I should have guessed from the back cover: "telling anecdote," "storyteller," "lively anecdote," "entertaining," "anecdotes are wonderful," "personal vignettes." Yep, despite its subtitle, this is not a history, which requires thematic analysis, but a compilation of stories. General Wolfe's capture of Quebec in 1759 is here not important for its decisive effect on North American and world history, but because of the maudlin, "inspiring," portrait of his death at the climax of the battle. Similarly, Trafalgar is not the decisive check to Napoleon, but the source material for an "heroic" depiction of Admiral Nelson dying on, and at the point of, Victory. Bernard Montgomery does not figure at all for his role as the quintessential leader of Britain's armies in World War 2, but for wrongly guessing as a lieutenant in 1914 that the war would be quick and decisive.
Author Lawrence James switches his focus back and forth as he brushes his own picture of the effect of war on Britain since Roman times. The result is several books between two covers. England's interference in Ireland is reasonably well-covered, but India gets scant coverage and Africa almost none. The RAF's continued desire for upper class officers as "natural leaders" is noted, but no discussion is made of how British officers interacted with so-called "native" troops, e.g., Indians or Africans. We do get a lot on the difficulty of maintaining discipline in the presence of barflies and camp-followers (i.e., "amateur" prostitutes) in 1940-45 UK - but not the camp-follower's experience.
The inside dustcover states James' subject as: "the question of British national identity and character." Close. I'd say English rather than British. This is a book for the Anglophile, narrowly cast, who is already well read in the chronology and history of England's wars, campaigns, battles and leaders, who wants the steady succession of vignettes from on low presented here.
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Thursday, March 12, 2015
And it only cost $3.27...
Well, that was fun. Or, "fun." And only took two hours. Yesterday I vacuumed out Tessa's Rav4, and afterwards she noticed that the center floor console gearshift light wouldn't light. Me: "There's a light?" Confirm that there is, remove the huge piece of plastic (which can only be done with the car in gear!), figure out how to remove the teeny LED bulb. Clearly burned out - filament is open, bulb is slightly darkened. Take it to the autoparts store, where they helpfully can't find the bulb. I find it, buy a package of two - because you have to buy two of a unique light, when the last one lasted 17 years and 190,000 miles, install the bulb, and before putting everything back, check to see if it lights.
It doesn't.
Mess around on the interwebs some more, when a tangential article gives me a "A-ha!" moment. Maybe the headlights have to be on. Yep. Reverse the above, taking out a pathetic aftermarket bracket the PO put in.
In very bright daylight I can't tell it still works, but heck - I've got a spare! (?!?) And I don't think I snapped anything.
Oh, and I found $1.98 under the console in the process.
Wednesday, February 4, 2015
Book review: Capital in the Twenty-First Century, by Thomas Piketty.
Piketty
makes an exhaustive case for his argument that the return on capital
has historically and consistently been significantly higher than the
rate of growth in the economy and that, unchecked, this will lead to
greater and greater concentrations of private wealth at upper 1/10th
(decile) and 1/100th
(centile) of society. At 655 pages (including the extensive and
substantive endnotes), it is an exhausting study as well. His focus
on Europe, while natural for a French economist, will put off many
American readers who have not followed the turmoil and foibles of the
Eurozone since 2008. In the end, Piketty's solution, a global (or at
least widely-based) progressive tax on capital strikes me as both
effective and politically impossible.
As
someone who lived in a tax haven for a number of years, and examined
the paucity of the nominal returns on capital hidden away there, I
was most delighted by the passage on pages 521-2, where Piketty notes
that bank secrecy is most plausibly explained by the haven's share in
the illicit gains when its clients exploit the secrecy to avoid
their fiscal obligations. Piketty calls this “outright theft.” I
would compare the tax havens of the 21st
century to the pirate havens of the 17th
century – profiting at their neighbor's expense, while contributing
nothing of value.
Capital is
one of the most important books of 2014, but a condensed version
would be more accessible, while still conveying the salient points
that have contributed to a wider discussion of income inequality.
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
Transient Gems
Minneapolis got 2 inches (5 cm) of light, fluffy snow this afternoon. Now, under the streetlights and full moon, it is as if every surface was dusted with a thousand small fairy gems, with shimmers and reflections. Added bonus: the snow squeaks underfoot!
