour of the elite (in democracies, elites generally try to disguise their eliteness). Gotlieb is enamoured with the powerful and famous glitterati, partly because he was paid to seek influence and partly because he shared the interests of most everyone else. The account of the endless round of receptions and dinners, however, does start to grate on the reader—it starts to sound like name-dropping and the participants begin to appear something like the French aristocracy before the revolution. Let them eat Manitoban golden caviar!
Alan Gotlieb was a celebrity Canadian ambassador to Washington in the era of Ronald Reagan. He gave and attended zillions of dinners and soirées. According to his account, he was a tireless and effective advocate for Canada, particularly in connection with NAFTA, a device he considered Canada’s only defence against American protectionism. Although most Americans and government officials seemed to neither know nor care, Canada was by far the US’s largest trading partner and Canada was perennially in danger of having its various economic sectors inadvertently ruined in recurring fits of US protectionist sentiment. Gotlieb is convincing in portraying the American governmental system as without a centre of coherent authority—he uses the term “ungovernable”—perhaps the most striking symptom of this is the predominance of narrow, parochial, political concerns in congress. The Canadian government, however, was not far behind—there were dramatic policy shifts according to who was in power, and members of cabinet frequently pursued their own idiosyncratic political agendas. All of this reinforces the view that democracies are particularly ill-suited for achieving long-term objectives or policies, even those that are simply economic or political.
Through vivid examples, Gotlieb portrays the press in both countries as frequently sensationalist, spectacularly ill-informed, and occasionally vindictive. It’s a wonder anyone wants to serve in government. Sometimes, however, the press did have something real to gossip about, as when Sondra Gotlieb (Alan’s wife) slapped one of their servants when preparations for a big party went awry. This incident raises the issue of the behaviour of the elite (in democracies, elites generally try to disguise their eliteness). Gotlieb is enamoured with the powerful and famous glitterati, partly because he was paid to seek influence and partly because he shared the interests of most everyone else. The account of the endless round of receptions and dinners, however, does start to grate on the reader—it starts to sound like name-dropping and the participants begin to appear something like the French aristocracy before the revolution. Let them eat Manitoban golden caviar!
Gopnik, A. (2000). Paris to the moon. New York: Random House.
A charming set of sometimes very funny stories describing the Gopniks’ two-year sojourn in Paris. Some of the stories reminded me very much of my two-year period of working in a French institution in Montreal.
A charming set of sometimes very funny stories describing the Gopniks’ two-year sojourn in Paris. Some of the stories reminded me very much of my two-year period of working in a French institution in Montreal.
Granaststein, J.L. (1993). The generals: The Canadian army’s senior commanders in the Second World War. Toronto: Stoddart.
The generals were recruited from the starving rump of a Canadian army that was barely allowed to exist between the world wars. Of course, one gets what one pays for. Nevertheless, the rump quickly became the nucleus of the formidable army that was so quickly put together—a remarkable achievement.
There were two principal difficulties with the generals. One was that few of them had any real experience in battle conditions or even in large training maneuvers. It is not surprising then that they varied considerably in their competence. The second problem is that they were old—old men simply don’t have the stamina or quickness of thought that is required in battle. Some of the generals (who had been heroes in the First War) tried to refight it.
It took awhile for the unfit to be weeded out. This process involved lots of gossip, backbiting, and political machinations. This all seems very familiar. Because it is difficult to measure competence in generalship (particularly in advance of real battles), there is frequent disagreement about who should be promoted or demoted, making “meeting well with others” more important than it should be.
The generals were recruited from the starving rump of a Canadian army that was barely allowed to exist between the world wars. Of course, one gets what one pays for. Nevertheless, the rump quickly became the nucleus of the formidable army that was so quickly put together—a remarkable achievement.
There were two principal difficulties with the generals. One was that few of them had any real experience in battle conditions or even in large training maneuvers. It is not surprising then that they varied considerably in their competence. The second problem is that they were old—old men simply don’t have the stamina or quickness of thought that is required in battle. Some of the generals (who had been heroes in the First War) tried to refight it.
It took awhile for the unfit to be weeded out. This process involved lots of gossip, backbiting, and political machinations. This all seems very familiar. Because it is difficult to measure competence in generalship (particularly in advance of real battles), there is frequent disagreement about who should be promoted or demoted, making “meeting well with others” more important than it should be.
Gray, C. (2006). Reluctant genius: Alexander Graham Bell and the passion for invention. NY: Arcade.
A page turning (but very detailed) biography the inventor of the telephone. Bell was a rather poor and health-challenged Scottish emigrant to North America who became interested in the prospects of the telephone through his and his father’s work on sign language for the deaf. Deafness as a result of infection was at the time (late 19th century) very common. Both Bell’s mother and his wife were deaf.
Bell was justifiably hypochondriacal but driven by mad bouts of creative energy throughout his life. A very complex person who, ably assisted by his wife, ended up being much more successful and happy than he or anyone else expected. As an aside, it’s interesting that the familiar controversy regarding the relative merits of sign language and lip reading was aflame so long ago.
A page turning (but very detailed) biography the inventor of the telephone. Bell was a rather poor and health-challenged Scottish emigrant to North America who became interested in the prospects of the telephone through his and his father’s work on sign language for the deaf. Deafness as a result of infection was at the time (late 19th century) very common. Both Bell’s mother and his wife were deaf.
Bell was justifiably hypochondriacal but driven by mad bouts of creative energy throughout his life. A very complex person who, ably assisted by his wife, ended up being much more successful and happy than he or anyone else expected. As an aside, it’s interesting that the familiar controversy regarding the relative merits of sign language and lip reading was aflame so long ago.
Guttridge, L.F. (2000). Ghosts of Cape Sabine: The harrowing true story of the Greely Expedition. NY: Berkeley.
This true story of a once famous arctic expedition of the 1880s is a very long nightmare. It starts off badly (conceived by a fraud artist then heading up the US Signal Corps and implemented in the midst of inter-service rivalry and partisan politics), continues badly (the men hate each other and especially their leader, Greeley), gets worse when their relief ship fails to appear the following year, and then gets really bad when they head South and across the ice in an ill-fated and ill-thought out scheme. However, they discover that their troubles are just beginning when they arrive at Cape Sabine and there is no big cache of supplies waiting for them, their last relief ship having neglected to leave any and its companion ship having been crushed by the ice.
The pitiful few that survived were given heroes' welcomes, although these were soon tarnished by the discovery of cannibalism and continuing accusations of incompetence against many involved in mounting the expedition and the relief efforts. Amazingly, Greeley went on to a very successful career and lived into his nineties.
Compulsively readable and highly recommended.
This true story of a once famous arctic expedition of the 1880s is a very long nightmare. It starts off badly (conceived by a fraud artist then heading up the US Signal Corps and implemented in the midst of inter-service rivalry and partisan politics), continues badly (the men hate each other and especially their leader, Greeley), gets worse when their relief ship fails to appear the following year, and then gets really bad when they head South and across the ice in an ill-fated and ill-thought out scheme. However, they discover that their troubles are just beginning when they arrive at Cape Sabine and there is no big cache of supplies waiting for them, their last relief ship having neglected to leave any and its companion ship having been crushed by the ice.
The pitiful few that survived were given heroes' welcomes, although these were soon tarnished by the discovery of cannibalism and continuing accusations of incompetence against many involved in mounting the expedition and the relief efforts. Amazingly, Greeley went on to a very successful career and lived into his nineties.
Compulsively readable and highly recommended.
Hajdu, D. (2008). The ten-cent plague: The great comic-book scare and how it changed America. NY: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux.
I loved comic books when I was a kid but I was aware that crime comic books had been banned and I avoided the creepier ones like Tales from the Crypt because they scared the be-Jesus out of me. Well, it turns out that there was a massive and largely successful campaign in the late forties and early fifties to ban the majority of comic books--those that catered to the eternal pre-adolescent/adolescent interest in violence, gore, weirdness, and sex (OK, OK, adult interest too). Psychiatrist Frederic Wertham wrote a book sounding dire warnings, entitled Seduction of the Innocents, that catalyzed the campaign. Although Wertham’s punditry was based solely on clinical anecdote, Catholic schools staged book burnings, there were congressional hearings in which comic books were asserted to lead to such ills as juvenile delinquency, and so forth. The comic book illustrators were shamed and lost their jobs. The episode sounds very similar to less successful later campaigns against TV, computer games, and rock and roll music, not to mention earlier ones concerning the evils of masturbation and newspaper funnies. The sole surviving spin-off of the comic books was a magazine—MAD Magazine. What, me worry?
I loved comic books when I was a kid but I was aware that crime comic books had been banned and I avoided the creepier ones like Tales from the Crypt because they scared the be-Jesus out of me. Well, it turns out that there was a massive and largely successful campaign in the late forties and early fifties to ban the majority of comic books--those that catered to the eternal pre-adolescent/adolescent interest in violence, gore, weirdness, and sex (OK, OK, adult interest too). Psychiatrist Frederic Wertham wrote a book sounding dire warnings, entitled Seduction of the Innocents, that catalyzed the campaign. Although Wertham’s punditry was based solely on clinical anecdote, Catholic schools staged book burnings, there were congressional hearings in which comic books were asserted to lead to such ills as juvenile delinquency, and so forth. The comic book illustrators were shamed and lost their jobs. The episode sounds very similar to less successful later campaigns against TV, computer games, and rock and roll music, not to mention earlier ones concerning the evils of masturbation and newspaper funnies. The sole surviving spin-off of the comic books was a magazine—MAD Magazine. What, me worry?
Heilemann, J. & Halperin, M. (2010). Game change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the race of a lifetime. NY: Harper.
This is a very fast paced page-turner that follows the personal and political fortunes of the principals in the last presidential campaign. Much of what is described will be familiar to anyone who followed the contemporaneous news reports closely. As it seemed during the campaign, Palin was clueless; McCain was decent but cognitively very old; Biden couldn’t keep his mouth shut; Obama’s breath taking confidence in himself kept being justified; Hillary, probably the best prepared candidate, felt keenly that she was treated unfairly by the press and her ungrateful party, and, finally, Bill Clinton couldn’t refrain from meddling. On the other hand, it was a bit of a surprise to me what a total twit John Edwards was and what a nut case his wife turned out to be. This book, however, shows that the distinctions among the candidates were even greater than they appeared to be during the campaign.
The process of presidential campaigning is crazy. It is dominated by trivialities, is phenomenally expensive, incredibly stressful to the candidates and their campaign teams, and highly dependent on chance. That the process has not been reformed contributes to the perception that the US is essentially ungovernable. Despite it all, this book is essentially an argument that the best man won. Of course, it doesn’t always turn out that way.
This is a very fast paced page-turner that follows the personal and political fortunes of the principals in the last presidential campaign. Much of what is described will be familiar to anyone who followed the contemporaneous news reports closely. As it seemed during the campaign, Palin was clueless; McCain was decent but cognitively very old; Biden couldn’t keep his mouth shut; Obama’s breath taking confidence in himself kept being justified; Hillary, probably the best prepared candidate, felt keenly that she was treated unfairly by the press and her ungrateful party, and, finally, Bill Clinton couldn’t refrain from meddling. On the other hand, it was a bit of a surprise to me what a total twit John Edwards was and what a nut case his wife turned out to be. This book, however, shows that the distinctions among the candidates were even greater than they appeared to be during the campaign.
The process of presidential campaigning is crazy. It is dominated by trivialities, is phenomenally expensive, incredibly stressful to the candidates and their campaign teams, and highly dependent on chance. That the process has not been reformed contributes to the perception that the US is essentially ungovernable. Despite it all, this book is essentially an argument that the best man won. Of course, it doesn’t always turn out that way.
Herman, A. (1997). The idea of decline in Western History. Toronto: The Free Press.
Herman traces the idea of the decline of Western civilization from Gobineau and racial pessimism through Nietzche and Burckhardt, the Adams brothers, DuBois, Spengler, Toynbee, the Frankfurt School (Adorno et al.), Marcuse, Sartre, Foucault, Fanon, the mulitculturalists, and the eco-pessimists. Herman’s treatise is that all of these intellectuals and philosophers falsely conceptualize society as a unitary organism, such that only total solutions will work.
This is a good book for those who like me can’t quite keep the big intellectual names straight like they are supposed to. I mean how many of us can remember or even ever knew what Heidigger said as opposed to Marcuse or Burckhardt?
Some interesting stuff. I’ve tried several times, for example, to read Foucault and could never get by the first page (I think he was a moron). Much to my perverse satisfaction, I learned in this book that he was certainly a moral moron, knowingly passing on AIDS in San Francisco orgies.
What struck me reading this book was how futile a lot of this thinking and writing was. More than a little of it seems downright silly and some of the writing, particularly that of the French existentialists, sounds a great deal like self-absorbed adolescent whining. Part of the apparent futility is that the intellectual currents shift back and forth from left to right, what are supposed to be eternal truths seem to be simply responses to current events, the grand predictions about the fate of society keep getting disconfirmed, but, through all this, the philosophizing just continues and people take it as seriously as they ever did.
If there is a lesson here (not quite the one that Herman intended I think), it is that thinking at the level of abstraction that much of this stuff is pitched at and mixing poetic metaphor, history, science, and ideology together results in just one dumb thing after another. These intellectual efforts are best viewed as ways to win friends, punish enemies, and influence people, not as ways to figure anything out.
A well written book. Reading it will make you sparkle at intellectual soirées (until you once again start forgetting who all these folks were)..
Herman traces the idea of the decline of Western civilization from Gobineau and racial pessimism through Nietzche and Burckhardt, the Adams brothers, DuBois, Spengler, Toynbee, the Frankfurt School (Adorno et al.), Marcuse, Sartre, Foucault, Fanon, the mulitculturalists, and the eco-pessimists. Herman’s treatise is that all of these intellectuals and philosophers falsely conceptualize society as a unitary organism, such that only total solutions will work.
This is a good book for those who like me can’t quite keep the big intellectual names straight like they are supposed to. I mean how many of us can remember or even ever knew what Heidigger said as opposed to Marcuse or Burckhardt?
Some interesting stuff. I’ve tried several times, for example, to read Foucault and could never get by the first page (I think he was a moron). Much to my perverse satisfaction, I learned in this book that he was certainly a moral moron, knowingly passing on AIDS in San Francisco orgies.
What struck me reading this book was how futile a lot of this thinking and writing was. More than a little of it seems downright silly and some of the writing, particularly that of the French existentialists, sounds a great deal like self-absorbed adolescent whining. Part of the apparent futility is that the intellectual currents shift back and forth from left to right, what are supposed to be eternal truths seem to be simply responses to current events, the grand predictions about the fate of society keep getting disconfirmed, but, through all this, the philosophizing just continues and people take it as seriously as they ever did.
If there is a lesson here (not quite the one that Herman intended I think), it is that thinking at the level of abstraction that much of this stuff is pitched at and mixing poetic metaphor, history, science, and ideology together results in just one dumb thing after another. These intellectual efforts are best viewed as ways to win friends, punish enemies, and influence people, not as ways to figure anything out.
A well written book. Reading it will make you sparkle at intellectual soirées (until you once again start forgetting who all these folks were)..
Hibbert, C. (1978). The Great Mutiny: India 1857. Penquin.
England administered the fragmented Indian states with the help of British-trained Indian soldiers and the collusion of local elites. In the enervating heat, swarms of servants attended every need of the officers and their families. The British army needed all the help it could get because it was small, inefficiently organized, and led by frequently incompetent nobles.
Muslims objected to pig grease used in their new cartridges (they had to put them in their mouths to prepare them for firing). Rumours and unrest grew until the Indian soldiers mutinied in a number of areas. The insurgents killed all the Europeans they could find while looting, wrecking, and burning fortifications and homes. The British were totally unprepared. Those that weren’t killed fled to safer areas while some endured horrible sieges. All very awful. As were the bloodthirsty reprisals of the British when they put down the rebellion. The whole affair was much bloodier than I had realized.
It’s very interesting to read about what life was like in colonial India in the mid-nineteenth century. Most of the British were very bigoted and treated the Indians very poorly. This bigotry was a recent change and, of course, part of the reason for the rebellion. I was a little surprised by this, given British feelings about slavery as the 19th century wore on.
England administered the fragmented Indian states with the help of British-trained Indian soldiers and the collusion of local elites. In the enervating heat, swarms of servants attended every need of the officers and their families. The British army needed all the help it could get because it was small, inefficiently organized, and led by frequently incompetent nobles.
Muslims objected to pig grease used in their new cartridges (they had to put them in their mouths to prepare them for firing). Rumours and unrest grew until the Indian soldiers mutinied in a number of areas. The insurgents killed all the Europeans they could find while looting, wrecking, and burning fortifications and homes. The British were totally unprepared. Those that weren’t killed fled to safer areas while some endured horrible sieges. All very awful. As were the bloodthirsty reprisals of the British when they put down the rebellion. The whole affair was much bloodier than I had realized.
It’s very interesting to read about what life was like in colonial India in the mid-nineteenth century. Most of the British were very bigoted and treated the Indians very poorly. This bigotry was a recent change and, of course, part of the reason for the rebellion. I was a little surprised by this, given British feelings about slavery as the 19th century wore on.
Hobsbawm, E.J. (1990). Nations and nationalism since 1780: Program, myth, reality. Cambridge University Press.
We take nationalism for granted as the natural state of human affairs. This scholarly book shows it to be a recent and pernicious invention founded on manufactured myths. Defining a “nation” is notoriously difficult. Modern definitions use multiple criteria—for example, Stalin’s: “A nation is a historically evolved, stable community of language, territory, economic life and psychological make-up manifested in a community of culture.” The slipperiness, vagueness, and multiplicity of these criteria lend themselves to self-serving political rhetoric. Arguments using this rhetoric end with the tautological assertion that a nation exists where its members are conscious of belonging to it. Yet, as Hobsbawm remarks, “where ideologies are in conflict, the appeal to the imagined community of the nation appears to have defeated all challengers.”
A reviewer of the book writes: “Most nations consider themselves to be of ancient lineage, an historical background which helps build a strong national identity and pride, and yet few of the nations we recognize today date from before the nineteenth century. “Getting one’s history wrong” said an early expert in the field, “is part of being a nation”.”
We take nationalism for granted as the natural state of human affairs. This scholarly book shows it to be a recent and pernicious invention founded on manufactured myths. Defining a “nation” is notoriously difficult. Modern definitions use multiple criteria—for example, Stalin’s: “A nation is a historically evolved, stable community of language, territory, economic life and psychological make-up manifested in a community of culture.” The slipperiness, vagueness, and multiplicity of these criteria lend themselves to self-serving political rhetoric. Arguments using this rhetoric end with the tautological assertion that a nation exists where its members are conscious of belonging to it. Yet, as Hobsbawm remarks, “where ideologies are in conflict, the appeal to the imagined community of the nation appears to have defeated all challengers.”
A reviewer of the book writes: “Most nations consider themselves to be of ancient lineage, an historical background which helps build a strong national identity and pride, and yet few of the nations we recognize today date from before the nineteenth century. “Getting one’s history wrong” said an early expert in the field, “is part of being a nation”.”
Hoffman, A. (1997). Inventing Mark Twain: The lives of Samuel Langhorne Clemens. New York: Quill.
I bought this book because I knew nothing about Mark Twain. Now I know a good deal more than I wanted. There is an enormous amount of detail in this book, some of it amounting to trivia; clearly, the author had great difficulty in prioritizing his material. Nevertheless, there is much of interest to know about the man who invented his own persona and our modern sense of celebrity.
Early on, Samuel Clemens consciously decided to become a “moral phenomenon”–i.e., to become not only a humorist but a commentator on contemporary moral issues. In his later life, when his private views of mankind had become much darker, this strategy became somewhat problematic–writings by a cynical moral phenomenon are not terribly amusing.
I bought this book because I knew nothing about Mark Twain. Now I know a good deal more than I wanted. There is an enormous amount of detail in this book, some of it amounting to trivia; clearly, the author had great difficulty in prioritizing his material. Nevertheless, there is much of interest to know about the man who invented his own persona and our modern sense of celebrity.
Early on, Samuel Clemens consciously decided to become a “moral phenomenon”–i.e., to become not only a humorist but a commentator on contemporary moral issues. In his later life, when his private views of mankind had become much darker, this strategy became somewhat problematic–writings by a cynical moral phenomenon are not terribly amusing.
Hoffman, D.E. (2009). The dead hand: The untold story of the cold war arms race and its dangerous legacy. Toronto: Doubleday.
This is an important and timely book, masterfully presented. During the Reagan era, the aging Soviet leadership was convinced that the Americans were planning a preemptive nuclear strike. The Soviets had secretly constructed something eerily similar to the doomsday machine lampooned in the movie Dr. Strangelove. And so, totally unbeknownst to the West, the existence of civilization and perhaps multi-cellular life teetered on a razor’s edge. Response times to warnings of a nuclear attack were measured in minutes—false alarms, particularly on the Soviet side, were common.
Then, an off-course airliner was shot down over Siberian airspace. The duplicity of both the Americans (denying their flagrant provocations in the area in the form of aggressive spy flights and huge war games) and Russians (who denied shooting the plane down) worsened an already bad and very dangerous situation. Much of this was apparent to outsiders—I recall writing a letter to CBC radio at the time complaining about a news report of the airliner incident that sounded like it was a Pentagon press release. I pointed out that the suspicions of the two armed camps made this kind of incident inevitable. Mercifully, I didn’t know just how close to Armageddon we were.
We are not now in much danger of nuclear annihilation but the risk of small nuclear strikes by accident, religiously inspired fanaticism, or general nuttiness has become greater. The knowledge of nuclear technology is wide spread, there are poorly guarded decaying stockpiles of nuclear weapons throughout the former Soviet Union, and large numbers of impoverished, unemployed nuclear scientists and engineers. The latter have been the subject of large-scale clandestine recruitment efforts by North Korea and Iran.
The remains of the vast Soviet biological weapons program raise similar issues. Germ warfare capabilities are much more difficult to police than nuclear ones because the factories are cheap, small, undetectable by satellite, and easy to disguise as medical research facilities (after all, the Soviets successfully duped the Americans for decades).
Of course, that the Soviet system was consumed by deceit and paranoia is news to no one. Less appreciated is the participation of Western governments in the business of duplicity. Although on a smaller and much less successful scale than in the Soviet Union, Western duplicity was an important destabilizing force in world politics (the best documentation can be found in Daniel Ellsberg’s Secrets). Neither is it news that the cold war antagonists pursued highly aggressive and reckless foreign policies—so much so, that it is apparent that we emerged intact from the cold war largely because of a long run of very good luck. What this book makes clearer is that governments of whatever kind are unable to control their military-industrial complexes, fall victim to their own propaganda, and base their foreign policies on a bizarrely myopic form of realpolitik. Regardless of the form of government (dictatorship or democracy, left or right), the degree of domestic freedom, and the individual characteristics of the leaders (smart or dumb, well meaning or not), the product has been a foreign policy that amounts to lethal buffoonery. There has always been this sort of buffoonery, but nuclear technology raised the stakes exponentially while requiring foolproof control procedures and apocalyptic decisions to be made in real times measured in minutes. Needless to say, states couldn’t and can’t manage any of this effectively. So…. what does one think when all systems of government have been discredited?
Highly recommended. Believe it or not, it reads like a spy novel. The portraits of the principal actors are entertaining and illuminating.
This is an important and timely book, masterfully presented. During the Reagan era, the aging Soviet leadership was convinced that the Americans were planning a preemptive nuclear strike. The Soviets had secretly constructed something eerily similar to the doomsday machine lampooned in the movie Dr. Strangelove. And so, totally unbeknownst to the West, the existence of civilization and perhaps multi-cellular life teetered on a razor’s edge. Response times to warnings of a nuclear attack were measured in minutes—false alarms, particularly on the Soviet side, were common.
Then, an off-course airliner was shot down over Siberian airspace. The duplicity of both the Americans (denying their flagrant provocations in the area in the form of aggressive spy flights and huge war games) and Russians (who denied shooting the plane down) worsened an already bad and very dangerous situation. Much of this was apparent to outsiders—I recall writing a letter to CBC radio at the time complaining about a news report of the airliner incident that sounded like it was a Pentagon press release. I pointed out that the suspicions of the two armed camps made this kind of incident inevitable. Mercifully, I didn’t know just how close to Armageddon we were.
We are not now in much danger of nuclear annihilation but the risk of small nuclear strikes by accident, religiously inspired fanaticism, or general nuttiness has become greater. The knowledge of nuclear technology is wide spread, there are poorly guarded decaying stockpiles of nuclear weapons throughout the former Soviet Union, and large numbers of impoverished, unemployed nuclear scientists and engineers. The latter have been the subject of large-scale clandestine recruitment efforts by North Korea and Iran.
The remains of the vast Soviet biological weapons program raise similar issues. Germ warfare capabilities are much more difficult to police than nuclear ones because the factories are cheap, small, undetectable by satellite, and easy to disguise as medical research facilities (after all, the Soviets successfully duped the Americans for decades).
