E. Dionne: If He's Happy, I'm Happy

I missed the President's big speech last night since I was traveling and meeting with clients. However, if Dionne's report is accurate--and from the snippets I saw in TV, it is--then Obama has done what I believe he should do: not only propose a new jobs program, but also lay down the smack to the Republicans. He did both. Bully for him! And good for all of the rest of us!

I spoke to a local Democratic legislator Wednesday night after we both heard former Labor Secretary Robert Reich speak @ the IMU, and I shared these concerns. As she pointed out, Obama has to compromise because the Republicans were putting a gun to our heads with the politics of threat. However, I argued, and still do, that Obama has to rally his troops and show the nation who wants to do what. Protect the very wealthiest from tax cuts? Allow joblessness to linger? Pick up the failed policies of the 1930's? Not for me buddy, and not without going down with a fight. You go Obama!

David Frum: What Inflation?

David Frum continues to amaze me because he keeps pointing out that the emperor has no clothes. In this case, that we don't have an inflation problem, we have a deflation problem. We are in a depression. It's refreshing to read and consider thoughts of someone who considers himself a conservative but who has an open mind. It shouldn't be that way. What we call conservative thought (free market, limited government, etc.) isn't crazy, it has some sound points. But the current crop of Republican presidential candidates are like Stepford wives, all parroting the same contra-factual mantras. It's really crazy, and really sad. Frum should run!

Alexander McCall Smith: The Sunday Philosophy Club

On whim I picked this up @ ICPL, and I found it a delightful read (and it has nothing to do with WWII). If you know Smith from the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, you'll find that his manner transforms well to his native Scotland. Ms. Dalhousie, the protagonist, is a rather appealing character. She edits the Journal of Applied Ethics, having studied philosophy at Cambridge, and her comments on life, philosophy, and any manner of subjects are light and engaging. You rather feel that you'd enjoy knowing this woman (and feel badly that the love of her life--who hardly seems worthy in retrospect--passed her by). Smith has a way of making his characters engage you, much like Precious Ramotswe does in the No. Ladies Detective Agency series. (Does Smith have some special insight into women?). Anyway, an engaging and fun read. No action packed adventure, just lots of careful people assessment, hypothesis development and testing (and discarding), and appreciation of this small slice of humanity. I'll read another one!

John Lukacs: The Hitler of History

After reading about the events of 1938 leading up to the Munich Conference of that year that gave the world "appeasement", I went back to the great historian John Lukacs's consideration of Hitler in this book. (I'd read it about a decade ago on a trip to Montreal with Iowa Guru & Africa Girl. Memories associate well with places.) As with virtually all of Lukacs's work, it bore re-reading. Lukacs treats Hitler for what he was: a human being, a politician, and even--perhaps--a statesman. After all, Hitler had political aims in his war (and WWII was his war, Lukacs argues). As with most of Lukacs's work, it's hard to summarize because he throws out nuggets of insight here and there like he's blithely sowing seeds along a garden path. This is a book about other books and historians as much as Hitler himself, and this, too, makes it different, interesting, and well worthwhile.

Am I Smitten? More on Rick Perry

Am I smitten with Rick Perry, or what? This guy intrigues me, and as this post by Michael Tomasky contends, he makes George W. Bush look wise, intelligent, and informed. Wow--now that's a talent! Whereas W used to whisper some of his nonsense, Perry uses a bullhorn to advertise his ignorance and prejudice. If you think about it, from George H.W. Bush to George W. Bush to Rick Perry: isn't this a strong argument for devolution? Darwin in reverse?

The other point of this article is another call to arms for President Obama. As a fellow b-ball player, I understand that Obama doesn't want to get into an elbow swinging match with his opponents, that's sucker stuff. Obama, however, shouldn't want not get even, but to get ahead (thanks Walter "Clyde" Frazier). The greats, like Jordan, Magic, Bird, West, Robertson--they didn't put elbows into opponents mouths, they put stilettos between their ribs. Obama is a cool guy (in more ways than one), but he has to coolly put it to his political opponents, with just a touch of fire. Maybe Obama needs to spend some time watching NBA Classics.

David Frum on Sarah Palin & The Lesson We Should Learn

David Frum is lining up as my second favorite conservative writer behind David Brooks. We might disagree about a number of things, but I imagine that I would have a very enjoyable conversation with the guy if we sat down to talk shop. In this particular article, he tells us the brains are important in choosing presidential canidates, character and not demographics are important in choosing presidential candidates, and that women weren't fooled by Sarah Palin, but men, apparently going all instinctual, were. Three points that make a lot of sense to me. His asides in the column about Mitt Romney and Rick Perry are right on point as well.

I Told You So Edition--Thank you, Christina Romer

In follow up to this post, I can't help but point out this article by former Obama administration economist Christina Romer (and now Berkley econ prof) about FDR's administration and its errors, including the budget-balancing business of 1937 (along with Fed money restrictions). I guess great minds think alike. I'm glad that I posted before her article appeared. :)

If Karl Rove thinks this . . . . ?

My goodness, if Karl Rove thinks that Perry is off his rocker, what should the rest of us think? This adds to my sense that Republicans are utterly bankrupt when it comes to compelling leadership, and the rank-and-file are dominated by the Christian Right (which out to be an oxymoron, but sadly isn't). How sad! How different from the British Conservatives. David Cameron strikes me as intelligent and reasonable, albeit misguided with his current austerity program. Do the Republicans have anyone in that league? If they do, they're hiding for fear of the Tea Party types. Sad and scary.

Et Tu, China? Niall Ferguson's Assessment

Courtesy of Walter Russell Mead's blog: Ferguson seems not so sure that China won't hit the same problems that we did with a real estate bubble of its own. Very interesting! Bubbles, everywhere, all ready to pop!

Rick Perry: Could This Guy Become President With These Views?

I thought that George W. Bush was one of the least qualified and least capable individuals to have been nominated or elected president. Events, I contend, bore me out. Now we have this guy Perry. Why on earth would we vote him into office? If his views that Yglesias quotes from his book aren't enough, note this Krugman analysis of his supposed big selling point. Are we as a country really going off the deep end?

Munich, 1938: Appeasement & WWII by David Faber

David Faber's book (2008, 437 p.) focuses on the events leading up to the Munich Conference of 1937 wherein Neville Chamberlain and the French (with Mussolini looking on) bargained away parts of Czechoslovakia to Hitler in return for "peace in our time". Well, it didn't work. In fact, Faber's book, which focuses primarily on Hitler's actions (and luck) and British diplomatic efforts, shows how Hitler ran the table of Austria and most of Czechoslovakia without firing a shot. Chamberlain does seem clueless in the face of Hitler. Faber's narrative is detailed and interesting, but I would have appreciated more background on the primary players, like Chamberlain & Halifax, and those in the Foreign Office, in addition to Eden, who questioned appeasement. The diplomatic efforts were intense, but no one in power was willing to call Hitler's bluff, if it was a bluff (an interesting historical question). An interesting book, but not one to approach without a firm background knowledge. (I believe my background knowledge to have been adequate but I would have benefited, as I mentioned, from more scene and character setting.)

1937: Deja Vu All Over Again?

I've been saying (even if no one is listening) that FDR took us into a severe downturn in 1937 with his budget-balancing mania (Keynes apparently didn't get his message across in time), and it looks like the Obama administration is doing the same thing. Of course history doesn't repeat itself (exactly), but sometimes you can see the same pattern.

Krugman: A Sense of Humor Amid the Wreckage

Krugman's sense of humor today is worthwhile, one post on "academia nuts" and this cartoon. Krugman, one senses, has an appreciation of the "animal spirits". Anyway, I read him for laughs as well as insights.

E.J. Dionne in London on London (and the other cities)

Interesting follow-up to the last post (on Goldstone). Here we have Dionne talking the politics of all of this (in GB). We (democracies) have a problem having an adult debate. Yes, condemn, arrest, and punish. Stop rioting, but riots don't just grow on trees, they grow out of bad conditions. No rioting here on Magowan Ave. Wonder why not? We can't condone or reward, but we (and I say "we" because it can happen here) or the Brits would be dumb not to address causes. We'll see.

Goldstone on London

Jack Goldstone's New Population Bomb, certainly a great new blog, has another interesting post today, and it's about London. Simply put, we only describe the situation when we say that people (some) are acting reprehensibly, criminally, etc. Of course, but the question we really need to ask is "why?". How do we explain this outbreak of violence? Goldstone has the credentials, and as his recent post on the French Revolution demonstrates, we can (in some measure) learn from history. I believe that his conjectures about London (and Greece earlier) are very persuasive. The police shooting in London was just the match: without fuel, the match doesn't do much of anything. Compare London today to the Rodney King riots in LA: another match in a blighted area. With increasing economic volatility, if not outright downturn, expect to see more of this type of social unrest. (BTW, consider similar underlying conditions in the Arab Spring.)

Krugma on Weston on Obama

Okay, if you've ever read this blog more than a few times you know that I think that Paul Krugman is usually right. I think that events have born him out on most significant issues. And, if like me, you read him in 2008 when Obama was running, you know that he was skeptical, and his skepticism has been born out. I suggest that you not only read this post, but the post he wrote at the time of the inaugural. Also, as an added treat, he gives a shout-out to Keynes that leads me to a new Keynes insight that I thought was original to me: that a depression or severe recession, then, as now, isn't marked or caused by some natural catastrophe (unlike, say the effects of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami), but by a faulty system. Damn, I think this Keynes guy was pretty smart!

