Helen Castor: She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth
Castor examines the lives of four women who 'ruled England before Elizabeth': Henry I's daughter, the Empress Matilda; Henry II's consort, Eleanor of Aquitaine; and the wives of two of England's least effective kings: Isabella of France (Edward II) and Margaret of Anjou (Henry VI).Her argument is that although not sole monarchs in the way that Mary and Elizabeth Tudor were, these four were able to use their positions as family members/consorts to significantly influence and to varying degrees, direct royal policy. To be honest none appear as especially attractive in a power political sense. All are ruthless in pursuing their aims and very capable of double-crossing and breaking promises. Tenacity seems to be another ability that they had by the bucket load ? especially Matilda and Eleanor. Each are given a straight narrative which takes the reader from post conquest England to the advent of the Tudor new monarchs. This is well supported with clear (and easily understood) references to contemporary writers but does not attempt to provide a complete linear view of the period. However, the four periods examined do coincide with some of the most significant episodes of royal history during the period. And it is "royal history". The focus is on the power politics of those in control. Virtually no mention is made of anyone else or any other social group. This is not a fault of the author but a clear indication of the reality of medieval life. Where its male rulers had personal and political failings the country was generally thrown into crisis which meant baronial strife, conquest and counter conquest of castles and territory with the obvious destruction of crops, villages and property of those not considered by those leading armies to restore "order". The order of those in positions of privilege. Stephen was probably too soft for the age, Richard spent too little time minding the shop, Edward II had a knack of choosing male friends who antagonized his lords whilst Henry VI was pretty ineffectual. In each case a "she-wolf" strove to fill the power vacuum ? some more successfully than others. The four accounts are set in a Tudor framework: we start with young dying Edward VI attempting to change his father's Act of Succession to prevent Catholic Mary from succeeding. The final chapter has Mary installed and uncontested as a Queen ruling in her own right ? so much so that despite growing unpopularity is succeeded by another female, Elizabeth. Castor's underlying point (perhaps a little too drawn out) being that conditions had changed by the 16th century with the Tudor state having become sufficiently centralized and institutionalized to weather the types of upsets that earlier would not have tolerated a woman ruler on her own. Hence ambitious and capable women close to power had to find other ways to exercise authority. This is to be recommended to those who want a clear introductory framework to English medieval monarchy. Castor writes her stories well and in an entertaining way. Good clear maps are provided, but most crucially there are extensive family trees for each of the four. Less positive is the strange lack of foot or endnotes. Not good for further study, let alone testing the sources used. I have not seen the TV programmes yet ? I wanted to read the book first - so am unable to say how well they complement each other.Readers wanting to explore characters mentioned in the text could do lot worse than use the online and very comprehensive Oxford Dictionary of National Biographies. The ODNB has bios (some over 30 pages long) written by leading modern historians (the name Castor also appears several times?.) and if you have a UK library card or are part of a subscribing global educational institution is totally free! April '12 (****)
Frederick Taylor: Exorcising Hitler: The Occupation and Denazification of Germany
A popular read on the less explored (by non-German historians at least) immediate post war history of Germany, 1945-47. Initial chapters provide a narrative of collapse and defeat including the mass movements of Germans from east to west. I was fascinated to discover that teams of economists had been working secretly within the Nazi structure under Backe (Hitler's Food Minister) and Speer planning for the economic survival of a defeated germany from 1943 onwards. The team included Ludwig Ehrhard, later to be the architect of west Germany's economic miracle. Where Taylor shines is when he looks at the specific occupation policies of the allies. One useful chapter examines the practical problems of denazification. An early IBM system was introduced to set up a database of suspected Nazi's - but was plagued by technical issues. It was to prove an impossibility for demobilising occupiers to denazify an entire population and Taylor chronicles how pragmatism led to this being one of the first areas handed back to German control. Another factor slowing down the process is suggested as being an underlying anti-semitism amongst the US command (especially Patton) which was reflected in a distaste for supporting and listening to DP's (Displaced persons) many of whom were Jewish survivors of the camps. Post war zonal policy is examined individually. Much has already been written of the attitude of the Soviets in the east, less about the British and especially the French in the west. It seems the British tended to treat their zone initially as if it were andAfrican colony. At one point an exasperated Kurt Schumacher (later to become the leader of the SPD party) exclaims "Wir sind kein Negervolk" ("We are not Blacks" - which says as much about the racist attitudes prevalent at the time as well as British policy!). Taylor is especially useful on the French position. Early French treatment and policies were harsher even than those in the Russian zone. There were large numbers of prisoner of war deaths, they refused to accept refugees from the east, saying as protestants they would unsettle the religious balance of their Rhineland zone - and cleverly recruiting German Catholic support. Paradoxically though the French were also the first to give the Germans a genuine role in self-government and denazification (Taylor suggests one reason for this may have been more empathy between occupier and occupied given that many of the French had played a collaborational role with Germans in Vichy).