Of course, that the Soviet system was consumed by deceit and paranoia is news to no one. Less appreciated is the participation of Western governments in the business of duplicity. Although on a smaller and much less successful scale than in the Soviet Union, Western duplicity was an important destabilizing force in world politics (the best documentation can be found in Daniel Ellsberg’s Secrets). Neither is it news that the cold war antagonists pursued highly aggressive and reckless foreign policies—so much so, that it is apparent that we emerged intact from the cold war largely because of a long run of very good luck. What this book makes clearer is that governments of whatever kind are unable to control their military-industrial complexes, fall victim to their own propaganda, and base their foreign policies on a bizarrely myopic form of realpolitik. Regardless of the form of government (dictatorship or democracy, left or right), the degree of domestic freedom, and the individual characteristics of the leaders (smart or dumb, well meaning or not), the product has been a foreign policy that amounts to lethal buffoonery. There has always been this sort of buffoonery, but nuclear technology raised the stakes exponentially while requiring foolproof control procedures and apocalyptic decisions to be made in real times measured in minutes. Needless to say, states couldn’t and can’t manage any of this effectively. So…. what does one think when all systems of government have been discredited?
Highly recommended. Believe it or not, it reads like a spy novel. The portraits of the principal actors are entertaining and illuminating.
Hollingdale, R.J. (1999). Nietzsche: The man and his philosophy. Rev. Ed. N.Y.: Cambridge University Press.
Nietzsche’s philosophy seems more sensible in this book than it is often portrayed. He was the first to rigorously pursue the implications of the “death of god” produced by Darwinism and other advances in science. Nietzsche was initially enthralled by Wagner (OK, his judgment wasn’t perfect) but later broke with him. Nietzsche was in fact difficult to get along with and he never married (despite trying). His sister was a flaming anti-Semite (Nietzsche thought anti-Semitism was silly); she shamelessly profited by his disability and death. One of the reasons that Nietzsche’s work has been underestimated is that, following his dementia, his sister published his discarded notes as if they were finished works intended to be published. Imagine what one’s work would look like if it came out of one’s waste basket or recycle bin. Oh, and Nietzsche was, like Lenin, a great walker–sort of an unhappy wanderer.
Nietzsche’s philosophy seems more sensible in this book than it is often portrayed. He was the first to rigorously pursue the implications of the “death of god” produced by Darwinism and other advances in science. Nietzsche was initially enthralled by Wagner (OK, his judgment wasn’t perfect) but later broke with him. Nietzsche was in fact difficult to get along with and he never married (despite trying). His sister was a flaming anti-Semite (Nietzsche thought anti-Semitism was silly); she shamelessly profited by his disability and death. One of the reasons that Nietzsche’s work has been underestimated is that, following his dementia, his sister published his discarded notes as if they were finished works intended to be published. Imagine what one’s work would look like if it came out of one’s waste basket or recycle bin. Oh, and Nietzsche was, like Lenin, a great walker–sort of an unhappy wanderer.
Humphreys, R.S. (1999). Between memory and desire: The Middle East in a troubled age. Berkeley: University of California Press.
A sympathetic, well reasoned, and reasonable description of the contemporary Arabic political scene with an emphasis on the relationship of the Arabs with Israel and the West. It gets somewhat repetitious and less interesting toward the end but worthwhile anyway.
A sympathetic, well reasoned, and reasonable description of the contemporary Arabic political scene with an emphasis on the relationship of the Arabs with Israel and the West. It gets somewhat repetitious and less interesting toward the end but worthwhile anyway.
Hunt, C.W. (1995). Whiskey and ice: The saga of Ben Kerr, Canada’s most daring rumrunner. Toronto, Dundern Press.
Kerr was born into a wealthy Hamilton family in 1884. Always rebellious and headstrong, he left school at age 13, eventually becoming a plumber by day and a ragtime pianist at night. Kerr first achieved notoriety by facing down the police who were arresting and harassing the public during a bitter strike by the city transit workers. Kerr escaped arrest and later beat his charges at trial.
Prohibition created opportunities for liquor smugglers. Over a considerable time, Kerr made himself rich by employing very fast boats (often piloted by himself) to run liquor into New York State. He took the hazardous winters off and sponsored a local hockey team. More dangerous than the American coast guard, at least at first, was the local mafia, headed by the infamous bootlegger Rocco Perri. Kerr and Perri, however, eventually reached a modus vivendi.
The Americans put a large price on Kerr’s head and created a fleet of fast, heavily armed, boats to shut down the cross-lake smugglers. There was a mini-arms race on Lake Ontario in which, Kerr, always a risk-taker, was undeterred. He pushed his deliveries ever later in the winter, defying the danger of ice, in order to avoid the coast guard (who sensibly stayed in port).
Kerr’s belief in his invincibility eventually cost him his life in 1929. Ending a long mystery and rumours that Perri had had him killed, his boat was found in 1994. Kerr had almost got back to Canadian shore near Colborne when he became trapped in the ice. Eventually, he must have decided that he was close enough to shore to wade in. He wasn’t.
Kerr was born into a wealthy Hamilton family in 1884. Always rebellious and headstrong, he left school at age 13, eventually becoming a plumber by day and a ragtime pianist at night. Kerr first achieved notoriety by facing down the police who were arresting and harassing the public during a bitter strike by the city transit workers. Kerr escaped arrest and later beat his charges at trial.
Prohibition created opportunities for liquor smugglers. Over a considerable time, Kerr made himself rich by employing very fast boats (often piloted by himself) to run liquor into New York State. He took the hazardous winters off and sponsored a local hockey team. More dangerous than the American coast guard, at least at first, was the local mafia, headed by the infamous bootlegger Rocco Perri. Kerr and Perri, however, eventually reached a modus vivendi.
The Americans put a large price on Kerr’s head and created a fleet of fast, heavily armed, boats to shut down the cross-lake smugglers. There was a mini-arms race on Lake Ontario in which, Kerr, always a risk-taker, was undeterred. He pushed his deliveries ever later in the winter, defying the danger of ice, in order to avoid the coast guard (who sensibly stayed in port).
Kerr’s belief in his invincibility eventually cost him his life in 1929. Ending a long mystery and rumours that Perri had had him killed, his boat was found in 1994. Kerr had almost got back to Canadian shore near Colborne when he became trapped in the ice. Eventually, he must have decided that he was close enough to shore to wade in. He wasn’t.
le Carré, J. (2016). The pigeon tunnel: Stories from my life. Random House.
Le Carré recalls watching people putting pigeons in tunnels on a roof and then shooting at them when they escaped. Those they missed would return to the roof (their home after all) and the process repeated. Not a happy metaphor for one’s life. Le Carré was missed so many times coming out of the tunnel that he has grown very old.
There is a deep sadness underlying many of le Carré’s novels, perhaps attributable to his relationship with his psychopathic father—a genuine bounder. The memoir is a collection of stories, with no particular narrative arc.
Le Carré recalls watching people putting pigeons in tunnels on a roof and then shooting at them when they escaped. Those they missed would return to the roof (their home after all) and the process repeated. Not a happy metaphor for one’s life. Le Carré was missed so many times coming out of the tunnel that he has grown very old.
There is a deep sadness underlying many of le Carré’s novels, perhaps attributable to his relationship with his psychopathic father—a genuine bounder. The memoir is a collection of stories, with no particular narrative arc.
Irwin, W. Conard, M.T., & Skoble, AJ. (Eds). (2001). The Simpsons and philosophy: The D’oh! Of Homer. Chicago: Open Court.
Nice premise for a book. Most of the chapters present modern (post-Kantian) perspectives on ethical philosophy using examples from episodes of the Simpsons: For example, a chapter on how one should treat one’s neighbours, “Hey-diddily-ho, neighboreenos: Ned Flanders and neighborly love”. But some other philosophical topics are also covered—e.g., in “Homer and Aristotle” and “What Bart calls thinking”.
It is wonderful how much detail these authors know about the Simpsons. The best part of the book are the gags that are quoted throughout. A painless way for TV addicts to learn about philosophy.
Nice premise for a book. Most of the chapters present modern (post-Kantian) perspectives on ethical philosophy using examples from episodes of the Simpsons: For example, a chapter on how one should treat one’s neighbours, “Hey-diddily-ho, neighboreenos: Ned Flanders and neighborly love”. But some other philosophical topics are also covered—e.g., in “Homer and Aristotle” and “What Bart calls thinking”.
It is wonderful how much detail these authors know about the Simpsons. The best part of the book are the gags that are quoted throughout. A painless way for TV addicts to learn about philosophy.
Jaffe, E. (2014). A curious madness: An American combat psychiatrist, a Japanese war crimes suspect, and an unsolved mystery from World War II. Toronto: Scribner.
Okawa was a notorious right-wing activist in pre-war Japan. He was put on trial after the war and, bizarrely, while in court, slapped the head of the most prominent defendant, former Prime Minister Tojo Hideki. This incident and other odd behavior led to a consideration of whether he was unfit for trial on account of insanity. He was adjudged insane and escaped the noose. Many thought then and now that the slap and symptoms of madness were so convenient that they must have been feigned. Even more so, because in the years following the trial Okawa seemed to lead a normal life.
Jaffe’s grandfather, a taciturn “combat psychiatrist” performed the assessment for the prosecution that led to the controversial court decision. As an aside, the principal function of combat psychiatrists was to get freaked out soldiers back to the front quickly, a function that they could efficiently serve using tried and tested techniques developed for treating shell shocked soldiers during WWI—emphasize social bonding, normalize the fear, convince the afflicted that it’s only temporary.
It turns out that Okawa really had a psychiatric problem—general paresis. Paresis occurs when the syphilis spirochete attacks the central nervous system. The initial symptoms of this fatal malady include grandiosity; it later progresses to dementia. Okawa was treated with fever, the only treatment at the time that worked—and it did. They got it early and Okawa’s symptoms improved. A lucky infection!
Okawa and the right-wing nationalists actually had a very good case for their militancy. The US, Germany, Britain, and Russia had oppressed the east for decades with their militaristic, racist, colonial policies. Ironically, Okawa’s movement turned from resisting oppression to oppressing their neighbours. No guys in white hats in the Pacific War. I recall reading as a youth Bertrand Russell lamenting the old, old error of thinking that the oppressed were morally superior to their oppressors. How right he was.
Okawa was a notorious right-wing activist in pre-war Japan. He was put on trial after the war and, bizarrely, while in court, slapped the head of the most prominent defendant, former Prime Minister Tojo Hideki. This incident and other odd behavior led to a consideration of whether he was unfit for trial on account of insanity. He was adjudged insane and escaped the noose. Many thought then and now that the slap and symptoms of madness were so convenient that they must have been feigned. Even more so, because in the years following the trial Okawa seemed to lead a normal life.
Jaffe’s grandfather, a taciturn “combat psychiatrist” performed the assessment for the prosecution that led to the controversial court decision. As an aside, the principal function of combat psychiatrists was to get freaked out soldiers back to the front quickly, a function that they could efficiently serve using tried and tested techniques developed for treating shell shocked soldiers during WWI—emphasize social bonding, normalize the fear, convince the afflicted that it’s only temporary.
It turns out that Okawa really had a psychiatric problem—general paresis. Paresis occurs when the syphilis spirochete attacks the central nervous system. The initial symptoms of this fatal malady include grandiosity; it later progresses to dementia. Okawa was treated with fever, the only treatment at the time that worked—and it did. They got it early and Okawa’s symptoms improved. A lucky infection!
Okawa and the right-wing nationalists actually had a very good case for their militancy. The US, Germany, Britain, and Russia had oppressed the east for decades with their militaristic, racist, colonial policies. Ironically, Okawa’s movement turned from resisting oppression to oppressing their neighbours. No guys in white hats in the Pacific War. I recall reading as a youth Bertrand Russell lamenting the old, old error of thinking that the oppressed were morally superior to their oppressors. How right he was.
Jones, H. (2008). The Bay of Pigs. Oxford University Press.
This is a description of the Bay of Pigs debacle. The invasion never had a chance of success because it was “planned” not by three, but by many stooges. Just how stupid this intervention was is something of a revelation, it makes the Dieppe Raid look like a product of good judgment. Many of the same factors of the two botched raids appear to have been at work—too many cooks, frequent changes in plans, increasing commitment to a bad idea, group-think, careerism, internal rivalries, wishful thinking, avoidance of being the bearer of bad news, and so forth. To these must be added in the case of the Bay of Pigs, a total lack of secrecy!
I suppose the most instructive aspect of this story is that no one, from Kennedy on down, was ever held politically or morally accountable.
This is a description of the Bay of Pigs debacle. The invasion never had a chance of success because it was “planned” not by three, but by many stooges. Just how stupid this intervention was is something of a revelation, it makes the Dieppe Raid look like a product of good judgment. Many of the same factors of the two botched raids appear to have been at work—too many cooks, frequent changes in plans, increasing commitment to a bad idea, group-think, careerism, internal rivalries, wishful thinking, avoidance of being the bearer of bad news, and so forth. To these must be added in the case of the Bay of Pigs, a total lack of secrecy!
I suppose the most instructive aspect of this story is that no one, from Kennedy on down, was ever held politically or morally accountable.
Kapica, J. (Ed.). (1985). Shocked and appalled: A century of letters to the Globe and Mail. Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys.
This collection of letters starts in 1885 and is designed to illustrate contemporary topics that concerned readers’ minds and trends in the style of letter writing. Some are included simply to amuse the reader—defenses of the flat earth hypothesis, for example. Included are some stunning examples of political acumen and modern thinking in old letters: For example, an 1885 globally informed critique of national policy and editorial pronouncements concerning the Riel Rebellion. Many of the letters, however, even the amusing ones, begin to appear to have been written primarily to advertise the cleverness of their authors. In the end, I don’t believe a book length compendium of letters can sustain a reader’s interest.
This collection of letters starts in 1885 and is designed to illustrate contemporary topics that concerned readers’ minds and trends in the style of letter writing. Some are included simply to amuse the reader—defenses of the flat earth hypothesis, for example. Included are some stunning examples of political acumen and modern thinking in old letters: For example, an 1885 globally informed critique of national policy and editorial pronouncements concerning the Riel Rebellion. Many of the letters, however, even the amusing ones, begin to appear to have been written primarily to advertise the cleverness of their authors. In the end, I don’t believe a book length compendium of letters can sustain a reader’s interest.
Kaplan, W. (2004). A secret trial: Brian Mulroney and the public trust. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
At times written in a stilted and even tedious manner, the author struggles to contain his moral outrage. Hell hath no fury like a lawyer publically betrayed. Kaplan had written a book defending Brian Mulroney against charges of corruption and then learned that Mulroney, upon stepping down as Prime Minister, had secretly accepted $225,000.00 in thousand dollar bills from indicted German arms dealer Karlheinz Schrieber.
The bulk of the book describes a bizarre secret trial in which it is at length discovered that Mulroney’s nemesis, reporter Stevie Cameron, was a secret RCMP informer. Both Cameron and Mulroney emerge from the trial and its aftermath totally discredited. The RCMP doesn’t fare much better. The high-priced legal helpers, of course, do rather well—doing their utmost to help the rich get a little richer and to avoid the rightful consequences of their betrayal of the public trust.
The Afterword, by Norman Spector, a former Mulroney aide, is a damning description of political corruption and moral decay (assuming that it used to be better) in Ottawa. Jesus, what a bunch.
At times written in a stilted and even tedious manner, the author struggles to contain his moral outrage. Hell hath no fury like a lawyer publically betrayed. Kaplan had written a book defending Brian Mulroney against charges of corruption and then learned that Mulroney, upon stepping down as Prime Minister, had secretly accepted $225,000.00 in thousand dollar bills from indicted German arms dealer Karlheinz Schrieber.
The bulk of the book describes a bizarre secret trial in which it is at length discovered that Mulroney’s nemesis, reporter Stevie Cameron, was a secret RCMP informer. Both Cameron and Mulroney emerge from the trial and its aftermath totally discredited. The RCMP doesn’t fare much better. The high-priced legal helpers, of course, do rather well—doing their utmost to help the rich get a little richer and to avoid the rightful consequences of their betrayal of the public trust.
The Afterword, by Norman Spector, a former Mulroney aide, is a damning description of political corruption and moral decay (assuming that it used to be better) in Ottawa. Jesus, what a bunch.
Katz, I. (Ed.). (2003). Salam Pax, The Baghdad Blog. Toronto: McArthur.
“Salam Pax” wrote an irreverent web journal from inside Iraq just before and during the Iraq War. At the time, no one knew who this person was and some suspected he was a spy or a plant by one of the parties. He comes across as a likable, very funny, astute, and sophisticated young man in the blog that is reprinted in this book. In a sense, the story has a happy ending for Salam Pax in that he is neither caught and executed by Saddam nor blown up by the Americans--rather he starts writing for the Guardian. Too bad about his country.
Kershaw, I. (2004). Making friends with Hitler: Lord Londonderry and Britain’s road to war. Toronto: Penguin.
The Marquess of Londonderry was one of many right-leaning English aristocrats who were partial to Hitler and Mussolini. These individuals, most of whom were traumatized by the first war, of the belief that the Treaty of Versailles was unfair to Germany, and annoyed at France’s vindictiveness and obstruction, thought to promote Anglo-German friendship through their personal informal connections. These approaches, in fact any diplomatic approaches, were doomed by Hitler’s territorial ambitions and duplicity.
Londonderry persisted in promoting Anglo-German friendship long after most others had given up. To his credit, in the thirties, Londonderry did want Britain to arm so that it could pursue a diplomatic rapprochement with Germany from a position of strength. The Chamberlain government, of course, pursued diplomatic solutions from a position of weakness very late in the game.
Londonderry spent the remainder of his life involved in bitter recriminations (he wasn’t Hitler’s dupe, or a Nazi, and he could have saved the day).
This book would have made a great article. OK, I’m exaggerating but it is very repetitious. Nevertheless, it’s always fun to read about English aristocrats—their sense of entitlement, their snobbery, and the great life they must have had at lavish balls and riding to the hounds. I must revisit Brideshead.
“Salam Pax” wrote an irreverent web journal from inside Iraq just before and during the Iraq War. At the time, no one knew who this person was and some suspected he was a spy or a plant by one of the parties. He comes across as a likable, very funny, astute, and sophisticated young man in the blog that is reprinted in this book. In a sense, the story has a happy ending for Salam Pax in that he is neither caught and executed by Saddam nor blown up by the Americans--rather he starts writing for the Guardian. Too bad about his country.
Kershaw, I. (2004). Making friends with Hitler: Lord Londonderry and Britain’s road to war. Toronto: Penguin.
The Marquess of Londonderry was one of many right-leaning English aristocrats who were partial to Hitler and Mussolini. These individuals, most of whom were traumatized by the first war, of the belief that the Treaty of Versailles was unfair to Germany, and annoyed at France’s vindictiveness and obstruction, thought to promote Anglo-German friendship through their personal informal connections. These approaches, in fact any diplomatic approaches, were doomed by Hitler’s territorial ambitions and duplicity.
Londonderry persisted in promoting Anglo-German friendship long after most others had given up. To his credit, in the thirties, Londonderry did want Britain to arm so that it could pursue a diplomatic rapprochement with Germany from a position of strength. The Chamberlain government, of course, pursued diplomatic solutions from a position of weakness very late in the game.
Londonderry spent the remainder of his life involved in bitter recriminations (he wasn’t Hitler’s dupe, or a Nazi, and he could have saved the day).
This book would have made a great article. OK, I’m exaggerating but it is very repetitious. Nevertheless, it’s always fun to read about English aristocrats—their sense of entitlement, their snobbery, and the great life they must have had at lavish balls and riding to the hounds. I must revisit Brideshead.
Kessler, D. (2001). A question of intent: A great American battle with a deadly industry. NY: PublicAffairs.
Tobacco farming made lots of money for the tobacco industry and it was gradually taken over by accountants and lawyers with predictable results. “Amoral” is far too weak a term to describe these people. For example, they stopped research on a nicotine delivery device (cigarette) that was less likely to cause cancer because such work would make them vulnerable to lawsuits by showing that they knew that cigarettes were carcinogenic. The goal of the companies was to addict adolescents to nicotine before they knew any better (“if they’ve got lips, we want them”).
Kessler, as head of the US federal Food and Drug Administration, led the battle to regulate cigarettes as a drug (the cigarette companies resisted strenuously, secretly, and without scruple). The difficulty of the battle illustrates the weakness of the American government as compared to wealthy corporations. The book is very entertaining, if infuriating, reading because it presents an insider’s view of big-time bureaucratic/corporate struggles and damns the companies by reproducing some of their private memoranda.
Tobacco farming made lots of money for the tobacco industry and it was gradually taken over by accountants and lawyers with predictable results. “Amoral” is far too weak a term to describe these people. For example, they stopped research on a nicotine delivery device (cigarette) that was less likely to cause cancer because such work would make them vulnerable to lawsuits by showing that they knew that cigarettes were carcinogenic. The goal of the companies was to addict adolescents to nicotine before they knew any better (“if they’ve got lips, we want them”).
Kessler, as head of the US federal Food and Drug Administration, led the battle to regulate cigarettes as a drug (the cigarette companies resisted strenuously, secretly, and without scruple). The difficulty of the battle illustrates the weakness of the American government as compared to wealthy corporations. The book is very entertaining, if infuriating, reading because it presents an insider’s view of big-time bureaucratic/corporate struggles and damns the companies by reproducing some of their private memoranda.
Kilzer, L. (2000). Hitler’s traitor: Martin Bormann and the defeat of the Reich. Novato, CA: Presidio Press.
The Third Reich was mind-boggingly porous. There was Ultra with which the British decoded most of the German military orders. But then there were also two important Russian spy rings that radioed information to “the Center” in Moscow. By far the most important of these rings received information from a person or persons code-named “Werther”. This person has never been identified and the Center did not itself know who Werther was. This book argues that Werther was none other than Martin Bormann, the de facto second in command of the Reich in the final months of the war.
Amazingly, Werther’s reports of Hitler’s meetings with the generals would be radioed to the Center within hours. These were not simply memoranda and orders but descriptions of the discussions themselves—who thought what, what disagreements there were, how firm the decisions taken, what options were considered, and so forth. The Center took to asking Werther specific questions about what the Soviets needed to know in the next few days and generally received detailed answers in time. Despite Stalin’s paranoia (he was prone to execute his spies because their jobs entailed too much contact with Westerners), Stalin came to depend on Werther.
Of course, I can’t evaluate the author’s claim that Bormann was the guilty party but he did appear to be in all the right places at the right times and one of his mistresses was a communist.
The Third Reich was mind-boggingly porous. There was Ultra with which the British decoded most of the German military orders. But then there were also two important Russian spy rings that radioed information to “the Center” in Moscow. By far the most important of these rings received information from a person or persons code-named “Werther”. This person has never been identified and the Center did not itself know who Werther was. This book argues that Werther was none other than Martin Bormann, the de facto second in command of the Reich in the final months of the war.
Amazingly, Werther’s reports of Hitler’s meetings with the generals would be radioed to the Center within hours. These were not simply memoranda and orders but descriptions of the discussions themselves—who thought what, what disagreements there were, how firm the decisions taken, what options were considered, and so forth. The Center took to asking Werther specific questions about what the Soviets needed to know in the next few days and generally received detailed answers in time. Despite Stalin’s paranoia (he was prone to execute his spies because their jobs entailed too much contact with Westerners), Stalin came to depend on Werther.
Of course, I can’t evaluate the author’s claim that Bormann was the guilty party but he did appear to be in all the right places at the right times and one of his mistresses was a communist.
Kitz, J.F. (1989). Shattered City: The Halifax explosion and the road to recovery. Halifax, NS: Nimbus.
This is the sad story of the 1917 explosion in Halifax Harbour told from contemporary documents and interviews with aged survivors. Two ships, one of them carrying tons of munitions, gently collided. The boat carrying the explosives caught fire and everyone went to their windows or down to the docks to watch. Thus it was that the ensuing terrific explosion caused 1600 deaths and 9000 injuries, many of the latter eye injuries from shards of glass. The entire downtown was wrecked, much of it obliterated, and the damage extended well into the suburbs. To add to the misery, a blizzard descended on the city the next day.
Relief efforts began immediately and became better organized with time. A great deal of help came from the US, particularly Boston. The first tasks were to find all of the wounded, identify the bodies, repair hospitals, set up tents, and later, temporary housing. Help in the form of pensions continued for decades. Some of the stories are sad beyond belief, for example, social workers trying to find alternate living situations for children whose parents had been both blinded and physically disabled. Or, soldiers learning that their families had been killed back home while they lay in the mud of Flanders.
The cause of the collision appears to be human error made easy by some rather lax navigational rules and practices.
The book, however, is simply a chronicle of the tragedy, much of it consisting of stories about individuals and their families. It starts to read a bit like a sad catalog.
This is the sad story of the 1917 explosion in Halifax Harbour told from contemporary documents and interviews with aged survivors. Two ships, one of them carrying tons of munitions, gently collided. The boat carrying the explosives caught fire and everyone went to their windows or down to the docks to watch. Thus it was that the ensuing terrific explosion caused 1600 deaths and 9000 injuries, many of the latter eye injuries from shards of glass. The entire downtown was wrecked, much of it obliterated, and the damage extended well into the suburbs. To add to the misery, a blizzard descended on the city the next day.
Relief efforts began immediately and became better organized with time. A great deal of help came from the US, particularly Boston. The first tasks were to find all of the wounded, identify the bodies, repair hospitals, set up tents, and later, temporary housing. Help in the form of pensions continued for decades. Some of the stories are sad beyond belief, for example, social workers trying to find alternate living situations for children whose parents had been both blinded and physically disabled. Or, soldiers learning that their families had been killed back home while they lay in the mud of Flanders.
The cause of the collision appears to be human error made easy by some rather lax navigational rules and practices.
The book, however, is simply a chronicle of the tragedy, much of it consisting of stories about individuals and their families. It starts to read a bit like a sad catalog.
Knight, A. (2005). How the cold war began: The Gouzenko affair and the hunt for soviet spies. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.