Jack Goldstone on the Tea Party

Jack Goldstone offers a very perceptive appreciation of what's going on with the Tea party phenomena. In essence, he's saying that folks have reasons to be unhappy, but that their unhappiness is being funneled into an old Republican agenda that really doesn't address the reasons for their unhappiness very well. His attitude and perceptions judging the U.S. government and how it ought to work--and had worked successfully in the past--is on mark for my money. Like me, he understands that limits on government and on government regulation are important considerations, but that government and government regulation are often quite good. It's not an either/or proposition, but a balance. A fine piece for grasping the dynamics of our changing world.

Jack Goldstone's Advice to Obama

Jack Goldstone, a social scientist @ George Mason, has started a blog & today I note that he referenced the Drew Weston article in my previous post. But he does one better, in the linked-post, he explains what Obama could have and should have done in response to the Republican bargaining tactics. He's making some sound suggestions here that we all can wish that Obama would have pursued. For right now, the U.S. is getting the reputation of a deadbeat nation (with the rating downgrade), but we're still paying our bills.

Drew Weston on Obama

Drew Weston's lead article in the NYT today really hits on some important points in general and about Obama in particular:

1. The importance of narrative (the fancy word for story). As a trial lawyer, this important mode--the most important mode of conveying information--has been drilled into my head by communications experts and fellow trial lawyers. Weston makes the point:

Stories were the primary way our ancestors transmitted knowledge and values. Today we seek movies, novels and “news stories” that put the events of the day in a form that our brains evolved to find compelling and memorable. Children crave bedtime stories; the holy books of the three great monotheistic religions are written in parables; and as research in cognitive science has shown, lawyers whose closing arguments tell a story win jury trials against their legal adversaries who just lay out “the facts of the case.”

Obama was elected--in very large measure--on his story: the story of a bi-racial kid raised by a single mother in exotic locales, but he maintains close contact with his Midwestern grandparents,and those he learns to bridge multiple worlds and makes good, moving away from divides of race, etc. A great story. But what is his story now?

2. Weston contrasts Obama with the two Roosevelts, and Obama lacks in comparison. Both were fighters, both willing to take on "the bad guys". Now really, there are bad guys (not many, but some), and there are always those (virtually all of us) who will not give up the advantages and privileges that we have (a/k/a greed). If you want to take something away from say, Wall Street, or the rich, or seniors, or whomever, you're going to get a fight. You must fight. Fight and then negotiate. I do it every day. Obama only seems to want to negotiate. Weston contrasts Obama's lack of a fighting story with the attitude exhibited by the "Happy Warrior":

In a 1936 speech at Madison Square Garden, he [FDR] thundered, “Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred.”

3. Weston notes that Obama took many of his bearings from the work of Martin Luther King, Jr., surely a strong and relevant choice, but as Weston notes, King, too, fought--in the streets as well as with his moving oratory--for the cause that he championed. Obama seems to lack a cause and the will to champion it. Weston writes:

Those [Roosevelts'] were the shoes — that was the historic role — that Americans elected Barack Obama to fill. The president is fond of referring to “the arc of history,” paraphrasing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous statement that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” But with his deep-seated aversion to conflict and his profound failure to understand bully dynamics — in which conciliation is always the wrong course of action, because bullies perceive it as weakness and just punch harder the next time — he has broken that arc and has likely bent it backward for at least a generation.

4. Weston goes on to argue that mere "centrist" positions are not enough, and that Obama may be bewitched by this siren song that seems to pull many Democrats, and then he goes on the raise potentially more fundamental flaws that Obama may suffer:

A second possibility is that he is simply not up to the task by virtue of his lack of experience and a character defect that might not have been so debilitating at some other time in history. Those of us who were bewitched by his eloquence on the campaign trail chose to ignore some disquieting aspects of his biography: that he had accomplished very little before he ran for president, having never run a business or a state; that he had a singularly unremarkable career as a law professor, publishing nothing in 12 years at the University of Chicago other than an autobiography; and that, before joining the United States Senate, he had voted "present" (instead of "yea" or "nay") 130 times, sometimes dodging difficult issues.

This is a troubling perspective. For all his gifts, he was (and largely is) a young man. He has not led a fight like this before. As a fellow lawyer, I have to note that he was a law professor (obviously very capable), but never (I think) a practicing lawyer, never an advocate. Lawyers who represent clients in court have to deal with real issues, take stands, make arguments--fight (compete) within the rules of the game. Often no one is happier to settle a case than me, as I know the risks of failure, but as I never tire of telling clients, the best settlement comes from the best trial preparation. You need to let the other side know that you'll fight and risk loss than settle cheap. (Sometimes you settle cheap if you have no case, but that's a different story.)

5. Having said all this, and expressed my reservations, I will of course support Obama's reelection. At his worst he's better than anyone that the Republicans will nominate. The Republican party is reverting to it's no-nothing roots of the 1840's. It is not the party of Lincoln, TR, Ike, or even Reagan. But to make his reelection count, Obama must stand up and push back.

The Perils of Openess

I'm posting this because I think Zakaria has a some good points, but mainly because he highlights the dangers of "openness" and "transparency". Yes, these can be good, but not always. A law professor of mind, who Arthur'd the Iowa Administrative Procedure Act,wrote some time ago in our local paper recommending further openness in state government. I didn't write a response, but I should have. In fact, sometimes you need the quiet of closed meetings to entertain matters, to float trial balloons and the like. He argued that "mold grows in the dark recesses", but I would counter with a different metaphor: seeds need the dark, damp hidden recesses of the soil to grow and sprout. Expose a plant to the sun too soon and it will shrivel-up and die. A good example of this is the constitutional convention of 1787: it was closed. Did it create a perfect constitution? No (for instance, it condoned slavery), but the convention probably would have failed if it had been open and transparent. Of course, the constitution did eventually go through an extremely detailed vetting before adoption (thus giving us the Federalist papers). Contrast this with the French convention in 1789 (or thereabouts): it was open, and its creation could not last. (Thanks to Jon Elster for this insight.) Anyway, openness and transparency have their downsides. Beware of reformers bearing gifts!

Fareed Zakaria on Defense Spending

I knew that military ("defense") spending has always been out of control, but I didn't realize by how much until I read this article. Incredible. While now might not be the time to take the ax to this overgrown tree, we should start trimming now with the thought of a whole new look over time.

David Leonhardt on the Economy

A very good article on the U.S. economy and current concerns. Like the article on Krugman that I just posted and my comments on that post, Leonhardt takes a modest view of economic knowledge--that a lot is known that is mostly correct--but that we still have a good deal of uncertainty. That having been said, some ideas and practices are surely true, and some policies manifestly better bets that others. To this I say, Amen!

Krugman: A Short But Perceptive Take on What's Wrong

This is almost too cute, the Keynes must be spinning in his grave remark ("in the long run we're all dead", right?), but Krugman's point is serious and reminds me of my thought about the Great Depression. Why, when we had factories, workers, no natural catastrophes of an unusual sort, not natural cataclysm, did the material world go into such a funk with people wanting? If it's not a natural disaster, then it's a man-made disaster (I would say human now, but then we can blame almost exclusively men!). And if we made it, we should be able to fix it, right? We're having an awfully hard time of it. Perhaps it all is way out of our grasp because of the complexity of it all, but certainly some course of action would prove better than others, such as fiscal stimulus, monetary policy, deficit reduction--they can't be all equally good or bad for our well-being. So, modesty, yes, but choices must be made. This isn't like plagues of old or climate change (yet) that changed the course of civilizations in the past.

Bruce Bartlett: Obama as Conservative

This interesting article from Bruce Bartlett (via Paul Krugman) has some interesting history. Having just mentioned Bartlett in a comment posted on Roscommon to Imogene, I followed Krugman's lead to this article. Of course, liberals who go conservative or vice versa can be a good thing (I like Ike), but I'm not sure of Obama's game here. Right now, more spending by the government is in order, I think. I follow those who say that inflating demand (not the currency) and getting more back to work is most important. Thus, why repeat FDR's mistake in 1937 of pursuing budget trimming mania? Obama seems to me to be making the same mistake. Plus, the Republicans are now driven by a real fringe group. What happened to Wall Street & Main Street Republicans?

Why Niebuhr Now? by John Patrick Diggins

I've already written of my anticipation of this book and my enthusiasm for both the subject and the author, so I won't go on. Much of this short book places Niebuhr within the American culture of his days. But as Diggins will do, he not only tells of Niebuhr's ideas and arguments and his place in history, but he nails the essence. Let me quote:

Today American's political and business leaders typically announce that "freedom" is the touchstone of all their efforts, the benchmark against which we are to measure their accomplishments. The term is our national creed. Centuries ago freedom was considered a passion to be controlled; today it is a principle to be celebrated. Educators teach it, poets chant it, philosophers define it, moralists preach it, politicians swear by it, the retired enjoy it, immigrants dream of it, and the poor strive for it.

The cult of freedom is so ubiquitous in American history that it continually erodes the biding force of authority, a concept carrying weight mainly in the Supreme Court rulings and the tenants of religious sects. Many Americans regard authority as inheritly alien and illegitimate and on this the extremes meet. . . . Preoccupied with the fetish of freedom, few Americans dwell on its riddles and paradoxes. We readily assume that to be free is to do what we wish. But are not our wishes often subject to passions that affect our actions? Genuine freedom consists in self-mastery, escape from external restrains and inner compulsions. Niebuhr would not forget Saint Augustine’s warning that the mind may control the body but cannot control itself. But in American life few question that freedom is anything but a self-evident truth, eternally subject to rebirth and reaffirmation. 

Reinhold Niebuhr was no enemy of human freedom, but he tried to make us aware of the ironies inherent in the concept. Where there is freedom, he observed, there is also power, and where there is power, there is sin and the temptation to sin. Rarely does America see itself solely in terms of power. Instead, we over estimate our dedication to freedom and forget that we are as much creatures of history as its creators.

(110-111).

Well, enough for now. If you care about freedom, power, sin, pride, and self-knowledge, then these two thinkers have a lot to share with you.