What the reading makes clear is how the occupiers had to juggle many, often conflicting demands: initial concern over "Werwolf"counter attack and desire for revenge, followed by the practicalities of feeding a people incapable of doing this themselves because of destruction and dislocation. How to restore Germany - non industrial state incapable of going to war (The US Morgenthau plan), nation made up of fragmented states as after 1648 (France), a client state incapable of returning to a Nazi, or capitalist past and too weak to wage war (Soviet Union) or a Poor Law pauper kept alive but no better than the poorest at home (Britain). Political and emerging Cold War reality soon focussed minds: Britain and the US restore the framework for economic revival and the ability for their zones to feed themselves. France and Germany begin the dance of a couple destined to tie them and the rest of Europe into the European Union. In the east, concerned Soviets, try to use Berlin to halt these developments, which after the blockade accelerates the binding of wartime western allies and their zones, by then the Federal Republic.
One of the most useful sections is the epilogue - essentially an essay on how post 1949 Germany has come to terms with its nazi past: The sleep cure of the 1950's when the Adenauer regime admits the "fellow traveller" nazi's back to positions of administrative authority to manage the economic miracle. Then the questioning of this by the generation of the 1960's: Press criticism, 1968, Baader-Meinhof terrorism. In the 1970's as a prosperous but not yet confident society, the Ostpolitik of Brandt coming to terms politically with its eastern past. Only today, over 60 years later is Germany sufficiently confident under a Chancellor born after the nazi period, to take a lead again, but hesitantly, still conscious of its past malevolent ghosts. March '12 (****)
Tim Butcher: Chasing the Devil: the search for Africa's Fighting Spirit
This sees the author trekking through Africa's rainforest and remote hinterlands walking across Liberia using a route taken by Graham Green in the 1930's. He has a strong personal reason for this region of travel. He was chief war correspondent for the Daily Telegraph during the wars at the turn of the century and the "search" in the title is as much a personal search to find closure with the events of that conflict as much as an exploration of how far the area has recovered since then and/or changed since the time of the Greene's.
Butcher takes the reader across Sierra Leone and the Gambia as well as Liberia, using his travels to create a framework to look at both the background of recent strife and the context of native tribal belief. In this he does a service in making the current and past problems of the region far clearer and immediate to the general reader perhaps not too aware of west Africa. The culture of "dash", tribal religion and traditional beliefs and the horrendous history of recent violence are all part of this journey as is the depth of forlorn poverty in the villages and towns he encounters. What did surprise me was the fact that such a walk was possible at all given the climate and general deprivation. It nearly killed Graham Greene and he had a colonial style caravan of bearers and equipment (including hammocks and food hampers). Butcher was a party of four effectively: himself, a walking companion, a local guide (whom, in a depressing evaluation in the final chapter, he describes as his African "Everyman": an African who had heeded the advice of experts to limit family size, seek education, be industrious - but who had gained little from this through the greed and incompetence of others) and a motorcyclist who rode ahead each day with the rucksacks. Avoiding the roads travelled by the motorbike they used the remains of rain forest paths walking in the humidity and heat. Their diet becomes so limited that when, near the end of the journey they do have a western style meal in the canteen of a modern European mining company, Butcher is ill. The account is at its best when relating events along the walk to the history, both recent and not too recent. Apart from the start and finish the Greene connection is at times of less importance. Overall this is a good read, with the added advantage of teaching the reader something about a part of the world usually ignored elsewhere - and telling a story of recent times that needs to be told. March '12
(****)
Matthew Parker: The Sugar Barons. Matthew Parker