Weeks after WW II ended, Igor Gouzenko, a Soviet cipher clerk, managed with some difficulty to give himself up to the RCMP in Ottawa. Gouzenko’s revelations of spying made even the over-polite and trusting Canadians somewhat paranoid. South of the border they had profound effects, leading to the Hiss affair and the HUAC investigations. Interesting material on the start of the cold war.
Weeks after WW II ended, Igor Gouzenko, a Soviet cipher clerk, managed with some difficulty to give himself up to the RCMP in Ottawa. Gouzenko’s revelations of spying made even the over-polite and trusting Canadians somewhat paranoid. South of the border they had profound effects, leading to the Hiss affair and the HUAC investigations. Interesting material on the start of the cold war.
Landes, D.S. (1998). The wealth and poverty of nations: Why some are so rich and some so poor. NY: Norton.
Sort of a Guns, Germs, and Steel without the anthropology and biology. Landes attempts to explain why some nations are rich and some poor (Switzerland, the wealthiest nation, is 400 times richer than the poorest, Mozambique). These great differences are very recent--previously the world’s nations were more egalitarian in their poverty.
The book presents a series of economic histories in an attempt to find patterns in changes in wealth (bad examples, Spain’s reliance on plunder, and good examples, Japan’s work ethic). Landes has clearly grown very tired of political correctness and ritual criticisms of Western thought and institutions. He identifies the roots of wealth in technological improvement, political stability, property rights, adherence to a work ethic, and so forth. All very sensible, with no hope of a panacea. The most interesting and compelling part of the book is his examination of when and where industrial revolutions occurred—e.g., why was England first?
Sort of a Guns, Germs, and Steel without the anthropology and biology. Landes attempts to explain why some nations are rich and some poor (Switzerland, the wealthiest nation, is 400 times richer than the poorest, Mozambique). These great differences are very recent--previously the world’s nations were more egalitarian in their poverty.
The book presents a series of economic histories in an attempt to find patterns in changes in wealth (bad examples, Spain’s reliance on plunder, and good examples, Japan’s work ethic). Landes has clearly grown very tired of political correctness and ritual criticisms of Western thought and institutions. He identifies the roots of wealth in technological improvement, political stability, property rights, adherence to a work ethic, and so forth. All very sensible, with no hope of a panacea. The most interesting and compelling part of the book is his examination of when and where industrial revolutions occurred—e.g., why was England first?
Laurie, R. (2002). Sakharov: A biography. London: Brandeis University Press.
This is a very well written biography–a real page turner. The author effectively communicates his admiration for Sakharov. And Sakharov does seem to have been a fine and incredibly bright man. He was also extremely lucky not to have been shot. As Stalin, with his inimitable humour, remarked to Beria concerning some uppity physicists–“never mind, we can always shoot them later.” Stalin was a real card, he also said something like “a few deaths are a tragedy, a million just a statistic.”
The context of Sakharov’s life also provides a very nice overview of post-WW II political history, with compelling portraits of all the famous Russian rulers.
Sakharov shared the American physicists’ opinion that their views on the use of the bomb should prevail because they knew how it worked and could calculate its effects. A combination of hubris and breathtaking naivete. Sakharov, for example, calculated the number of deaths that would be caused by each nuclear test (a surprisingly high number) and thought that the Kremlin should cease testing on this basis. The Russians, however, were only marginally more interested in this side effect than the Americans.
Sakharov recounted a wonderfully ironic story about an occasion when he got carried away with his weapons work and approached a naval officer about some issues concerning a multi-megaton torpedo upon which he was working. The officer was horrified by the very idea of the massive and indiscriminate slaughter the torpedo would produce and Sakharov suddenly found himself chastened and on the very wrong side of the issue.
Sakharov’s most remarkable characteristic was his independence of mind. Not completely independent of course, but remarkably free given his education, incentives to conform, and penalties for non-conforming. Extremely few would have done so well in similar circumstances.
There are many stories about the KGB in this volume. It makes one think that the secret police are the same everywhere–mean-spirited ideologues given to impractical, foolish, and expensive schemes. It’s hard for North Americans to imagine living in a totalitarian police state–such a place inevitably becomes a land of hypocrites.
This is a very well written biography–a real page turner. The author effectively communicates his admiration for Sakharov. And Sakharov does seem to have been a fine and incredibly bright man. He was also extremely lucky not to have been shot. As Stalin, with his inimitable humour, remarked to Beria concerning some uppity physicists–“never mind, we can always shoot them later.” Stalin was a real card, he also said something like “a few deaths are a tragedy, a million just a statistic.”
The context of Sakharov’s life also provides a very nice overview of post-WW II political history, with compelling portraits of all the famous Russian rulers.
Sakharov shared the American physicists’ opinion that their views on the use of the bomb should prevail because they knew how it worked and could calculate its effects. A combination of hubris and breathtaking naivete. Sakharov, for example, calculated the number of deaths that would be caused by each nuclear test (a surprisingly high number) and thought that the Kremlin should cease testing on this basis. The Russians, however, were only marginally more interested in this side effect than the Americans.
Sakharov recounted a wonderfully ironic story about an occasion when he got carried away with his weapons work and approached a naval officer about some issues concerning a multi-megaton torpedo upon which he was working. The officer was horrified by the very idea of the massive and indiscriminate slaughter the torpedo would produce and Sakharov suddenly found himself chastened and on the very wrong side of the issue.
Sakharov’s most remarkable characteristic was his independence of mind. Not completely independent of course, but remarkably free given his education, incentives to conform, and penalties for non-conforming. Extremely few would have done so well in similar circumstances.
There are many stories about the KGB in this volume. It makes one think that the secret police are the same everywhere–mean-spirited ideologues given to impractical, foolish, and expensive schemes. It’s hard for North Americans to imagine living in a totalitarian police state–such a place inevitably becomes a land of hypocrites.
Larson, E.J. (1997). Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s continuing debate over science and religion. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
Yet another account of the famous encounter between William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow. Larson argues that the fundamentalists did not see this encounter as a failure and that the evolutionist cause was harmed by Darrow’s unkind characterization of Bryan following his death soon after the debate. The victory of the evolutionists arose from Spencer Tracy’s performance in the much later movie about the monkey trial.
The best part of the book describes how the Scopes trial was set up in a good natured attempt to lure some commerce and tourists to rural Tennessee.
Yet another account of the famous encounter between William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow. Larson argues that the fundamentalists did not see this encounter as a failure and that the evolutionist cause was harmed by Darrow’s unkind characterization of Bryan following his death soon after the debate. The victory of the evolutionists arose from Spencer Tracy’s performance in the much later movie about the monkey trial.
The best part of the book describes how the Scopes trial was set up in a good natured attempt to lure some commerce and tourists to rural Tennessee.
Le Beau, B.F. (2003). The atheist: Madalyn Murray O’Hair. NY: New York University Press.
Madalyn O’Hair was once the most hated women in America—it all began with her lawsuit on behalf of her son that ended with the prohibition of prayers in the public schools. Madalyn was a publicity hound, somewhat eccentric, and often abrasive. She became the spokesperson for American atheists in the sixties, challenging “In God we trust” on American currency, “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, and the tax exempt status of churches.
In 1995, God eventually got even. In a bizarre sequence of events, Madalyn, her son, and her granddaughter were kidnapped and murdered by some vicious ex-cons, one of whom Madalyn had formerly employed in her work for the American Atheists organization.
LeBeau’s book is pretty good but drags a bit at times, partly because of too much detail and partly because Madalyn is not that appealing or interesting.
Madalyn O’Hair was once the most hated women in America—it all began with her lawsuit on behalf of her son that ended with the prohibition of prayers in the public schools. Madalyn was a publicity hound, somewhat eccentric, and often abrasive. She became the spokesperson for American atheists in the sixties, challenging “In God we trust” on American currency, “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, and the tax exempt status of churches.
In 1995, God eventually got even. In a bizarre sequence of events, Madalyn, her son, and her granddaughter were kidnapped and murdered by some vicious ex-cons, one of whom Madalyn had formerly employed in her work for the American Atheists organization.
LeBeau’s book is pretty good but drags a bit at times, partly because of too much detail and partly because Madalyn is not that appealing or interesting.
Leibovich, M. (2002). The new imperialists. Toronto: Prentice Hall.
A profoundly uninteresting book about guys who made fortunes in new technology companies. It’s not at all clear why they are labeled “imperialists”. The author tries to explain their success and vaulting ambition through superficial psychologizing (some of them had disappointments and loss in adolescence…and so forth). Of course, one can’t tell whether these successes are any different than the many guys who tried and failed or succeeded more modestly. One thing I learned though, is that at least some of them, like Bill Gates, are godawful smart!
A profoundly uninteresting book about guys who made fortunes in new technology companies. It’s not at all clear why they are labeled “imperialists”. The author tries to explain their success and vaulting ambition through superficial psychologizing (some of them had disappointments and loss in adolescence…and so forth). Of course, one can’t tell whether these successes are any different than the many guys who tried and failed or succeeded more modestly. One thing I learned though, is that at least some of them, like Bill Gates, are godawful smart!
Lukacs, J. (1990). The duel: The eighty-day struggle between Churchill and Hitler. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
This book focuses on the brief time period when Hitler could have overrun England. A very dramatic bit of history indeed. Suspenseful reading even though you know what's going to happen.
This book focuses on the brief time period when Hitler could have overrun England. A very dramatic bit of history indeed. Suspenseful reading even though you know what's going to happen.
Lundy, D. (2006). The bloody red hand: A journey through truth, myth and terror in Northern Ireland. Toronto: Knopf.
This is a personalized account of the long history of Irish sectarian violence. The author was born in Northern Ireland but immigrated as a child to Canada. He returns to his roots during the “troubles”. Lundy describes the history with a view to revealing how myth (or propaganda) has been used to keep the conflict going and how far the myths are from what actually appears to have happened historically. Well worth reading.
And the bloody red hand? The legend goes of future colonists of ancient Ireland heading for the Irish shore by boat. The first man there would get to claim the land. One man gave himself a leg up by cutting off his hand and throwing it ashore.
This is a personalized account of the long history of Irish sectarian violence. The author was born in Northern Ireland but immigrated as a child to Canada. He returns to his roots during the “troubles”. Lundy describes the history with a view to revealing how myth (or propaganda) has been used to keep the conflict going and how far the myths are from what actually appears to have happened historically. Well worth reading.
And the bloody red hand? The legend goes of future colonists of ancient Ireland heading for the Irish shore by boat. The first man there would get to claim the land. One man gave himself a leg up by cutting off his hand and throwing it ashore.
Macintyre, B. (1997). The Napoleon of crime: The life and times of Adam Worth, master thief. NY: Broadway.
Adam Worth (1844-1902) joined the New York underworld shortly after the civil war (in which he had officially “died”). The sheer size of this underworld and its colourful characters is astonishing. Worth committed crimes (especially bank burglaries) with impunity for decades. A man of many aliases, he moved to England where he lived a lavish life as a gentleman in London. While there, he stole one of the most celebrated paintings in the world (Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire by Gainsborough), apparently fell in love with it, and kept it with him for long periods.
Uncharacteristically, Worth committed an impulsive robbery in Belgium that led to his downfall. After his release from prison, he formed a friendship of sorts with William Pinkerton to whom he related the events of his remarkable life. Pinkerton brokered the return of the Gainsborough to its rightful owners in England (Worth received 25,000 dollars). Worth’s son became a Pinkerton detective.
Well done and well worth (pun intended) a read.
Adam Worth (1844-1902) joined the New York underworld shortly after the civil war (in which he had officially “died”). The sheer size of this underworld and its colourful characters is astonishing. Worth committed crimes (especially bank burglaries) with impunity for decades. A man of many aliases, he moved to England where he lived a lavish life as a gentleman in London. While there, he stole one of the most celebrated paintings in the world (Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire by Gainsborough), apparently fell in love with it, and kept it with him for long periods.
Uncharacteristically, Worth committed an impulsive robbery in Belgium that led to his downfall. After his release from prison, he formed a friendship of sorts with William Pinkerton to whom he related the events of his remarkable life. Pinkerton brokered the return of the Gainsborough to its rightful owners in England (Worth received 25,000 dollars). Worth’s son became a Pinkerton detective.
Well done and well worth (pun intended) a read.
Macintyre, B. (2010). Operation Mincemeat: How a dead man and a bizarre plan fooled the Nazis and assured an allied victory. NY: Random House.
You couldn’t make this stuff up. A very interesting and entertaining exposition of the ultimately successful but bizarre plot to mislead Germany about the area the allies had chosen for the invasion of fortress Europe.
I won’t spoil the story by divulging the details. OK, maybe I’ll spoil it a bit. The author’s view is that the success of the plot was ensured by the collusion of the German head of intelligence. This guy had become anti-Nazi by this point in the war, later being executed for his involvement in the attempt to assassinate Hitler.
You couldn’t make this stuff up. A very interesting and entertaining exposition of the ultimately successful but bizarre plot to mislead Germany about the area the allies had chosen for the invasion of fortress Europe.
I won’t spoil the story by divulging the details. OK, maybe I’ll spoil it a bit. The author’s view is that the success of the plot was ensured by the collusion of the German head of intelligence. This guy had become anti-Nazi by this point in the war, later being executed for his involvement in the attempt to assassinate Hitler.
Macintyre, B. (2014). A spy among friends: Kim Philby and the great betrayal. NY: Penguin.
Macintyre is a fabulous story teller. The guy one would most want to have around a campfire. I’ve loved all his books that I’ve read.
Hamlet’s complaint “That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain” is confirmed in spectacular fashion by Kim Philby’s life. A product of Eton and Cambridge, Philby (1912-1988) was an alcoholic charmer who was recruited by Soviet intelligence in 1934; he became the most effective member of the Cambridge Ring (Philby, Burgess, MacLean, and Blunt). Philby first worked as a journalist sympathetic to Franco’s fascists in Spain and later joined British counterintelligence, rising to become its head. After working in Turkey, Philby became the liaison between British intelligence and the CIA in Washington in 1949.
The quality of Philby’s information to the Russians was so good they intermittently suspected him of being a triple agent; it didn’t help that his handlers kept getting executed in Stalin’s purges. Russia had an aggressive spying operation directed against the West both before and during the Second War and assumed that the Western powers reciprocated. In the thirties, Philby was ordered to obtain a list of British agents spying on Russia. Philby discovered that while Britain was spying on several countries, it was not spying on Russia. Of course, the Russians couldn’t believe this—their national pride was hurt.
In 1951, Philby became suspect when Burgess and MacLean escaped arrest and defected to the Soviets. Philby dramatically faced down his accusers but had to resign from the secret service. He began working as a newspaper correspondent in Beirut, free-lancing for the British secret service and continuing to spy for the USSR. In 1963, he was informed that new information had come to light that proved he was a spy and he defected to Moscow. His life in Moscow was much drearier than he had expected and he was not really a colonel in the KGB as he had been told. The KGB kept him under surveillance for fear he would re-defect to the West.
Philby avoided detection for so long largely because he was a member of the old boy network (there really was an old boy network in class-ridden England). He was not only responsible for the deaths of many anticommunists but also ruined the lives of his closest colleagues; some, like the CIA chief, James Jesus Angleton, were consumed by paranoia for the remainder of their lives.
Spying, even for noble motives, is a very dirty business. It helps to have psychopathic traits and to secretly enjoy deceiving one’s friends. It is interesting in this connection that Philby serially seduced his friends’ wives. In the end, however, one wonders if the spying game is worth the candle--after all, the soviets soundly beat the West in the espionage war (it has been noted elsewhere for example that Stalin knew much more about the Manhattan Project than Truman did) but ended up collapsing themselves.
There is an interesting postscript written by John le Carré who personally knew most of the principals in the story.
Macintyre is a fabulous story teller. The guy one would most want to have around a campfire. I’ve loved all his books that I’ve read.
Hamlet’s complaint “That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain” is confirmed in spectacular fashion by Kim Philby’s life. A product of Eton and Cambridge, Philby (1912-1988) was an alcoholic charmer who was recruited by Soviet intelligence in 1934; he became the most effective member of the Cambridge Ring (Philby, Burgess, MacLean, and Blunt). Philby first worked as a journalist sympathetic to Franco’s fascists in Spain and later joined British counterintelligence, rising to become its head. After working in Turkey, Philby became the liaison between British intelligence and the CIA in Washington in 1949.
The quality of Philby’s information to the Russians was so good they intermittently suspected him of being a triple agent; it didn’t help that his handlers kept getting executed in Stalin’s purges. Russia had an aggressive spying operation directed against the West both before and during the Second War and assumed that the Western powers reciprocated. In the thirties, Philby was ordered to obtain a list of British agents spying on Russia. Philby discovered that while Britain was spying on several countries, it was not spying on Russia. Of course, the Russians couldn’t believe this—their national pride was hurt.
In 1951, Philby became suspect when Burgess and MacLean escaped arrest and defected to the Soviets. Philby dramatically faced down his accusers but had to resign from the secret service. He began working as a newspaper correspondent in Beirut, free-lancing for the British secret service and continuing to spy for the USSR. In 1963, he was informed that new information had come to light that proved he was a spy and he defected to Moscow. His life in Moscow was much drearier than he had expected and he was not really a colonel in the KGB as he had been told. The KGB kept him under surveillance for fear he would re-defect to the West.
Philby avoided detection for so long largely because he was a member of the old boy network (there really was an old boy network in class-ridden England). He was not only responsible for the deaths of many anticommunists but also ruined the lives of his closest colleagues; some, like the CIA chief, James Jesus Angleton, were consumed by paranoia for the remainder of their lives.
Spying, even for noble motives, is a very dirty business. It helps to have psychopathic traits and to secretly enjoy deceiving one’s friends. It is interesting in this connection that Philby serially seduced his friends’ wives. In the end, however, one wonders if the spying game is worth the candle--after all, the soviets soundly beat the West in the espionage war (it has been noted elsewhere for example that Stalin knew much more about the Manhattan Project than Truman did) but ended up collapsing themselves.
There is an interesting postscript written by John le Carré who personally knew most of the principals in the story.
MacMillan, M. (2001). Paris 1919. N.Y.: Random House.
This exceptionally informative and interesting book should be required reading for anyone who watches the news. I occasionally had the sense when reading this book that I finally understood the polictical geography of Europe and it was somewhat different than what I had imagined.
I think that people of my generation perceive the political map of the world as it existed in the years before the Second World War as the default or natural state of affairs--later changes appear to be derivative and somehow less natural. It seldom occurs to us that political boundaries in Europe have been in a continual state of flux throughout modern times. Many of the European political boundaries that existed in the thirties were drawn in the Treaty of Versailles that was negotiated (and sometimes dictated) at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. this book is about the conferernce and how it dealt with the shrinkage of Germany and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires, among many other territorial changes in other parts of the world.
The portraits of the principal protagonists (Woodrow Wilson, Georges Clemenceau, David Lloyd George, and Vittorio Orlando) are entertainingly drawn, and there are excellent cameo appearances by lesser and sometimes exotic figures from around the world. The descriptions of the many peronalities are very entertaining
Here, in no particular order, are some of the conclusions of this work. Wilson's 14 points elevated the tone of moral discourse, increased nationalist aspirations, and was fundamentally unworkable. The patchwork and intermixture of ethnic, linguistic, and religoius groups around the world usually meant that political boundaries could not be drawn without making some groups unhappy. Small countries behaved as selfishly, greedily, and insensitively as larger countries; the same was true for minorities. The major powers adopted a eurocentric view of the world. The Treaty of Versailles represtented compromises among the national self-interests of the victorious countries (weighted by the amount of blood and treasure lost in the war, the importance of the particular issue at hand to one of the four countries concerned, and the amount of the particular country's post-war military power). The French were justifiably afraid of a recovered Germany and everyone was afraid of the Bolsheviks. The English threw in their lot with the Americans. As the conference continued, the amount of influence of its decisions steadily declined with the demobilization of the armies - decisions were sometimes made that were unenforceable or easily reversed by the locals.
The conferees were certainly conscientious. Nevertheless, the complexity of the very many decisions that had to be made defied the limitations of the human intellect. Decisions were sometimes influenced by wishful thinking, ignorance of local conditions, the propaganda of particular groups, the personalities of particular leaders, shocking publicized incidents, and sheer mental exhaustion. In the end, the leaders behaved like policitical and bureaucratic leaders do everywhere when making complex decisions under extreme time pressure - according to an informal mixture of expediency, unexamined preconceptions, mutual social influence and satisfiscing.
This exceptionally informative and interesting book should be required reading for anyone who watches the news. I occasionally had the sense when reading this book that I finally understood the polictical geography of Europe and it was somewhat different than what I had imagined.
I think that people of my generation perceive the political map of the world as it existed in the years before the Second World War as the default or natural state of affairs--later changes appear to be derivative and somehow less natural. It seldom occurs to us that political boundaries in Europe have been in a continual state of flux throughout modern times. Many of the European political boundaries that existed in the thirties were drawn in the Treaty of Versailles that was negotiated (and sometimes dictated) at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. this book is about the conferernce and how it dealt with the shrinkage of Germany and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires, among many other territorial changes in other parts of the world.
The portraits of the principal protagonists (Woodrow Wilson, Georges Clemenceau, David Lloyd George, and Vittorio Orlando) are entertainingly drawn, and there are excellent cameo appearances by lesser and sometimes exotic figures from around the world. The descriptions of the many peronalities are very entertaining
Here, in no particular order, are some of the conclusions of this work. Wilson's 14 points elevated the tone of moral discourse, increased nationalist aspirations, and was fundamentally unworkable. The patchwork and intermixture of ethnic, linguistic, and religoius groups around the world usually meant that political boundaries could not be drawn without making some groups unhappy. Small countries behaved as selfishly, greedily, and insensitively as larger countries; the same was true for minorities. The major powers adopted a eurocentric view of the world. The Treaty of Versailles represtented compromises among the national self-interests of the victorious countries (weighted by the amount of blood and treasure lost in the war, the importance of the particular issue at hand to one of the four countries concerned, and the amount of the particular country's post-war military power). The French were justifiably afraid of a recovered Germany and everyone was afraid of the Bolsheviks. The English threw in their lot with the Americans. As the conference continued, the amount of influence of its decisions steadily declined with the demobilization of the armies - decisions were sometimes made that were unenforceable or easily reversed by the locals.
The conferees were certainly conscientious. Nevertheless, the complexity of the very many decisions that had to be made defied the limitations of the human intellect. Decisions were sometimes influenced by wishful thinking, ignorance of local conditions, the propaganda of particular groups, the personalities of particular leaders, shocking publicized incidents, and sheer mental exhaustion. In the end, the leaders behaved like policitical and bureaucratic leaders do everywhere when making complex decisions under extreme time pressure - according to an informal mixture of expediency, unexamined preconceptions, mutual social influence and satisfiscing.
Mallan, C. (1995). Wrong time, wrong place? How two Canadians ended up in a Brazilian jail. Toronto: Key Reporter Books.
Che lives!!......... In Canada, in a pathetic Canadian sort of way. Christine Lamont, daughter of a British Columbia doctor and sometime student at Simon Fraser University became interested in Latin America and later an activist in the cause of the El Salvadorean revolutionaries. She teamed up with David Spencer, a budding left-wing activist from (of all places) Moncton, New Brunswick. They went to El Salvador and joined an international group of revolutionaries who organized a series of professional kidnappings of very wealthy Brazilians to raise money for the world-wide armed struggle against imperialism.
David and Christine were arrested with a bunch of South American revolutionaries and a very high profile hostage. The evidence against them was overwhelming, later including dozens of fraudulent Canadian identity papers bearing their photographs that was discovered after a bomb inadvertently went off in a Nicaraguan arms cache.
Christine’s mother, Marilyn, began and orchestrated a campaign to get her “innocent” daughter out of the clutches of those nasty Brazilians. The campaign, subsidized by the good doctor’s income (as was Christine’s fulltime activism in Canada), was very successful, being adopted by some dumb and/or opportunistic Canadian politicians, such as Bob Horner, Sven Robinson, and Lloyd Axworthy. The Canadian government ended up pissing off the Brazilians and probably delayed the release of Christine and David. Funny how those Brazilians don’t like being looked down on.
The Tory minister of foreign affairs, Barbara McDougall, is one of the few politicians who seems to have had some common sense.
All this is quite a tale and well presented.
Che lives!!......... In Canada, in a pathetic Canadian sort of way. Christine Lamont, daughter of a British Columbia doctor and sometime student at Simon Fraser University became interested in Latin America and later an activist in the cause of the El Salvadorean revolutionaries. She teamed up with David Spencer, a budding left-wing activist from (of all places) Moncton, New Brunswick. They went to El Salvador and joined an international group of revolutionaries who organized a series of professional kidnappings of very wealthy Brazilians to raise money for the world-wide armed struggle against imperialism.
David and Christine were arrested with a bunch of South American revolutionaries and a very high profile hostage. The evidence against them was overwhelming, later including dozens of fraudulent Canadian identity papers bearing their photographs that was discovered after a bomb inadvertently went off in a Nicaraguan arms cache.
Christine’s mother, Marilyn, began and orchestrated a campaign to get her “innocent” daughter out of the clutches of those nasty Brazilians. The campaign, subsidized by the good doctor’s income (as was Christine’s fulltime activism in Canada), was very successful, being adopted by some dumb and/or opportunistic Canadian politicians, such as Bob Horner, Sven Robinson, and Lloyd Axworthy. The Canadian government ended up pissing off the Brazilians and probably delayed the release of Christine and David. Funny how those Brazilians don’t like being looked down on.
