Book Review: The Famine Plot, by Tim Pat Coogan

"The Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the English created the Famine." 

John Mitchel, 1861. 

Mitchel was "transported" (exiled) to Bermuda for 14 years for speaking the truth. Tim Pat Coogan will suffer no such fate for writing: "The Famine Plot; England's Role in Ireland's Greatest Tragedy." In America, he will suffer worse: the vast majority will never hear of, let alone read, his book. Of those of who do, almost all will view it as either a tale of "Olde Tyme Irelande" or as a political critique of, and only pertaining to, early Victorian England.

Coogan makes a well-researched, well-argued case for Mitchel's aphorism. Moreover, the faults of London's politicians and bureaucrats persist today, whenever government exploits tragedy to advance narrow, ideological, and partisan goals at the expense of ordinary citizens and in favor of the wealthy elite. It is a case history that Coogan's book can best assist our understanding of present day political culture.

The English Government, particularly after Russell succeeded Peel as Prime Minister in June 1847, put forward a number of reasons why it would not relieve Ireland's distress - even though Ireland, de jure, was an integral part of the so-called United Kingdom. I will summarize Coogan's arguments, which he includes as part of his chronological assessment, instead by topics.

Capitalism

Most Irish farmers were tenants, farming plots rented from often absentee landlords. Those landlords believed (often rightly) that they could receive more money if the small farms were extinguished, and the land use for "big farming" - cattle and export crops. The famine, though death and emigration, accomplished their goals.

Laissez faire economics

Prime Russel's Whigs were great proponents of laissez faire economics and the philosophies of Adam Smith and Thomas Malthus. So much so, they opposed food assistance as it would lower the price received by merchants. Nor was thought given to retaining food in Ireland - food exports continued in accordance with "sacrosanct" contracts. When at last public work programs were put in place, the roads were built in wildernesses -- "Boithre an ocrais (roads of hunger)" (p. 109), to not give private road builders competition.

Opposition to Government Welfare

Only with great reluctance did Russell's government provide welfare, and usually only under limited and demeaning circumstances, namely the infamous Dickensian workhouses.  Coogan cites England's senior bureaucrat (Trevelyan) as asserting that any wages paid for public works should be lower the prevailing wage, and only enough to keep away starvation. (p. 108) Recipients of welfare were to be destitute, devoid of even the smallest plot of land on which subsistence could be made. The governing philosophy was that poor relief (welfare) must be "penal and repulsive" - Treveleyan again. (p. 117), ignoring the overcrowded and diseased conditions of the workhouse that prevailed in reality. Instead, the Whigs and their favorite newspaper, The Times (of London) imagined as late as 1848, after a million Irish had died or emigrated in "coffin ships" that the Irish "are sitting idle at home, basking in the sun, telling stories, going to fairs, plotting, rebelling, wishing death to the Saxon," all born "on the shoulders of the hard working" Englishman (p. 213).

Racism

Coogan does not spare his readers the racist epithets of the English leadership, wherein such lights of the Victorian age as Disraeli, Punch magazine, and many others lesser known to an American audience compared the Irish to apes and rats. In a passage reminiscent of W's "they hate our freedoms," Disraeli proclaimed, "The Irish hate our order, our civilization, our enterprising industry, our pure religion." (p. 57)

Austerity

Coogan underscores as well the objection of HMG to relief on the grounds of government expense. It is somewhat difficult to parse from Coogan what would have been the expense of a responsive plan, one that would have spared the Irish from the famine. It appears, however, to be on the scale of 15 million pounds - roughly the UK's annual defense budget, or 1/4th the total financial cost to the UK of its wholly unnecessary and thoroughly unproductive prosecution of the Crimean war ten years after the Famine.

Conclusion

There is much, much more in Coogan's magnificent book, and I whole-heartedly recommend to anyone interested in Irish history, English politics, or political behavior and philosophy in general.

Book Review: The Lost History of 1914

Jack Beatty has taken a hard look at the "inevitability" of World War One, and deftly refuted the argument. The core of his book is the first six chapters, each looking at one of the major combatant countries and how close each came to NOT entering onto military action in Europe in 1914 (or 1917). The six are Germany, Russia, England, United States, Austria-Hungary, and France.  

The most interesting arguments are those on England, the US, and France. As any serious scholar of England knows, until the very last days of July 1914, it looked far more likely that the British Expeditionary Force would go to Ireland, as civil war broke out between Protestants and Catholics over Home Rule, than to France in the wake of Germany's attack through Belgium. 

If not for a nationalist editor publishing scandalous but true accounts of the skirt-chasing Minister of Finance, Joseph Callaux, Mme Callaux would have no cause to shoot and kill the newspaperman - derailing her husband's otherwise easy electoral victory and appointment as Prime Minister. With the renowned Jean Jaures as his foreign minister, and Callaux's track record of successfully mollifying German demands, it is unlikely that war on the western front would have broken out.