Parkers history of the West Indies sugar industry is one of the most valuable reads of the year for students of industrial and imperial history. He outlines the origins of the industry which originated on the Caribbean island of Barbados and reached its peak with the cultivation of Jamaica. The final chapters look at eventual decline and collapse. The 17th century saw the cultivation of sugar following ideas first used in Brazil by the Dutch and Portuguese. Other islands soon followed as the price for sugar rocketed in Europe and fortunes were made by the estate owners. Sugar became an essential luxury and demand forced more and more land into cultivation. More was being made in profit than could be spent on the islands- the growing surplus was being spent and invested in England - providing funds for other commercial and early industrial ventures. So far so good, but it is in exploring other aspects of this growth that the book excels: the growth of privateering - the use of ships to attack and loot Spanish treasure ships was encouraged; relations with the New England colonies; the growth of sugar as the key element of the English 18th century economy and the emergence of a sugar lobby that would determine English foreign and economic. However the key thread of the book is that of slavery. Parker makes it very clear that this "modern" slavery was driven by the needs of the Indies. Sugar cultivation is very labour intensive. The islands were amongst the least healthy places on earth with mortality, especially amongst Europeans being very high. Slaves brought in from Africa were the answer for the owners and were employed in ever growing numbers from the mid 17th century, despite their own high death rates. They were considered of little value other than as an economic commodity and Parker shows clearly how dehumanised the owners and their white management had become to slavery. Supported throughout by individual histories with a focus on the Landowners, this is well written and accompanied by good maps and illustrations. Dec '11 (****)
Alice Hogge : God's Secret Agents
Tells the story of Roman Catholic missions and Jesuit priests in England during the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. A detailed and thorough account, with care taken to inform the general reader of the specialist contexts and terminology used by historians as the narrative progresses. She tells of the early missionaries from the continent, often educated in colleges founded in Europe by English Catholic exiles and how they travelled the country and lived within the "underground" recusant community. The main thrust of the book outlines the different and changing reaction of government. Initially tending to tolerance, this hardens, culminating in the post 1605 Oath of Allegiance and anti Roman Catholic legislation. The Apellant episode is also explored. Yet the Jesuits seem to have been opposed to regime change, the eventual Gunpowder Plot being the product of the frustration of home-grown subversives (assisted or not by government agents to increase the eventual anti-Catholic spin) at the lack of official change. Hogge paints a credible picture of the Jesuits as scapegoats for both James and Elizabeth?s Government to blame their troubles on. An interesting aspect of the book is the story of the Jesuit Nicholas Owen, arrested and racked to death in 1606, who was the builder of many of the priest-holes found in the country's great houses and used to hide Catholic clergy when a house was searched. Two final sections of note indicate where Owen's building work may be seen today, and draw parallels (already emerging to the reader as the story unfolds) with present day British changes to torture and terrorist legislation and practice in response to current concerns over militant Islam.However, this may be more a book to be dipped into (using the index - for some unexplained reason chapters are numbered like a novel but given no other description to assist partial reading for research) rather than read cover to cover. Perhaps tighter editing might have helped but I found the initial chapters and the final post 1600 section of most use and value (especially those outlining James I's early religious inclinations). During the 1580's and 1590's I tended to get lost amongst the places, names, conversations, letters and travels of those being described. Oct '11 (***)
John Simpson: Unreliable Sources: How the Twentieth Century Was Reported: How the 20th Century Was Reported
John Simpson, BBC World Affairs editor, writes an account of how he sees the press reported on key stories from the Boer War to the Iraq invasion. As the focus is on the British press, so the themes are those that affected Britain and its press most strongly over the last 110 years. This probably means it will be of most direct interest to students of modern British history, but the story it tells of relationships between the press and its readers, of press owners and government as well as how far the press supports, questions and/or is restricted by government policy is more global in its significance.