The Tory minister of foreign affairs, Barbara McDougall, is one of the few politicians who seems to have had some common sense.
All this is quite a tale and well presented.
Mann, J. (2005). Out of harm’s way: The wartime evacuation of children from Britain. London: Headline.
The stories of many children who were evacuated to Canada, the U.S. and Australia are recounted here by a woman who was her self one of the evacuees. There are many aspects to this story with which I was unfamiliar. First, the evacuation was government sponsored (Churchill was against it but the discussion of the issue in cabinet was interrupted by the fall of France—the guy pushing the idea went ahead anyway and, once it was publicized, it was too late to take the decision back). The idea to have a government-sponsored evacuation was to avoid class strife caused by the fact that only people with money could afford to send their children abroad.
The decision to send a child away was heartbreaking for most parents and traumatic for many, but certainly not all, children. Many older children felt like cowards and resented their parents for sending them away. The children were away much longer than anyone anticipated, even after the war ended, transportation was extremely limited. Most traumatized were children who came home to find they had additional siblings. Many former evacuees found the poverty of post-war England difficult to get used to.
In general, most people now think that the evacuation was a big mistake. I imagine they might think differently had the Germans actually got across the channel and started rounding up Jews and shooting resisters.
The stories of many children who were evacuated to Canada, the U.S. and Australia are recounted here by a woman who was her self one of the evacuees. There are many aspects to this story with which I was unfamiliar. First, the evacuation was government sponsored (Churchill was against it but the discussion of the issue in cabinet was interrupted by the fall of France—the guy pushing the idea went ahead anyway and, once it was publicized, it was too late to take the decision back). The idea to have a government-sponsored evacuation was to avoid class strife caused by the fact that only people with money could afford to send their children abroad.
The decision to send a child away was heartbreaking for most parents and traumatic for many, but certainly not all, children. Many older children felt like cowards and resented their parents for sending them away. The children were away much longer than anyone anticipated, even after the war ended, transportation was extremely limited. Most traumatized were children who came home to find they had additional siblings. Many former evacuees found the poverty of post-war England difficult to get used to.
In general, most people now think that the evacuation was a big mistake. I imagine they might think differently had the Germans actually got across the channel and started rounding up Jews and shooting resisters.
Márquez, G.B. (1996). News of a kidnapping. N.Y.: Penquin (translated by E. Grossman).
Of course, the memory of Che doesn’t inspire all South American kidnappings. Unbelievable amounts of money in wretchedly poor Columbia can do the same. The awesome mark up of cocaine generated billions of dollars for the Medellin cartel, making them and their leader, Pablo Escobar, many enemies. This is the story of a number of journalists who were kidnapped by Escobar’s minions and held for months before their release or execution.
This book is not at all well written but is of interest because of its suspense and its portrait of the peculiarities of Colombian society. The bad guys are devout (and simple minded) peasant Catholics. The good guys are wealthy agnostics. All the rich people know each other. Everybody loves American and British pop music. Life is very cheap.......
Of course, the memory of Che doesn’t inspire all South American kidnappings. Unbelievable amounts of money in wretchedly poor Columbia can do the same. The awesome mark up of cocaine generated billions of dollars for the Medellin cartel, making them and their leader, Pablo Escobar, many enemies. This is the story of a number of journalists who were kidnapped by Escobar’s minions and held for months before their release or execution.
This book is not at all well written but is of interest because of its suspense and its portrait of the peculiarities of Colombian society. The bad guys are devout (and simple minded) peasant Catholics. The good guys are wealthy agnostics. All the rich people know each other. Everybody loves American and British pop music. Life is very cheap.......
Marsden, G.M. (1991). Understanding fundamentalism and evangelicalism. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
A sympathetic and knowledgeable description of a frequently misunderstood phenomenon. As Leahey (2001) notes, psychology has been largely an American enterprise. Psychology thus grew out of the Scottish realist tradition that dominated the intellectual life of 19th century America. Henry May (cited in Marsden, 1991) has described the influence of the European Enlightenment on America as comprising four parts.
“First is the early Moderate Enlightenment associated with Newton and Locke–the ideals of order, balance, and religious compromise. Second is the Skeptical Enlightenment, represented best by Voltaire and Hume. Third is the Revolutionary Enlightenment–the search for a new heaven on earth–that grew out of the thought of Rousseau. And fourth is the Didactic Enlightenment, stemming from Scottish Common Sense thought, which opposed skepticism and revolution but rescued the essentials of the earlier eighteenth-century commitments to science, rationality, order, and the Christian tradition.
Of these four types of the Enlightenment, only the first and the fourth had major lasting influence in the United States....According to the principles of Scottish philosophy, it appeared that the three great strands in American thought–modern empirical scientific ideals, the self-evident principles of the American Revolution, and evangelical Christianity–could be reconciled, or, rather, remain reconciled. Thus, the Scottish Enlightenment had a remarkable afterlife in the United States, dominating American academic life for the first six or seven decades of the nineteenth century.....So in the first heyday of evangelicism in the United States, objective scientific thought was not tinged with the guilt of fostering secularism. Rather it was boldly lauded as the best friend of the Christian faith and of Christian culture generally.” (Pp. 128-9).
By the close of the nineteenth century Protestants had adopted a two-tiered philosophy in which the empirically-derived laws of nature supported supernatural beliefs. The intellectual heroes of conservative theologians were Isaac Newton and Francis Bacon.
Leahey, T.H. (2001). A history of modern psychology, 3rd edition. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
A sympathetic and knowledgeable description of a frequently misunderstood phenomenon. As Leahey (2001) notes, psychology has been largely an American enterprise. Psychology thus grew out of the Scottish realist tradition that dominated the intellectual life of 19th century America. Henry May (cited in Marsden, 1991) has described the influence of the European Enlightenment on America as comprising four parts.
“First is the early Moderate Enlightenment associated with Newton and Locke–the ideals of order, balance, and religious compromise. Second is the Skeptical Enlightenment, represented best by Voltaire and Hume. Third is the Revolutionary Enlightenment–the search for a new heaven on earth–that grew out of the thought of Rousseau. And fourth is the Didactic Enlightenment, stemming from Scottish Common Sense thought, which opposed skepticism and revolution but rescued the essentials of the earlier eighteenth-century commitments to science, rationality, order, and the Christian tradition.
Of these four types of the Enlightenment, only the first and the fourth had major lasting influence in the United States....According to the principles of Scottish philosophy, it appeared that the three great strands in American thought–modern empirical scientific ideals, the self-evident principles of the American Revolution, and evangelical Christianity–could be reconciled, or, rather, remain reconciled. Thus, the Scottish Enlightenment had a remarkable afterlife in the United States, dominating American academic life for the first six or seven decades of the nineteenth century.....So in the first heyday of evangelicism in the United States, objective scientific thought was not tinged with the guilt of fostering secularism. Rather it was boldly lauded as the best friend of the Christian faith and of Christian culture generally.” (Pp. 128-9).
By the close of the nineteenth century Protestants had adopted a two-tiered philosophy in which the empirically-derived laws of nature supported supernatural beliefs. The intellectual heroes of conservative theologians were Isaac Newton and Francis Bacon.
Leahey, T.H. (2001). A history of modern psychology, 3rd edition. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Martin, L. (2010). Harperland: The politics of control. Toronto: Penguin.
This little book is a partisan attack on the prime minister. It argues that Harper’s policies are a fundamentally anti-democratic right-wing assault on traditional Canadian liberal values. Perhaps more than any other prime minister, Harper keeps not only his cabinet, but his caucus, and, to the degree he can, the civil service on a stranglingly tight leash.
Unfortunately, the book’s central thesis is likely correct.
This little book is a partisan attack on the prime minister. It argues that Harper’s policies are a fundamentally anti-democratic right-wing assault on traditional Canadian liberal values. Perhaps more than any other prime minister, Harper keeps not only his cabinet, but his caucus, and, to the degree he can, the civil service on a stranglingly tight leash.
Unfortunately, the book’s central thesis is likely correct.
Marton, K. (2016). True believer: Stalin’s last American spy. NY: Simon & Schuster.
The cold war sharply intensified when Ivor Gouzenko, a Russian spy working in Ottawa, defected in 1945 and revealed widespread Russian spying in the West. Among the highest profile Russian spies was Alger Hiss, an important official in the state department. Lesser known, almost forgotten now, was Noel Field, who worked for the League of Nations providing relief to the victims of the fascists in the Spanish Civil War and the Unitarian Service Committee in Vichy France before the German occupation. Field was well-educated and came from a Quaker family, providing him with excellent cover. Like many on the political left, he was duped by Stalin; almost alone, however, he maintained his loyalty to the party line until his death in 1970.
This is an excellent book with a mind-boggling story to tell. It’s too long to outline the tale here—suffice it to say that it is too bizarre to ever be mistaken for fiction. Espionage is inevitably a dirty, sordid, business: A life of betrayal and deception, no matter the worth of the cause, shouldn’t be wished on anyone. And, in this case, the cause was in fact evil.
Field managed to save many desperate communists from the Nazis, unwittingly sending them to torture and execution in eastern Europe and Russia (Stalin wanted the communists who had worked internationally against fascism dead). Field was later arrested and tortured himself in Hungary, as was his wife. First his brother and then his adopted daughter went to the Eastern block to effect his release. They were promptly imprisoned themselves. Field was accused of working for American intelligence services to justify the show trials and executions of party members he was falsely alleged to have suborned. After his release, Field remained in Budapest, his Stalinist beliefs intact, a dinosaur among the disillusioned.
Hard to imagine a more futile and destructive life; such, I suppose, is the fruit of righteous gullibility.
The cold war sharply intensified when Ivor Gouzenko, a Russian spy working in Ottawa, defected in 1945 and revealed widespread Russian spying in the West. Among the highest profile Russian spies was Alger Hiss, an important official in the state department. Lesser known, almost forgotten now, was Noel Field, who worked for the League of Nations providing relief to the victims of the fascists in the Spanish Civil War and the Unitarian Service Committee in Vichy France before the German occupation. Field was well-educated and came from a Quaker family, providing him with excellent cover. Like many on the political left, he was duped by Stalin; almost alone, however, he maintained his loyalty to the party line until his death in 1970.
This is an excellent book with a mind-boggling story to tell. It’s too long to outline the tale here—suffice it to say that it is too bizarre to ever be mistaken for fiction. Espionage is inevitably a dirty, sordid, business: A life of betrayal and deception, no matter the worth of the cause, shouldn’t be wished on anyone. And, in this case, the cause was in fact evil.
Field managed to save many desperate communists from the Nazis, unwittingly sending them to torture and execution in eastern Europe and Russia (Stalin wanted the communists who had worked internationally against fascism dead). Field was later arrested and tortured himself in Hungary, as was his wife. First his brother and then his adopted daughter went to the Eastern block to effect his release. They were promptly imprisoned themselves. Field was accused of working for American intelligence services to justify the show trials and executions of party members he was falsely alleged to have suborned. After his release, Field remained in Budapest, his Stalinist beliefs intact, a dinosaur among the disillusioned.
Hard to imagine a more futile and destructive life; such, I suppose, is the fruit of righteous gullibility.
Massie, R.K. (1991). Dreadnaught: Britain, Germany, and the coming of the Great War. New York: Random House.
This great fat book is the best I've read in quite some time. I was very sorry to have it end. The narrative captures the flavor of the times. It documents the interplay of personalities, politics, and strategic constraints in bringing about history's greatest tragedy. The author is not afraid to express his admiration or disapproval for those individuals who, by his documentation, are deserving. The portraits of the key figures, particularly of Sir Edward Grey and the Kaiser, are unforgettable.
The greatest irony manifest in this account is that competence and strength of character were as instrumental as stupidity and childishness in creating the chain of events that swept Europe over the brink.
Because of the incredible amount of documentation concerning this pivotal period of modern history, there are a great many books for layfolk. Before reading Massie's book, my favorite historian had been Barbara Tuchman. I still recommend her books on this subject highly: The Proud Tower (the history of the prewar disarmament movement), The Guns of August (about the critical first month of the war), and The Zimmerman Telegram (concerning the entry of the Americans into the war). The Guns of August makes a great sequel to the Dreadnaught book.
For a more complete picture of the antecedents to the war, the Archduke and the Assassin: Sarajevo, June 28th, 1914 (L. Cassels, 1985, Briar Cliff Manor, NY: Stein & Day) fills out the picture on the Austrian Empire and Balkan side. The dying Archduke's exhortation to his already dead wife (it was a love match that had cost him dearly) "Sophie, Sophie, don't die! Live for my children!" makes a suitably pathetic beginning to the war.
This great fat book is the best I've read in quite some time. I was very sorry to have it end. The narrative captures the flavor of the times. It documents the interplay of personalities, politics, and strategic constraints in bringing about history's greatest tragedy. The author is not afraid to express his admiration or disapproval for those individuals who, by his documentation, are deserving. The portraits of the key figures, particularly of Sir Edward Grey and the Kaiser, are unforgettable.
The greatest irony manifest in this account is that competence and strength of character were as instrumental as stupidity and childishness in creating the chain of events that swept Europe over the brink.
Because of the incredible amount of documentation concerning this pivotal period of modern history, there are a great many books for layfolk. Before reading Massie's book, my favorite historian had been Barbara Tuchman. I still recommend her books on this subject highly: The Proud Tower (the history of the prewar disarmament movement), The Guns of August (about the critical first month of the war), and The Zimmerman Telegram (concerning the entry of the Americans into the war). The Guns of August makes a great sequel to the Dreadnaught book.
For a more complete picture of the antecedents to the war, the Archduke and the Assassin: Sarajevo, June 28th, 1914 (L. Cassels, 1985, Briar Cliff Manor, NY: Stein & Day) fills out the picture on the Austrian Empire and Balkan side. The dying Archduke's exhortation to his already dead wife (it was a love match that had cost him dearly) "Sophie, Sophie, don't die! Live for my children!" makes a suitably pathetic beginning to the war.
Massie, R.K. (1995). The Romanovs: The final chapter. N.Y.: Ballantine.
Massie is a historian who wrote one of my favourite books, Dreadnaught: Britain, Germany, and the coming of the Great War. I had been looking for his book on the Romanovs and instead found his brief post-Romanov book on what happened to their remains.
Much of this tale has to do with forensic anthropology and DNA evidence. It’s quite interesting. At the human level, the villain of the piece is Dr. William Maples of Dead men do tell tales (which I didn’t like much). The sin of hubris leads Maples to make a fool of himself.
The book also provides a glimpse into how screwed up Russia is. It appears almost anarchic.
Massie is a historian who wrote one of my favourite books, Dreadnaught: Britain, Germany, and the coming of the Great War. I had been looking for his book on the Romanovs and instead found his brief post-Romanov book on what happened to their remains.
Much of this tale has to do with forensic anthropology and DNA evidence. It’s quite interesting. At the human level, the villain of the piece is Dr. William Maples of Dead men do tell tales (which I didn’t like much). The sin of hubris leads Maples to make a fool of himself.
The book also provides a glimpse into how screwed up Russia is. It appears almost anarchic.
McGoogan, K. (2001). Fatal passage: The untold story of John Rae, the arctic adventurer who discovered the fate of Franklin. Toronto: Harper.
John Rae was a truly remarkable man, sadly neglected by history. His neglect is largely because he came up with the politically incorrect answer about Franklin’s fate–his men perished miserably as starving cannibals. Franklin’s indomitable widow and the self-interest of the British Navy ensured that Rae did not get his historical or public due as discoverer of what happened to the Franklin expedition or of the long sought-after Northwest Passage.
Rae travelled Indian or Inuit style with small numbers of men, mostly aboriginal. He was a fabulous shot, enabling his men to live off the land while carrying few supplies, an excellent canoeist and small boat sailor, and probably the best snowshoer ever. In all his expeditions he only lost one man, and him to a freak accident. Rae thought nothing of travelling by himself from Hudson’s Bay to Montreal to Winnipeg and back.
There is lots of interesting and little known history in this book and some useful nuggets of information should you do a little winter camping in the arctic. For example, if your roof is made of snow, your breath won’t condense on it and drip on you.
John Rae was a truly remarkable man, sadly neglected by history. His neglect is largely because he came up with the politically incorrect answer about Franklin’s fate–his men perished miserably as starving cannibals. Franklin’s indomitable widow and the self-interest of the British Navy ensured that Rae did not get his historical or public due as discoverer of what happened to the Franklin expedition or of the long sought-after Northwest Passage.
Rae travelled Indian or Inuit style with small numbers of men, mostly aboriginal. He was a fabulous shot, enabling his men to live off the land while carrying few supplies, an excellent canoeist and small boat sailor, and probably the best snowshoer ever. In all his expeditions he only lost one man, and him to a freak accident. Rae thought nothing of travelling by himself from Hudson’s Bay to Montreal to Winnipeg and back.
There is lots of interesting and little known history in this book and some useful nuggets of information should you do a little winter camping in the arctic. For example, if your roof is made of snow, your breath won’t condense on it and drip on you.
McNab, A. (1993). Bravo Two Zero. New York: Dell.
An incredible story of endurance behind the Iraqi lines during the Gulf War. If this is all true, McNab is very lucky to have survived, even though at times he was probably wishing he wouldn’t. The Iraqis are not nice captors. The special forces are remarkably well trained and well equipped. One gains an appreciation for the planning and preparation required for even a very small scale operation behind enemy lines.
An incredible story of endurance behind the Iraqi lines during the Gulf War. If this is all true, McNab is very lucky to have survived, even though at times he was probably wishing he wouldn’t. The Iraqis are not nice captors. The special forces are remarkably well trained and well equipped. One gains an appreciation for the planning and preparation required for even a very small scale operation behind enemy lines.
Medvedev, Zh.Z. (1969). The rise and fall of T.D. Lysenko. Translated by I.M. Lerner. N.Y.: Columbia University Press.
I found this book by accident. What a find!!! Medvedev was a participant in the final phase of the Lysenko farce/tragedy. The first two parts of the book were refused publication and circulated in the mimeo underground of the USSR. When it became known, another, unrelated Medvedev was fired before it was discovered he was the wrong guy. Which says something about the efficiency of the system under discussion.
Lysenko, among other silly things, thought that new species were directly created in response to environmental conditions out of old, as well as by spontaneous generation. Genes didn't exist and organisms sacrificed themselves for the good of the species. Genetics was linked to fascism, racism, bourgeois science, and foreign influence.
Lysenko's opponents, such as the distinguished academician Vavilov, were first vilified in the newspapers and scientific journals as Menshiviking idealists, anti-Darwinists, Morganist-Mendelists, Trotskyites, and toadies of the Western scientific establishment, then arrested. Most perished, Vavilov from starvation.
The agricultural losses in the USSR were staggering. Lysenko developed the questionnaire method of measuring the results of his innovations. Agricultural workers generally gave the "right" answers but when there were problems, data were simply falsified. After the first war, the civil war, the second war, and the agricultural debacles occurring from the thirties on, one wonders that there are any Russians left at all. A triumph of the human will (or fecundity). In the never ending but good chronicle of the civil war (Lincoln, W.B. (1989). Red Victory: A history of the Russian Civil War. Toronto: Simon and Schuster), there is a picture of these starving Russians who were arrested for cannibalism--it looked like the pickings were slim indeed.
All this being said, the real interest in this book is how close it hits to home. I thought when I began reading it that it would be an account of something completely foreign and exotic, of anthropological interest. That expectation was strengthened by the pictures of these guys in the book--they look exactly like the slavic peasant immigrants that we Thunder Bay kids (many of whom were their children) used to mock, in our childish ignorance.
There are some quotations of Vavilov being questioned in a committee meeting by Lysenko and his comrades. I swear, you'd think it was taken from the HUAC hearings during the McCarthy era. It's uncanny. It would be an interesting exercise to read Ewald, W.B. (1984). Who killed Joe McCarthy? Toronto: Simon & Schuster and the Medvedev book back to back. Talk about a mirror image!!
Some parallels between the Lysenko scientific hegemony in the USSR and current controversies here are more uncomfortable.......
I found this book by accident. What a find!!! Medvedev was a participant in the final phase of the Lysenko farce/tragedy. The first two parts of the book were refused publication and circulated in the mimeo underground of the USSR. When it became known, another, unrelated Medvedev was fired before it was discovered he was the wrong guy. Which says something about the efficiency of the system under discussion.
Lysenko, among other silly things, thought that new species were directly created in response to environmental conditions out of old, as well as by spontaneous generation. Genes didn't exist and organisms sacrificed themselves for the good of the species. Genetics was linked to fascism, racism, bourgeois science, and foreign influence.
Lysenko's opponents, such as the distinguished academician Vavilov, were first vilified in the newspapers and scientific journals as Menshiviking idealists, anti-Darwinists, Morganist-Mendelists, Trotskyites, and toadies of the Western scientific establishment, then arrested. Most perished, Vavilov from starvation.
The agricultural losses in the USSR were staggering. Lysenko developed the questionnaire method of measuring the results of his innovations. Agricultural workers generally gave the "right" answers but when there were problems, data were simply falsified. After the first war, the civil war, the second war, and the agricultural debacles occurring from the thirties on, one wonders that there are any Russians left at all. A triumph of the human will (or fecundity). In the never ending but good chronicle of the civil war (Lincoln, W.B. (1989). Red Victory: A history of the Russian Civil War. Toronto: Simon and Schuster), there is a picture of these starving Russians who were arrested for cannibalism--it looked like the pickings were slim indeed.
All this being said, the real interest in this book is how close it hits to home. I thought when I began reading it that it would be an account of something completely foreign and exotic, of anthropological interest. That expectation was strengthened by the pictures of these guys in the book--they look exactly like the slavic peasant immigrants that we Thunder Bay kids (many of whom were their children) used to mock, in our childish ignorance.
There are some quotations of Vavilov being questioned in a committee meeting by Lysenko and his comrades. I swear, you'd think it was taken from the HUAC hearings during the McCarthy era. It's uncanny. It would be an interesting exercise to read Ewald, W.B. (1984). Who killed Joe McCarthy? Toronto: Simon & Schuster and the Medvedev book back to back. Talk about a mirror image!!
Some parallels between the Lysenko scientific hegemony in the USSR and current controversies here are more uncomfortable.......
Merridale, C. (2005). Ivan’s war: The Red Army 1939-45. London: Faber and Faber.
This is a compellingly readable history of the Red Army in WWII based on many interviews with survivors and newly available documentary information, particularly contemporaneous letters. One is hard pressed not to weep while reading this heart-breaking story. The barbarous conditions and the scale of the catastrophe (about one third of the army were casualties) are essentially incomprehensible. But that is just the beginning. There were those who joined the army because they believed in saving the motherland from invaders, those who sought revenge for German atrocities, those who were essentially abducted at gun-point, those who were placed in the punishment brigades as a death sentence (primarily for imaginary crimes against the state), those who wanted to save the international proletariat from fascist capitalism, and those who simply hoped they would get food if they joined the army. All except those who only sought revenge were disappointed and all were ultimately betrayed.
Political interference with the military almost cost Russia the war—that and a whopping dose of mind-boggling incompetence at the war’s beginning. Bureaucrats and party officials did well on graft while the soldiers froze, starved, and were blown to bits at the front. Eventually many of the soldiers became resistant to the endless propaganda to which they were forced to listen (they were preoccupied by fear, cold, and hunger) and when they reached Europe wondered why the farms were so rich in capitalist countries and so poor in the collectivized farms of the workers’ paradise. They couldn’t understand why a country as obviously rich as Germany could possibly want to go to war to take poverty-stricken Russian territory. Because of this, the Party came to prefer dead heroes to independently thinking live ones. The stupendous soviet victory came to be shared among the glorious leader, the Party, and the dead. Returning veterans were not allowed to talk about the realities of the front, conditions in Europe, or to make suggestions for political change. They were sidelined, politically suspect, and, particularly poignantly for the many invalids, ignored. The army had destroyed one despotic regime, often with the loftiest intentions and always with great sacrifice, in order to save one that was, if anything, worse.
Ivan’s War is a wonderful counterpoint to A woman in Berlin because both deal with the atrocities of the Red Army from completely different, but equally valid and complementary viewpoints. One factor that I had not appreciated was that the political commissars strongly encouraged revenge on the fascist beasts and the total destruction of Germany. Although hardly the whole story, the rape, mindless property destruction, wholesale theft, and casual murder of civilians during the early part of the occupation was a logical consequence of these exhortations.
This is a compellingly readable history of the Red Army in WWII based on many interviews with survivors and newly available documentary information, particularly contemporaneous letters. One is hard pressed not to weep while reading this heart-breaking story. The barbarous conditions and the scale of the catastrophe (about one third of the army were casualties) are essentially incomprehensible. But that is just the beginning. There were those who joined the army because they believed in saving the motherland from invaders, those who sought revenge for German atrocities, those who were essentially abducted at gun-point, those who were placed in the punishment brigades as a death sentence (primarily for imaginary crimes against the state), those who wanted to save the international proletariat from fascist capitalism, and those who simply hoped they would get food if they joined the army. All except those who only sought revenge were disappointed and all were ultimately betrayed.
Political interference with the military almost cost Russia the war—that and a whopping dose of mind-boggling incompetence at the war’s beginning. Bureaucrats and party officials did well on graft while the soldiers froze, starved, and were blown to bits at the front. Eventually many of the soldiers became resistant to the endless propaganda to which they were forced to listen (they were preoccupied by fear, cold, and hunger) and when they reached Europe wondered why the farms were so rich in capitalist countries and so poor in the collectivized farms of the workers’ paradise. They couldn’t understand why a country as obviously rich as Germany could possibly want to go to war to take poverty-stricken Russian territory. Because of this, the Party came to prefer dead heroes to independently thinking live ones. The stupendous soviet victory came to be shared among the glorious leader, the Party, and the dead. Returning veterans were not allowed to talk about the realities of the front, conditions in Europe, or to make suggestions for political change. They were sidelined, politically suspect, and, particularly poignantly for the many invalids, ignored. The army had destroyed one despotic regime, often with the loftiest intentions and always with great sacrifice, in order to save one that was, if anything, worse.