Teach Us to Sit Still: A Skeptic's Search for Health & Healing by Tim Parks

The title, from a favorite poem, caught my eye, and a favorable review led me to grab this book when I saw it at the library. Mr. Parks, an Englishman who lives in Italy with his family and who as a career as a successful novelist (he's made it the Booker-Mann short list), developed severe problems with his plumbing, the the central culprit appearing to be his prostrate. N.B. Hear me knocking on wood, but the similar symptoms did not prompt my choice of this book. So far, so good. But as breast cancer seems a real threat to most woman, so the prostrate for men. Thus, some personal concern--but I digress. His prostrate, however, wasn't cancerous. It was . . . well, doctors weren't quite sure what was wrong. Urologists, in any event, recommended a roto-rooter of the nether regions. He didn't cotton to this idea. He searched, and then he came upon a book. Not to spoil the ending, but he ends up performing exercises and attending a mindfulness meditation retreat. All the while it seems, he protests, but it works.

I won't say more, but if you're interested in a very tell-told story of health and its elusiveness, of how our bodies and minds interact (or ignore each other), and how we can, if we open ourselves to experiences that the mind, a priori, wants to reject, we can experience some really amazing changes. A very good book and thought-provoking.

Donald Kaul & Obama

Two important things about this article: First, I think it marks that third week in a row that Donald Kaul has appeared again the Des Moines Register. Frankly, the P-C I get for local news, but the DMR is a mere shadow of its former self, across the board. Picking up the man who wrote for it going back in into the early 1970's (at least that's when I picked up the habit from my dad), is a great choice for a paper that hasn't made many great choices over the years.

As to this piece, Kaul expresses my sense of Obama to a T. I'm prepared to give Obama a lot of slack, but I do wonder why he is not more assertive. Every politician, even FDR, for example, is cautious and can't get too far out in front of the selectorate (thank Bruce Bueno de Mesquita for the term). But if you're negotiating, and trying to build your base (which politicians must do constantly), you have to bluff a bit. BTW, note that Kaul describes Republicans as "mad"--nothing like a poignant double-entendre. I don't have an answer to Kaul's question, but we need help. As he pointed out in an earlier Kaulumn, Michelle Bachmann and her ilk are positively daft, part of a growing group of know-nothings (my term, not his). I really do wish that I had an answer.

Donld Rumsfeld: Right on One Thing

Recently I've been reading more and more about the detriments--serious detriments--of sitting on your hind-end too much. Iowa Guru, in fact, purchased a computer stand for me that now replaces the pile of books that I had on my desk to allow me to stand at my computer, so I'm moving forward. (I have to yet to do something along those lines at my office, which presents greater logistical problems.) So, when I saw this article, I have to give a shout-out to Donald Rumsfeld in an "you've got to give the devil his due" moment. (Okay, he's not the devil, but he strikes me as the epitome of arrogance and hubris.)Rummy has a good idea, and one that we'd all probably do well to emulate. Sometimes, you just don't know where good ideas will come from!

Crazy Republicans

Dave Brooks gets it right when he calls the failure of the Republicans to make a deal on the debt ceiling with debt reduction "the mother of all no-brainers". Others have caught it as well, including the Rational Optimist (from a more minimal government, less taxes perspective) as well as economics commentators. (Of course, Krugman is going nuts over this, as I think he should, but best read him directly.) Certainly we need to reduce long term debt, big time. I'm galled that Republicans get religion about debt reduction after they've been on a spending spree (e.g., Reagan's large deficit and then W's). Also, unless we address entitlements and military spending, we're dealing with chicken feed.

All of this leads to deeper questions: is the political culture really more warped than in past years? The Tea Party element, so far as I can see, really has no grip on policy matters. I suspect its run by more subterranean influences. N.B. I am not saying that we shouldn't reduce our huge deficit. We should. However, doing it too drastically and too fast could lead to disaster, as could a default by the U.S. government. Think Uncle Sam as dead-beat--no good. As for President Obama, he needs a deal, but I'm thinking that he might need more of a Truman-esque pose ("give 'em hell, Barack"), which, unfortunately, seems inimical to him. In the end, we can't allow know-nothings to run the country. And while the Dems are far from perfect, this isn't an equal "a pox on both your houses" situation: the Dems are more responsible even if far from perfect. Enough said, for now.

Another to Celebrate our Nation: Franklin Foer on Liberalism

The wonderful Five Books site from the UK is a great source for interviews with reading recommendation. I saved this from a couple of days ago, and it works as we celebrate our nation. What is a liberal? Foer's answer to this question, quoting Herbert Croly,that it is "the use of Hamiltonian means to accomplish Jefersonian aims" is probably as good as it gets. We have to compare this with the classical liberalism of John Stuart Mill and, for instance, the Austrian school of Von Mises and Hayek. An interesting interview & a good choice of books. And, no, liberalism isn't a cuss word.

Jack Rakove on the Constitution

This brief piece by Stanford historian Jack Ravoke is a great 4th of July piece, even if its talking about the Constitution and not the Declaration (the former is more important than the latter in my mind). Great recommendations for reading this most important document.

For the Fourth: John Patrick Diggins's Eugene O'Neill's America: Desire Under Democracy

My custom is to pick a work of American history to read in celebration of the 4th. This year, I decided on a work by John Patrick Diggins (who edged out John Lukac's A New Republic: A History of the United States in the Twentieth Century). Diggins final book was published on June 30, and while I still mourn his passing, I was pleased to learn that his final work, Why Niebuhr Now, would make it to press. I eagerly await its arrival @ PL. Fortunately, I had on hand his next most recent book, a book on Eugene O'Neill, which I'd only dipped into. I haven't seen a great deal of O'Neill, but what I have--oh, my! I had the experience of seeing a film production of The Iceman Cometh by the American Film Theater, starring Frederic March, Robert Ryan, and Lee Marvin as Hickey. What a great Bijou Theater experience. Then, in 1999 (I think), I saw Broadway production with the lovely One Hungary Panda, who graciously accompanied me to this. The production starred Kevin Spacey, and I thought it superb. O'Neill is not easy. Two factors greatly influence his drama: his Irish-American family and his reading of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Spengler. This odd coupling doesn't make for much comedy (but try "Ah, Wilderness"), but it's great stuff. (BTW, O'Neill won a Nobel prize and four Pulitzer prizes for his work.)

So why Diggins? Because his work, on American political thought,Herman Melville, John Adams, on the pragmatists and their critics, Weber (his visit to America), Lincoln & Reagan (yes, I've started this one): all focus on the vicissitudes of democracy and power and how it all fits--or doesn't. No one, but perhaps the late Christopher Lasch, combines the intensity of analysis with deep historical understanding. He's certainly one of my favorite American historians.

Happy Independence Day!

Book List from Financial Times

I haven't seen a summer reading list from the NYT (perhaps they don't run it anymore?). In any event, the Financial Times from GB has a list, and the recommendations cover a wide variety of topics. I'm currently reading (among other things) Tim Harford's book Adopt of the list.

Jeffrey Sachs @ 5 Books

Five Books is a great site, and this interview with Jeff Sachs is a good source of perspective on global development goals. This man is an optimist despite seeing a lot of hardship. But most importantly, I'm impressed that he realizes that alleviating extreme poverty depends a lot on the good will of persons with the resources to help. In the end, economics depends, or is built upon, ethics.

Joseph Tainter: The Collapse of Complex Societies

While on my trip I decided to tackle Joseph Tainter’s The Collapse of Complex Societies. I learned of this book from Thomas Homer-Dixon’s excellent The Upside of Down. Since we were once again headed to see some ruins, I thought this an appropriate time to approach this book, although in the case of the Incas, we can easily identify “Guns, Germs, and Steel” (and perhaps horses) as the proximate causes of collapse. But other cases, like the Maya, the Western Roman Empire, and Easter Island, are among those situations that do not provide easy explanations. Tainter reviews virtually all of the prevailing theories. He identifies the prevailing theory in popular thinking and among some historians (Toynbee, for instance) as “mystical” explanations, a poor choice of words to my mind. Toynbee, following a long pedigree, thinks in terms of biological analogies, with birth, youth, maturity, decline, and death the pattern for “civilizations” as well as individuals. This, Tainter argues, provides a false and rather misleading or unhelpful analogy. The other theory, of “decadence”, seems more literary and moral than causative. So what is Tainter’s alternative? Declining marginal returns on complexity (complexity being a term of art in this instance). In short, he bases his theory upon a fundamental economic law (if you will suffer the dubious term here). His analysis and application of his theory to the Western Roman Empire argues that it was not barbarians, Christians, or plagues that brought down Rome, but a limitation on the value of complexity. He applies a similar analysis to the Mayans and to the Chaco Canyon civilization in North America. If he’s right, and I think that he makes a very strong argument (but see Peter Turchin’s War and Peace and War for an excellent competing theory), it has to be taken quite seriously, and if he’s right, then we have to think very carefully about our current predicament. Can we innovate our way out of the inevitable decline of petroleum? Can we get out from under excessive demands for complexity?

I highly recommend this book, and I count it an excellent part of my Big History reading project.

Peru 2011

I should reflect a bit on the great trip that Iowa Guru, One Hungary Panda, and I had to Peru. (Africa Girl was, of course, in Africa, Benin to be exact, alas.) I will share some random thoughts about the trip & my experience there. Of course, for a great photo tour, see One Hungary Panda’s photos.

For a guy from the flat Midwest, the Andes provide a starkly contrasting, three-dimensional world. They look not only front and back, right and left, but by necessity, up and down. Distance and perspectives really vary from our daily experience here on the Midwest. Distances, for instance, mean little, given the (literal) ups and downs and arounds of travel. Sometimes I felt almost claustrophobic with sheer mountainsides towering above me.

