Not a usual topic to be reviewed here, but I started this book by
Hywel Williams when I recently visited Aachen, and picked it up
again over the holidays to finish.
As a one book survey of the topic, Williams has a lot to
commend to it. It provides an examination of the way that the
Emperor Charlemagne, King of the Franks, (born c. 742, died
814) acquired and then governed the largest single conglomeration of
territories to come under the authority of a single sovereign in
western Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire, including present
day France, Germany, Benelux, the Alps, northern Italy, and lands of
the western Danube basin. In fact much of what is now the Eurozone.
With that in mind he was able to establish not just legal but also
fiscal obedience within his lands, creating a single currency that
was valued outside his lands as well (Brussels today perhaps looks
back enviously....). Charlemagne also oversaw a cultural revival.
Education was expanded (not excluding girls either), and manuscript
production was greatly expanded. He revived the latin language and
imposed it on the learned, clerical and administrative aspects of
his Empire. The script used was rediscovered later in the
Renaissance and became the basis of the font used for the first
printing presses.
Williams spends much time ensuring the reader sees Charlemagne
within a historical context, tracing in depth developments from the
end of the Roman Empire and looking beyond Charlemagne to the
creation of present nation states from the 11th centuries onwards.
Charlemagne is clearly seen as signalling an end to the period of
Roman collapse and ushering in the start of the medieval
restructuring of Europe. The Papacy acknowledges this and enters
into the historic Holy alliance that is to last for several
centuries - with the annointing of a western Holy (Roman) Emperor in
return for protection from both attack by neighbours and the
advances of the eastern Christian church in Byzantium.
Yet creating this context is also the weakest aspect of the
book. At times the past context appears to be more central than
Charlemagne himself. Nor is it always presented as a before and
after narrative but tends to follow the area under study and the
overall chronological structure can flow back and forwards, at times
infuriating.
Overall, non-specialists looking to discover more about Charlemagne
will find this of much value. It is comprehensive and opens up new
areas of interest to the general reader. November '11 (***)
Mark Urban: The Man Who Broke Napoleon's
Codes: The Story of George Scovell
Although this does what it says on the tin and tells the story of
how Scovell broke the Napoleonic codes during the Peninsular Wars,
the key thread is that of the campaigns rather than the
code-breaking (presumably because this is not an Enigma type
process, rather it relied on the interpreting of a few, albeit vital
coded letters and how these contributed to Wellington's eventual
victory. Knowing too little of the Iberian theatre this suited me as
it would a general reader (it also has excellent maps), but anyone
seeking an in depth look at Napoleonic cipher breaking will be
disappointed. July '10 (***)
Simon Pugh: We Danced All Night
Simon Pugh's social history of Britain between the First and Second
World Wars is an excellent text for the period. Well set out into
themed chapters from dietary habits through to sexuality and gender,
with excursions into areas as diverse as monarchy, empire, divorce
and aviation his book gives readers a thorough understanding of the
period. Essentially an advanced text book it reads well and easily,
lending itself to dipping in and out to read specific chapters in
isolation – very good if you have an essay on interwar society….However
reading all the chapters does reveal several interesting aspects of
the period. One is the increasing demise of Scotland (suffering over
twice the loss of life of any other region of Great Britain in the
War then hit economically very hard by the decline of its heavy
industry). More significantly, Pugh argues that far from being the
period of economic depression, doom and gloom that it is usually
portrayed as, outside depressed areas like Scotland the years were
ones of growing prosperity which saw the emergence of much of modern
consumerist Britain: aspirations of property owning, the increasing
desire for consumer durables, and the restructuring of the economy
on services based in the south rather than the traditional heavy
industries of the north. Pugh even suggests the second World War is
then perceived by society as an obstruction to all of this – hence
the widespread desire from very early on in the war to seek an
outcome that will broaden this process across society when war ends
through a welfare state and greater planned economic development.
March '10 (****)
Randall E.