Ivan’s War is a wonderful counterpoint to A woman in Berlin because both deal with the atrocities of the Red Army from completely different, but equally valid and complementary viewpoints. One factor that I had not appreciated was that the political commissars strongly encouraged revenge on the fascist beasts and the total destruction of Germany. Although hardly the whole story, the rape, mindless property destruction, wholesale theft, and casual murder of civilians during the early part of the occupation was a logical consequence of these exhortations.
Millard, C. (2016). Hero of the empire: The Boer War, a daring escape, and the making of Winston Churchill. Toronto: Doubleday.
Millard is an exceptionally good story-teller, I only paused in reading this page turner when I couldn’t help noticing how well it was written. I won’t spoil the story by recounting it, suffice to say I learned a lot about the Boer War. A great adventure story.
Two things stuck in my mind. First, Churchill was almost unbelievably lucky—he behaved as though he were under of the aegis of the British Empire’s guardian angel who would preserve him for his and the Empire’s future greatness. The second was the colossal sense of entitlement of the high British aristocracy. Churchill was an outstanding exemplar of entitlement. Rules were not meant to apply to aristocrats, only to the hoi polloi. Remarkably, the hoi polloi fully shared this view.
Millard is an exceptionally good story-teller, I only paused in reading this page turner when I couldn’t help noticing how well it was written. I won’t spoil the story by recounting it, suffice to say I learned a lot about the Boer War. A great adventure story.
Two things stuck in my mind. First, Churchill was almost unbelievably lucky—he behaved as though he were under of the aegis of the British Empire’s guardian angel who would preserve him for his and the Empire’s future greatness. The second was the colossal sense of entitlement of the high British aristocracy. Churchill was an outstanding exemplar of entitlement. Rules were not meant to apply to aristocrats, only to the hoi polloi. Remarkably, the hoi polloi fully shared this view.
Montefiore, S.S. (2003). Stalin: The court of the red Tsar. London: Phoenix.
This is the best book on Stalin I have read. The big surprise to me was how his extended family and large group of inter-related Georgians perpetrated, witnessed, and were victimized by the various waves of terror that Stalin orchestrated. The political elite were tireless workers who were terrorized by Stalin in grotesque mandatory drunken parties, night after night. The stamina of these folks was remarkable. The scale and brutality of the ethnic and political cleansings is on a scale too large for comprehension. The incongruous blend of socialist rhetoric, old-style prejudice, paranoid ideation, careerism, and spectacular incompetence is thought provoking, even mind-boggling. But I finally think I understand something of this tragic and bizarre episode of history.
This is the best book on Stalin I have read. The big surprise to me was how his extended family and large group of inter-related Georgians perpetrated, witnessed, and were victimized by the various waves of terror that Stalin orchestrated. The political elite were tireless workers who were terrorized by Stalin in grotesque mandatory drunken parties, night after night. The stamina of these folks was remarkable. The scale and brutality of the ethnic and political cleansings is on a scale too large for comprehension. The incongruous blend of socialist rhetoric, old-style prejudice, paranoid ideation, careerism, and spectacular incompetence is thought provoking, even mind-boggling. But I finally think I understand something of this tragic and bizarre episode of history.
Moore, R. (2002). A time to die: The untold story of the Kursk tragedy. Toronto: Random House.
Fast paced and suspenseful, even if we know the outcome. Lots of little known details about submarining and diving. The most amazing part of the story is how soon the tragedy was known in the West and how the Russians (eventually) reached out to the private entrepreneurial diving community. Highly recommended.
Fast paced and suspenseful, even if we know the outcome. Lots of little known details about submarining and diving. The most amazing part of the story is how soon the tragedy was known in the West and how the Russians (eventually) reached out to the private entrepreneurial diving community. Highly recommended.
Nasar, S. (1998). A beautiful mind. N.Y.: Simon and Schuster.
A well written book. It sure doesn’t appear at first glance to be something that a hit movie would be made from. The unavoidable weakness in the book is that most readers (like me) have only the dimmest understanding of the mathematical insights which made Nash famous. One has to take it on faith. Nash comes off in the book as an exceptionally unappealing guy until he grows old. Perhaps the message is that there is hope for all of us.
Nafisi, A. (2004). Reading Lolita in Tehran: A memoir in books. NY: Random House.
A very well written memoir covering the revolutionary period in Iran. The book is organized around the progress of an academically oriented book club that the author (a professor of literature) ran for a group of female students. One gets a sense of the claustrophobia and fear female intellectuals experienced as Iran grew more radical and violent. I kept thinking “get out, just get the hell out”.
A well written book. It sure doesn’t appear at first glance to be something that a hit movie would be made from. The unavoidable weakness in the book is that most readers (like me) have only the dimmest understanding of the mathematical insights which made Nash famous. One has to take it on faith. Nash comes off in the book as an exceptionally unappealing guy until he grows old. Perhaps the message is that there is hope for all of us.
Nafisi, A. (2004). Reading Lolita in Tehran: A memoir in books. NY: Random House.
A very well written memoir covering the revolutionary period in Iran. The book is organized around the progress of an academically oriented book club that the author (a professor of literature) ran for a group of female students. One gets a sense of the claustrophobia and fear female intellectuals experienced as Iran grew more radical and violent. I kept thinking “get out, just get the hell out”.
Neiberg, M. (2015). Potsdam: The end of World War II and the remaking of Europe. NY: Basic.
I was born in ’44, so the Second Great War defined my childhood. As little children, we still sang the ribald songs of the First War like “inky-dinky parlez vous” but marched upon our dirt street singing the Second War’s American “Sound Off”. The American post-war ascendancy was also reflected on our little street by the replacement of cricket with baseball.
There were lots of First War vets still living in our neighbourhood then, together with a sprinkling of Boer War veterans: Ancient, thin, chatty, single men, living in tiny houses with big gardens. We all assumed that it would be our turn to go to war when we came of age and I (and, my guess, others) worried a good deal that we wouldn’t be brave enough when the time came. It was a personal blessing and a testament to post-war diplomacy and luck that our time never did come: my generation lived in an unprecedented era of peace.
There were of course minor wars, such as the Korean Conflict and the Vietnam War, but it goes unappreciated just how minor those wars were. Later “wars”, like those in Iraq and Afghanistan, were more minor yet, and the war on terror, still more minor.
Our generation failed to appreciate the enormous scope of the Second War, despite its effects on so much of our lives because North American infrastructure was unscathed, North American civilian casualties close to nonexistent, and even military casualties relatively few.
In the European theatre, the Second War was fought primarily between Germany and Russia; in the east, primarily between Japan and China. Russia lost 13.9% of its pre-war population (somewhere approaching 30 million) and Germany, 8% or 7 million. In contrast, Britain, only 0.94 percent, Canada, 0.38%, and the USA, 0.32%. In terms of deaths in battle, the Russians lost between 8.8 and 10.7 million, the British, 383,000, the Canadians, 46,000, and the Americans 416,800. In the East, Japan lost 2-3 million and China upwards of 20 million. (The numbers are mostly Wikipedia estimates).
The point of this is, first, that the United Kingdom and the Western Hemisphere emerged relatively unscathed from the Second War and, second, there hasn’t been anything remotely resembling that cataclysm in nearly three quarters of a century. That’s three generations.
It is remarkable that one would never know that we remain in an era of unprecedented peace by listening to the news. Part of the reason for this unprecedented peace is the work of Truman, Churchill, and Stalin at the Potsdam Conference. The participants consciously tried to avoid the mistakes of the Versailles Conference that ended the First World War, particularly, ruinous reparations and clumsily drawn boundaries.
Despite their limitations and the many constraints on each of them, they did pretty well.
I was born in ’44, so the Second Great War defined my childhood. As little children, we still sang the ribald songs of the First War like “inky-dinky parlez vous” but marched upon our dirt street singing the Second War’s American “Sound Off”. The American post-war ascendancy was also reflected on our little street by the replacement of cricket with baseball.
There were lots of First War vets still living in our neighbourhood then, together with a sprinkling of Boer War veterans: Ancient, thin, chatty, single men, living in tiny houses with big gardens. We all assumed that it would be our turn to go to war when we came of age and I (and, my guess, others) worried a good deal that we wouldn’t be brave enough when the time came. It was a personal blessing and a testament to post-war diplomacy and luck that our time never did come: my generation lived in an unprecedented era of peace.
There were of course minor wars, such as the Korean Conflict and the Vietnam War, but it goes unappreciated just how minor those wars were. Later “wars”, like those in Iraq and Afghanistan, were more minor yet, and the war on terror, still more minor.
Our generation failed to appreciate the enormous scope of the Second War, despite its effects on so much of our lives because North American infrastructure was unscathed, North American civilian casualties close to nonexistent, and even military casualties relatively few.
In the European theatre, the Second War was fought primarily between Germany and Russia; in the east, primarily between Japan and China. Russia lost 13.9% of its pre-war population (somewhere approaching 30 million) and Germany, 8% or 7 million. In contrast, Britain, only 0.94 percent, Canada, 0.38%, and the USA, 0.32%. In terms of deaths in battle, the Russians lost between 8.8 and 10.7 million, the British, 383,000, the Canadians, 46,000, and the Americans 416,800. In the East, Japan lost 2-3 million and China upwards of 20 million. (The numbers are mostly Wikipedia estimates).
The point of this is, first, that the United Kingdom and the Western Hemisphere emerged relatively unscathed from the Second War and, second, there hasn’t been anything remotely resembling that cataclysm in nearly three quarters of a century. That’s three generations.
It is remarkable that one would never know that we remain in an era of unprecedented peace by listening to the news. Part of the reason for this unprecedented peace is the work of Truman, Churchill, and Stalin at the Potsdam Conference. The participants consciously tried to avoid the mistakes of the Versailles Conference that ended the First World War, particularly, ruinous reparations and clumsily drawn boundaries.
Despite their limitations and the many constraints on each of them, they did pretty well.
Neillands, R. (2005). The Dieppe Raid: The story of the disastrous 1942 expedition. London: Aurum.
When I engage in retrospection regarding my mistakes (from which I distract myself by such things as writing reviews), I can often recall being aware of the possible or likely negative consequences of what I ended up doing. The problem was that I didn’t pursue these consequences and drifted into a particular course of action. If I were old enough and schizophrenic, I would believe that I “planned” the Dieppe raid.
There were lots of reasons to make a raid on fortress Europe. Russia, the English communists, and the USA all wanted England to take the offensive, the Canadian forces in England were restless and causing trouble (their reproduction rate far exceeding their death rate during their period of endless training and bar-fighting), dashing Lord Mountbatten was sort of in charge of commando-type raids and eager to go, etc.
The problem, however, was there were a lot more reasons not to conduct a large raid, particularly in France, and surely not at Dieppe. Dieppe was essentially a death trap because of the large headlands on either side of the small harbour and the steep cliffs lying close to the shore (shades of Gallipoli in the first war!). There was no integrated command so the Navy declined to risk any large battleships (there would be little naval artillery) and the air force decided not to conduct a heavy bombing raid because there would be too many civilian casualties. There were no paratroopers because they were believed unnecessary on account of the Germans only stationing “second rate troops” in and near Dieppe. No one thought of contingency plans should something go wrong and how changes in plans would depend on communications among the various contingents. There was no clearly articulated statement of what the raid was expected to achieve (rationales kept shifting). Finally, and fatally, nobody thought through the problem of evacuating Dieppe once the raid was over.
A German officer asked a captured Canadian officer “Just what were you trying to accomplish?”
After the pointless slaughter, politicians and officers sought to avoid blame and to provide a sensible reason why the raid was conducted. Churchill asserted that it was a “reconnaissance in force”, as if that addressed the issue. Much later, many argued that Dieppe provided valuable lessons for the Normandy invasion—poppycock, officers experienced in amphibious landings knew perfectly well before Dieppe what to avoid. After the war, Churchill tried to find out who authorized the go-ahead for Dieppe because he had no memory of approving it.
When I engage in retrospection regarding my mistakes (from which I distract myself by such things as writing reviews), I can often recall being aware of the possible or likely negative consequences of what I ended up doing. The problem was that I didn’t pursue these consequences and drifted into a particular course of action. If I were old enough and schizophrenic, I would believe that I “planned” the Dieppe raid.
There were lots of reasons to make a raid on fortress Europe. Russia, the English communists, and the USA all wanted England to take the offensive, the Canadian forces in England were restless and causing trouble (their reproduction rate far exceeding their death rate during their period of endless training and bar-fighting), dashing Lord Mountbatten was sort of in charge of commando-type raids and eager to go, etc.
The problem, however, was there were a lot more reasons not to conduct a large raid, particularly in France, and surely not at Dieppe. Dieppe was essentially a death trap because of the large headlands on either side of the small harbour and the steep cliffs lying close to the shore (shades of Gallipoli in the first war!). There was no integrated command so the Navy declined to risk any large battleships (there would be little naval artillery) and the air force decided not to conduct a heavy bombing raid because there would be too many civilian casualties. There were no paratroopers because they were believed unnecessary on account of the Germans only stationing “second rate troops” in and near Dieppe. No one thought of contingency plans should something go wrong and how changes in plans would depend on communications among the various contingents. There was no clearly articulated statement of what the raid was expected to achieve (rationales kept shifting). Finally, and fatally, nobody thought through the problem of evacuating Dieppe once the raid was over.
A German officer asked a captured Canadian officer “Just what were you trying to accomplish?”
After the pointless slaughter, politicians and officers sought to avoid blame and to provide a sensible reason why the raid was conducted. Churchill asserted that it was a “reconnaissance in force”, as if that addressed the issue. Much later, many argued that Dieppe provided valuable lessons for the Normandy invasion—poppycock, officers experienced in amphibious landings knew perfectly well before Dieppe what to avoid. After the war, Churchill tried to find out who authorized the go-ahead for Dieppe because he had no memory of approving it.
Nelson, W., with Ritz, D. (2015). It’s a long story: My life. New York: Little, Brown.
You have to admire a person who can write beautiful melodies, do a spinning back kick, and flawlessly perform classic card tricks (see the video on You Tube). Willy came out of poverty in rural Texas to become a very wealthy and famous man, able to support his friends and families financially, provide aid to various leftish causes, and hobnob with the famous and influential.
How to account for his astonishing career? I think there are three parts to the explanation. First, Willy is very intelligent--he was a good student as a child, he is good at games requiring intellectual skill, such as dominoes and poker, and he almost effortlessly creates melodies and lyrics. Second, he is a risk-taker in life, love, drugs, music, and finance, as extensively documented in his autobiography. Third, he has been, (as he acknowledges in the book) very, very lucky. His life trajectory could have turned out quite differently.
You have to admire a person who can write beautiful melodies, do a spinning back kick, and flawlessly perform classic card tricks (see the video on You Tube). Willy came out of poverty in rural Texas to become a very wealthy and famous man, able to support his friends and families financially, provide aid to various leftish causes, and hobnob with the famous and influential.
How to account for his astonishing career? I think there are three parts to the explanation. First, Willy is very intelligent--he was a good student as a child, he is good at games requiring intellectual skill, such as dominoes and poker, and he almost effortlessly creates melodies and lyrics. Second, he is a risk-taker in life, love, drugs, music, and finance, as extensively documented in his autobiography. Third, he has been, (as he acknowledges in the book) very, very lucky. His life trajectory could have turned out quite differently.
Nielsen, R.F. (2000). Total encounters: The life and times of the Mental Health Centre Penetanguishene. Hamilton: McMaster University Press.
Of interest primarily to those who, like me, participated in the life and times of the Mental Health Centre. The author interviewed a great many people for this book and quotes them liberally. The book emphasizes the early history of the hospital and the later controversial developments in the Social Therapy program for psychopaths. Because a lot of ground is covered, there is inevitably a great deal of condensation. This condensation occasionally approaches caricature of a type that I suppose to be difficult to avoid in historical writing. From an insider's view, it appears both that the versions of events are coloured by who is doing the telling and that the actions and opinions of administrative heads receive a disproportionate amount of attention.
Nevertheless, a good source of historical material for the tiny but very interested audience for whom it is intended.
Of interest primarily to those who, like me, participated in the life and times of the Mental Health Centre. The author interviewed a great many people for this book and quotes them liberally. The book emphasizes the early history of the hospital and the later controversial developments in the Social Therapy program for psychopaths. Because a lot of ground is covered, there is inevitably a great deal of condensation. This condensation occasionally approaches caricature of a type that I suppose to be difficult to avoid in historical writing. From an insider's view, it appears both that the versions of events are coloured by who is doing the telling and that the actions and opinions of administrative heads receive a disproportionate amount of attention.
Nevertheless, a good source of historical material for the tiny but very interested audience for whom it is intended.
Neufeld, M.J. (2007). Von Braun: Dreamer of space, engineer of war. NY: Vintage Books.
Von Braun was an engineering wunderkind and later an exceptionally able manager of epic engineering projects. Being aristocratic, handsome, charming, and tactful didn’t hurt his career either. Not many individuals could go immediately from developing the German V-8 rocket to developing American rockets with barely an anti-Nazi whisper to be heard. Furthermore, he kept his original German team largely intact.
Von Braun always dreamt of conquering space and ultimately played a pivotal role in the American space program. He was the most important popularizer of the idea of space flight. Unfortunately, most of his career was spent developing weapons for his military paymasters. Perhaps that was why he was so religious.
Von Braun was an engineering wunderkind and later an exceptionally able manager of epic engineering projects. Being aristocratic, handsome, charming, and tactful didn’t hurt his career either. Not many individuals could go immediately from developing the German V-8 rocket to developing American rockets with barely an anti-Nazi whisper to be heard. Furthermore, he kept his original German team largely intact.
Von Braun always dreamt of conquering space and ultimately played a pivotal role in the American space program. He was the most important popularizer of the idea of space flight. Unfortunately, most of his career was spent developing weapons for his military paymasters. Perhaps that was why he was so religious.
Newman, P.C. (2005). The secret Mulroney tapes: Unguarded confessions of a prime minister. Toronto: Vintage.
This book has been described as a hatchet-job betrayal of the former prime minister by one of his close friends. Newman, a reporter, recorded many phone calls from Mulroney. Mulroney knew he was being recorded and that Newman was going to write his biography. Mulroney told Newman he wanted him to tell it like it was but then was apparently unhappy with the result. My guess is that Mulroney was in part simply horrified by the unedited transcriptions of his casual and, sometimes before he quit drinking, drunken, conversations. Who of us would like to hear our conversations played back to us verbatim, let alone broadcast to the world?
But a hatchet job this is clearly not. Newman clearly likes and admires Mulroney and, even more, the astuteness and charm of his wife, Mila. In fact, the central issue of the book is how someone who was apparently so personally charming and well meaning as Mulroney could come to elicit such visceral hatred from a large part of the Canadian public. This is indeed an interesting question that raises issues concerning how partisan politics, the media, and personality conflicts interact to warp the perception of reality. Fatally, Mulroney looked stiff and stilted on TV. His fabled hail-fellow-well-met Irish gift for blarney and exaggeration in the service of compromise and negotiation that had served him so well as a labour lawyer, just appeared to be dishonesty when he was prime minister.
To me this book was a welcome reality check. What so clearly emerges is the absolute ordinariness of Mulroney and his family. Not evil, not brilliant, not incompetent. Ambitious, for sure, like many of us, and sometimes a bit deluded by self-serving perceptions, like all of us. Entitled, of course. To my great surprise, I ended up liking Mulroney and admiring his family.
I really am amazed after reading this book that any knowledgeable person would seek to be prime minister.
This book has been described as a hatchet-job betrayal of the former prime minister by one of his close friends. Newman, a reporter, recorded many phone calls from Mulroney. Mulroney knew he was being recorded and that Newman was going to write his biography. Mulroney told Newman he wanted him to tell it like it was but then was apparently unhappy with the result. My guess is that Mulroney was in part simply horrified by the unedited transcriptions of his casual and, sometimes before he quit drinking, drunken, conversations. Who of us would like to hear our conversations played back to us verbatim, let alone broadcast to the world?
But a hatchet job this is clearly not. Newman clearly likes and admires Mulroney and, even more, the astuteness and charm of his wife, Mila. In fact, the central issue of the book is how someone who was apparently so personally charming and well meaning as Mulroney could come to elicit such visceral hatred from a large part of the Canadian public. This is indeed an interesting question that raises issues concerning how partisan politics, the media, and personality conflicts interact to warp the perception of reality. Fatally, Mulroney looked stiff and stilted on TV. His fabled hail-fellow-well-met Irish gift for blarney and exaggeration in the service of compromise and negotiation that had served him so well as a labour lawyer, just appeared to be dishonesty when he was prime minister.
To me this book was a welcome reality check. What so clearly emerges is the absolute ordinariness of Mulroney and his family. Not evil, not brilliant, not incompetent. Ambitious, for sure, like many of us, and sometimes a bit deluded by self-serving perceptions, like all of us. Entitled, of course. To my great surprise, I ended up liking Mulroney and admiring his family.
I really am amazed after reading this book that any knowledgeable person would seek to be prime minister.
O’Reilly, B. & Dugard, M. (2014). Killing Patton: The strange death of World War II’s most audacious general. Holt: New York.
I should have known better than to buy this book. Was Patton audacious? Yes, and of similar political mind to the Nazis he was fighting, although his primitive fascism is glossed over in this book. It was a damn good thing that Eisenhower was in charge.
There is no evidence that Stalin murdered Patton as asserted by the authors. All implausible speculation and fantasy designed to boost book sales to dupes like me.
I should have known better than to buy this book. Was Patton audacious? Yes, and of similar political mind to the Nazis he was fighting, although his primitive fascism is glossed over in this book. It was a damn good thing that Eisenhower was in charge.
There is no evidence that Stalin murdered Patton as asserted by the authors. All implausible speculation and fantasy designed to boost book sales to dupes like me.
Paris, E. (2000). Long shadows: Truth, lies and history. Toronto: Knopf.
A thoroughly depressing book about the possibility of reconciliation following oppression. It deals with efforts at reconciling blacks and whites in South Africa and the legacies of American slavery, the holocaust, and the war in Bosnia. On the one hand, one wants to have the historical record accurate and some sort of justice and, on the other, one wants peace and understanding between previously antagonistic parties. There is no solution offered in this book.
A thoroughly depressing book about the possibility of reconciliation following oppression. It deals with efforts at reconciling blacks and whites in South Africa and the legacies of American slavery, the holocaust, and the war in Bosnia. On the one hand, one wants to have the historical record accurate and some sort of justice and, on the other, one wants peace and understanding between previously antagonistic parties. There is no solution offered in this book.
Paul, W. (1998). Herman Göring: Hitler paladin or puppet? London: Brockhampton Press. Translated by H. Bögler.
Not a smoothly written (or perhaps smoothly translated) book. It covers the biographical facts of Göring’s life but does not offer a convincing explanation of his motives. It is clear that he was brave, vain, charismatic, smarter than the average member of Hitler’s entourage (the only one who could actually read a balance sheet), and a greedy lover of luxury. His attitude toward the Jews was ambivalent. Hitler gradually lost confidence in his abilities during the war, despite having designated him his successor.
Not a smoothly written (or perhaps smoothly translated) book. It covers the biographical facts of Göring’s life but does not offer a convincing explanation of his motives. It is clear that he was brave, vain, charismatic, smarter than the average member of Hitler’s entourage (the only one who could actually read a balance sheet), and a greedy lover of luxury. His attitude toward the Jews was ambivalent. Hitler gradually lost confidence in his abilities during the war, despite having designated him his successor.
Payne, R.J. (1995). The clash with distant cultures: Values, interests, and force in American foreign policy. Albany: State University of New York Press.
This book illustrates the total vacuousness of the concept of culture as an explanatory vehicle. “Culture” is mentioned in nearly every paragraph and if it were to be removed, the book would be shorter, read a lot better, and lose absolutely nothing. The political analysis presented is OK, just that it is not aided by the ad hoc and insistent attempts to explain political events by invoking culture.
For example, the author wishes us to believe that states are more likely to war upon states that are culturally different from them. This causes real problems in explaining the history of warfare between, say, France and England, not to mention England and the US. or, even better, culture is used to explain why the US did not come to the aid of Bosnia but did attack Iraq (Muslims are more culturally different from Americans than Serbian Christians). Clearly, this book was written a little too soon. I am confident, however, that such slippery and vague explanatory devices could be made to postdict US support for Kosovo.
There clearly isn’t a theory of this type that can actually predict political behavior. A case study of the worst kind of thinking in social science.
This book illustrates the total vacuousness of the concept of culture as an explanatory vehicle. “Culture” is mentioned in nearly every paragraph and if it were to be removed, the book would be shorter, read a lot better, and lose absolutely nothing. The political analysis presented is OK, just that it is not aided by the ad hoc and insistent attempts to explain political events by invoking culture.
For example, the author wishes us to believe that states are more likely to war upon states that are culturally different from them. This causes real problems in explaining the history of warfare between, say, France and England, not to mention England and the US. or, even better, culture is used to explain why the US did not come to the aid of Bosnia but did attack Iraq (Muslims are more culturally different from Americans than Serbian Christians). Clearly, this book was written a little too soon. I am confident, however, that such slippery and vague explanatory devices could be made to postdict US support for Kosovo.