Machu Pichu is all that it’s cracked up to be. In the train from Cuzco that follows the river valley (a tributary of the Amazon), one suddenly realizes that you’ve traveled low enough to enter the jungle. Mountainsides once brown are now green and marked by trees. When one arrives at the heights of Machu Pichu you can see this verdant (even in winter) environment, steep and lush. Machu Pichu itself is a testament to engineering. It stands on this mountaintop (and side) as it has for about 600 years. I quickly learned that if an earthquake were to strike, I’d want to be in some Incan (popular, not accurate name for the civilization) ruins. If you have the chance, visit.

The people of Cuzco love to dance. You see many persons who are obviously from pretty pure indigenous genetic stock, as well as many of mixed ancestry. All seem to love to dance, pre-schoolers to college kids. While we were in Cuzco there seemed to be a dance festival about every day circling the square. Just for the tourists? I don’t think so. This seems to be a genuine vehicle of popular solidarity.

How the present relates the past always fascinates me. There, one sees a lot of reference to the Incan history (okay, Tahuantinsuyo history). The Spaniards, real bastards as far as I can tell, or at least the initial wave, really attempted to stomp on the native culture, but this always proves difficult, perhaps always impossible. Even in colonial churches one sees how Incan motifs sneak into the Christianity grafted over it (literally often, as churches often have Incan ruins for foundations). For instance, statues of the Virgin have her clothed the shape of a mountain. I thought it merely to cover some unseemly weight gain, but no, it was because mountains were sacred to the Incans. Also, in paintings of the Last Supper, we see Jesus and the disciples about the enjoy the last supper with cuy (guinea pig) as the main course. Christianity, like almost every religion, is extremely syncretistic.

Well, perhaps more later. If you have the chance, I highly recommend Peru for a trip. BTW, the people were very friendly, and multi-lingual (1HP was virtually challenged to a linguistic duel!).

Niall Ferguson on The Pity of War

I don't know how this just came to my attention, but this is an interview from about 10 years ago, shortly after Ferguson published his The Pity of War, which is about the First World War. Listening to him, you realize why he is a first-rate historian. This is good, because as a current events commentator, where he is quite active currently, I find him less persuasive. Indeed, I have a growing skepticism of all such commentators, but he's been more irksome to me than some. However, because of his interesting work as a historian, I listen.

Adam Kirsch on Morality in the Histories of WWII

A quote worth repeating from the article cited in my previous post. He expresses a perspective that I agree with.

[T]he patriotism, sacrifice and bravery we read about in a book like “Band of Brothers” cannot be nullified by knowing more about the war in which they flourished. Indeed, the best of the new World War II histories can be seen as attempts to give us, in the year 2011, a more authentic and complete sense of what the war was actually like to those fighting it.

After all, the present is always lived in ambiguity. To those who fought World War II, it was plain enough that Allied bombs were killing huge numbers of German civilians, that Churchill was fighting to preserve imperialism as well as democracy, and that the bulk of the dying in Europe was being done by the Red Army at the service of Stalin. It is only in retrospect that we begin to simplify experience into myth — because we need stories to live by, because we want to honor our ancestors and our country instead of doubting them. In this way, a necessary but terrible war is simplified into a “good war,” and we start to feel shy or guilty at any reminder of the moral compromises and outright betrayals that are inseparable from every combat.

The best history writing reverses this process, restoring complexity to our sense of the past. Indeed, its most important lesson may be that the awareness of ambiguity must not lead to detachment and paralysis — or to pacifism and isolationism, as Nicholson Baker and Pat Buchanan would have it. On the contrary, the more we learn about the history of World War II, the stronger the case becomes that it was the irresolution and military weakness of the democracies that allowed Nazi Germany to provoke a world war, with all the ensuing horrors and moral compromises that these recent books expose. The fact that we can still be instructed by the war, that we are still proud of our forefathers’ virtues and pained by their sufferings and sins, is the best proof that World War II is still living history — just as the Civil War is still alive, long after the last veteran was laid to rest.

Memorial Day Reflections

On Memorial Day it is good and right to remember those who served in our armed forces and sacrificed on behalf of our country. As I watch some of the non-stop war movies that parade across the television screens, I appreciate the sacrifices made, the horrors suffered, and the burdens borne. Of course, not everyone who served was “a hero”; some, over the course of our nation’s history, have committed horrible crimes in the name of our country or while in uniform.

I suggest that on Memorial Day, in addition to honoring those who served, we should turn ourselves to a wider reflection, to reflect on where we, as a nation, have been and where we might be headed. Our story is not without blemish, but if it is correct that “the truth shall set you free”, then we must face the good and the bad and the indifferent in our history. This is not always easy or pleasant. Some recent reading has brought all of this to mind. In the NYT yesterday, a review article by Adam Kirsch entitled “Is World War II Still the Good War?” The “good war”—an oxymoron if there ever was one—and yet not all wars are equal in their moral repugnance and some are justified. Kirsch rightly points out some of the moral failings of the Allied Powers, such as the fire-bombing of German (and Japanese) cities, which rightly raises the issue of war crimes. In the end, neither Kirsch nor I nor many of the authors of the books that he discusses, believe that one finds any equivalency between the evils of Hitler’s Nazi Germany and the Allied Powers. Even the question of allies raises moral clouds, such as Hitler’s one-time ally and then ours, Stalin, who perhaps can rival and arguably even excel Hitler in evil, yet we danced with him in order to defeat Hitler. These are not easy questions, and Kirsch addresses them forthrightly but not naively.

I also listened to a portion of Simon Schama’s The American Future: A History. This morning I listened to the story of the treatment of the Cherokee Nation by Andrew Jackson, Schama describes Jackson’s actions as a terrible low in American political morality. Congress (including Davey Crockett) almost defeated Jackson’s theft and ethnic cleansing (for this is what it was, and often treatment of American Indians became genocide). Yet, it happened. Yes, we must remember this, too. Not to beat ourselves up with useless guilt, but to understand how we got there and to consider our own actions and how they may compare to those of our ancestors, heroic, ordinary, and shameful.

Walter Russell Mead on Clausewitz

A good, brief introduction to Clausewitz. Mead's course, like the Grand Strategy course at Yale under John Lewis Gaddis, Paul Kennedy, and Charles Hill, seems like an excellent exercise. Mead makes a good point: we won't make war go away by ignoring it, and we're wise to prepare for it. We are foolish to hope war will go away even with all of the good will and new institutions we can create. We can't bet on it. Mead, and Clausewitz, make us face these unpleasant thoughts.

Tim Ferriss on Stocism, Life-Hacking, Language Learning, etc.

I like Tim Ferriss because he's an experimentor, testing ideas (Stocism), his body, his skills (here in some degree about language learning), and he brings a Pareto-based attitude to learning new skills. He seems pretty adept @ it, so I pay some attention to what he has to say. This is a good, relatively short introduction to some of his main ideas & perspectives. Of course, his two books, The Four-Hour Work Week & The Four-Hour Body are chock-full of these ideas and more.

Nicholas Phillipson: Adam Smith

Adam Smith, an odd, somewhat ungainly man from Scotland who lived and wrote in the 18th century is one of the great minds. The poor fellow seems destined to remain in the popular mind as the mand with the invisible hand. But in addition to this keep perception and his invention of modern economic thought, he is the author of another equally great work, The Theory of the Moral Sentiments. This book gives us the "impartial spectator", an ideal that a Buddhist would recognize.

This birthday gift one 1HP (thanks again!) reinforced what I already believed: Smith is a greaet mind with keen insight. Yes, he invented modern economics, but it was all a part of his project for a "science of man". He is essentially humane, careful, and worthy of all of the consideration that we can give him.

David Brooks on Democracy vs. Republic

Paul Krugman on the "Al Gore Problem"

I liked Al Gore and I thought he got a bad rap. Krugman's article explores this. I think that we, as a nation of readers, are often the victims of journalistic malpractice. There is no defense, no lawsuit that can remedy this inequity. One must simply have one's crap-detector on 24-7. Thanks to Krugman for running his at a consistent high speed.

Garry Wills: Augustine in Brief

While I reviewed Garry Wills's "biography" of Augustine's Confessions a short while ago, I understand you may not have read the book yet. This article highlights some of the key points. Enjoy.

Sitting Too Much?

As one who sits a great deal @ work in front of a computer, often reads sitting, watches television, and who writes blogs, I do more than my share of sitting. Alas, it's a bad practice in excess. However, as I write this,I'm standing up. As a temporary fix, I've simply piled some books (of which I have a few, delightfully fat and therefore appropriate for this ancillary use) to build a platform upon which to rest my computer. One project that I've begun looking into is some type of podium or platform to allow standing reading and writing at work and at home (think Bob Crachitt). Nothing yet, but I'm on the lookout. As the link suggests, the sooner the better!

John Lukacs: The Future of History

John Lukacs has written another reflection on history as a discipline and as a cultural phenomena. Regular readers of Lukacs will not find a great deal new here, as he's addressed many of these issues in the past. On the other hand, I do not tire of reading Lukacs on this topic. Indeed, given his style, it's almost as if he's sitting by the fire speaking informally to a gathering of confidants on a topic about which his mind has been quite fertile for many decades. While the topics have been addressed in the past, the fertility of his mind keeps the topic fresh and relevant. Topics like how historical consciousness has risen in modernity, how history relates to literature, how we think of what constitutes history: all of these are topics deserving of careful and repeated consideration, and Lukacs provides us with another take on these topics that makes this book worthwhile. For someone new to this master, reading this book will provide a brief introduction to the fertility of his thought on these topics. Now into his 80's, one has to consider each of these books as a real treasure.