Stross Planet Google: How One Company is Transforming Our Lives A good read if you want to find out about the nuts & bolts of
Google's growth although this does tend to be short on broader
critical analysis. A key point to emerge is Google's focus right
from the start on supersizing their resources efficiently so that
they have the raw computing power for later developments. Google
seems to have an insatiable apetite for feeding its machines data to
collate - hence the desire to feed them books, picturs, maps - even
if the nature of their future use is unsure (or not fully thought
through). Unsung success - google translator which is indeed getting
better. Dec '09 (***)
Michael
Burleigh: Blood and Rage
Initially I was attracted to this work as it promised an
interlinking survey of terrorism ( a pretty disparate topic) from
the mid 19thcentury
to the present.It is soon clear that there is nothing new in our
current preoccupation with bombings, even suicide bombings, and acts
of political or religious terror. Burleigh starts with the Irish
Fenians of the 19thcentury (bomb factories, innocent
deaths, deaths of bombers, pre-emptive arrests and "hard"
questioning by the authorities – it was all there in the past too )
then progresses (regresses?) through Russian bombers, anarchists
onto the 20thcentury
terrorist groups: Israeli, Palestinian, Irish, Basque, the European
Red Brigades. The final (largest) section encompasses contemporary
Islamist terror groups.Some is done well. Burleigh is best on the
more focused sections where he can follow a linear history: Fenians,
Basques & Israeli terrorism as well as the final section on
contemporary Islamist terror movements. Elsewhere (anarchism
especially) exposition is at times over complex and confusing. I
felt even a timeline would cope better with the huge amount of
chronology and undeveloped personalities and events offered. Perhaps
its scope is over ambitious. It may have been better to break it
down into a couple of volumes (and so also include the latin
American movements of the 1970's: tightly linked in many ways to the
Red Brigades/RAF but a curious and large omission, even if admitted
to by the author in the introduction).At its best this a very good
survey despite being openly opinionated, (increasingly so as
chapters near the present). It could also do without the authors own
explicit "solutions" at the end – many of these are certainly valid
but are largely implicitly clear to the perceptive reader and do not
require reinforcement. Perhaps more for research and dipping into
rather than reading from cover to cover, this remains a valid and
accessible addition to the topic.June '09 (***)
David Kynaston: Austerity Britain: A World to
Build
A mixture of Vox Pop (through the reports of the innovative Mass
Observation reports of the time & diarists - often the self selecting
celebs of then and now) and analysis. Very comprehensive - this covers
1945-47 only - but at times perhaps too much so, leading to a desire to
skim in places. I found the analysis chapters more interesting than the
ones populated by witness quotes. Most intriguing was the chapter on the
ideas behind state nationalisation - I had not realised the degree to
which this was seen as a top down model with no real consideration given
to the value or necessity of any employer participation. In most cases
existing managers were kept in control. (One other point: did it always
rain then? By chance the photos mostly appear to have been taken on
damp, dark rainy days. As if the time was not depressing enough...) Nov
'08 (***)
H.W. Brands: The Age of Gold: The Story of
an Obsession That Swept the World
Brands provides a well detailed account of the
California Gold rush of 1848-9, placing it in its national (and international)
as well as Californian context. Especially valuable are the descriptions of the
journeys taken by the argonauts (the hopeful gold prospectors) by sea (round the
Horn, across the Pacific, through the Panama isthmus) and by land across the
plains, deserts, Rockies & Sierras. Some of the dangers encountered are new to
me - for example the high mortality rate from cholera as the wagons moved west.
The destructive impact of the western migrants on the buffalo herds so vital to
the Indian tribes is also made clear. Unfortunately, the 491 pages of small,
dense type would have benefited from tighter editing. The post Gold Rush period
especially seems to take on a life of its own (which perhaps should have been a
separate book) but loses focus as a consequence of trying to cover too much.
Brands' previous book, the Reckless Decade, on late 19th century US was more
concise and all the better focused for being so. August '08. (***)
Charles McKean: Battle
for the North: The Tay and Forth Bridges and the 19th-Century Railway
Wars
Outlines the late 19th century railway rivalry between the
Caledonian and North British railway companies that produced the two
famous rail bridges over the Tay and Forth. Well detailed but perhaps
too focused on the minutiae of the boardroom disputes that lay behind
the first Tay Bridge. Conversely it does Bouch a service in highlighting
the role of fatigue in bringing down his Tay Bridge. Probably best read
by someone with more than a nodding acquaintance to Jute era Dundee.
Knowing Dundee I found this of interest, but the lay reader might not. A
health warning is perhaps needed on the jacket. One last point. Good to
see so many illustrations, but the maps are terrible. March '08 (**)
Ben Elton: Blind Faith
Set in a flooded, overcrowded and globally warmed future this is
a cutting, clever, satire on present face-booked, celeb and fame
obsessed society from the writer of Black Adder. I do not usually
include Eltons on this list, (with one exception) but this one is a
worthwhile addition. A quick read and amusing but thought provoking. In
addition to Elton's usually socially perceptive concepts, this one has
the added advantage of having a worthwhile ending and less of the
gratuitous sex, rock 'n roll..... Feb '08 (****)
Ronald
Wright: A short history of progress
This is a concise primer for all who want to see just how fragile human life &
society really is. Wright shows clearly just how brief our “civilised” existence
has been and also how easily it could end. He does this by looking at key
previous civilisations: Sumer, Rome, China, Mayan America and Easter Island.