There clearly isn’t a theory of this type that can actually predict political behavior. A case study of the worst kind of thinking in social science.
Pawel, E. (1984). The nightmare of reason: A life of Franz Kafka. NY: Random House.
I first became interested in Kafka when I was a young man during the denouement of a long party held in an old house on the grounds of a psychiatric hospital. Six or seven people were seated about a long dinner table late in the night and the discussion turned to the topic of the worst thing that we had ever experienced. In turn, we each described some very depressing or horrifying event—one well-traveled guy, for example, described how he had seen two women stoned to death as witches near a train station in some part of India. The last person to speak confessed that he had no suitably horrific experiences of his own to relate. However, he said he had read a book that he would tell us about. The book he chose to describe was Kafka’s The Trial and I shall never forget it. As he told the nightmarish story of inescapable but nameless guilt, we could hear a woman’s tormented screams coming from one of the wards through the falling snow.
Pawel situates Kafka historically, in the late 19th and early 20th century death throes of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The nationalist rivalry between the Czechs and Germans, who were seemingly united only in their hatred of the Jews, eventually tore the Empire apart. Some of the Jews attempted to be assimilated as secular Germans with little success—“it’s not their religion that makes them swine” one polemicist remarked. Others adopted Zionism. Kafka first tried assimilation and later, in his ambivalent manner, Zionism, but by then it was too late-- he was dying from tuberculosis of the larynx. One feels a premonition when reading this book of how all of this world would be swept away in the holocaust. Given that Kafka was Jewish and the subsequent political history of central Europe, it is no little irony that he became posthumously famous as the world’s best writer of German prose.
Pawel relates Kafka’s all-consuming guilt and self-loathing to Freudian notions of the Oedipal complex, guilt over masturbation, and fear of homosexuality, although Pawel cautions against any simple-minded deterministic explanations of Kafka’s art on these or other grounds. The similarity of Kafka’s remarkable neuroses to some of those that Freud described does make these psychoanalytic explanations appear more plausible than usual, undoubtedly because Kafka in Prague and Freud in Vienna shared a similar cultural milieu.
Kafka, unbearably unhappy and convinced of his own ineptitude and worthlessness, was nevertheless an extremely effective quasi-civil servant in the occupational insurance field. He was well liked by everybody in the organization, implemented pioneering measures to help industrial accident victims and later disabled veterans, and was consistently turned down for military service because his job performance made him invaluable to the war effort. Kafka was one of the very few to be retained when the Czechs took over from the Germans after the war. Kafka’s bosses invariably treated him considerately.
The office, however, was perceived by Kafka only as a sort of necessary purgatory, when it was not actually hell. He could only expiate his crimes through writing and any relief he found by this method was ephemeral. All this makes one wonder about how many anguished people there are, living within their heads, but without a voice.
Pomper, P. (2010). Lenin’s brother: The origins of the October Revolution. NY: Norton.
Lenin’s favoured elder brother, Alexander Ulyanov was a studious, conscientious, dour young man studying science at St. Petersburg University in order to ameliorate the lives of the Russian peasantry. He was, unbeknownst to his family and associates, radicalized by his associations with the large number of radical leftist students present in all the centers of higher education at the time. In 1886, he joined the “Terrorist Faction of the People’s Will” who planned to assassinate the Czar on March 1st, 1887, the sixth anniversary of the assassination of the Czar’s father.
The plot, involving poisoned bullets and bombs with poisoned shrapnel, was foiled by police who had been watching the spotters and bomb throwers for some time. Most of the plotters, including Alexander, were hung after a secret trial. The authorities had learned their lesson after having suffered a disastrous propaganda defeat in the public trial of the “girl assassin” (see the splendid Siljak, A. (2008). Angel of vengeance: The “girl assassin,” the Governor of St. Petersburg, and Russia’s revolutionary world. NY: St. Martin’s Press).
I find the revolutionary thinking of these young people fascinating. They mixed a naïve historical optimism and scientism with an ideology of romanticized but atheistic Christian martyrdom. There is a flavour of adolescent puritanism and a preference for dealing with highly abstract absolutes.
Although too young to be involved and not at all close to his brother, Lenin learned a lot from his brother’s experience and determined not to sell his life so cheaply.
I first became interested in Kafka when I was a young man during the denouement of a long party held in an old house on the grounds of a psychiatric hospital. Six or seven people were seated about a long dinner table late in the night and the discussion turned to the topic of the worst thing that we had ever experienced. In turn, we each described some very depressing or horrifying event—one well-traveled guy, for example, described how he had seen two women stoned to death as witches near a train station in some part of India. The last person to speak confessed that he had no suitably horrific experiences of his own to relate. However, he said he had read a book that he would tell us about. The book he chose to describe was Kafka’s The Trial and I shall never forget it. As he told the nightmarish story of inescapable but nameless guilt, we could hear a woman’s tormented screams coming from one of the wards through the falling snow.
Pawel situates Kafka historically, in the late 19th and early 20th century death throes of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The nationalist rivalry between the Czechs and Germans, who were seemingly united only in their hatred of the Jews, eventually tore the Empire apart. Some of the Jews attempted to be assimilated as secular Germans with little success—“it’s not their religion that makes them swine” one polemicist remarked. Others adopted Zionism. Kafka first tried assimilation and later, in his ambivalent manner, Zionism, but by then it was too late-- he was dying from tuberculosis of the larynx. One feels a premonition when reading this book of how all of this world would be swept away in the holocaust. Given that Kafka was Jewish and the subsequent political history of central Europe, it is no little irony that he became posthumously famous as the world’s best writer of German prose.
Pawel relates Kafka’s all-consuming guilt and self-loathing to Freudian notions of the Oedipal complex, guilt over masturbation, and fear of homosexuality, although Pawel cautions against any simple-minded deterministic explanations of Kafka’s art on these or other grounds. The similarity of Kafka’s remarkable neuroses to some of those that Freud described does make these psychoanalytic explanations appear more plausible than usual, undoubtedly because Kafka in Prague and Freud in Vienna shared a similar cultural milieu.
Kafka, unbearably unhappy and convinced of his own ineptitude and worthlessness, was nevertheless an extremely effective quasi-civil servant in the occupational insurance field. He was well liked by everybody in the organization, implemented pioneering measures to help industrial accident victims and later disabled veterans, and was consistently turned down for military service because his job performance made him invaluable to the war effort. Kafka was one of the very few to be retained when the Czechs took over from the Germans after the war. Kafka’s bosses invariably treated him considerately.
The office, however, was perceived by Kafka only as a sort of necessary purgatory, when it was not actually hell. He could only expiate his crimes through writing and any relief he found by this method was ephemeral. All this makes one wonder about how many anguished people there are, living within their heads, but without a voice.
Pomper, P. (2010). Lenin’s brother: The origins of the October Revolution. NY: Norton.
Lenin’s favoured elder brother, Alexander Ulyanov was a studious, conscientious, dour young man studying science at St. Petersburg University in order to ameliorate the lives of the Russian peasantry. He was, unbeknownst to his family and associates, radicalized by his associations with the large number of radical leftist students present in all the centers of higher education at the time. In 1886, he joined the “Terrorist Faction of the People’s Will” who planned to assassinate the Czar on March 1st, 1887, the sixth anniversary of the assassination of the Czar’s father.
The plot, involving poisoned bullets and bombs with poisoned shrapnel, was foiled by police who had been watching the spotters and bomb throwers for some time. Most of the plotters, including Alexander, were hung after a secret trial. The authorities had learned their lesson after having suffered a disastrous propaganda defeat in the public trial of the “girl assassin” (see the splendid Siljak, A. (2008). Angel of vengeance: The “girl assassin,” the Governor of St. Petersburg, and Russia’s revolutionary world. NY: St. Martin’s Press).
I find the revolutionary thinking of these young people fascinating. They mixed a naïve historical optimism and scientism with an ideology of romanticized but atheistic Christian martyrdom. There is a flavour of adolescent puritanism and a preference for dealing with highly abstract absolutes.
Although too young to be involved and not at all close to his brother, Lenin learned a lot from his brother’s experience and determined not to sell his life so cheaply.
Power, S. (2008). Chasing the flame: Sergio Vieiro de Mello and the fight to save the world. Toronto: Penguin.
This book could have been titled Bureaucracy meets Godzilla, with Godzilla played by the aspirations of the right-thinking peoples of the world. Sergio is a Brazilian who is first a left-leaning philosophy student in France and then a career bureaucrat with the UN. Sergio cuts a dashing and womanizing figure while he occupies ever more senior positions in the world’s hotspots: Lebanon, Bosnia, Cambodia, Rwanda, East Timor, and Iraq. In Iraq, Sergio’s luck finally runs out and he is murdered by an al Qaeda suicide bomber because of his successful work in restoring peace to East Timor.
The UN is comprised of careerists, idealists, and mixtures of the two. At times, UN officials forget or disregard the purposes of the policies and directives they administer in favour of a stupid and self-defeating literalism. The UN is generally poorly served by the countries that sit on the Security Council and given impossible tasks to carry out under impossible conditions—generally, the various countries want to appear to be doing something but are not motivated to part with much of their blood or treasure. My favourite quote from the book: “Air power is an unusually seductive form of military strength because, like modern courtship, it appears to offer gratification without commitment.” (Cohen, a US military analyst).
Sergio, while remaining a loyal UN bureaucrat, gradually gathers experience that enables him to be increasingly effective operator in chaotic and murderous field conditions. He was most successful in his penultimate assignment, East Timor. The book documents the replacement of his idealistic preconceptions with a more ruthless and effective pragmatism.
This book could have been titled Bureaucracy meets Godzilla, with Godzilla played by the aspirations of the right-thinking peoples of the world. Sergio is a Brazilian who is first a left-leaning philosophy student in France and then a career bureaucrat with the UN. Sergio cuts a dashing and womanizing figure while he occupies ever more senior positions in the world’s hotspots: Lebanon, Bosnia, Cambodia, Rwanda, East Timor, and Iraq. In Iraq, Sergio’s luck finally runs out and he is murdered by an al Qaeda suicide bomber because of his successful work in restoring peace to East Timor.
The UN is comprised of careerists, idealists, and mixtures of the two. At times, UN officials forget or disregard the purposes of the policies and directives they administer in favour of a stupid and self-defeating literalism. The UN is generally poorly served by the countries that sit on the Security Council and given impossible tasks to carry out under impossible conditions—generally, the various countries want to appear to be doing something but are not motivated to part with much of their blood or treasure. My favourite quote from the book: “Air power is an unusually seductive form of military strength because, like modern courtship, it appears to offer gratification without commitment.” (Cohen, a US military analyst).
Sergio, while remaining a loyal UN bureaucrat, gradually gathers experience that enables him to be increasingly effective operator in chaotic and murderous field conditions. He was most successful in his penultimate assignment, East Timor. The book documents the replacement of his idealistic preconceptions with a more ruthless and effective pragmatism.
Radzinsky, E. (2005). Alexander II: The last great tsar. (trans. A.W. Bouis). Toronto: Free Press.
Radzinsky is a Russian playwright and TV celebrity. If this book is any guide, his plays are fabulous. After the death of his totalitarian father, Alexander II set controversial reforms in motion, most notably the liberation of the serfs (this is before the American Civil War freed the slaves). Alexander, however, dithered and compromised—he freed the serfs but didn’t grant them enough land to live on. He encouraged more liberal education, thereby creating a generation opposed to the monarchy, whom he then had to suppress.
All of this made him many enemies. His repressions radicalized the students, some of whom began the anarchist movement. The anarchists used bombs and terror in the naïve hope of toppling the government. The conservatives blamed the Tsar for the unrest. Then the court turned against him because he married the love of his life shortly following his first wife’s death. Would the aristocracy be forced to recognize this woman as the empress and her (previously bastard) children as heirs to the throne? People in high places, including the security apparatus, were no longer highly motivated to protect the Tsar. The fifth attempt on his life was successful.
Highly recommended.
Raffo, P. (2005). Lakehead Psychiatric Hospital 1934-2004: From institution to community: A transformation of psychiatric hospital services. Thunder Bay: St. Joseph’s Care Group.
Despite the brave title, this is a pathetic tale of the extended failure of a psychiatric institution in Ontario’s hinterland. From the decades of delay in its beginning caused by the imperialistic neglect of its Southern Ontario political masters and the inter-city rivalry of Port Arthur and Fort William, to the inability to attract mental health professionals (particularly psychiatrists and psychologists) that characterized the sixties to nineties period, to its demise in the confusion of Ontario psychiatric care policies of the nineties and beyond, it’s a litany of missed opportunities and stifled initiative. Its final demise occurred in a period characterized by anti-psychiatric rhetoric (patients became “consumer-survivors”), anti-institutional policies (essentially de-staffing), and weak attempts to develop community programs by a centralized, demoralized, and confused bureaucracy.
Could it be as bad as all this? The author, historian Raffo, apparently thinks so. Here’s the complete text of the Epilogue as witness of badness on several levels.
"Pat Mitchell lived from her youth, first at the Ontario Hospital Port Arthur, and then at LPH. In recent years she has returned to the community of Thunder Bay, to a shared apartment in the south ward of the city. It is clean and brightly decorated. It has modern appliances, comfortable furniture and is fully carpeted. The apartment block itself is located on a busy main road, amidst a variety of housing units. It is within reach of a park and other social and commercial amenities. Pat has direct access to a resident nurse, on the premises."
"Pat volunteered readily to be interviewed for this book. She talked at some length about her long experience of a variety of forms of mental health care. When she came to describe her present circumstances, she beamed with pride. Pat Mitchell loves her new way of life, away from LPH. Nothing made her attitude to that old institution more clear than the moment when she was asked to sign a waiver that released the contents of the interview for possible quotation in the final text. Perhaps remembering the consequences of signing other documents during her long stay at LPH, she looked up sharply at me and said, with a note of alarm in her voice: “You’re not going to send me back there, are you?”"
I lived in the neighborhood of LPH through primary and high school. My father was an attendant there from the early sixties until his retirement in the eighties. I worked as an attendant at LPH during the summers of 1964 and 1965 and from 1971 until 1988 I worked in another psychiatric institution in the Ontario psychiatric “system”. There is lots of nostalgia in this book for me, in particular photographs of people I hadn’t seen in more than thirty years.
Radzinsky is a Russian playwright and TV celebrity. If this book is any guide, his plays are fabulous. After the death of his totalitarian father, Alexander II set controversial reforms in motion, most notably the liberation of the serfs (this is before the American Civil War freed the slaves). Alexander, however, dithered and compromised—he freed the serfs but didn’t grant them enough land to live on. He encouraged more liberal education, thereby creating a generation opposed to the monarchy, whom he then had to suppress.
All of this made him many enemies. His repressions radicalized the students, some of whom began the anarchist movement. The anarchists used bombs and terror in the naïve hope of toppling the government. The conservatives blamed the Tsar for the unrest. Then the court turned against him because he married the love of his life shortly following his first wife’s death. Would the aristocracy be forced to recognize this woman as the empress and her (previously bastard) children as heirs to the throne? People in high places, including the security apparatus, were no longer highly motivated to protect the Tsar. The fifth attempt on his life was successful.
Highly recommended.
Raffo, P. (2005). Lakehead Psychiatric Hospital 1934-2004: From institution to community: A transformation of psychiatric hospital services. Thunder Bay: St. Joseph’s Care Group.
Despite the brave title, this is a pathetic tale of the extended failure of a psychiatric institution in Ontario’s hinterland. From the decades of delay in its beginning caused by the imperialistic neglect of its Southern Ontario political masters and the inter-city rivalry of Port Arthur and Fort William, to the inability to attract mental health professionals (particularly psychiatrists and psychologists) that characterized the sixties to nineties period, to its demise in the confusion of Ontario psychiatric care policies of the nineties and beyond, it’s a litany of missed opportunities and stifled initiative. Its final demise occurred in a period characterized by anti-psychiatric rhetoric (patients became “consumer-survivors”), anti-institutional policies (essentially de-staffing), and weak attempts to develop community programs by a centralized, demoralized, and confused bureaucracy.
Could it be as bad as all this? The author, historian Raffo, apparently thinks so. Here’s the complete text of the Epilogue as witness of badness on several levels.
"Pat Mitchell lived from her youth, first at the Ontario Hospital Port Arthur, and then at LPH. In recent years she has returned to the community of Thunder Bay, to a shared apartment in the south ward of the city. It is clean and brightly decorated. It has modern appliances, comfortable furniture and is fully carpeted. The apartment block itself is located on a busy main road, amidst a variety of housing units. It is within reach of a park and other social and commercial amenities. Pat has direct access to a resident nurse, on the premises."
"Pat volunteered readily to be interviewed for this book. She talked at some length about her long experience of a variety of forms of mental health care. When she came to describe her present circumstances, she beamed with pride. Pat Mitchell loves her new way of life, away from LPH. Nothing made her attitude to that old institution more clear than the moment when she was asked to sign a waiver that released the contents of the interview for possible quotation in the final text. Perhaps remembering the consequences of signing other documents during her long stay at LPH, she looked up sharply at me and said, with a note of alarm in her voice: “You’re not going to send me back there, are you?”"
I lived in the neighborhood of LPH through primary and high school. My father was an attendant there from the early sixties until his retirement in the eighties. I worked as an attendant at LPH during the summers of 1964 and 1965 and from 1971 until 1988 I worked in another psychiatric institution in the Ontario psychiatric “system”. There is lots of nostalgia in this book for me, in particular photographs of people I hadn’t seen in more than thirty years.
Remnick, D. (2000). (Ed.). Life stories: Profiles from The New Yorker. N.Y.: Random House
This is a series of biographical portraits selected from the New Yorker. The quality of writing is extremely good. The people who are portrayed range from master conjurors through ordinary folk to tycoons and ballet stars. Some of the portraits are very funny, in particular a lampoon of the "baby tycoon," Henry Luce, written in "Time-speak" in which "backward rolled the sentences, until reeled the mind".
A summer vacation or bedside kind of book. Very entertaining.
This is a series of biographical portraits selected from the New Yorker. The quality of writing is extremely good. The people who are portrayed range from master conjurors through ordinary folk to tycoons and ballet stars. Some of the portraits are very funny, in particular a lampoon of the "baby tycoon," Henry Luce, written in "Time-speak" in which "backward rolled the sentences, until reeled the mind".
A summer vacation or bedside kind of book. Very entertaining.
Remnick, D. (2000). The new gilded age: The New Yorker looks at the culture of affluence. NY: Random House.
Although not up to the exceptional standard set by the previous volume of New Yorker essays (Life stories), the essays in this volume are generally well written and interesting. Several concern finding an apartment in New York City (even the modestly rich have problems) and a number of chapters deal with celebrities of the new gilded age (Donald Trump is described in a very funny essay and Alan Greenspan in an admiring one).
Two essays deserve further comment. The first, Marisa and Jeff, by Calvin Trillin, tells a pathetic true story of insider trading fraud. The story involves greed, a gullible and vulnerable woman, and a predatory crook, who meets expectations with his stupendous egocentricity. The second, The quarter of living dangerously, is written by David Denby. Denby writes a phenomenological narrative of his involvement in high risk, high tech stock trading. He masterfully makes the reader feel his greed and fear.
In all, these essays provoke a sense of unease. The easy money, the speculation bubble that everyone knows will burst, the environmental despoliation, and economic exploitation that underlie this modern economy combine to suggest a children’s game in which the object is to be the last one to take one’s hand from an alligator’s mouth before it snaps shut.
Although not up to the exceptional standard set by the previous volume of New Yorker essays (Life stories), the essays in this volume are generally well written and interesting. Several concern finding an apartment in New York City (even the modestly rich have problems) and a number of chapters deal with celebrities of the new gilded age (Donald Trump is described in a very funny essay and Alan Greenspan in an admiring one).
Two essays deserve further comment. The first, Marisa and Jeff, by Calvin Trillin, tells a pathetic true story of insider trading fraud. The story involves greed, a gullible and vulnerable woman, and a predatory crook, who meets expectations with his stupendous egocentricity. The second, The quarter of living dangerously, is written by David Denby. Denby writes a phenomenological narrative of his involvement in high risk, high tech stock trading. He masterfully makes the reader feel his greed and fear.
In all, these essays provoke a sense of unease. The easy money, the speculation bubble that everyone knows will burst, the environmental despoliation, and economic exploitation that underlie this modern economy combine to suggest a children’s game in which the object is to be the last one to take one’s hand from an alligator’s mouth before it snaps shut.
Richards, D.A. (2008). Lord Beaverbrook. Toronto: Penguin.
This is a short, well put together biography of a remarkably little known man. Lord Beaverbrook (née Max Aitken). Beaverbrook was a wheeler-dealer from New Brunswick who, after becoming a wealthy entrepreneur, emigrated to England and bought up newspapers. Beaverbrook made a major contribution to the WW II war effort as the UK economic czar—he played a role analogous to Albert Speer in Nazi Germany. Beaverbrook was never accepted by the aristocracy in England—despite his wealth, contribution to the war, and taste in art (his large and very valuable collection now resides in New Brunswick), he was regarded as a crass colonial noveau riche. Beaverbrook was sometimes tactless and always outspoken, but, nevertheless, extremely shrewd—to many of his contemporaries, not an endearing combination of traits.
I suspect that the worldly, unsavoury, and definitely non-aristocratic Canadian character of Rex Mottram (played by Charles Keating) in the wonderful British television series Brideshead Revisited is based on Beaverbrook.
This is a short, well put together biography of a remarkably little known man. Lord Beaverbrook (née Max Aitken). Beaverbrook was a wheeler-dealer from New Brunswick who, after becoming a wealthy entrepreneur, emigrated to England and bought up newspapers. Beaverbrook made a major contribution to the WW II war effort as the UK economic czar—he played a role analogous to Albert Speer in Nazi Germany. Beaverbrook was never accepted by the aristocracy in England—despite his wealth, contribution to the war, and taste in art (his large and very valuable collection now resides in New Brunswick), he was regarded as a crass colonial noveau riche. Beaverbrook was sometimes tactless and always outspoken, but, nevertheless, extremely shrewd—to many of his contemporaries, not an endearing combination of traits.
I suspect that the worldly, unsavoury, and definitely non-aristocratic Canadian character of Rex Mottram (played by Charles Keating) in the wonderful British television series Brideshead Revisited is based on Beaverbrook.
Rogan, R. (2015). The fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East. NY: Basic.
Britain’s fateful decision to engage the Ottoman Empire was made piecemeal. Lord Kitchener first planned a mere feint in the Eastern Mediterranean to divert Turkish troops from the Caucasus where Britain’s Russian ally appeared to be in trouble. The feint escalated into an attempt to take the Dardanelles in the catastrophic Gallipoli campaign and the surrender of Kut in the Mesopotamian campaign. After these serious reverses, Britain and France feared jihad throughout their colonial possessions—particularly India and Egypt.
But the Caliph in Turkey was not the only Islamic religious authority. The Hashemite rulers of the Hijaz were the keepers of Mecca and Medina and the British formed an alliance with them using deceptive promises. In the end, Syria was turned over to France and Palestine was made into a new Jewish state, both frustrating the nationalist strivings of the Arabs, who simply exchanged one colonial master for another.
I knew nothing about the Turkish side of this cataclysm including the Turkish-Russian war in the Caucasus, the Mesopotamian campaign, and the well-documented Armenian genocide. Rogan tells this little known story very well. The book is informative and entertaining. My only complaint concerns the lame maps.
Britain’s fateful decision to engage the Ottoman Empire was made piecemeal. Lord Kitchener first planned a mere feint in the Eastern Mediterranean to divert Turkish troops from the Caucasus where Britain’s Russian ally appeared to be in trouble. The feint escalated into an attempt to take the Dardanelles in the catastrophic Gallipoli campaign and the surrender of Kut in the Mesopotamian campaign. After these serious reverses, Britain and France feared jihad throughout their colonial possessions—particularly India and Egypt.
But the Caliph in Turkey was not the only Islamic religious authority. The Hashemite rulers of the Hijaz were the keepers of Mecca and Medina and the British formed an alliance with them using deceptive promises. In the end, Syria was turned over to France and Palestine was made into a new Jewish state, both frustrating the nationalist strivings of the Arabs, who simply exchanged one colonial master for another.
I knew nothing about the Turkish side of this cataclysm including the Turkish-Russian war in the Caucasus, the Mesopotamian campaign, and the well-documented Armenian genocide. Rogan tells this little known story very well. The book is informative and entertaining. My only complaint concerns the lame maps.
Ryback, T.W. (2008). Hitler’s private library: The books that shaped his life. Toronto: Random House.
Hitler is often thought to be anti-intellectual but he read for long hours every night. Most of his library still exists and some of the volumes contain the marks he made as he read. Hitler considered Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver’s Travels, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin to be at the forefront of great literature. He was a Shakespeare fan, preferring him to Goethe, and in particular admired the Merchant of Venice (guess why), Hamlet, and Julius Caesar. In addition to adventure novels, he read political tracts that he recommended to his followers. Among the most important of these was a German translation of Henry Ford’s The international Jew: The world’s foremost problem. Exclamation marks and heavy underlining mark late 19th century German books advocating the elimination of the Jewish “pestilence” from Germany. Unsurprisingly, Hitler had a book on Zyklon B and others on tank warfare.