Ursula LeGuin: The Lathe of Heaven

A recent trip to the Pacific Northwest to help 1HP celebrate her birthday included a trip to Portland. Portland gave us fun food carts, beautiful gardens, interesting restaurants, some local brews and Powell’s Bookstore. The later is famous and proved fun. In honor of the person I consider Portland’s most famous author (and one of my personal favorites), I purchased Ursula K Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven. (Darned, she was on the marquee for making an appearance shortly after our trip there.)

The Lathe of Heaven isn’t just by Portland’s most famous author, it’s also set in Portland. From this rather mundane setting (Portland isn’t all beautiful scenery), Le Guin tells her tale of the young protagonist who experiences “effective dreaming”; in other words, his dreams come true, in a very literal and often disturbing way. As one would expect in our society, he tries to stop this weird occurrence with drugs, and he ends up with a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist, once aware of this unusual gift (if one can call it that), tries to harness this power to the good of humanity. From this premise, Le Guin spins yarns of alternative and dystopian futures, as rationality cannot master the world of the dream. Le Guin, however, masters a blend of the contemporary quotidian, current politics, reigning zeitgeist, and the fantastic, weaving them together so that one hardly blinks at the juxtaposition of the fantastic and the ordinary.

Le Guin’s book was a delight to read while visiting Portland (although finished in Seattle). I never leave one of her stories without a sense of having been caught up in a compelling story, well told, yet I also find myself continuing to ponder what I've just read because she offers a perspective on the world that always challenges us and the reality that we live in. In this case, she challenges us with the world of dreams; not just the dream world of Freud or Jung, with their sometimes too easy interpretations, but the world of dreams suggested by the Tao Te Ching (of which she has written a translation), Chuang Tsu, Victor Hugo, and others.

A trip to Portland for those of us in the Midwest doesn’t happen very often, but you can read The Lathe of Heaven to take a virtual trip to Portland and far beyond.

Karen Armstrong

Karen Armstrong’s The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004, 306 p.) is an extraordinarily engaging memoir. Ms. Armstrong recounts the time from when she left a Roman Catholic convent in about 1969 to her transformation into one of the leading writers about religion. However, this is not a story all filled with grace and light. In fact, she tells a story of struggle, hurt, and misfortune, although I would say it is one of ultimate success, and I believe that in the end, she must appreciate the immense contribution that she has made to religious understanding.

Armstrong left the convent feeling a bit of a failure as a religious, never having found God has she had hoped and expected. She left Oxford without a Ph.D., thus never having qualified for the academic career that she had pursued, and she was eased out of a secondary teaching career without any apparent alternative available to her. Along the way, hide-bound and insensitive nuns, dull-witted psychiatrists, arrogant professors, and penny-pinching administrators contributed to her woes. She does not berate them, and in the end, despite obvious cruelty and arrogance, one almost secretly rejoices that these impediments led to so many misfortunes, since she might not have turned to the career that I’ve found so enriching.

Only by chance and not really by choice (intentional, anyway) did she turn to religion as a subject for her career as a writer. With her book, A History of God: The 4,000 Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, in which she writes a parallel history (so much as history allows) of the three great monotheistic religions she turns again. (I use this phrase because she the first portion of Eliot’s “Ash Wednesday” serves as the epigram for the book and names the chapter titles.) She comes to the conclusion that religion is not about belief, but about practice; not about conflict, but about compassion; that self-emptying (kenosis in the Greek) comes through compassion as much as through meditation; and understanding comes from the inside, from making myth into ritual, and not from a mere recital of facts or creeds. In the end, this book is like a grail quest, altered, of course, by the age in which we live and that Eliot reflects in much of his work.

I’ve put off reviewing The Case for God (2009, 390 p.), so I’ll do that now as well briefly. First of all, although I have a hardback of this book, I listened to it on audio, with Armstrong reading it. Her reading added delight. Even though I had not yet read The Spiral Staircase, one gets a sense of her from her books, and that is enhanced by her reading, which is quite good. (One of her careers, after secondary school teaching and before full time writing, was as a television presenter.) Her firm authorial voice reveals itself fleetingly in print, but clearly in her reading.

This book takes us from the earliest cave art to the present, suggesting ways of understanding God that I mentioned above. She does not pretend to prove or disprove God’s existence; instead, she seeks to understand what all of this God-talk can be about and how it might all go astray or lead us to a better life. Modernity, which brought so many benefits into the world, also made us terribly literal-minded. Religion, as myth and ritual giving shape and substance to lives, went astray (for the most part) because of this mindset. She, like me, believes that the mystics, those who find God a paradox and elusive (not magical), have the deepest insights, but they are a minority in any religious culture.

These two books, like others of hers that I have read, give us a profound insight into what religion can and should be. I highly recommend both of these books.

Good Keynesianism

Referring back to economics once again, this is Krugman explaining how Keynesian insights have been abused. Indeed, we use "stimulus" way too much. We need to save during the good times and spend up during slack times. But, oh no, some can't bear the thought of money in the til. Foolish democracies: can we be trusted with Keynesian insights?

David Brooks on What Drives History

David Brooks reflects on the life and death of Bin Laden. I found the article very interesting, as it pointed out some aspects of the individuality of Bin Laden. We often forget that great actors in history, including some of the most despicable, are human, all too human. Brooks also uses this occasion to demonstrate how individuals, with all of our quirks and individuality, can make a huge difference in history, for good or ill. This is one of the things that makes history so fascinating. Yes, in my year of Big History, I've been looking at the big trends, like economic change, demographics, technology, and so on; yet, individuals in the midst of all of this change, still count, still make crucial differences.

Fight of the Century: Keynes vs. Hayek Round Two

This blast of a video is the sequel of their initial offering of "Fear the Boom & Bust", and it's a worthy sequel indeed. Of course, it lacks the shock of the original (two of the greatest economists as rappers), but still, when you think of what they're saying, you realize a lot of knowledge and perspective is packed into this video. Russ Roberts of EconTalk, a terrific podcast, is one of the writers and producers, and if you've listened to him as much as I have, you appreciate his ability to address complex concerns on these topics in very approachable ways. You do note that the Hayekians have a bit of a chip on their shoulder, their man's Nobel Prize notwithstanding, but I suppose that's accurate. I've only come appreciate Hayek more of late. I thought (without reading, shame on me) that The Road to Serfdom was some right-wing rant. Unfair. In fact, I like the ending of this video because both of these great economists (who, by the way, wrote in prose primarily and not math) have very important and worthwhile things to say. For me, in a crisis, go Keynesian, but for day-to-day, Hayek's perspective on the disbursement of knowledge and decentralized decision-making is crucial. Cheers to both these fine rappers!

The Best Exercise

In the same issue wherein Gary Taubes discussed the evils of sugar, the Times ran a couple of other interesting articles on fitness and health. One was on sleep (get enough) and the other on the best form of exercise. The linked article discusses the best form of exercise. The winner: HIT or High Intensity Training. In other words, go hard, very hard, for brief spurts and lightly in between, whether you talking intervals of minutes or days. If you've read Art De Vany, Dr. Doug McGraw, Mark Sisson, or others in the Primal Community, the answer will come as no surprise. Even before this article I'd incorporated this regimen into my time on the stationary bike, and when weight training (high weight, low reps). Also, think of basketball, a form of play with constant movement punctuated by brief intense spurts. Are any athletes more fit that basketball players? It kept me reasonably fit for many years.

The runner up? The squat. "Air squats" as Tim Ferris calls them. They do well in a pinch.

Preview: Karen Armstrong's The Case for God

Here's the opening paragraph of Armstrong's book in anticipation of a more complete review. With this opening, I knew that I would appreciate this book:

We are talking far too much about God these days, and what we say is often facile. In our democratic society, we think that the concept of God should be easy and that religion ought to be readily accessible to anybody. “That book was really hard!” readers have told me reproachfully, shaking their heads in faint reproof. “Of course it was!” I want to reply. “It was about God.” But many find this puzzling. Surely everybody knows what God is: The Supreme Being, a divine Personality, who created the world and everything in it. They look perplexed if you point out that it is inaccurate to call God the Supreme Being because God is not a being at all, and that we really don’t understand what we mean when we say that he is “good,” “wise,” or “intelligent.” People of faith admit in theory that God is transcendent, but they seem sometimes to assume that they know exactly who “he” is and what he thinks, loves, and expects. We tend to tame and domesticate God’s “otherness.” We regularly ask God to bless our nation, save our queen, cure our sickness, or give us a fine day for the picnic. We remind God that he created the world and that we are miserable sinners, as though that may have slipped his mind. Politicians quote God to justify their policies, teachers use him to keep order in the classroom, and terrorists commit atrocities in his name. We beg God to support our side in an election or a war, even though our opponents are, presumably, also God’s children and the object of his love and care.

Favorite Books & Authors About Christianity

I limit this list to authors who lived during my lifetime (Maurice Nicoll just makes it) and who wrote about Christianity. The list has no particular order other than I started with more recent authors I’ve read (or listened to) and then I looked around my study. The list is much longer than I intended, but I can vouch for all of these books.

Mark Johnston, Saving God: Religion After Idolatry. I’ve said a lot about this book, so I won’t say more here except to say that there’s a lot more that I could write.

Karen Armstrong, A History of God and The Case for God. I have said of History that I think that every Christian, Jew, and Muslim should read it. As to The Case for God (which I will review soon), I say simply that everyone should read it. Monotheist, Eastern religious practitioners, non-believers: everyone who wants to understand the religious traditions. This makes the “Christian” list here because it focuses on Christianity more than any other one religion, but it is broadly comprehensive.

Northrop Frye, The Double Vision. See my recent review. In addition, his two books on the Bible, The Great Code and Words with Power are the longer works behind The Double Vision that are most worthwhile. By the way, Professor Frye, one of the great literary critics of the 20th century, was also Rev. Frye, an ordained minister of the United Church of Canada.