Simpson devotes a chapter to a key period that affected how the press operated: clearly Britain?s main wars and conflicts, but also issues such as the Abdication crisis, interwar attitudes to Hitler, Suez, Ireland, and the rise of the Murdoch press. I found the most useful chapters to be ones that examined the press response to government policy during the Boer and First World Wars (in the final chapters Simpson draws several parallels of approach between the Boer War and Iraq invasion). He shows clearly for example how loathe the press was to present the realism of the western front and how much his was resented by those at the front. Students (and teachers preparing courses on the impact of the media) will also find much of value on the interwar chapters which shows clearly which papers were most behind Hitler and the differing views on Appeasement and the actions of Chamberlain. Individual reporters are given mini pen portraits - many seem to be ?gentle? and/or ?generous?? Meanwhile he explains how the new kid on the block, news reporting on BBC radio, tried to catch up until coming into its own during World War II. Well written and reads easily, it is a large tome with a basic but useful bibliography for each section (although it publishes all chapter notes and the origin of specific sources online). It is sufficiently self-contained so that chapters could be taken on their own. This is worthwhile as Simpson provides many extracts from press reports (good for using as source questions?) and numerous worthwhile, not to say often enjoyable, anecdotes about the individuals he is describing. As for the Beeb, it might have been more valuable to have more on the impact of the BBC World Service reporting after 1945 and less on the BBC?s more recent conflict with the Blair government, which if we are being pedantic was not in the 20th century. Another point of issue is that the book seems to focus on issues that are exclusively political or to do with international conflicts that involved the UK. No mention is made at all of how BBC reporting made the world aware of the famine in Ethiopia and produced such global impact and consequences. Such ?social? reporting has grown considerably since the 1980?s even if its thrust has been blunted/hijacked by more recent governments ? however is this not the theme of the book? Aug '11 (****)
Philipp von Boeselager: Valkyrie - The Plot To Kill Hitler
This is a memoir of Philipp von Boeselager, traditional German aristocrat, cavalry officer and last surviving member of the 1944 Bomb Plot to assassinate Hitler. In many ways this would seem to be of limited value to a historian: it is as said, a personal memoir, and would seem to be ghost written at that. Much of it is devoted to uncritical praise of an elder brother, also involved in the Plot and the amount of the (slim) work on the actual Plot is minimal. Nonetheless, this is a significant piece of history, but not so much on what it says about 1944, rather, it gives an interesting insight into the mentality of the Junker officer class during the Third Reich. Implicitly, the content and presentation of the narrative in the memoir makes clear that the aristocracy saw the Fuhrer as an upstart, but did not intervene to obstruct his accession to power seeing this more as "the will of the people" with which they should not deign to interfere. They also appeared to have exercised considerable informal local authority, but without too much accountability, or desire to use this considerable local and historic influence to resist or reduce the impact of national socialist policies (although a incident of the family assisting fleeing Jews early on is described). Von Boeselager and his brother join the cavalry and there is little questioning of German war aims/strategy until the war turns against the Germans, especially in the east, although the memoir states it was a growing awareness of SS atrocities in the east rather than growing Soviet pressure that brought about plans to assassinate Hitler and stage a coup. We read of how the July 1944 plotters gradually came together and instigated several attempts to kill Hitler in preparation of seeking an anti-Soviet alliance with the western allies, but ultimately failing and most facing arrest, torture and execution. Several take their own lives. The von Boeselager brothers are not betrayed by fellow plotters and survive (although Phillips brother is killed later fighting the Red Army), with Philipp himself living until 2008. These officers of the Junker class were undoubtedly brave and fought determinedly and with a strong sense of historic duty to defend Germany and ensure the well being of their men (Von Boeselager distinguished himself in combat on the Eastern Front, was wounded several times in combat and was awarded the Knights Cross with Oak Leaves for bravery in combat). It is clear that they were principled and honourable with a genuine sense of chivalry. The plotters themselves became the conscience of postwar (western initially) Germany. Unfortunately, these memoirs do little to remove the notion that the principles and sense of duty were misdirected. They had the political awareness, skills and inherited authority to prevent or restrain national socialism at its birth but chose to wait too long to act and when they did von Boeselager's account still makes it is difficult to remove the impression that they did so at a time when their historic interests and privileged lifestyle were most under threat - by the advance of Soviet communism. July '11 (****)
Christopher Meyer: Getting Our Way: 500 Years of Adventure and Intrigue: The Inside Story of British Diplomacy