The most fascinating chapter is on the US, as Beatty underscores the anti-imperialist stance of President Wilson, and his break with the Taft policy of supporting Mexico's dictator, the favorite of Wall Street. Beatty shows how Wilson's motives in landing troops in Veracruz, Mexico in April 1914 was to support the rebels, by blocking arm shipments to the president of Mexico - but the fact of American troops on Mexican soil was portrayed as renewed imperialism. Provoked by Villa's 1916 raid on Columbus, NM, Wilson sent General Pershing on a wild-goose chase after the rebel formerly supported by Wilson. The renewed presence of American troops on Mexican soil prompted closer ties between Mexico and Imperial Germany, culminating in the disastrous Zimmermann telegram of 1917, promising Texas, New Mexico and Arizona to be restored to Mexico. Beatty argues that the telegram was even more decisive than the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare against American merchant ships in generating a fever for war in the heartland.

There is much more in Beatty's book; I have not even touched on the last four chapters, covering the last months of 1914, as the spade replaces the machine gun as the key instrument of war.  Beatty's book is well-written, and well worth the time and attention of anyone interested in how the war could have been avoided.

McCain's BFF Running for President

So, Sen. Lindsey Graham has announced that he will announce on June 1 "whether" he is running for President. On the one hand, as a (up until now anyway) lifelong bachelor, he would be only the second such to enter the Oval Office. OOTH, ... yech.

He says that he is running for the office because "he's been more right than wrong on foreign policy." Really? Because he also said the 2003 Iraq war was the result of "faulty intelligence ... but (with) faulty intelligence the entire world believed." Right. That's why we renamed Freedom fries French fries, to honor our Gallic allies in the 2003 invasion. The solid, nay unanimous UN Security Council vote for a resolution authorizing military action. Ambassador Wilson alerting us all to Iraq's purchases of uranium ore ("yellowcake"). Hans Blix coming back from Iraq and assuring us all that Saddam is just weeks away from having a nuke. The Department of Energy and State's Intelligence and Research (INR) agencies guaranteeing that the aluminum tubes were for centrifuges, not conventional military items. Top US General Shinseki stating that a small force would be ok, we "would be welcomed as liberators."  Oh, right. NONE OF THAT HAPPENED. Rather, just the opposite. 

Graham, a lawyer and USAF JAG, has also recently proclaimed in Iowa that, "If I'm President of the United States and you're thinkin' about joining al-Qaeda or ISIL -- anybody thinkin' about that -- I'm not going to call a judge, I'm going to call a drone and we will kill you." Which further demonstrates his firm grasp on the rule of law and reality.  Or not.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article21166422.html#storylink=cpy

Class Immobility

The Atlantic Monthly posed an interesting article online, "The Best Way to Nab Your Dream Job Out of College? Be Born Rich." When I worked for the State Department, I hired a number of interns. With a very short-time frame for hiring decisions, the application was decisive. For me, unlike those in article, "school prestige" didn't cut it at all - which school the applicant attended was the LAST thing I looked at. I ignored extra-curricular activities like "rock-climbing" and "lacrosse;" an extra-curricular activity related to the position for they applied was very valuable, however. I also tried very hard to ignore gender. What I did look at was why they wanted to intern with my office, and whether their essay was well-written, because the jobs always included a LOT of writing.

Book Review: Profiles in Folly - History's Worst Decisions and Why They Went Wrong

Alan Axelrod's breezy and quick-reading book from 2008 covers 35 of the "worst decisions" in history, often in wartime, from 1250 BC (the Trojan horse) to 2005 (Hurricane Katrina). (The decisions are very Euro-centric.) As Axelrod himself notes, this is not "objective history," a balanced look at why decisions were made. He is particularly (if justifiably) hard on the Bush-Cheney administration, which gets tarred four times (space shuttle, Iraq war (twice), hurricane Katrina), with a glancing blow from Enron as well. 

Axelrod formats his stories well into six parts, each entitled "The Decision to _________." Specifically: Gamble and Hope; Manipulate; Leap (Without Looking); Retreat; Destroy; and Drift. While most of the stories are familiar, Axelrod's ability to cut away extraneous matter makes each a strong example of the section's theme, and reinforces the role of obstinance, stupidity, cupidity and ignorance in bad decision-making. 

I would only take exception to one account, that of Austria's decision to present its ultimatum to Serbia in 1914. Largely, I see the faulty account by Axelrod as rooted in his use of the very popular, but erroneous, Guns of August (by Barbara Tuchman), as one of only two sources.  Consequently, the severity of the ultimatum is over-stated.

I look forward to reading more of Axelrod's many books.

Book Review: Warrior Race - A History of the British at War

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.

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.