Gerald May, Will and Spirit. I have several of his books, and they are all worthwhile. Like most of the authors on this list, he relies heavily on the mystical tradition of Christianity for his inspiration. In addition, he was a practicing psychiatrist.

Helen Luke, From Dark Wood to While Rose. Helen Luke was grounded in the Jungian tradition, and this book of hers on Dante’s Divine Comedy is a superb guide for beginners and those who want to contemplate some of the choicest morsels of this great work (not just the sensational punishments of hell that seem to attract so many readers). A truly lovely book.

Garry Wills. Here it’s hard to pick. I’ll start with one of the two first books by Wills that I read: Bare Ruined Choirs about the (then) contemporary Catholic Church. It’s Wills at his journalistic (as well as philosophic) best. Since then, I’ll pick out only two more titles: Heads and Hearts: American Christianities about the history of Christianity in America and What Jesus Meant, his take on the significance of the life, death, and teaching of Jesus. Very short, but quite worthwhile. (See also his What Paul Meant and What the Gospels Meant.

Jacob Needleman, Lost Christianity and What Is God? The former is his investigation, reflection, and fantasy of the possibilities of Christianity from his perspective, and his perspective is greatly influenced by the tradition of Gurdjieff. His more recent (2010) book, What is God? is an autobiography of his struggle with the idea and practice of God. As always with Needleman, he writes for a general audience, not trained philosophers, and he always incorporates his personal experiences and those of his students.

William Johnston, The Mirror Mind: Spirituality and Transformation. This, and other works by Jesuit William Johnston reflect his time in Japan and his encounter with Zen practice there. In a theme that will run throughout this list, I believe one of the truly fertile encounters in the 20th century has occurred when Buddhists and Christians have shared perspectives. Although Thomas Merton doesn’t have a work on this list, he is certainly among the most well known person in this dialogue, but Johnston, I believe, along with others, has added a great deal in this and several other books.

Kenneth Leech, True Prayer: An Invitation to Christian Spirituality. This book, by an Anglican minister, takes the reader into the world of the earliest Church Fathers to find some essential insights.

Anthony De Mello, Awareness. Like his fellow Jesuit William Johnston, De Mello published a number of books. De Mello spent time in India, and so his perspective is flavored more by his Hindu and Moslem milieu. However, De Mello is a delight to read. I think several years after his death and after the publication of this book, someone at the Vatican decided that De Mello was too far out and put some kind mark against his book. Yeah, it’s that good.

Alan Watts, Myth and Ritual in Christianity and Behold the Spirit. Alan Watts, when he wrote both of these books, I believe, was an Anglican (Episcopalian) priest. This eventually proved too confining for the free-spirited Watts, but these two books delve deeply into the tradition. Already heavily influenced by his reading of Eastern traditions, these books shed great light on the Christian tradition. If you want to understand what’s going on in the Trivium, read Myth and Ritual.

Stephen Mitchell, The Gospel According to Jesus. By now, Mitchell, a poet and translator, has translated and commented upon just about every major spiritual classic from around the world. His take on Jesus is sensitive and well considered. He, too, is greatly influenced in his reading by Eastern perspectives.

Polly Berends, Whole Child/Whole Parent and Coming Home. In both books, Berends is first and foremost a mom. She studied under the tutelage of European émigré Thomas Hora, who brought to Berends a unique blend of psychotherapy, existentialism, and scriptural understanding. Throw in Berends very down to earth experiences of parenting, and you receive a unique and enlightening spiritual perspective.

Dom Aelred Graham, Zen Catholicism. After our friend Hedecki stayed with us, I started reading about Buddhism, and I began through books by Roman Catholics. Graham’s book was one of the first, if not the first, that I read about Buddhism. (Actually, Huston Smith’s chapter in his book, The World’s Religions was the first book that I turned to.) This Benedictine shared an insightful perspective on the two traditions that I’ve always found very useful.

James W. Jones, In the Middle of This Road We Call Our Life and The Mirror of God: Christian Faith as a Spiritual Process—Lessons from Buddhism and Psychotherapy. Although we might call these psychology books (too literate for self-help), their perspectives are deeply informed by Christianity and other traditions. If a spiritual practice doesn’t touch our daily life, what’s the point? Jones brings this perspective to light with clinical accounts.

Dorothy Sayers, Dante’s Divine Comedy: Translation and Commentary and The Mind of the Maker. This woman, most famous as an English detective novelist, provided a fine translation and a first-rate commendatory on Dante, among the greatest of poets. To understand his Christian masterpiece, you would be hard-pressed to find a better commentary and notes to guide through a reading. The Mind of the Maker is a series of very literate essays.

Maurice Nicoll, The New Man. Nicoll died in 1953, so he just made it to the wire. This book is deeply influenced by the perspectives of Jung and Gurdjieff that Nicoll made his own. Nicoll attempts to make sense of the Gospels as a guide to real metanoia (change of mind/heart). Very interesting and thought provoking. See also his book The Mark.

Andrew Greeley. Unsecular Man and No Bigger than Necessary. Greeley was a prolific writer, not all of it top quality, I think. However, these two books proved to have a lot to inform me. Unsecular Man is about the abiding human quality of religious expression and ties. Remember, Greeley is a professional sociologist (UChicago trained, I believe), as well as a born writer. As to No Bigger, it’s a defense and promotion of Catholic social and political thought, which I found quite persuasive. As a guide to economic, social, and political arrangements, Greeley argues the Catholic tradition has a lot to offer. I found it quite eye-opening back when I read it around 1980.

Robert Short, The Gospel According to Peanuts and The Parables of Peanuts. The first book (Gospel) I received from someone named “C” for Christmas, 1970, and the second one is inscribed to “Spook” from this same “C” July 1971. (Isn’t it wonderful to have girlfriends who buy you books?) These books were fun in one sense because they were filled with Charles Schulz’s Peanuts cartoons, but strange and wonderful because they spoke of Karl Barth, Kierkegaard, Elliott, Luther, Bonhoeffer, and Camus, among many others (and innumerable Biblical references). This theology was deeply rooted in the Protestant tradition of the mid-20th century. Heavy and serious stuff, lightened with wonderful cartoons. High and popular culture complimenting each other.

Rene Girard. I will just share his name here, as I’ve read many shorter pieces by him about Christianity and his unique take upon the significance of Christianity. (See earlier posts.) I haven’t carefully read his Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, his big work on Christianity. I should. Beat me to it and you’ll be the better for it.

Chris Hedges, I Don’t Believe in Atheists. Hedges is a modern-day prophet. He thunders against war and oppression, American fascist religion, and he scoffs in this book at the “New Atheists” for their naiveté as much as anything. (Johnston calls them—Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris—the “undergraduate atheists” because they base their arguments on texts read as undergraduates and have skipped crucial texts that would have come in graduate school). In any event, Hedges pulls no punches on any topic, and he does confront you, even as he goes after the subject of his book or article. He is a modern prophet, and you don’t think that you’ll read him for casual consideration. Sometimes I find him too much of a downer, almost too cynical, but maybe that’s how prophets have to be.

Jack Miles, Christ. The former Jesuit brings his erudition, following his Pulitzer prize-winning God: A Biography, to the Gospels. Mile presents a compelling consideration of the Gospel message and its meaning.

Reinhold Niebuhr. Moral Man and Immoral Society and most else of what he wrote. You thought I was going to forget Niebuhr? I think that he is in some sense the 20th century reincarnation of St. Augustine. His perspectives of politics and society are unparalleled for their insights. He, too, is not easy in the sense you can step away from reading him feeling smug and self-satisfied. I don’t know if Niebuhr’s voice would be heard today, as he’s too unwilling to suffer the foolishness of both the Right and the Left. Always highly recommended.

Special Addendum:
Two Buddhist get a special shout out:
1. Thich Nhat Hahn, Living Buddhist, Living Christ. This Vietnamese Buddhist monk, who now lives in France, I believe, but who travels and teaches throughout the world is a wonderful voice of love, compassion, and mindfulness. In this book, he displays those traits in comparing the traditions of Buddha and Jesus. A wonderful work.
2. Alan Wallace, Mind in the Balance: Meditation in Science, Buddhism, and Christianity. Wallace is a former Tibetan Buddhist monk who also has studied physics and holds a Ph.D. from Stanford in Religious Studies. He is among the foremost Buddhist scholar-practitioners around. He wrote this book for his stepdaughter, who’d been raised and practiced as a Christian. He undertook this book to show the intersection of these three traditions (as well as some philosophy) to show how all can contribute to a deeper interior life.

Okay, enough now. Go read a book.

Mark Johnston: More on the Significance of the Passion & Crucifixion

Because I find it one of the most thoughtful and thought-provoking meditations on the meaning and significance of the Passion, I’m going to post more quotes from Mark Johnston’s Saving God: Religion After Idolatry. I’m jumping around a bit for my quotes, but all of them are from pages 172-174 in the chapter entitled “Without Spiritual Materialism”.

Why did Christ have to suffer and die at the hands of the legitimate religious and political authorities? Why wouldn’t the viper have sufficed? [This references an earlier discussion of replacing the Crucifixion with a fatal viper bite in the Garden of Gethsemane.] Not, pace Girard, because only then could the suffering and death of Christ be a reduction ad absurdum of scapegoating sacrifice, but because only then could it expose the mechanisms at the heart of false righteousness, this secret love of self-love trying at all costs to put down the anxiety of how we live, even to the point of murder. The Crucifixion discloses how far we are prepared to go in order to defend out idolatrous attachment to one or another adventitious form of righteousness.

. . . .

Of course, it not that the psychological power of self-love and false righteousness is actually diminished by the Passion and Crucifixion. Instead, self-love and false righteousness—that is to say, the central elements of the characteristically human form of lie—no longer make up a defensible realm.