Meyer's book (he was the UK Washington Ambassador 1997-2003) is subtitled "500 years of adventure & Intrigue - the Inside Story of British Diplomacy" but is pretty selective in the episodes it examines. A series of chapters look at specific a stages in the story, some more successful than others. The initial chapter on the Elizabethan ambassador Killigrew in Edinburgh is an interesting example of the rudiments of modern diplomacy at work, as are the three on British relations with China (or should it be the British abuse of those relations?). There is a valuable section for students of the interwar period on Sir Robert Vansittart, Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office from 1930 to 1938 which clarifies Britain's ignominious role in the collapse of the League of Nations. Least successful chapter is the final somewhat diffuse one on Bosnia in the 1990's. However this is not a history book - footnotes are sparse, bibliographies are limited and contain largely the standard works that might appear on a decent piece of IB/A level coursework. The value of this readable book though is the insight it provides into the mindset of a modern successful British diplomat. From its introduction onwards it provides an argument in favour of reinforcing British diplomacy, and British support for how this branch of government should be enabled to strongly pursue and protect British interests and values in the world. In doing this Meyer writes little of the advantages of internationalism, and seems to ignore what even he writes about regarding the impact of the blind pursuit of British values and interests on 19th century China or on the Ethiopians in the 1930's. He argues diplomacy has to adapt and modernise to protect national interest. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, but not at the cost of a "beggaring my neighbour" approach that was so prevalent in the past. He correctly argues that following an ethical foreign policy (as recently with early New Labour) is itself problematical but that should be no reason to revert to past methods (he believes Margaret Thatcher's time was "a notably successful period for British diplomacy").It is telling that there is no chapter on the one great challenge - and questionably greatest failure of modern British diplomacy - Europe. Nothing on how diplomats failed to engage with the early moves for closer co-operation. Even in his own terms of reference, no mention of how greater involvement from the start might have delivered the British influence and values he seeks and how a successful British diplomatic offensive might have embedded them in the heart of the European project. Perhaps because this is the one big area Britain did not "get its way". This is a quick read and it reads well with much to fascinate - not the least of which is as an aid to understand the attitudes and objectives that formed so much of British foreign policy for so long. June '11 (***)
Barry Strauss: The Spartacus War
This slim volume is the story of Spartacus, leader of the slave revolt against the Romans in 73BC. Spartacus gathered a force of up to 40,000 slaves and in the course of two years was able to lead them up and down the length of Italy resisting all attempts by the Roman legions to suppress them - until the final campaign against Crassus when he was defeated and killed in battle (in contrast to the Kubrick film which shows him captured - the famous "I am Spartacus" scene happening in Hollywood only!). Spartacus is seen as a charismatic and very able commander and leader, his eventual vanquisher Crassus was not one of Rome's most sympathetic generals - he took 6,000 prisoners and proceeded to crucify each one along the road to Rome.To someone accustomed to reading about modern history, the style is unsettling at first - too many mentions of "might", "perhaps", "likely", "uncertain but" suggest a vagueness that makes for a lack of certainty, but gradually you realise Strauss is using the only evidence available - which is patchy and unreliable. The historians role in the ancient world here is to map a probable route through the possibles for the layman and build up a picture of what might have been. The available evidence allows for no more. Strauss does this well, giving his views on how much value to place on evidence at each stage of the campaign. Good maps and a thoroughly explained bibliography at the end make this a useful read for the non-specialist who wants to find out a little more about the considered reality beyond the film set. May '11
(****)
John le Carre: Our Kind of Traitor: A Novel
I am pleased to say this is a return to le Carr??s old hunting ground ? the spy novel. As in the past, it also sees the British Secret Service ranged against the Russians and focuses around a high level defection from Russia. But here similarities with the Cold War novels end.
The defection is not from the KGB or its modern successor but from the Russian mafia. Nor is the British secret service portrayed as it once was by le Carr?. There is still internal rivalry but the conflict is now with a service deeply inbred with the London?s city establishment and it?s role as a financial capital.
This is a darker, more political le Carr? who is taking aim at what he perceives as another threat to liberal, compassionate, democratic society. The ?Constant Gardener? took aim at the hypocrisy of the international aid and pharmaceutical communities, ?A Most wanted Man? tackled international terrorism. Now it is the turn of the global banker and the way the establishment of a nation desperate for foreign capital fawns towards them.
Perhaps because it is more of a ?spy? novel than has recently been the case, this is le Carr?s most successful work for some time (although his young central characters do appear to be drawn from the sixties rather then the facebook/twitter generation of today). A good read that encourages you to move through it quickly! April '11
(****)
John Keegan: The American Civil War