Clear, sobering lessons are drawn out for us to be learned if we are not to
over-farm, pollute or destroy the present. He concludes with an Argentine
saying: “Each night God cleans up the mess the Argentines make by day” but makes
it clear that we are now at the point where God alone cannot clean up our mess.
We can help ourselves, but only if we act now. Excellent detailed footnotes
develop the brevity of the presented arguments – and provide suggestions to a
variety of further background reading. This should be a compulsory matriculation
present for all school leavers…… Oct ´06 (*****)
J.G.
Ballard: Kingdom Come
An intriguing premise as always with Ballard - in this case his previous
preoccupations with group psychology and behaviour focus this time on suburban
shopping mall society. He creates a scenario plausible in contemporary England
where motorways grid up at weekends as people go off to shop en masse in huge
shopping centres. Unfortunately the plot is flawed by a rather confused
portrayal of the central character. Worth a read, but not Ballard's best. Dec
'06 (**)
William
Golding: The Inheritors
This fifty year old follow-up to Lord of the Flies stands up well. Uses the
clever device of being (largely) seen in the first person through the eyes of
the slow, but well meaning neandertals as they make catastrophic first contact
with our less personable and more agressive ancestors, homo sapiens. At times
this methodology makes for a difficult read but the story of this first genocide
as homo sapiens searched for expansion and power is just as true today as it was
in the post Nazi world, unfortunately. Nov '06 (***)
Carlos
Ruiz Zafon: The Shadow of the Wind
An enjoyable read. Has a touch of Susskind's Perfume about it as this neo-gothic
story within a story unfolds in dark post civil war Barcelona. Ideally needs to
be read fairly swiftly as the characters are numerous and the twists keep
coming. The English translation is worth remarking upon – flowing and with a
good turn of phrase (“the heavens were weeping” to describe rain at a funeral).
I do not know if the translation is accurate, but it reads as if it were not
one…. Oct '06 (***)
S D
Levitt & S J Dubner: Freakonomics
This amusing & interesting read reminded me of the best of my Economics lessons
so many years ago. We did little to no maths but much on the quirky reasoning
behind many Economics theories and their outcomes. (our grades were not good,
but they probably were the lessons I learned most from.) This book is full of
these - it applies Economics reasoning to modern social issues. I liked the
connection between the Ku Klux Klan's demise & Superman. Everyone who is not yet
a parent and wants to be one later should read chapters 5 & 6 before they are.
If you are already one it is too late to read them.... A little too US focussed
perhaps and at times lends itself to speed reading (!) but a worthwhile read.
Oct '06 (***)
Outlines the late 19th century railway rivalry between the
Caledonian and North British railway companies that produced the two
famous rail bridges over the Tay and Forth. Well detailed but perhaps
too focused on the minutiae of the boardroom disputes that lay behind
the first Tay Bridge. Conversely it does Bouch a service in highlighting
the role of fatigue in bringing down his Tay Bridge. Probably best read
by someone with more than a nodding acquaintance to Jute era Dundee.
Knowing Dundee I found this of interest, but the lay reader might not. A
health warning is perhaps needed on the jacket. One last point. Good to
see so many illustrations, but the maps are terrible. March '08 (**)
This is a concise primer for all who want to see just how fragile human life &
society really is. Wright shows clearly just how brief our “civilised” existence
has been and also how easily it could end. He does this by looking at key
previous civilisations: Sumer, Rome, China, Mayan America and Easter Island.
Clear, sobering lessons are drawn out for us to be learned if we are not to
over-farm, pollute or destroy the present. He concludes with an Argentine
saying: “Each night God cleans up the mess the Argentines make by day” but makes
it clear that we are now at the point where God alone cannot clean up our mess.
We can help ourselves, but only if we act now. Excellent detailed footnotes
develop the brevity of the presented arguments – and provide suggestions to a
variety of further background reading. This should be a compulsory matriculation
present for all school leavers…… Oct ´06 (*****)
Imperialism
Latin America
Middle East
Russia/USSR
Single
Party States
The Cold War
Women's
History
English
Civil War
Young casahistoria
Teachers' pages