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
History without Analysis
The Month That Changed the World: July 1914, by Gordon Martel. 2014.
Gordon Martel, in his The Month That Changed the World: July 1914, has set out a chronological narrative of the actions taken by European government officials, largely those in the foreign ministries of the Great Powers, in the last week of prior to the outbreak of the Great War. In a sense, Martel's book is Luigi Albertini (The Origins of the War of 1914) writ small. Martel avoids assigning guilt for the war, and eschews judging the decisions of his characters. In his last chapter, he castigates those historians who explore the "what ifs" of 1914, decisions that if made differently may have avoided war.
Martel's book strikes me as incomplete. In focusing on the senior foreign ministry officials and heads of state, he gives the impression that foreign policy is made in a vacuum occupied solely by those gentlemen. More serious is his exclusion of any serious investigation of why Vienna persisted in its assumption that Russia would not take military action against Austria-Hungary, right up through Russian mobilization and Germany's declaration of war against Russia (even before Vienna had so declared). A key figure in that blindness is the Austrian military Chief of Staff Conrad. Perhaps as Conrad is not a diplomat, Martel figured he was not part of his thesis.
The biggest weakness is the book's lack of analysis, of judgment. Martel has written another book, The Origins of the First World War (1987), and perhaps that book would be more satisfactory. As it is, The Month That Changed the World: July 1914 feels like research notes, carefully arranged in chronological order.
I do recommend Clark's The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914.
Gordon Martel, in his The Month That Changed the World: July 1914, has set out a chronological narrative of the actions taken by European government officials, largely those in the foreign ministries of the Great Powers, in the last week of prior to the outbreak of the Great War. In a sense, Martel's book is Luigi Albertini (The Origins of the War of 1914) writ small. Martel avoids assigning guilt for the war, and eschews judging the decisions of his characters. In his last chapter, he castigates those historians who explore the "what ifs" of 1914, decisions that if made differently may have avoided war.
Martel's book strikes me as incomplete. In focusing on the senior foreign ministry officials and heads of state, he gives the impression that foreign policy is made in a vacuum occupied solely by those gentlemen. More serious is his exclusion of any serious investigation of why Vienna persisted in its assumption that Russia would not take military action against Austria-Hungary, right up through Russian mobilization and Germany's declaration of war against Russia (even before Vienna had so declared). A key figure in that blindness is the Austrian military Chief of Staff Conrad. Perhaps as Conrad is not a diplomat, Martel figured he was not part of his thesis.
The biggest weakness is the book's lack of analysis, of judgment. Martel has written another book, The Origins of the First World War (1987), and perhaps that book would be more satisfactory. As it is, The Month That Changed the World: July 1914 feels like research notes, carefully arranged in chronological order.
I do recommend Clark's The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914.
Sunday, December 21, 2014
Failing Kindergarten
For 25 years, my job consisted in large of part of sitting down with people and encouraging genuine dialog, GIVE and take, to settle sometimes horrendous challenges without the use of force. Maybe I'm just getting old, or perhaps just tired of getting annoyed and angry, but we're not going to make our lives better, all of our lives better, if we cling to the overly human tendency to "otherize" people we don't know, and refuse to engage in dialog, to see others (even those we do know) as just after our slice of the pie.
Let those with issues and concerns talk, truly talk, to one another. And work to make the pie bigger and shared out fairly.
I hope that's my last word on the subject.
Let those with issues and concerns talk, truly talk, to one another. And work to make the pie bigger and shared out fairly.
I hope that's my last word on the subject.