Keegan, a war historian best known for his surveys of 20th century warfare writes well and clearly. I should imagine that the book provides more than sufficient detail on the campaigns and key meetings between both sides to satisfy most students researching the conflict (however some reviews have expressed concern with accuracy). What is irritating is the habit of repeating points made earlier on in the narrative.The battle maps are particularly useful (although I must admit to moving quickly through some of the land campaign details, lack of personal familiarity with the basic geography of the area trying my patience a little. This though is a personal failing, not one of the authors.). What is made very clear is how inexperienced and unprepared both sides were in the craft of warfare and it is interesting to read the process of natural selection required to find able military commanders. Keegan also provides a number of chapters prior to and after the conflict that are extremely useful articles in their own right on key aspects of the conflict (such as the Life of the Soldier, Generalship, Nature of the Civil War Battle, Home fronts, Black soldiers). In many ways these are just as valuable as (if not more so than) the account of the war itself. One omission is a discrete chapter focusing on the war role of Lincoln himself, which is a pity. Given Keegan's interest in 20th century warfare there are many instances where he shows how the Civil War displayed and introduced features of later wars (as well as how it did not and drew rather on earlier conflict experience in Europe). All in all this is an easily recommendable narrative cum basic analysis of the war if what is required is a primer. March '11 (****)
Matthew Brzezinski: Red Moon Rising: Sputnik and the Hidden Rivalries that Ignited the Space Age
It tells the story of "Sputnik and the rivalries that ignited the Space Age". Indeed it starts well with a very atmospheric description of a V2 launch against London, and then goes on to tell the story of the early pre Sputnik US and Soviet space programmes and the internal politics that lay behind them. Centre-stage is rightly given to von Braun, ex member of Hitler's SS and Korolev, survivor of Stalin's Gulag camps (interesting that Korolev had as many failures - probably more than the US before his successful Sputnik launch) with an examination of their respective relationships with Eisenhower and Khrushchev but beyond telling the story, rather like early US attempts to get into space, it fails to really ignite. Brzezinski is a former journalist (for the Wall Street Journal) and this reads like an extended piece of journalism - rather like a long series of articles that you might find in a weekend supplement. The US political context is more satisfactory than the Soviet. The end notes suggest that research is essentially secondary - and much of that from the internet.An appropriate read perhaps if you are new to the period (having just seen the forthcoming movie on "Ham" the space chimp maybe) but don't look to find any novel insights or new archival research. Jan'11
PS If you are wondering why the next two reviews have no images it is because they are available on Kindle only in the US!! (***)
Tells the story of German colonialism in South West Africa, showing how German policy towards the native Herero and Nama peoples developed into one of genocide. Shows how a philosophy of white racial supremacy emerged out of the ideas of Charles Darwin and was put into practice. Survival of the fittest becomes justification for white dominance over "inferior" indigenous peoples and genocide an acceptable option. This process is shown though as not just a German process and the German experience is placed in a global context: with British colonists in Tasmania, the US frontier wars, the Argentine wars of the desert all showing the same features.In the German genocide against Herero and Nama we read of extermination orders, forced labour and concentration camps designed to kill off indigenous peoples who were articulate, politically able and well resourced, but ultimately doomed as the Kaiser's troops introduce a policy of "absolute terror and cruelty" in which missionary churches were actively complicit.The second part of the work shows the significance of this colonial experience for future nazism. The colonies first Governor was the father of Hermann G?ring, the uniform of the SA was that of the Wilhelm II's brown shirted colonial army. The colonial period saw the emergence of the pseudo science of eugenics and the legal framework to protect the purity of German settlers from racial contamination for a Volk that needed Lebensraum to expand into and escape population pressure at home. These ideas survive the collapse of 1918 and become a core element of the politics of the right.After 1933 races considered impure, German Jews and Gypsies, are subjected to the treatment first employed in South West Africa: Nuremberg Laws to end racial mixing; control and internment in concentration camps, forced labour, extermination. Hitler's war, it is also argued, was ultimately one for colonial Lebensraum in the east. The German treatment of the eastern populations and Red Army was different to the western conflict as Hitler considered the eastern peoples to be similar to uncivilised indigenous colonial peoples. Fighting was more brutal, civilians were treated with even less regard. Necessary he believed to ensure Lebensaum and civilisation. The nazis compared this push East to how Wilhelm's troops had fought the Herero, or the British the Sudanese & Tasmanians, the US the Native Indians, or the Argentines with the tribes of the south. Thought provoking, this is an important, thorough and well written work. It ranks with Hochschild's "King Leopold's Ghost" as an indictment of European colonialism but develops its arguments beyond normally considered confines to place the events of a short-lived German colony in a far wider context. Jan '11 (*****)