. . . .

Contrast the death of Socrates . . . . Crucially, Plato’s Socrates recognizes the legitimacy of the Athenian state; he accepts its claims upon him and so does not flee even in the face of an unjust sentence. In this way the death of Socrates secretly valorizes the false righteousness of Athenian respectability, by showing that even someone who really understands virtue will bow to this false righteousness in the end. Human ways of going on are secretly redeemed by Plato’s Socrates. The Kingdom of self-love and false righteousness remains legitimated.

 The ordeal of Christ’s Passion and Crucifixion is not at all like this. There is nothing noble or “humanly redeeming” about it, beginning as it does with his desperation in the Garden and ending with his despair on the Cross. It is not a cathartic tragedy. It leaves us at a total loss. We can return to human ways of going on only if we forget what happened. If we do not forget, we need to find a way to love that is not some form of self-love and false righteousness. And if we do not forget, we know that we cannot find this in ourselves. Then, and only then, are we prepared to take the two commandments*, the salvation from without, seriously.

. . . .

*Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all they soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength; this is the first commandment. And the second is like it, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

There is it is. That is the choice. Make the safe bet, the one for which you cannot be blamed, because all the others are doing it; take upon yourself some form of ready-to-wear righteousness and gradually have it adjusted to your own proportions. Or radically abandon yourself to the will of God. 

Worldly wisdom says: better to hand one’s life over to a respectable conception of the good.

There you have something to meditate upon this Holy Saturday.

Mark Johnston on Rene Girard: Reflections for Good Friday

Last year I posted a review and extended quote from Mark Johnston's supurb book, Saving God: Religion After Idolatry. Since this book is packed with insight, I can't think of anything better for the occasion than another extended quote. But I'm going with a two-for-one deal here, as the following quote is an explication by Johnston on the work of Rene Girard, whose thinking has become important for many considering the human condition and Christianity's response to that condition. Johnston about Girard's take:

To thus assimilate the significance of Christ’s suffering and death would mean that we can never look at victims, even the victims of so-called legitimate violence, including the juridical violence of the state, in the same way. After the Cross, the face of God incarnate looks back at us from the image of the victim. Victimization, sacrifice, and religious violence have been forever unmasked as illegitimate strategies by which our murderous envy of each other is temporarily discharged, and yet preserved as an ongoing psychological orientation.

Johnston goes on:

Christ offers something more, a new kind of mimesis: “give no thought to the morrow,” that is, abandon the empty life of acquisitive desire, and “love one another as I have loved you”—and so take on the radical risk of being devoured by the others, as Christ was. 

This is the salvation that Christ offers: the naked disclosure of our natural collective hatred and lust for violence, than freedom from the idea of legitimate violence, and finally a new resolution of the internecine mimetic tension, not by way of another temporary sacrificial discharge, but through the availability of a wholly new form of mimesis, the imitation of Christ’s won self-sacrificing love.

For Johnston's riff off of Girard, take a look the quote I posted last year, or better yet, read the book.

Northrop Frye, The Double Vision: Language & Meaning in Religion

My note says I purchased this book in 1992. Unlike some books, it has not simply gathered dust on the shelf while it waited its turn to gather my attention. Instead, this book is full of highlights & pencil notes. I just read it again. In just 85 pages, Frye, in his last published work, provides a grand sense of his vision, his double vision of religion, language, and culture. The title is pulled from Blake, of whom Frye wrote a lengthy book early in his career (and which is well worth reading). Frye takes off from Blake and St. Paul, among others, to give a sense of what the religious books are saying. Not in the literal sense (of only limited importance) but in the moral, allegorical, and analogical senses. (Shades of Dante, here, too.) Religion, like literature, depends on the language of myth and metaphor, while every day language is descriptive of the natural world in what we refer to as a literal sense. The literal, Frye argues, is passive, while the mythical/metaphorical is active. Religion, as opposed to literature, asks "What is to be done?" (using a quote from a less savory character to make the point here).

I don't know if I can think of a book that packs so much perspective, insight, and wisdom into 85 pages. Reading Frye is like reading by lightening flashes, the insights come quickly, almost suddenly, and leave you wondering what you've just seen by this amazing illumination. If the highest compliment that you can pay a book is to re-read it and get something new out of it, well then this book receives very high praise indeed.

David Brooks on Trump

David Brooks writes on Trump in a way that makes some sense out of the Trump phenomenum. Trump is a joke, and I couldn't figure out why anyone would consider him a serious presidential prospect. After all, Sarah Palin only received a nomination for vice-president! If you've been wondering about this as I have, Brooks makes some sense of it. As Brooks notes in his column, Trump himself gave a shout-out to Obama a few years ago (before Trump got into the birther idiocy business). Obama, too, was a brash outsider. Come to think if it, does anyone become president without a high level (although not Trumpian level) of brashness? Probably not. What we need is a real brashness role model, and I have one: TR. Teddy Roosevelt. Almost nuts by most standards, but in a compelling and useful way. Of course, TR was an imperialist, he genuinely seemed to relish war and conflict (his Nobel Peace Prize notwithstanding), etc. TR was no angel. But the energy! My, goodness, the shear Energy! A leader needs a high degree of energy to think outside the norm, and even more energy to drag followers into tow. So, of course, Trump, like Palin, is full of outrageous nonsense, an embarrassment, but I think Brooks is right about the need for brashness.

BTW, if you haven't been following Doonesberry's take on Trump over the last few days, you've missed some great laughs. Here's a sample.

Paul Krugman Against Bipartisanship, and Me, too

Krugman hits it with his take on calls for "bipartisanship". Who are our great bipartisan presidents? FDR railing against "economic royalists"? Harry "Give 'em hell, Harry" Truman? Lincoln, who led the nation through a civil war? Of course, each of these leaders could wheel and deal. I doubt that any of them were rude or went out of their way to mistreat their opponents. However, each knew when to give and when to take. Of course we compromise, but we stake out a strong position first, knowing what we can expend and what we cannot forgo. Like lawyers, we learn not to antagonize over the small insignificant details, but to go all out on the merits. So should Obama. Krugman's providing sound advice here, and I hope that Obama heeds it.

Gary Taubes: The Blood Speaks

In this follow-up post to the article that I cited yesterday, Taubes posts his recent blood test results. Read what he eats, and then look at the results. Having lost both grandfathers and one uncle to fatal heart attacks and having a father who suffered CAD & underwent a CABG, I've followed my numbers over the years and done a fair amount of self-education on the topic. These are great numbers for Taubes and they confirm what others have experienced eating a low-carb (or paleo) diet. Heresy? Yes. Is he on to something? Quite likely. (Although he eats more meat than I think that I can.) Love those Con salads, too!

Gary Taubes: "Is Sugar Toxic?"

Another finding courtesy of Farnum Street (otherwise I would have had to wait until I read the NYT tomorrow morning). Gary Taubes writes again on a topic for which he has become a bit of a crusader. However, unlike the negative connotation of that term, I think he does have a righteous cause. His crusade is based on science, its weaknesses and its strengths. Readers of this blog will note that I've written about his work before, and I highly recommend this newest article. It will give you pause. Should I drink that fruit juice? Should I have a piece of pie or a dish of ice cream? I think that the answer, as Taubes provides it, will prove quite challenging, for me at least. Also, although I'm just beginning to watch it, this talk by Dr. Lustig sounds like it will prove quite eye-opening. Enjoy--the article and that sugary delight--or not--at your own peril.

P.S. I found a < 9 minute interview with Lustig on Nightline that I think summarizes (as only network tv can do) his position.

Farnum Street on Best Books Not Well Known

First of all, although this particular post isn't especially representative, I should give a shout out to Farnum Street, an excellent blog site. It's an aggregator (little original material), but it harvests some of the most interesting pieces on the web about the blog's interests. What are those interests? The blogger describes his project:

I'm a no-name guy who started Farnam Street back in 2009 with the goal of posting the best articles from around the internet that relate to psychology, behavioral economics, human misjudgment, persuasion, and other subjects of intellectual interest.

If you're in my business (advocacy & living life on Earth), you'll likely find something relevant to your life and work here.

As to this post, I can't pass by a good book list. How do I know it's a good list? Because I've read some of the books on it: Tuchman's The Guns of August, Richardson's Mind on Fire, Manand's Metaphysical Club, and Campbell's Grammatical Man. All of these were excellent books. So, a fun list to consider.

Nick Morgan on King's "I Have a Dream" Speech

Public speaking coach Nick Morgan writes about MLK’s “I Have a Dream Speech” which he considers perhaps the greatest speech of the twentieth century. (Competitors? Perhaps Churchill’s oratory, although I’m not sure which one. Others?) What I find interesting about the discussion in this particular post goes to King’s movement away from a prepared text to ad-lib (apparently the peroration was not in the text, or so I understand from this blog). How amazing! Did King pull a rabbit out of the hat? Well, no, or least he’d practiced doing so on many occasions as an African-American preacher (where boring “homilies” are not tolerated). Practice, practice, practice: oratory, writing, chess, tennis, or whatever: if you think about it and then practice it relentlessly and mindfully, sometimes you feel it and perform in a whole new sphere, as King did that day.

Garry Wills: Augustine's Confessions: A Biography

Garry Wills continues his life-long fascination and scholarship about St. Augustine with the publication of this new book. Wills has already written a brief biography of Augustine of the Penguin Brief Lives edition, and he's translated the Confessions. Thus, Wills is a veteran of the Augustine scene. The fact that he receives accolades from the premiere Augustine biographer Peter Brown and fellow biographer and Augustine scholar James O'Donnell reinforces my belief that Wills knows whereof he speaks when it comes to Augustine (and on most topics he chooses to write about, for that matter).