Friday, November 28, 2014
July 1914 and the "Draconian, Unacceptable" Austrian Ultimatum
Post hoc ergo propter hoc
I am reading another book on the outbreak of World War I (July 1914: Countdown to War, by Sean McMeekin), and again there is the assertion that Austria drafted its ultimatum to Serbia so as to ensure that it would be rejected, leading to war between the two states (although not inevitably a Europe-wide conflagration). The usual clauses are cited:
I am reading another book on the outbreak of World War I (July 1914: Countdown to War, by Sean McMeekin), and again there is the assertion that Austria drafted its ultimatum to Serbia so as to ensure that it would be rejected, leading to war between the two states (although not inevitably a Europe-wide conflagration). The usual clauses are cited:
5. to agree to the cooperation in Serbia of the organs of the Imperial and Royal Government in the suppression of the subversive movement directed against the integrity of the Monarchy;
6. to institute a judicial inquiry against every participant in the conspiracy of the twenty-eighth of June who may be found in Serbian territory; the organs of the Imperial and Royal Government delegated for this purpose will take part in the proceedings held for this purpose;
McMeekin asserts: "No sovereign state could reasonably be expected to turn over the operation of her police and justice systems to representatives of an outside and hostile power." McMeekin's summary of the clauses' effect is typical for the genre. But still wrong. The ultimatum doesn't demand the usurpation of Serbian state organs in favor of Imperial and Royal (i.e., Austro-Hungarian -AH) state organs, not even in the present investigation, limited to the assassination of the heir-designate to the AH throne and the associated movement. It requests only that Belgrade permit the involvement of AH officials in those proceedings. Vienna did not ask for control over, or even a veto over, those proceedings. Just direct participation.
Surely, in hindsight, such a minor infringement on Serbia's sovereignty would have been preferable to the occupation of the entire state by hostile forces for over two years, and the deaths of 750,000 to 1,250,000 Serbs - out of a population of only 4.6 million! Let alone the millions of other deaths globally from 1914 to 1918.
Surely, in hindsight, such a minor infringement on Serbia's sovereignty would have been preferable to the occupation of the entire state by hostile forces for over two years, and the deaths of 750,000 to 1,250,000 Serbs - out of a population of only 4.6 million! Let alone the millions of other deaths globally from 1914 to 1918.
Simply put, to argue once again that since Belgrade rejected the clauses proves that no state could have agreed to them, and therefore Vienna meant for the ultimatum to be rejected in order to provide a casus belli, is an example of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
As to why Belgrade refused the ultimatum: clearly, the Serbs did not expect such a ruinous war. Presumably they expected the head of Hungarian government, Count Tisza, to check the rush to war, or some other intervention to halt Vienna's military involvement in the Balkans, as happened in 1912 and 1913 during the First and Second Balkan Wars.
Update I: A few chapters later (the book is arranged chronologically), McMeekin asserts that Serbia rejected the ultimatum on the direction of Russia, who also instructed Serbia to not defend Belgrade from the Austrian army. This appears to be part and parcel of McMeekin's thesis that Tsarist Russia bears the "war guilt" for 1914 (not Germany), and Russia was looking for a casus belli to seize the Straits in Turkey. In any event, why would Serbia yield her sovereignty to Russia and territory to Austria, rather than accept Austria's lesser demands?
Update II: So, I did finish the book. I can't really suggest that anyone else do so. McMeekin has no discernable professional experience outside of the writing and teaching of history, which is to say he is out of depth writing about politics, let alone diplomacy and military affairs, as he does repeatedly in July 1914: Countdown to War.
The real kicker is his Epilogue: The Question of Responsibility. First he absolves Germany and Austria on the grounds that their initial offensives (vs Belgium and Serbia) were so poorly coordinated with each other as to prove the states could not have premeditated such a war. I respond that planning can easily include bad and incomplete planning.
He then faults Germany for attacking through Belgium, and assumes that since the "Schlieffen Plan" failed to knock France out of of the war while bringing Britain in, that it could not have possibly worked. McMeekin ends his narrative on August 4th, with the commencement of hostilities. So he ignores that the key fault with the German plan of attack in 1914 is that it required France to repeat the errors of 1870 by engaging in a decisive battle too far forward. The fault is magnified by a much larger French army than in 1905, when the German plans were first drawn up. (McMeekin also entirely ignores the existence of multiple war plans.)