The story of Ma(r)y Borden, one of those dynamic women who managed to flourish in the male dominated world of the early 20th century. Borden had been given a huge headstart as the daughter of a millionaire from Chicago and this she used to the full. A writer of books achieving both popular and critical acclaim and (second) marriage to a British politician ensured equal social acclaim across the Atlantic. The book is illustrated with many useful photos including several society magazine shots showing her in the 1920's as quite the society woman and hostess. However there was more to Borden than this. She was a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honour and bearer of the Croix de Guerre presented for her war work in setting up and managing hospitals very close to the Front and also those with the lowest mortality rates. She repeated this war work in the Second World War and continued to write successfully until late in life. Conway provides a literary commentary on her books as they were published, attempting to link them into Borden's experiences, but for historians what is most interesting are her sections on Borden's war work. In 1914-18 she used innovatory portable hospitals with reinforced windows to withstand blast damage that could be dismantled and rebuilt in a matter of hours. The section on her work in World War II is even more historically interesting. Leading the Hadfield-Spears mobile ambulance unit she managed front line Franco-British nursing care in France, Italy, north Africa and the Middle East and found herself more involved in the political machinations of the Franco-allied relationship. Conway is perceptive on the chaos and amateurism shown during the Fall of France as well as the in-fighting involving De Gaulle (which ultimately sees the disbanding of the unit in 1945). It is hard though to escape the paradoxes of her existence. Living a privileged lifestyle she was critical of the British Labour Party for not doing enough to relieve poverty. Given the hectic nature of her life it is clear that she spent little of what would be called "quality time" with her young family despite fighting a long and (clearly for them) disturbing battle with her first husband for custody of them. A more direct approach at times to some of the paradoxes outlined above would also help ensure that Borden could be seen more clearly in the context and standards of her time if not those of today. It is these contrasts that make understanding the assertive and successful women of the early 20th century (as well as today?) so interesting. In the last few years many unsung stories of the role played by key women in both world wars have become more public. Conway presents us here with the life of one such woman whose work and enthusiasm deserves to be remembered by a clear biography such as this. I would recommend this a book to be read in particular by students of social as well as women's history. Dec '10 (****)
Michael Howard: Otherwise Occupied: Letters Home from the Ruins of Nazi Germany
Howard was a 19 year old officer sent to the Ruhr in 1946 as an intelligence officer for Britains T-Force to help administer British seizures and this is his story of his time as part of that process. He has used the 67 letters he sent home to his mother during the period as a structure to hang the development of the general account on, a narrative that reads well and is clear to follow. Maps and photographs by the author help general understanding and the personal story element of the book. Interesting aspects emerge on the nature of the early British occupation (for example it seemed many of the initial military administrators had a pre-war background in Britain's colonial administrations - his own father was in the Fiji Colonial Service) as well as the reality of life in the immediate postwar period for occupied and occupier and the issue of "fraternisation". Little is said about the wider picture of T-Force work (and indeed this is not the purpose of the book), rather the focus is on the experiences and impressions of a young officer who happened to be part of a wider process (so despite the described efficiency of the authors section, day to day military administration in general during the period comes over as somewhat ad hoc with officers clearly enjoying their occupying role, and much reliance on a public school ethos that was perhaps typical of the period). This is perhaps the key significance of Howards writing. Letters from the war period are relatively common, far less common are letters with a commentary written 60 years later by the same writer. Here this provides not just elaboration but a modern self-evaluation of attitudes and actions contemporary to the period that help the context to be better understood. Of particular value is the (empathetic) development of the author's response to German nationals. As a junior officer the author had no real part in key zonal decisions, so do not look here for new evidence on British postwar occupation policy or relations with the Soviets. However the book has real value to the historian in another way. Recent years have seen an explosion in German witness accounts of the immediate postwar period. Here we have what amounts to an annotated contemporary account of early occupation life by a member of a western occupying force to set alongside them. Nov '10 (****)
Sean McMeekin: The Berlin-Baghdad Express: The Ottoman Empire and Germany's Bid for World Power, 1898-1918
A thorough and almost magisterial acount of an area of World War 1 not normally given a prime focus; the Ottoman front. It is a very contemporary work using terms very familiar today: the creation of a jihad against the Entente and Britsh in particular; rivalry between Shia and Sunni; Caucasian minority struggles; strategies to control modern Iraq & Iran and at the end a push for middle east oil. McMeekin shows how Wilhelmine Germany had a rich seam of middle east specialist archaeologists. He records the excellent use made of this by Berlin in working on the Ottomans, Arabs, Persians, Afghans and others to promote an anti British & French jihad policy from Constantinople to Kabul via Baghdad. The ultimate aim was to bring about a collapse of British India. New light is cast on the context of many elements of Great war strategy & campaigns: the German push to india increased a British focus on Iraq and Iran that has persisted; the Armenian massacres as an element of Ottoman great war strategy; the success of the Tsarist Russian army and the later growth from it of Yudenich's White forces.The Turks were diplomatically, and often militarily, sharper and shrewder than usually given credit for. McMeekin argues that the Balfour declaration was made by a largely pro arab British government, partly out of pique with German advances to Zionists and a desire to win US zionist support for a speedier US mobilsation. It also traces German - muslim relations to the end of World War 2 showing how these were cultivated as part of the Nazi anti-semitic program. Given the unfamiliarity of the characters to most readers a list of Dramatis Personae would have been helpful. Equally the title perhaps suggests more of a focus on the actual Berlin-Baghdad railroad. Although a vital thread in the narrative, it is no more than that. Railway enthusiasts will be disappointed early on by what is perhaps the title of an over-zealous editor. Nov '10 (****)