Augustine is the seminal figure in the development of Western Christianity. From his life in Late Antiquity, except for St. Paul, Augustine probably had the greatest influence on the development of Western Christianity. The Confessions tells the story of Augustine's conversion (very slow in coming) and his attempt to understand the texts of the Bible, especially those of the Creation in Genesis. Wills points out a couple of very interesting thing about Augustine's work that I found unique in this volume:
1. How he wrote. Augustine worked by dictation. As someone who writes by dictation, I have to admire this. My work usually needs extensive revision if the topic is at all complex or lengthy. How you do this with papyrus—well, you don’t. I thought revising with a typewriter was bad. So the work was difficult, yet he wrote a huge amount.
2. Augustine didn’t first learn about silent reading from Ambrose. Silent reading was not a new invention at that time. Another urban legend bites the dust.
3. Now, something important: The Confessions (or Testimony, as Wills prefers to translate the title) is not the first autobiography. Rather, it is an extended prayer. This gives the book a different look and feel when you think of it that way.
4. Wills addresses the reputation of the Confessions since its writing, even into contemporary times. Among those who have written about Augustine, he notes, is Hannah Arendt. I had an intellectual crush on Arendt during my youth. She wrote her dissertation about Augustine and called him “the only true philosopher the Romans ever had”. I wrote a undergraduate paper on Augustine’s concept of community. Thus, I’ve found this conjunction between two of my favorite authors intriguing. Their mutual admiration of Augustine reinforces my own perception of him as a powerful figure in our tradition. Not always right or edifying, but quite a challenging figure. This short book by Wills adds the significant literature on this amazing figure. Highly recommended.

Maureen Dowd on Asking Pointed Questions

If I was a politician, I'd run screaming in the other direction if I saw Maureen Dowd coming to interview me. She can cut to the quick. Thus, the column she writes here shows that even someone like her, who can take on sitting presidents & cut them to ribbons in print, quakes in the face of asking probing questions of doctors and or giving directions to cab drivers. I think that we can share this reticence in some measure. We want to believe that professionals, whether the holder of a hack license or a medical license or a law license or a teaching certificate, means that the holder knows what he or she is doing all of the time. Wrong. Doctors, lawyers, cabbies: we're all human, all too human. I dislike it when a client questions me, but I know it's smart of them and that they really ought to do it. That person is actually a better client. Sometimes I do miss angles or over look possibilities. We ought to--because we need to--ask tough questions. But, if it's hard for Maureen Dowd, then it must be hard for everyone. (Interestingly, I saw her once on the Daily Show and she came across as almost shy, not the tigress that I expected. I attribute it to print versus personal confrontation.)

Niall Ferguson: Technology as a Two-Edged Sword

Niall Ferguson notes that while technology gets some credit for recent democratic uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East, it's not all about sweetness and light. The bad guys (terrorists) use it also, for instance, to recruit, train, plan, and act. Technology make take us to heaven, or to hell (or remain in a sort of purgatory, like watching most television).

The Bane of Iowa: Bob Vander Plaats

This guy is the plague of the Iowa judicial system, and to see him get this kind of publicity disturbs me greatly. His crusade against our judicial system resulted in a vigilante justice for three sitting Supreme Court justices who happened to appear on the ballot last fall. The good news? As I predicted, polling data shows that opposition to gay marriage is not strong in Iowa. Indeed, I maintain that some of the reason for the vote that we saw last fall comes from an I-want-to-vote-out-anyone-I-can attitude. There's a solid 25% or so that will vote against any judge, so it doesn't take a lot to push the number up over 50%. For those of you out of state, Iowa has ilk like this, but it's a close state, and I'm remaining optimistic for the next round of elections.

11 Short Pieces of Wisdom on Health & Nutrician

Courtesy of Art De Vany, I came to this site. De Vany contributed to this piece. Also, Mark Sisson and Frank Forencich, whom I read regularly contributed.I'm an occasional acquaintance of some of the contributors, so some of this is not new, but it packs a lot of good advice in a small space. With the return of warmer weather, the get out in Nature advice sounds even better!

Energy is Eternal Delight

The work of Tony Schwartz on the management of energy is a terrific line of thinking. After all, we all deal with two scarce resources every moment of our lives: time and energy. Schwartz, unlike some who think about personal management, thinks more in terms of energy than in terms of time. This blog provides a good sense of his thinking. Also, I like the idea of naps at work! Really, having a sharp wit about you (think about 2-3 p.m.)is a terrific insight. Yes, I'm better a few hours at full steam than a bunch more hours at 1/2 speed. That's why I never want around a tired doctor. Recommended.

Bombing Libya: The Right Thing?

In another damned if you do, damned if you don't quandary, President Obama decided to go forward with bombing Qaddafi's forces in Libya. Bleeding heart liberalism gone ballistic? Return of the neocon's? Realist blunder? I must say that these issues aren't easy. We get ourselves into some awful pickles. Is this the right choice? I don't know, but lots of writers and bloggers think that they do know.

More on Nuclear Energy & the Japanese Disaster

This post by anthropologist Hugh Gusterson, brought to my attention by Farnum Street, expresses my concerns about nuclear energy. I don't think that we, as a society, really grasp the risks that we run, as this author suggests. We still have a very flawed financial system, and we don't know how to deal with nuclear disasters because we can't predict them very well. On the other hand, nuclear energy is very tempting because it comes as a low carbon price.

Let me hearken back to an earlier post & exchange with follow blogger Frank Robinson. Mr. Robinson gave a very succinct account of the liability issues associated with nuclear energy, including an acknowledgment of the possible application of the principles of strict liability to the nuclear industry. I disagree with him in that I believe that the nuclear energy industry should be subject to strict liability, while he does not. However, I believe that all of this begs a much greater issue: whether born by the public or a private company, can we afford, or are willing willing to afford, the losses that we risk. Let me provide a historic example. Fire, the Promethean gift, has burned down many, many great cities: Chicago, San Francisco, Tokyo, London, to name just a few that pop to mind. These societies bore these losses and recovered. We now have control of fires, at least in our cities, such that we don't think that huge swaths of cities will fall in a fire. But what if we suffered a nuclear accident, if, for instance, Fukushima went even further out of control? What level of destruction--although it may prove silent and virtually invisible--are we willing to suffer? If the potential loss is too great for any one company or insurance scheme, should we as a society allow this risk? I'm not sure where we draw the line, but I don't know if these questions are being asked widely enough. That's one reason I enjoyed the cited post.
Thoughts?

Two Disappointments: The Adjustment Bureau & Unknown

I saw two mediocre movies this weekend:

The Adjustment Bureau with Matt Damon & Emily Blunt. The story comes (to what extent I question) from a Phillip K. Dick story. Frankly, it just didn't work. Guys running around in 1960's era hats, part aliens, part angels. The story was all plot, and not so great on that. Very little in the way of characterization. Damon plays an impulsive politician who goes against the grain of these creatures and their "chairman". No, it just didn't work for me.

Unknown with Liam Neeson, Diane Kruger & January Jones. Let me say that the plot conceit of this would-be thriller has been done recently and much better. Okay, a pair of beautiful women and well-regarded actors can get us in the door, but this does not a worthwhile movie make. Oh, it has the obligatory incredible car chase scenes (which I find a bore anymore; did we ever do better than Steve McQueen's Bullit, anyway?). So pat, so little character. Why did anyone make this movie? I'm pissed and I only spent $5 to see it!

Richard Overy: 1939: Countdown to War

This is my year (or more) of reading "big history", the long-terms trends that have marked the world. However, the narrative of microscopic history still holds a strong lure for me. In the hands of a capable historian, such as Richard Overy, the work can prove eye-opening. In this short book (only 124 pages of text), Overy shows how both sides to some degree stumbled into the war. Hitler, Overy concludes, expected Britain and France to back down over Poland. When they came into the war, changing it from a regional war to a European war (to to some extent a world war), Hitler was surprised and shaken. We are reminded that Hitler, for all of the magnitude of his evil, was a mere mortal, a political actor on the international and national stage. He had gambled and won during earlier crises, but here he was forced to lay a larger bet than either he or his military wished to place. Also, as Overy points out, Hitler wasn't planning to "conquer the world". This is the stuff of later Allied propaganda and a mis-reading of his intentions. He did, of course, have his eye on "living room" (sorry, I'm not going to try to spell the German) in the east, and he did assume that his Nazi regime would someday enter into a show down with the Soviet Union (which of course did happen, and Hitler lost). Overy also provdies a sympathetic portrait of Neville Chamberlain, who bears to burden of Munich, but who, in the end, led his nation into war.

The leaders involved all recalled the history of 1914 at the outbreak of the Great War. Each tried not to make the same mistakes. Nevertheless, a whole new conflagration broke out. Does this show, as Emerson suggested, that "events are in the saddle and ride mankind"? Overy thinks that the actions of individuals in the crucial days leading up the the full outbreak of war could have made a difference, and this always remains an intriguing question. The see-saw back and forth in historical judgment between free will and determinism, the great issue of Tolstoy and his critics, remains a challenge, with one side scoring a strike, and then the other counter-punching with gusto. This is, perhaps, why good history remains so intriguing. But rather than ending on my peroation, let me quote Overy, who says this better than me, and with more authority:

However large or long-term the forces making for war, there was a moment when those forces had to be confronted and harsh decisions taken by the principal historical actors involved. In the story of those dramatic days immediately before the outbreak of war, much still stood in the balance. Great events generate their own dynamic and their own internal history. The outbreak of war now sees a natural consequence of the international crisis provide principally by Hitler's Germany. What follows is intended to show that nothing in history is evitable. The stage dialogue between system and actors is at the heart of the historical narrative. Events themselves can be both cause and consequence, none more so than the events that led Europe to war seventy years ago. (From the Preface, x).