McMeekin doesn't stop there. At the very end, with no foundation or analysis, he asserts: "As indicated by their earlier mobilizations (especially Russia's), in 1914 France and Russia were far more eager to fight than Germany ...." To argue that the time of mobilization indicates which countries are to bear the guilt of war, requires more than mere assertion. McMeekin's story assumes that the leaders of 1914 had neither intelligence (smarts) nor intelligence (information). The leaders of Germany, France and Russia all knew that Germany could mobilize the fastest of the three, Russia the slowest. All assumed (wrongly, but unanimously) that interstate war in 1914 would move at the pace of Prussia's wars in 1864, 1866 and 1870 - and that a failure to deploy reserves would allow an opponent to deliver a knock-out blow in the opening weeks. Once war appeared inevitable, Russia had to mobilize first, given its vast size and backward (if improving) rail system. Germany's interior lines and highly efficient rail and military staff system allowed it to decide and go last. McMeekin earlier notes that the political leadership in all three countries were hesitant to declare mobilization. But in the Epilogue he only recalls the hesitations of Germany's political leaders.
Did Russia and Germany make political and diplomatic errors in July 1914. Absolutely. So did all the other European states. Did Germany have grandiose war aims? Absolutely. So did other combatants - and Japan, Serbia, France, Italy all attained much of theirs. McMeekin's account is unsatisfying, incomplete, and unsatisfactory.
As to why Belgrade refused the ultimatum: clearly, the Serbs did not expect such a ruinous war. Presumably they expected the head of Hungarian government, Count Tisza, to check the rush to war, or some other intervention to halt Vienna's military involvement in the Balkans, as happened in 1912 and 1913 during the First and Second Balkan Wars.
Update I: A few chapters later (the book is arranged chronologically), McMeekin asserts that Serbia rejected the ultimatum on the direction of Russia, who also instructed Serbia to not defend Belgrade from the Austrian army. This appears to be part and parcel of McMeekin's thesis that Tsarist Russia bears the "war guilt" for 1914 (not Germany), and Russia was looking for a casus belli to seize the Straits in Turkey. In any event, why would Serbia yield her sovereignty to Russia and territory to Austria, rather than accept Austria's lesser demands?
Update II: So, I did finish the book. I can't really suggest that anyone else do so. McMeekin has no discernable professional experience outside of the writing and teaching of history, which is to say he is out of depth writing about politics, let alone diplomacy and military affairs, as he does repeatedly in July 1914: Countdown to War.
The real kicker is his Epilogue: The Question of Responsibility. First he absolves Germany and Austria on the grounds that their initial offensives (vs Belgium and Serbia) were so poorly coordinated with each other as to prove the states could not have premeditated such a war. I respond that planning can easily include bad and incomplete planning.
He then faults Germany for attacking through Belgium, and assumes that since the "Schlieffen Plan" failed to knock France out of of the war while bringing Britain in, that it could not have possibly worked. McMeekin ends his narrative on August 4th, with the commencement of hostilities. So he ignores that the key fault with the German plan of attack in 1914 is that it required France to repeat the errors of 1870 by engaging in a decisive battle too far forward. The fault is magnified by a much larger French army than in 1905, when the German plans were first drawn up. (McMeekin also entirely ignores the existence of multiple war plans.)
McMeekin doesn't stop there. At the very end, with no foundation or analysis, he asserts: "As indicated by their earlier mobilizations (especially Russia's), in 1914 France and Russia were far more eager to fight than Germany ...." To argue that the time of mobilization indicates which countries are to bear the guilt of war, requires more than mere assertion. McMeekin's story assumes that the leaders of 1914 had neither intelligence (smarts) nor intelligence (information). The leaders of Germany, France and Russia all knew that Germany could mobilize the fastest of the three, Russia the slowest. All assumed (wrongly, but unanimously) that interstate war in 1914 would move at the pace of Prussia's wars in 1864, 1866 and 1870 - and that a failure to deploy reserves would allow an opponent to deliver a knock-out blow in the opening weeks. Once war appeared inevitable, Russia had to mobilize first, given its vast size and backward (if improving) rail system. Germany's interior lines and highly efficient rail and military staff system allowed it to decide and go last. McMeekin earlier notes that the political leadership in all three countries were hesitant to declare mobilization. But in the Epilogue he only recalls the hesitations of Germany's political leaders.
Did Russia and Germany make political and diplomatic errors in July 1914. Absolutely. So did all the other European states. Did Germany have grandiose war aims? Absolutely. So did other combatants - and Japan, Serbia, France, Italy all attained much of theirs. McMeekin's account is unsatisfying, incomplete, and unsatisfactory.
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