Hitler is often thought to be anti-intellectual but he read for long hours every night. Most of his library still exists and some of the volumes contain the marks he made as he read. Hitler considered Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver’s Travels, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin to be at the forefront of great literature. He was a Shakespeare fan, preferring him to Goethe, and in particular admired the Merchant of Venice (guess why), Hamlet, and Julius Caesar. In addition to adventure novels, he read political tracts that he recommended to his followers. Among the most important of these was a German translation of Henry Ford’s The international Jew: The world’s foremost problem. Exclamation marks and heavy underlining mark late 19th century German books advocating the elimination of the Jewish “pestilence” from Germany. Unsurprisingly, Hitler had a book on Zyklon B and others on tank warfare.
Serge, V. & Trotsky, N.S. (1975). The life and death of Leon Trotsky. (Translated by A.J. Pomerans). NY: Basic.
This is the story of the communist revolution and its betrayal by Stalin told by true believers who witnessed the events. Interesting to read now as a testament to the limitation of human understanding—these folks really thought they had it all figured out. Tragic, the enormous sacrifices that are made for misguided causes.
This is the story of the communist revolution and its betrayal by Stalin told by true believers who witnessed the events. Interesting to read now as a testament to the limitation of human understanding—these folks really thought they had it all figured out. Tragic, the enormous sacrifices that are made for misguided causes.
Scahill, J. (2007). Blackwater: The rise of the world’s most powerful mercenary army. NY: Avalon.
The American mistrust of government and faith in private enterprise came together in the Bush era to create a private mercenary force. In 2001, Secretary Rumsfeld addressed the Pentagon officials in charge of defense contracting:
“The topic today is an adversary that poses a threat, a serious threat, to the security of the United States of America,” Rumsfeld thundered. “This adversary is one of the world’s last bastions of central planning. It governs by dictating five-year plans. From a single capital, it attempts to impose its demands across time zones, continents, oceans, and beyond. With brutal consistency it stifles free thought and crushes new ideas. It disrupts the defense of the United States and places the lives of men and women in uniform at risk.”
While these words were presumably spoken tongue in cheek, Rumsfeld proceeded to divert huge sums of money to the private sector by outsourcing an increasing number of military functions to the private sector. The result, a cancerous growth on the already bloated military-industrial complex, promises to eventually destabilize the American government. As the ancient Romans and the not so ancient Tsars of Russia discovered, a military force dependent directly on the executive acts entirely in accord with its own narrowly defined interests. The large group of mercenaries with headquarters and training facilities based not far from Washington (in Blackwater) can sooner or later be expected to depose leaders that fail to please them. Tail wagging the dog indeed!
The American mistrust of government and faith in private enterprise came together in the Bush era to create a private mercenary force. In 2001, Secretary Rumsfeld addressed the Pentagon officials in charge of defense contracting:
“The topic today is an adversary that poses a threat, a serious threat, to the security of the United States of America,” Rumsfeld thundered. “This adversary is one of the world’s last bastions of central planning. It governs by dictating five-year plans. From a single capital, it attempts to impose its demands across time zones, continents, oceans, and beyond. With brutal consistency it stifles free thought and crushes new ideas. It disrupts the defense of the United States and places the lives of men and women in uniform at risk.”
While these words were presumably spoken tongue in cheek, Rumsfeld proceeded to divert huge sums of money to the private sector by outsourcing an increasing number of military functions to the private sector. The result, a cancerous growth on the already bloated military-industrial complex, promises to eventually destabilize the American government. As the ancient Romans and the not so ancient Tsars of Russia discovered, a military force dependent directly on the executive acts entirely in accord with its own narrowly defined interests. The large group of mercenaries with headquarters and training facilities based not far from Washington (in Blackwater) can sooner or later be expected to depose leaders that fail to please them. Tail wagging the dog indeed!
Silcox, D.P. (2003). The Group of Seven and Tom Thomson. Toronto: Firefly.
This is a large coffee table type book with many excellent colour reproductions of the Group of Seven’s paintings. Like many Canadians of my generation, I imprinted upon these paintings of the rugged (near) north. For me, these paintings almost seem to be Canada. It is of interest that the Group of Seven had more formal “European” style artistic training than their publicists let on.
This is a large coffee table type book with many excellent colour reproductions of the Group of Seven’s paintings. Like many Canadians of my generation, I imprinted upon these paintings of the rugged (near) north. For me, these paintings almost seem to be Canada. It is of interest that the Group of Seven had more formal “European” style artistic training than their publicists let on.
Siljak, A. (2008). Angel of vengeance: The “girl assassin,” the Governor of St. Petersburg, and Russia’s revolutionary world. NY: St. Martin’s Press.
Oh my, this is a good one. Siljak is a Queen’s professor whose book placed second in the Canadian nonfiction competition this year (Cook’s Shock troops came first).
I have wondered off and on, when reading about the communist revolution and the show trials (e.g., Darkness at noon) where the peculiar communist rhetoric and ideas came from. The dictatorship of the proletariat, the vanguard of the workers, the “deed” that would ignite world revolution, the idea that everything must be destroyed before the new era could miraculously appear, the romanticized, selfless, monomaniacal, and amoral revolutionary who would bring the revolution about, the fetish of secret organizations, democratic centralism, and so forth. Did Marx and Lenin just invent these notions? If they did, why would anybody find them compelling? To an contemporary outsider, these ideas seem like they’ve been lifted from any of the dime a dozen paranoid conspiracy sites that one can visit on the web.
This book shows how these notions (notions are thoughts too small to be considered ideas) developed as a result of historical events, politically evocative novels, and terrorist tracts during the 19th century. The radical students of the 1860s (nouveau-atheist idealists inspired by the suffering of the saints) initially attempted to educate the peasants to provoke an uprising—the peasants, still living in the dark ages, weren’t interested. The students, having no followers, determined on direct violent action. They would mobilize the masses by sacrificing themselves during the assassinations of various government officials.
There are stunning parallels between the Russian student radicals of the eighteen sixties and the student radicals of the nineteen sixties, including the concern for and romanticizing of the poor (none of whom were represented among the radicals), contempt for bourgeois conventions, and the affectation of workmen’s clothing.
The heroine, Vera Zasulich, was part of the early radical movement. Following a term of imprisonment, she unsuccessfully attempted to kill the Governor of St. Petersburg. Famously, she stood trial for attempted murder in 1878. But the government of Alexander II was so incompetent, it appeared to harbour a death wish. Nowhere was this clearer than in the outcome of Zasulich’s trial. Her tragedy was not only that she was denied martyrdom but that she lived long enough to see the catastrophic results of the ultimate victory of the terrorist movement.
Oh my, this is a good one. Siljak is a Queen’s professor whose book placed second in the Canadian nonfiction competition this year (Cook’s Shock troops came first).
I have wondered off and on, when reading about the communist revolution and the show trials (e.g., Darkness at noon) where the peculiar communist rhetoric and ideas came from. The dictatorship of the proletariat, the vanguard of the workers, the “deed” that would ignite world revolution, the idea that everything must be destroyed before the new era could miraculously appear, the romanticized, selfless, monomaniacal, and amoral revolutionary who would bring the revolution about, the fetish of secret organizations, democratic centralism, and so forth. Did Marx and Lenin just invent these notions? If they did, why would anybody find them compelling? To an contemporary outsider, these ideas seem like they’ve been lifted from any of the dime a dozen paranoid conspiracy sites that one can visit on the web.
This book shows how these notions (notions are thoughts too small to be considered ideas) developed as a result of historical events, politically evocative novels, and terrorist tracts during the 19th century. The radical students of the 1860s (nouveau-atheist idealists inspired by the suffering of the saints) initially attempted to educate the peasants to provoke an uprising—the peasants, still living in the dark ages, weren’t interested. The students, having no followers, determined on direct violent action. They would mobilize the masses by sacrificing themselves during the assassinations of various government officials.
There are stunning parallels between the Russian student radicals of the eighteen sixties and the student radicals of the nineteen sixties, including the concern for and romanticizing of the poor (none of whom were represented among the radicals), contempt for bourgeois conventions, and the affectation of workmen’s clothing.
The heroine, Vera Zasulich, was part of the early radical movement. Following a term of imprisonment, she unsuccessfully attempted to kill the Governor of St. Petersburg. Famously, she stood trial for attempted murder in 1878. But the government of Alexander II was so incompetent, it appeared to harbour a death wish. Nowhere was this clearer than in the outcome of Zasulich’s trial. Her tragedy was not only that she was denied martyrdom but that she lived long enough to see the catastrophic results of the ultimate victory of the terrorist movement.
Smith, D.M. (1982). Mussolini: A biography. NY: Vintage.
I re-read this book after thirty some years—you have one guess why I would read it now. I must confess that I had forgotten how breath-takingly inept Mussolini was. One needs a thesaurus to fully express the dumb lameness of this man, the original mean clown. From the posturing in ridiculous uniforms, to the incessant lying, ridiculous bellicose pronouncements (for example, the purifying effects on the Italian people of a blood bath), and constant self-contradictions. His one-man administration was thuggish, extravagantly inefficient, and corrupt to the core, dragging Italy inevitably toward humiliating ruin. It was all based on lies and the maiming or murder of opponents.
How could this political and moral catastrophe ever happen? How could a constitutional democracy acquiesce in its own destruction without real resistance to a fatuous thug? Parliamentarians squabbled among themselves and hated each other more than they hated the fascists; the king, the Pope, and the wealthy industrialists saw Mussolini as a bulwark against communism. Mussolini, through the murder of journalists and censorship, achieved total control of the media. Most ordinary Italians came to believe that Mussolini was a stable brilliant genius admired by the entire world. After Mussolini’s feckless war strategy led to Italy’s invasion by the Germans and the allies, they awoke to a different view.
Very well done history.
I re-read this book after thirty some years—you have one guess why I would read it now. I must confess that I had forgotten how breath-takingly inept Mussolini was. One needs a thesaurus to fully express the dumb lameness of this man, the original mean clown. From the posturing in ridiculous uniforms, to the incessant lying, ridiculous bellicose pronouncements (for example, the purifying effects on the Italian people of a blood bath), and constant self-contradictions. His one-man administration was thuggish, extravagantly inefficient, and corrupt to the core, dragging Italy inevitably toward humiliating ruin. It was all based on lies and the maiming or murder of opponents.
How could this political and moral catastrophe ever happen? How could a constitutional democracy acquiesce in its own destruction without real resistance to a fatuous thug? Parliamentarians squabbled among themselves and hated each other more than they hated the fascists; the king, the Pope, and the wealthy industrialists saw Mussolini as a bulwark against communism. Mussolini, through the murder of journalists and censorship, achieved total control of the media. Most ordinary Italians came to believe that Mussolini was a stable brilliant genius admired by the entire world. After Mussolini’s feckless war strategy led to Italy’s invasion by the Germans and the allies, they awoke to a different view.
Very well done history.
Thomas, E. (2010). The war lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the rush to empire, 1898. NY: Little, Brown.
These men born to privilege were children at the time of the American Civil War. Lodge and Roosevelt were close friends and successful politicians. Hearst became the most powerful newspaper owner in the US. All of them wanted an American empire and worked indefatigably toward that end. Roosevelt also wanted to achieve personal glory and Hearst, not too dissimilarly, wanted to produce spectacular patriotic war stories, even some with him playing a role.
The foolishness and naivete of these mandarins in foreign policy is breathtaking. After a series of unfortunate events and misleading sensationalized press reports, America got the desired, yet pathetic, war with moribund Spain. Once the Americans conquered Cuba and the Phillipines, they had no idea what to do with them. Most of the war’s consequences were unanticipated—let the water-boarding and exploitation begin.
Very nicely done.
These men born to privilege were children at the time of the American Civil War. Lodge and Roosevelt were close friends and successful politicians. Hearst became the most powerful newspaper owner in the US. All of them wanted an American empire and worked indefatigably toward that end. Roosevelt also wanted to achieve personal glory and Hearst, not too dissimilarly, wanted to produce spectacular patriotic war stories, even some with him playing a role.
The foolishness and naivete of these mandarins in foreign policy is breathtaking. After a series of unfortunate events and misleading sensationalized press reports, America got the desired, yet pathetic, war with moribund Spain. Once the Americans conquered Cuba and the Phillipines, they had no idea what to do with them. Most of the war’s consequences were unanticipated—let the water-boarding and exploitation begin.
Very nicely done.
Vidal, G. (1995). Palimpsest: A memoir. Toronto: Penguin.
Gore Vidal (1925-2012) was born into a politically elite family and was part of the social set that included the Kennedy’s. He knew everybody who was anybody and characterizes them in this book with an acid pen. He had a notorious and life-long feud with the right-wing pundit William F. Buckley—Vidal was a good hater, but scarcely mentions Buckley in this book. The feud was somewhat odd because the two patricians had a lot in common and Buckley, despite his politics, preferred to hang out with liberals.
Gore was a brilliant writer—novels, plays, and TV screenplays. I enjoyed his historicized novels Burr and Lincoln very much. He even ran for the senate.
Gore was known to be homosexual (not an unimportant thing in those days), often asserting that everyone is bisexual--so it is a bit surprising that he is not more celebrated as a public intellectual and pioneer of gay rights today (2015). On reflection, however, I realize that most people concerned about gay rights (not to mention American imperialism) are far too young to know about Gore’s social and political context. Most young people who read his memoirs would have little idea of who most of the famous people mentioned in it were
Gore Vidal (1925-2012) was born into a politically elite family and was part of the social set that included the Kennedy’s. He knew everybody who was anybody and characterizes them in this book with an acid pen. He had a notorious and life-long feud with the right-wing pundit William F. Buckley—Vidal was a good hater, but scarcely mentions Buckley in this book. The feud was somewhat odd because the two patricians had a lot in common and Buckley, despite his politics, preferred to hang out with liberals.
Gore was a brilliant writer—novels, plays, and TV screenplays. I enjoyed his historicized novels Burr and Lincoln very much. He even ran for the senate.
Gore was known to be homosexual (not an unimportant thing in those days), often asserting that everyone is bisexual--so it is a bit surprising that he is not more celebrated as a public intellectual and pioneer of gay rights today (2015). On reflection, however, I realize that most people concerned about gay rights (not to mention American imperialism) are far too young to know about Gore’s social and political context. Most young people who read his memoirs would have little idea of who most of the famous people mentioned in it were
Walkowitz, J.R. (1992). City of dreadful delight: Narratives of sexual danger in late Victorian London. University of Chicago Press.
Remarkably, although chalk-full of post-modern verbiage (e.g., London streets provide “an enigmatic and contested site for class and gender encounters” and a woman associates urban adventures with a “transgression of gendered class identity”), this book is actually of some interest. But these phrases make the book very slow going--an editor could remove about a third of it with no loss of content.
The author examines popular expositions of social problems concerning prostitution and poverty in London as a guide to changing attitudes. Similarly, she analyses sensational accounts of Jack the Ripper’s activities to the same end. Certainly, the Victorians held self-contradictory attitudes toward the causes and cures for crime and poverty and there was no unanimity of opinion.
An interesting part of the book concerns the upper-middle class “Men and Women’s Club” designed to foster the free exchange of opinions and ideas between the sexes and, perhaps incidentally, as a successful venue for the statistician Karl Pearson to find himself a wife. The free exchange of opinions and ideas went primarily from the men (mostly Pearson) to the women.
Remarkably, although chalk-full of post-modern verbiage (e.g., London streets provide “an enigmatic and contested site for class and gender encounters” and a woman associates urban adventures with a “transgression of gendered class identity”), this book is actually of some interest. But these phrases make the book very slow going--an editor could remove about a third of it with no loss of content.
The author examines popular expositions of social problems concerning prostitution and poverty in London as a guide to changing attitudes. Similarly, she analyses sensational accounts of Jack the Ripper’s activities to the same end. Certainly, the Victorians held self-contradictory attitudes toward the causes and cures for crime and poverty and there was no unanimity of opinion.
An interesting part of the book concerns the upper-middle class “Men and Women’s Club” designed to foster the free exchange of opinions and ideas between the sexes and, perhaps incidentally, as a successful venue for the statistician Karl Pearson to find himself a wife. The free exchange of opinions and ideas went primarily from the men (mostly Pearson) to the women.
Westhues, K. (2004). Administrative mobbing at the University of Toronto: The trial, degradation and dismissal of a professor during the presidency of J. Robert S. Prichard. Queenston, ON, Edwin Mellen Press.
This strange book is fascinating on several levels. There is dramatic tension in the story of the dismissal itself and what slimy administrative memoranda will appear next. Dramatic tension in that one often can’t tell whether the protagonist, Professor Herbert Richardson, is really guilty or simply victimized—or even if he’s guilty of something else, so deserves dismissal anyway. As Beria used to say—“Everybody’s guilty of something.” Then there’s tension in trying to decide whether the author has been duped or is attempting to dupe the reader, while trying to ignore an obvious conflict of interest when evaluating the arguments and evidence. The (real or apparent) conflict is that Herbert Richardson owns the company that published this book. All this is made worse by somewhat overblown assertions that “mobbing” has emerged as an exciting new area of scholarly inquiry. I don’t think so—however, I can believe that it is an exciting new area of reportage. And there is nothing wrong with good reporting, particularly by someone who appears as well informed and humanistic as Westhues.
I highly recommend this book and won’t spoil it for you by detailing what I think. It takes a bit of getting into but I found that I couldn’t put it down thereafter. The book is worth reading for the quoted memoranda alone.
One of the questions that the dismissal of Richardson involves is whether the Edwin Mellen Press is or is not a “vanity press.” Hard to know how to evaluate this assertion when the bulk of academic publications (especially journal articles) are read by vanishingly few people. Is it “Vanity, all vanity”?
This strange book is fascinating on several levels. There is dramatic tension in the story of the dismissal itself and what slimy administrative memoranda will appear next. Dramatic tension in that one often can’t tell whether the protagonist, Professor Herbert Richardson, is really guilty or simply victimized—or even if he’s guilty of something else, so deserves dismissal anyway. As Beria used to say—“Everybody’s guilty of something.” Then there’s tension in trying to decide whether the author has been duped or is attempting to dupe the reader, while trying to ignore an obvious conflict of interest when evaluating the arguments and evidence. The (real or apparent) conflict is that Herbert Richardson owns the company that published this book. All this is made worse by somewhat overblown assertions that “mobbing” has emerged as an exciting new area of scholarly inquiry. I don’t think so—however, I can believe that it is an exciting new area of reportage. And there is nothing wrong with good reporting, particularly by someone who appears as well informed and humanistic as Westhues.
I highly recommend this book and won’t spoil it for you by detailing what I think. It takes a bit of getting into but I found that I couldn’t put it down thereafter. The book is worth reading for the quoted memoranda alone.
One of the questions that the dismissal of Richardson involves is whether the Edwin Mellen Press is or is not a “vanity press.” Hard to know how to evaluate this assertion when the bulk of academic publications (especially journal articles) are read by vanishingly few people. Is it “Vanity, all vanity”?
Wiebe, R. (2008). Big Bear. Toronto: Penguin.
This is a tiny biography of Big Bear (1825-1887), chief of a largely Cree band called the Prairie River People. The author presents a sympathetic account of a sensible and essentially peaceful man trying to negotiate with the white invaders while his people were starving. In the end, Big Bear could not restrain his son, Wandering Spirit, and others from murdering nine whites at Frog Lake during the Riel Rebellion. Big Bear’s band of followers disintegrated, some fleeing to Montana where they were harassed by the army, and others surrendering to the pursuing Canadian troops. Big Bear and a few family members finally surrendered at Fort Carlton. He was sentenced to three years at Stony Mountain Penitentiary but released because of failing health. He died shortly thereafter.
To give a flavour of the times when the Canadian system of Apartheid was being implemented, I quote a letter sent to the government by a number of chiefs in 1871. Big Bear refused to contribute to the letter thinking it sycophantic and mistrusting the translation.
“Great Father—I shake hands with you, and bid you welcome. We heard our lands were sold and we did not like it: we don’t want to sell our lands; it is our property, and no one has a right to sell them.”
“Our country is getting ruined of fur-bearing animals, hitherto our sole support, and now we are poor and want help—we want you to pity us. We want cattle, tools, agricultural implements, and assistance in everything when we come to settle—our country is no longer able to support us.”
“Make provision for us against years of starvation. We have had great starvation the past winter, the small-pox took away many of our people, the old, young, and children.”
“We want you to stop the Americans from coming to trade on our lands, and giving fire-water, ammunition and arms to our enemies, the Blackfeet.”
“We made a peace this winter with the Blackfeet. Our young men are foolish, it may not last long.”…
One amusing part of this pathetic letter is the chiefs’ characterization of their young men as “foolish” so likely to start a war with their hereditary enemies. When Lewis and Clark journeyed through the prairies earlier they had lectured the aboriginals about their tribal wars. The men who listened were mystified—how were they to get wives? It is clear in the letter that the old chiefs already had their wives.
There is a concise and dispiriting chronology of events on the prairies at the end of the book.
This is a tiny biography of Big Bear (1825-1887), chief of a largely Cree band called the Prairie River People. The author presents a sympathetic account of a sensible and essentially peaceful man trying to negotiate with the white invaders while his people were starving. In the end, Big Bear could not restrain his son, Wandering Spirit, and others from murdering nine whites at Frog Lake during the Riel Rebellion. Big Bear’s band of followers disintegrated, some fleeing to Montana where they were harassed by the army, and others surrendering to the pursuing Canadian troops. Big Bear and a few family members finally surrendered at Fort Carlton. He was sentenced to three years at Stony Mountain Penitentiary but released because of failing health. He died shortly thereafter.
To give a flavour of the times when the Canadian system of Apartheid was being implemented, I quote a letter sent to the government by a number of chiefs in 1871. Big Bear refused to contribute to the letter thinking it sycophantic and mistrusting the translation.
“Great Father—I shake hands with you, and bid you welcome. We heard our lands were sold and we did not like it: we don’t want to sell our lands; it is our property, and no one has a right to sell them.”
“Our country is getting ruined of fur-bearing animals, hitherto our sole support, and now we are poor and want help—we want you to pity us. We want cattle, tools, agricultural implements, and assistance in everything when we come to settle—our country is no longer able to support us.”
“Make provision for us against years of starvation. We have had great starvation the past winter, the small-pox took away many of our people, the old, young, and children.”
“We want you to stop the Americans from coming to trade on our lands, and giving fire-water, ammunition and arms to our enemies, the Blackfeet.”
“We made a peace this winter with the Blackfeet. Our young men are foolish, it may not last long.”…
One amusing part of this pathetic letter is the chiefs’ characterization of their young men as “foolish” so likely to start a war with their hereditary enemies. When Lewis and Clark journeyed through the prairies earlier they had lectured the aboriginals about their tribal wars. The men who listened were mystified—how were they to get wives? It is clear in the letter that the old chiefs already had their wives.
There is a concise and dispiriting chronology of events on the prairies at the end of the book.
Winchester, S. (2003). Krakatoa: The day the world exploded: August 27, 1883. NY: HarperCollins.
A good book, although written in a very digressive style. Digressive, because the actual explosion didn’t take very long. What saves the book is the excellent quality of the digressions. I learned a lot about colonial Java and the rise of Islamic militancy there. A nice mix of history, biology, geology, and personal reflection.
A good book, although written in a very digressive style. Digressive, because the actual explosion didn’t take very long. What saves the book is the excellent quality of the digressions. I learned a lot about colonial Java and the rise of Islamic militancy there. A nice mix of history, biology, geology, and personal reflection.
Williamson, E. (2004). Borges: A life. Toronto: Penguin.
I became interested in Borges when I stumbled across a quote in a statistics book that I thought was wildly funny—right up there with Oscar Wilde’s deathbed ultimatum—“Either this wallpaper goes or I do!” Here’s the passage--
"An Ancient Chinese Classification of Animals
Animals are divided into (a) those that belong to the Emperor, (b) embalmed ones, (c) those that are trained, (d) suckling pigs, (e) mermaids, (f) fabulous ones, (g) stray dogs, (h) those that are included in this classification, (i) those that tremble as if they were mad, (j) innumerable ones, (k), those drawn with a very fine camel’s hair brush, (l) others, (m) those that have just broken a flower vase, and (n) those that resemble flies from a distance." (Jorge Luis Borges, Other inquisitions: 1937-1952)
Borges, however, did not have a funny life. By all accounts, he emerged from an overprotected childhood to early promise as a poet and went from there to humiliation and obscurity as a low-level library worker in a very unionized shop. At one point a co-worker found a reference to a Jorge Luis Borges in a reference book and called Borges’ attention to the “amazing coincidence” of their names. All the while Borges was tormented by obsession over unrequited love, financial dependence on his parents, a morbid preoccupation with his faults, and a fear of falling into solipsistic madness.
About the time Borges was becoming blind, at age 60, his work was belatedly discovered when he was awarded the International Publishers’ Prize in 1961 (Borges initially thought it was a joke). In short order he became famous—visiting professorships at leading universities around the world (ironic because he never managed to graduate from high school), speaking tours, interviews, photos, and celebrity status. Borges was the most famous living Argentinian. So famous that casual remarks, such as, that the war between Argentina and Great Britain over the Falklands (Malvinas) reminded him of two bald men fighting over a comb, caused him lots of trouble. More importantly for Borges himself, he found reciprocated romantic love at long last with a very young and pretty Japanese-Argentinian woman of literary tastes and independent spirit.