David Finkel: The Good Soldiers
Finkel spent 8 months in Iraq during the "Surge"with the US 2-16 Ranger division and reports on their deployment there, as he himself writes "without agenda". This is not a strategic analysis of their role within the Iraq theatre. Rather the focus is on an infantry battalion of young soldiers who see themselves as being there to do as good (hence the title) and decent a job as possible. They are not politicians or ideologues. Finkel draws a series of pen portraits of key figures ? battalion leader, soldiers going out in their humvees to face yet another patrol route seeded with remote controlled bombs, the Iraqis who work with them. Then there are the casualties. The book presents them in their truly awful detail ? especially in one chapter which describes a visit by the commander to severely his severely wounded men in hospital in the States. Good Soldiers puts the troops in their human context. Finkel writes empathetically of men trying to survive and do a job they were sent out to do but who grow increasingly disillusioned as their deployment comes to an end. The 2-16 Rangers live in fortified areas as separate from the Iraqi population as it is possible to be and still be in Iraq. This is necessary ? they appear to be under constant deadly attack. This is not the more secure confines of Baghdad's Green Zone, but in Rustamiya, on the eastern edge of the city, a violent place where 350,000 Iraqis were hanging on as the war ground ahead. The enemy are faceless, nameless, not explored by Finkel and neither are their motives. This makes them perhaps perceived all the more as the Good Soldiers saw them. This is no gung-ho account. The reader though is left with a great deal of sympathy for those involved, regardless of what might be thought of the reasons for them being there in the first place. For this reason The Good Soldiers is likely to remain a valuable source for understanding the bravery and ferocity but also the futility of the Iraq occupation. Sept '10 (****)
Greg Grandin: Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City
Tells the story of Henry Ford's attempt to build a settlement in the Amazon jungle during the 1920's and 1930's. Ostensibly to provide rubber for Ford's factories and so break the monopoly of the Dutch and British plantations of the Far East, in reality Fordlandia was an attempt by the US industrialist to build what he considered a model industrial settlement in the heart of the Brazilian rainforest. Grandin tells the story well, of how Henry Ford was hoodwinked into buying a 5,000 square mile tract of land which he might have gained for nothing from the government; how a New England type town was built in the middle of nowhere for brazilian and expat workers complete with company shops, golf course, barn for square dancing and clapboard hoiuses each with a garden ready for planting flowers; and how ultimately the project collapsed. But the story is more than this. We are taken on an intriguing journey into the mind of the founder of Fordism and his theories of small planned industrial communities which he had already tried out in Michigan. Here was paternalism at its height. Quality housing, above average wages, planned communities with clinics and schools. In this Ford also displayed some ideas recently quite fashionable: dislike of big banking, direct government control and monopoly producers. His communities were planned where possible without any of this. But the downside was company control. No organised labour, intolerance of those who failed to think as Ford men should, entertainment outside the (Ford) approved parameters (ie alcohol, gaming, close-up dancing) frowned upon. There was also a disdain for specialists in favour of individuals who were self trained, who learned from experience. All of this was to come to a head in Brazil. Fordlandia becomes the island of homely "mid-western" modernity in the Amazon. Well laid out housing, clinics and schools combined with above average wages to spend in company shops selling at reasonable rates to encourage the purchase of clean clothing. But the cracks appear. The dislike of experts mean the Ford team in the Amazon have to learn on the job (the pretty houses were solid, but their thick walls and tin roofs made them like ovens to live in). More importantly scant attenton was paid to cultural differences. Clocking in helped produce a riot that destroyed much of the early settlement. The rubber was also a disaster. Blight and bugs spread easily in the damp heat of the Amazon. Plantations at Fordlandia and a new site further north were devastated by disease. Agronomists could have told this to the Ford team of car engineers before they went to Brazil. Eventually after World War II Ford's grandson sold Fordlandia to the Brazilian government. It is now overgrown and much is used for soy production. The inexperienced Ford technicians did devise a new way of cross cutting plants to improve them genetically that was soon to be copied across the globe. A visit to the Ford plantations inspired Brazil's dictator Vargas to make his 1940 "March to the West" speech that formally announced the drive to open up Brazil's interior. In a final irony Grandin explains how this has since led not only to the erosion of the rainforest but also to the explosion of an industrial region in the mid Amazon with squalid living conditions that are the antithesis of Ford's hopes fo rhis Fordlandia. And the irony? This industrialisation is based on the unskilled assembly of parts made elsewhere - the essentials of those Fordist principles which made Henry his fortune. An intriguing and provoking book. Reads well and is accompanied by many instructive photographs. Sept '10 (****)
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