I became interested in Borges when I stumbled across a quote in a statistics book that I thought was wildly funny—right up there with Oscar Wilde’s deathbed ultimatum—“Either this wallpaper goes or I do!” Here’s the passage--
"An Ancient Chinese Classification of Animals
Animals are divided into (a) those that belong to the Emperor, (b) embalmed ones, (c) those that are trained, (d) suckling pigs, (e) mermaids, (f) fabulous ones, (g) stray dogs, (h) those that are included in this classification, (i) those that tremble as if they were mad, (j) innumerable ones, (k), those drawn with a very fine camel’s hair brush, (l) others, (m) those that have just broken a flower vase, and (n) those that resemble flies from a distance." (Jorge Luis Borges, Other inquisitions: 1937-1952)
Borges, however, did not have a funny life. By all accounts, he emerged from an overprotected childhood to early promise as a poet and went from there to humiliation and obscurity as a low-level library worker in a very unionized shop. At one point a co-worker found a reference to a Jorge Luis Borges in a reference book and called Borges’ attention to the “amazing coincidence” of their names. All the while Borges was tormented by obsession over unrequited love, financial dependence on his parents, a morbid preoccupation with his faults, and a fear of falling into solipsistic madness.
About the time Borges was becoming blind, at age 60, his work was belatedly discovered when he was awarded the International Publishers’ Prize in 1961 (Borges initially thought it was a joke). In short order he became famous—visiting professorships at leading universities around the world (ironic because he never managed to graduate from high school), speaking tours, interviews, photos, and celebrity status. Borges was the most famous living Argentinian. So famous that casual remarks, such as, that the war between Argentina and Great Britain over the Falklands (Malvinas) reminded him of two bald men fighting over a comb, caused him lots of trouble. More importantly for Borges himself, he found reciprocated romantic love at long last with a very young and pretty Japanese-Argentinian woman of literary tastes and independent spirit.
Raffo, P. (2005). Lakehead Psychiatric Hospital 1934-2004: From institution to community: A transformation of psychiatric hospital services. Thunder Bay: St. Joseph’s Care Group.
Despite the brave title, this is a pathetic tale of the extended failure of a psychiatric institution in Ontario’s hinterland. From the decades of delay in its beginning caused by the imperialistic neglect of its Southern Ontario political masters and the inter-city rivalry of Port Arthur and Fort William, to the inability to attract mental health professionals (particularly psychiatrists and psychologists) that characterized the sixties to nineties period, to its demise in the confusion of Ontario psychiatric care policies of the nineties and beyond, it’s a litany of missed opportunities and stifled initiative. Its final demise occurred in a period characterized by anti-psychiatric rhetoric (patients became “consumer-survivors”), anti-institutional policies (essentially de-staffing), and weak attempts to develop community programs by a centralized, demoralized, and confused bureaucracy.
Could it be as bad as all this? The author, historian Raffo, apparently thinks so. Here’s the complete text of the Epilogue as witness of badness on several levels.
"Pat Mitchell lived from her youth, first at the Ontario Hospital Port Arthur, and then at LPH. In recent years she has returned to the community of Thunder Bay, to a shared apartment in the south ward of the city. It is clean and brightly decorated. It has modern appliances, comfortable furniture and is fully carpeted. The apartment block itself is located on a busy main road, amidst a variety of housing units. It is within reach of a park and other social and commercial amenities. Pat has direct access to a resident nurse, on the premises."
"Pat volunteered readily to be interviewed for this book. She talked at some length about her long experience of a variety of forms of mental health care. When she came to describe her present circumstances, she beamed with pride. Pat Mitchell loves her new way of life, away from LPH. Nothing made her attitude to that old institution more clear than the moment when she was asked to sign a waiver that released the contents of the interview for possible quotation in the final text. Perhaps remembering the consequences of signing other documents during her long stay at LPH, she looked up sharply at me and said, with a note of alarm in her voice: “You’re not going to send me back there, are you?”
I lived in the neighborhood of LPH through primary and high school. My father was an attendant there from the early sixties until his retirement in the eighties. I worked as an attendant at LPH during the summers of 1964 and 1965 and from 1971 until 1988 I worked in another psychiatric institution in the Ontario psychiatric “system”. There is lots of nostalgia in this book for me, in particular photographs of people I hadn’t seen in more than thirty years.
Despite the brave title, this is a pathetic tale of the extended failure of a psychiatric institution in Ontario’s hinterland. From the decades of delay in its beginning caused by the imperialistic neglect of its Southern Ontario political masters and the inter-city rivalry of Port Arthur and Fort William, to the inability to attract mental health professionals (particularly psychiatrists and psychologists) that characterized the sixties to nineties period, to its demise in the confusion of Ontario psychiatric care policies of the nineties and beyond, it’s a litany of missed opportunities and stifled initiative. Its final demise occurred in a period characterized by anti-psychiatric rhetoric (patients became “consumer-survivors”), anti-institutional policies (essentially de-staffing), and weak attempts to develop community programs by a centralized, demoralized, and confused bureaucracy.
Could it be as bad as all this? The author, historian Raffo, apparently thinks so. Here’s the complete text of the Epilogue as witness of badness on several levels.
"Pat Mitchell lived from her youth, first at the Ontario Hospital Port Arthur, and then at LPH. In recent years she has returned to the community of Thunder Bay, to a shared apartment in the south ward of the city. It is clean and brightly decorated. It has modern appliances, comfortable furniture and is fully carpeted. The apartment block itself is located on a busy main road, amidst a variety of housing units. It is within reach of a park and other social and commercial amenities. Pat has direct access to a resident nurse, on the premises."
"Pat volunteered readily to be interviewed for this book. She talked at some length about her long experience of a variety of forms of mental health care. When she came to describe her present circumstances, she beamed with pride. Pat Mitchell loves her new way of life, away from LPH. Nothing made her attitude to that old institution more clear than the moment when she was asked to sign a waiver that released the contents of the interview for possible quotation in the final text. Perhaps remembering the consequences of signing other documents during her long stay at LPH, she looked up sharply at me and said, with a note of alarm in her voice: “You’re not going to send me back there, are you?”
I lived in the neighborhood of LPH through primary and high school. My father was an attendant there from the early sixties until his retirement in the eighties. I worked as an attendant at LPH during the summers of 1964 and 1965 and from 1971 until 1988 I worked in another psychiatric institution in the Ontario psychiatric “system”. There is lots of nostalgia in this book for me, in particular photographs of people I hadn’t seen in more than thirty years.
Renshon, S.A. & Larson, D.W. (Eds). (2003). Good judgment in foreign policy: Theory and application. NY: Rowman & Littlefield.
A series of essays on what good judgment is, illustrated by numerous examples, mostly from American foreign policy. The essays are generally well written and always well-informed. The authors are aware of the fundamental epistemological problem in their effort but are unable to overcome it. How can we specify the necessary and sufficient conditions for good judgment that can be used by future decision-makers in any but the most obvious broad strokes? Be careful, don’t be too proud, consider the alternatives, get good advice, and so forth. An additional and equally fatal problem is that one can draw different morals from past debacles and successes—is this another quagmire, another Munich? Who the hell knows??
A series of essays on what good judgment is, illustrated by numerous examples, mostly from American foreign policy. The essays are generally well written and always well-informed. The authors are aware of the fundamental epistemological problem in their effort but are unable to overcome it. How can we specify the necessary and sufficient conditions for good judgment that can be used by future decision-makers in any but the most obvious broad strokes? Be careful, don’t be too proud, consider the alternatives, get good advice, and so forth. An additional and equally fatal problem is that one can draw different morals from past debacles and successes—is this another quagmire, another Munich? Who the hell knows??
Shaffer, P. (2009). We’ll be here for the rest of our lives: A swingin’ showbiz saga. Toronto: Random House.
I had to read this book because Paul Shaffer is the most famous showbiz type to ever come from my hometown of Thunder Bay, even more famous than Bobby Curtola. Unfortunately, he’s from the Fort William part of Thunder Bay, not the vastly superior Port Arthur part, so, although we overlapped, I never met him.
The book is a collection of anecdotes held together by an autobiographical thread. Shaffer was star struck from the time he was a child and he still is. He loves celebrities, especially musical celebrities, and all entertainers, even lounge lizards who never made it. It’s all rather endearing. Happily, he ended up on Saturday Night Live and then on David Letterman, where he can live out his dreams of hobnobbing with the famous.
The book isn’t all that interesting if you’re not keen on celebrities but Shaffer seems like a nice guy.
I had to read this book because Paul Shaffer is the most famous showbiz type to ever come from my hometown of Thunder Bay, even more famous than Bobby Curtola. Unfortunately, he’s from the Fort William part of Thunder Bay, not the vastly superior Port Arthur part, so, although we overlapped, I never met him.
The book is a collection of anecdotes held together by an autobiographical thread. Shaffer was star struck from the time he was a child and he still is. He loves celebrities, especially musical celebrities, and all entertainers, even lounge lizards who never made it. It’s all rather endearing. Happily, he ended up on Saturday Night Live and then on David Letterman, where he can live out his dreams of hobnobbing with the famous.
The book isn’t all that interesting if you’re not keen on celebrities but Shaffer seems like a nice guy.
Shuyun, S. (2006). The long march: The true history of communist China’s founding myth. Toronto: Doubleday.
This story had to be written now because the long marchers will soon all be dead. The author followed the route taken by the marchers (not starving, on foot, and being shot at, however) and interviewed all the survivors she could find.
The author is full of admiration for the heroism and idealism of the marchers but grows increasingly disillusioned as her investigations reveal the myth-making and lies of the Communist Party. There were a lot of secrets (for example, treachery in high places) that needed to be kept from the people and Mao, like Stalin with the Red Army, preferred his heroes dead.
This is a truly incredible story and is very well told.
This story had to be written now because the long marchers will soon all be dead. The author followed the route taken by the marchers (not starving, on foot, and being shot at, however) and interviewed all the survivors she could find.
The author is full of admiration for the heroism and idealism of the marchers but grows increasingly disillusioned as her investigations reveal the myth-making and lies of the Communist Party. There were a lot of secrets (for example, treachery in high places) that needed to be kept from the people and Mao, like Stalin with the Red Army, preferred his heroes dead.
This is a truly incredible story and is very well told.
Stape, J. (2007). The several lives of Joseph Conrad. Toronto: Doubleday.
Conrad was a Polish expatriate who was first an underemployed sailor and later a captain at a time when less and less labour was needed for merchant ships. He was a bit of a ne’er do well who was frequently bailed out by his uncle (he had no other family). It is surprising that he ended up becoming a master of English writing and a successful author at a relatively advanced age. Financial success, however, was very slow in coming and Conrad’s laboured writing was always motivated by money. He sometimes mistook his audience, particularly in his later years.
Conrad was a Polish expatriate who was first an underemployed sailor and later a captain at a time when less and less labour was needed for merchant ships. He was a bit of a ne’er do well who was frequently bailed out by his uncle (he had no other family). It is surprising that he ended up becoming a master of English writing and a successful author at a relatively advanced age. Financial success, however, was very slow in coming and Conrad’s laboured writing was always motivated by money. He sometimes mistook his audience, particularly in his later years.
Tetley, W. (2010). The October Crisis, 1970: An insider’s view. McGill-Queen’s University Press.
This is an eye-opening book about one of the most serious political crises in Canadian history by a man who was a cabinet minister in Henri Bourassa’s provincial government at the time. The book is meticulously documented and includes Tetley’s diary entries for the period in question.
The received wisdom is that in response to the kidnapping of James Cross (British trade commissioner) and Pierre Laporte (Minister of Labour) by the Front de Libération du Quebec (FLQ), Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act and sent the army into Montreal in a massive and unjustified assault on civil liberties. Tetley argues, however, that the sequence and character of these events was very different from what is ordinarily supposed. A whole lot of revisionism has occurred over the years.
The FLQ demanded the release of 23 “political prisoners” in return for the release of their two hostages. These “political prisoners” had been sentenced for bombings (some fatal) and armed robberies. The “Petition of the Sixteen Eminent Personalities” gave its “urgent support” for the government to negotiate “the exchange of the two hostages for the political prisoners.” The sixteen included separatist politicians (Rene Levesque, Jacques Parizeau, and Camille Laurin), an important journalist (Claude Ryan), several professors of social science and the humanities, and a number of labour leaders. The sixteen wanted an exclusively Quebec response to the crisis, one in which a parallel government composed of eminent individuals would play a prominent role.
The City of Montreal and the Government of Quebec requested that the Federal Government invoke the War Measures Act and send the army into Montreal. A overwhelming majority of citizens in Quebec and the rest of Canada strongly supported this intervention. The arrival of the army effectively ended the incipient insurrection. The murder of Pierre Laporte removed what political and moral support remained for the FLQ.
This is an eye-opening book about one of the most serious political crises in Canadian history by a man who was a cabinet minister in Henri Bourassa’s provincial government at the time. The book is meticulously documented and includes Tetley’s diary entries for the period in question.
The received wisdom is that in response to the kidnapping of James Cross (British trade commissioner) and Pierre Laporte (Minister of Labour) by the Front de Libération du Quebec (FLQ), Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act and sent the army into Montreal in a massive and unjustified assault on civil liberties. Tetley argues, however, that the sequence and character of these events was very different from what is ordinarily supposed. A whole lot of revisionism has occurred over the years.
The FLQ demanded the release of 23 “political prisoners” in return for the release of their two hostages. These “political prisoners” had been sentenced for bombings (some fatal) and armed robberies. The “Petition of the Sixteen Eminent Personalities” gave its “urgent support” for the government to negotiate “the exchange of the two hostages for the political prisoners.” The sixteen included separatist politicians (Rene Levesque, Jacques Parizeau, and Camille Laurin), an important journalist (Claude Ryan), several professors of social science and the humanities, and a number of labour leaders. The sixteen wanted an exclusively Quebec response to the crisis, one in which a parallel government composed of eminent individuals would play a prominent role.
The City of Montreal and the Government of Quebec requested that the Federal Government invoke the War Measures Act and send the army into Montreal. A overwhelming majority of citizens in Quebec and the rest of Canada strongly supported this intervention. The arrival of the army effectively ended the incipient insurrection. The murder of Pierre Laporte removed what political and moral support remained for the FLQ.
Von Boeselager, P.F. (2009). Valkyrie: The story of the plot to kill Hitler, by its last member. NY: Knopf. (with F. Fehrenbach & J. Fehrenbach. Translated by S. Rendall).
A brief account of the plots to kill Hitler. I hadn’t realized that there were quite a number of these attempts and several came close. One of the problems is that the plotters wanted to simultaneously assassinate the SS leader, Himmler, in order to avoid a civil war.
Most of the plotters supported a German resurgence. These were conservative soldiers who shared the Nazi desire to restore the losses and remove the humiliation occasioned by the Treaty of Versaille. They were marvellously brave men who deserved to succeed. Nevertheless, one wonders about how much such memoirs are coloured by hindsight biases and self-presentational concerns.
A brief account of the plots to kill Hitler. I hadn’t realized that there were quite a number of these attempts and several came close. One of the problems is that the plotters wanted to simultaneously assassinate the SS leader, Himmler, in order to avoid a civil war.
Most of the plotters supported a German resurgence. These were conservative soldiers who shared the Nazi desire to restore the losses and remove the humiliation occasioned by the Treaty of Versaille. They were marvellously brave men who deserved to succeed. Nevertheless, one wonders about how much such memoirs are coloured by hindsight biases and self-presentational concerns.
Wilson, A.N. (2006). After the Victorians: The world our parents knew. London: Random House.
This is a history of the twentieth century from an English perspective. It covers the loss of empire and the two great wars and chronicles what it asserts are associated cultural trends. The book is easily read and a bit chatty. It is sometimes cluttered by the inclusion of many figures of modest importance and the author’s many opinions (sometimes they are sound, sometimes not, and sometimes one can’t tell). There is some interesting documentation on the persistence and pervasiveness of the English class system. The author believes in decency, the importance of ideological and religious tolerance, and the British National Health Service.
Of course, it is easy to be depressed by a history of the twentieth century. How many millions of deaths due to plague, war, and starvation were there? One is reminded of Sagan’s “billions and billions”. As Stalin famously remarked—a few deaths are a tragedy, a million, just a statistic.
The author argues that the allies in WWII were hardly morally pure (witness the pointless and perhaps counterproductive massive bombing of civilians in Germany and the American insistence on unconditional surrender that essentially (it is argued) led to the continued enslavement of Eastern Europe). Wilson also describes the unequal relationship of England and the US. He believes that the Americans used England’s predicament to effect the elimination of the remains of the British Empire and England as a world economic and political power.
This is a history of the twentieth century from an English perspective. It covers the loss of empire and the two great wars and chronicles what it asserts are associated cultural trends. The book is easily read and a bit chatty. It is sometimes cluttered by the inclusion of many figures of modest importance and the author’s many opinions (sometimes they are sound, sometimes not, and sometimes one can’t tell). There is some interesting documentation on the persistence and pervasiveness of the English class system. The author believes in decency, the importance of ideological and religious tolerance, and the British National Health Service.
Of course, it is easy to be depressed by a history of the twentieth century. How many millions of deaths due to plague, war, and starvation were there? One is reminded of Sagan’s “billions and billions”. As Stalin famously remarked—a few deaths are a tragedy, a million, just a statistic.
The author argues that the allies in WWII were hardly morally pure (witness the pointless and perhaps counterproductive massive bombing of civilians in Germany and the American insistence on unconditional surrender that essentially (it is argued) led to the continued enslavement of Eastern Europe). Wilson also describes the unequal relationship of England and the US. He believes that the Americans used England’s predicament to effect the elimination of the remains of the British Empire and England as a world economic and political power.
Wineapple, B. (1996). Sister Brother: Gertrude and Leo Stein. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
This is a very long book. It’s well written but contains too much detail for someone with no academic interest in either of the Steins. In fact, that was the main problem I had with the book: Gertrude Stein was not a particularly agreeable person and I, in my philistine sort of way, didn’t think she ever did anything very important. Her brother was nicer, less ambitious, and an art collector.
There is some interesting context to the biographies—for example, descriptions of painters like Matisse and Picasso early in their careers and the influence that William James had on his younger American contemporaries.
This is a very long book. It’s well written but contains too much detail for someone with no academic interest in either of the Steins. In fact, that was the main problem I had with the book: Gertrude Stein was not a particularly agreeable person and I, in my philistine sort of way, didn’t think she ever did anything very important. Her brother was nicer, less ambitious, and an art collector.
There is some interesting context to the biographies—for example, descriptions of painters like Matisse and Picasso early in their careers and the influence that William James had on his younger American contemporaries.
Winter, A. (1998). Mesmerized: Powers of mind in Victorian Britain. University of Chicago Press.
Mesmerism became wildly popular and very contentious in Britain during the mid-nineteenth century. Winter uses this phenomenon and the failure to establish a consensus about its meaning to illuminate Victorian epistemological difficulties. When should people defer to authorities when seeking to understand something and who were the authorities? Mesmerism formed an important part of the context of the establishment of scientific expertise and the exclusion of laypeople from meaningful participation in the professional specialists' domains.
Well written and worth reading. There are great 19th century illustrations throughout.
Mesmerism became wildly popular and very contentious in Britain during the mid-nineteenth century. Winter uses this phenomenon and the failure to establish a consensus about its meaning to illuminate Victorian epistemological difficulties. When should people defer to authorities when seeking to understand something and who were the authorities? Mesmerism formed an important part of the context of the establishment of scientific expertise and the exclusion of laypeople from meaningful participation in the professional specialists' domains.
Well written and worth reading. There are great 19th century illustrations throughout.
Woodward, B. (2004). Plan of attack. Toronto: Simon and Schuster.
A history of the events leading up to the Iraq War from a well-known Washington insider. The characteristics of the principal protagonists seem much like what would be expected from the regular news. Bush, not a rocket scientist; Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Cheney sabre rattling; Powell cautious and a bit out of the loop; Rice, the president’s loyal warrior princess.
From all that can be learned from this book, the war still seems strangely inadequately motivated. The author argues that the planning exercise itself led inexorably to war but such an argument is hard to prove. The physical and political logistics of a modern overseas operation of this size are staggering and the most interesting aspect of this sad story.
I think that the best line I’ve heard concerning the Iraqi War so far comes from Jon Stewart of the Daily (fake news) Show. He reported Paul Wolfowitz’s claim that the alleged torture of Iraqi detainees was actually only “freedom tickling.”
A history of the events leading up to the Iraq War from a well-known Washington insider. The characteristics of the principal protagonists seem much like what would be expected from the regular news. Bush, not a rocket scientist; Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Cheney sabre rattling; Powell cautious and a bit out of the loop; Rice, the president’s loyal warrior princess.
From all that can be learned from this book, the war still seems strangely inadequately motivated. The author argues that the planning exercise itself led inexorably to war but such an argument is hard to prove. The physical and political logistics of a modern overseas operation of this size are staggering and the most interesting aspect of this sad story.
I think that the best line I’ve heard concerning the Iraqi War so far comes from Jon Stewart of the Daily (fake news) Show. He reported Paul Wolfowitz’s claim that the alleged torture of Iraqi detainees was actually only “freedom tickling.”
Yaffe, D. (2017). Reckless daughter: A portrait of Joni Mitchell.
NY: HarperCollins.
Joni, almost certainly referring to her breakup with Graham Nash (of Crosby, Stills, and Nash) in Wish I had a river, writes:
He tried hard to help me
You know, he put me at ease
And he loved me so naughty
Made me weak in the knees
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I'm so hard to handle
I'm selfish and I'm sad
Now I've gone and lost the best baby
That I ever had.
Her self-characterization was dead on, she was selfish and sad and these traits would cast dark shadows throughout her long life. The coke fueled, promiscuous, “crazy” music and entertainment scene of dueling egos in Los Angeles didn’t help any. This is the sordid background of the “revelations” of sex abuse allegations in the entertainment industry. One gets a sense of the predatory financing involved from the lyrics of A free man in Paris.
The way I see it, he said
You just can't win it
Everybody's in it for their own gain
You can't please 'em all
There's always somebody calling you down
I do my best
And I do good business
There's a lot of people asking for my time
They're trying to get ahead
They're trying to be a good friend of mine
I was a free man in Paris
I felt unfettered and alive
There was nobody calling me up for favors
And no one's future to decide
You know I'd go back there tomorrow
But for the work I've taken on
Stoking the star-maker machinery
Behind the popular song.
I deal in dreamers
And telephone screamers
Lately I wonder what I do it for
If l had my way
I'd just walk out those doors
And wander
Down the Champs Elysees
Going cafe to cabaret
Thinking how I'll feel when I find
That very good friend of mine
I was a free man in Paris
I felt unfettered and alive
Nobody was calling me up for favors
No one's future to decide
You know I'd go back there tomorrow
But for the work I've taken on
Stoking the star maker machinery
Behind the popular song.
The song is about music agent David Geffen who was firmly in the closet in the US but could be free in Paris. Geffen and Joni later had a falling out. He went on to become very rich; ironically, Joni was recently treated for a brain aneurism in the David Geffen Medical Center in Los Angeles.
The biography is a decent read. It’s longish and clearly written by a big fan. Yaffe has an annoying habit of foreshadowing events and then when he describes the event, repeating the foreshadowing in case you didn’t get it. Despite this minor glitch, one can’t help being curious about one of the most gifted lyricists of her generation. My favourite Mitchell tune is a wonderfully evocative nostalgic memory of playing a juke box in a small-town Chinese café in Saskatoon (Chinese Café/Unchained Medoly)—we were doing exactly the same thing in Port Arthur at the same time.
NY: HarperCollins.
Joni, almost certainly referring to her breakup with Graham Nash (of Crosby, Stills, and Nash) in Wish I had a river, writes:
He tried hard to help me
You know, he put me at ease
And he loved me so naughty
Made me weak in the knees
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I'm so hard to handle
I'm selfish and I'm sad
Now I've gone and lost the best baby
That I ever had.
Her self-characterization was dead on, she was selfish and sad and these traits would cast dark shadows throughout her long life. The coke fueled, promiscuous, “crazy” music and entertainment scene of dueling egos in Los Angeles didn’t help any. This is the sordid background of the “revelations” of sex abuse allegations in the entertainment industry. One gets a sense of the predatory financing involved from the lyrics of A free man in Paris.
The way I see it, he said
You just can't win it
Everybody's in it for their own gain
You can't please 'em all
There's always somebody calling you down
I do my best
And I do good business
There's a lot of people asking for my time
They're trying to get ahead
They're trying to be a good friend of mine
I was a free man in Paris
I felt unfettered and alive
There was nobody calling me up for favors
And no one's future to decide
You know I'd go back there tomorrow
But for the work I've taken on
Stoking the star-maker machinery
Behind the popular song.
I deal in dreamers
And telephone screamers
Lately I wonder what I do it for
If l had my way
I'd just walk out those doors
And wander
Down the Champs Elysees
Going cafe to cabaret
Thinking how I'll feel when I find
That very good friend of mine
I was a free man in Paris
I felt unfettered and alive
Nobody was calling me up for favors
No one's future to decide
You know I'd go back there tomorrow
But for the work I've taken on
Stoking the star maker machinery
Behind the popular song.
The song is about music agent David Geffen who was firmly in the closet in the US but could be free in Paris. Geffen and Joni later had a falling out. He went on to become very rich; ironically, Joni was recently treated for a brain aneurism in the David Geffen Medical Center in Los Angeles.
The biography is a decent read. It’s longish and clearly written by a big fan. Yaffe has an annoying habit of foreshadowing events and then when he describes the event, repeating the foreshadowing in case you didn’t get it. Despite this minor glitch, one can’t help being curious about one of the most gifted lyricists of her generation. My favourite Mitchell tune is a wonderfully evocative nostalgic memory of playing a juke box in a small-town Chinese café in Saskatoon (Chinese Café/Unchained Medoly)—we were doing exactly the same thing in Port Arthur at the same time.