In Defense of History by Richard J. Evans

It’s not often that I read a book that’s written by a character in a movie, but I did so when I read Sir Richard Evans’s In Defense of History (1998). Sir Richard, Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University, is no swashbuckling character.  He was portrayed the movie Denial (my review) about the libel trial of Irving v. Lipstadt in which he served as an expert witness for Lipstadt as she proved the truth of the Holocaust against the falsehood of Irving’s denialism. Evans is an expert on modern German history, and he wrote a three-volume history of the Third Reich. But in this book, he’s not writing history; he’s writing about history.

The lineage of this undertaking is a long and venerable one. Evans notes predecessors like E.H. Carr (What is History?) and Sir Geoffrey Elton, among others, and he mentions Collingwood only in passing and not in a flattering way. But Evans’s primary project in this book isn’t to argue with his well-known predecessors, but with his contemporizes, especially those who fly the flag of postmodernism. But in doing so, Evans isn’t out to pull them down so much as to pull them back. Evans, like other critics of postmodernism (Ken Wilber pops to mind), do not argue that they’re all wrong, but that they take some fundamental insights and run them to an extreme that collapses under the weight of logic. Postmodernism and relativism (of which postmodernism is the current incarnation) collapse in a performative contradiction when it’s insights are pushed to their logical conclusions. But Evans is not acting like an old curmudgeon here. In fact, he welcomes many of the insights provided by postmodernism and other innovative approaches to history, including its subject-matter, its way of investigating and knowing the past, and how history is written.

I’ll keep my review short, as many on Goodreads have shared the same insights. But before closing, this book deserves a place alongside the works of E.H. Carr and Sir Geoffrey Elton, and yes, even R.G. Collingwood, Evans’s ill-considered dis notwithstanding. It’s a thorough and persuasive appraisal of the historical profession and what it can hope to achieve, and it’s an excellent guide to (relatively) contemporary thinking about history. 

Fateful Choices: Ten Decision That Changed the World 1940-1941 by Ian Kershaw

Ian Kershaw’s Fateful Choices: Ten Decision That Changed the World 1940-1941 is an outstanding history of a time of immensely influential but not necessarily obvious decisions made by dictatorships and democracies. There are many dangers in the study and writing of history, such as navigating the risk of hindsight bias—of course, someone acted in such and such a way because of this and that reason compelled the decision. We better understand the reasons and compulsions that affected the decision-makers because we know how the decisions turned out and we can know the simultaneous acts of others that affect the outcome. On the other hand, when titanic forces are on the move, the importance—even the reality—of individual decisions can become mere chimeras in comparison to the great impersonal forces that shape the course of events. Kershaw’s book shows how historians can understand and appreciate the decisions of actors in the face of profound change and uncertainty. Individual decisions do make a difference, although all human decisions are constrained. The constraints may arise from within the individual, such as his [sic] values, goals, and beliefs (true and false); from the effects of other actors in a strategic game; or from the effects of Nature’s whims. The historian—and I think I’m following Collingwood here, as I believe Kershaw implicitly does—must “re-enact” (Collingwood’s term) the thoughts (and perceptions) of the actors as they sought to act in their worlds. Of course, such as undertaking of “re-enactment” is at best partial and incomplete. Any representation of reality, no matter how concurrent it may be, must always result in “reality-lite” in any re-telling. Yet, despite the limitations, some efforts are more successful, more edifying, that others and Kershaw’s work fits this description.

The ten decisions that Kershaw addresses were momentous and did change the course of history (if we can say that history has a course; perhaps we should say that it unfolds willy-nilly like the weather—somewhat predictable only in the shortest run). For instance, Kershaw opens with the decision of the British cabinet to continue the war against Hitler even as France is falling. Here, of course, we see the importance of a single individual, Winston Churchill, who has only just assumed the post of Prime Minister. Under the lead of Lord Halifax, the British contemplated cutting a deal with Hitler that some hoped would preserve the Empire and guaranty of freedom of the seas for them. Indeed, Hitler hoped that Britain would take just such a course. In this account—also brilliantly relayed in John Lukacs’s Five Days in London: May 1940—Kershaw reveals the uncertainty, yet underlying value, of the reasoned arguments required by the British parliamentary democracy. In contrast, for instance, consider another decision that Kershaw recounts: that of Stalin to ignore the numerous sources that warned him of Hitler’s impending attack. Stalin’s refusal to act on the warnings he received allowed the Soviet Union to come perilously close to falling in the face German onslaught. (The fascinating question is what combination of wishful thinking, outright denial, or strategic miscalculation (Stalin thought Hitler wouldn’t dare open a second front with the British fighting on) took place in Stalin’s mind, but Kershaw is not, nor is any historian, a mind-reader.)

Kershaw also includes chapters on the Japanese decision to attack Pearl Harbor and engage the U.S. in a war in the Pacific; Mussolini’s reckless and ill-fated decision to enter actively into the war; and the evolution of the Final Solution from the circumstances of the conquest of Eastern Europe with its huge Jewish population. For Americans, Kershaw details Roosevelt’s decisions to come—slowly, hesitantly—to Britain’s aid, and then his eventual decision to risk war in the North Atlantic by engaging German U-boats. In another chapter, Hitler, a couple of days after Pearl Harbor, declares war on the U.S., relieving Roosevelt from the need to make a case for a war in both Europe and the Pacific. Kershaw details the rationality of this decision that might, at first glance, seem quite irrational.

Whether one is a student of WWII history (as I am) or just an occasional history reader, this is a first-class work of history that will entertain (well, if you like narratives of political decisions) and instruct. We all see through a glass darkly, but some put on darker glasses than others. Kershaw helps us see more clearly. 

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I've done it. I think I've surpassed my record. It was a long haul, but I'm glad I did it.

I finished the audio book of Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov (Constance Garnett translation).  In doing so, I believe that I broke my previous audiobook record for length by having listened to all of Moby Dick by audio. By the way, the duration of the reading clocks in at just over 34 hours. (My secret was listening to it as I commuted to work, which varied from 25 to about 40 minutes each way.)

I'd only read some short pieces and Notes from Underground by Dostoyevsky before undertaking this his last--and perhaps greatest--novel. But I did not go into without some preconceptions, which I found reinforced early in my listening. My first source of preconceptions:

Yes, there is a great deal of this (and other parts of Woody Allen's Love and Death--a favorite of ours) in this book. At some point early on, I did ask myself whether Katerina Ivanova and Grushenka were worth all of the fuss and the sometimes melodramatic dialogue. But in the end, it proves worthwhile, although it can try the patience in portions.

The other preconception comes from having read and then watched this story within the story of The Brothers Karamazov: the story of "The Grand Inquisitor." Below is a dramatization of it performed by the incomparable John Gielgud, whose sonorous voice is a joy to experience as he lays out this fundamental and chilling insight.

I won't go deeper into the novel here. It's a long and complex story, which includes, I might add, a trial section that's quite worthwhile.

The reader in this version is the late Frederick Davidson, a Brit who performed all of the characters with British accents, for instance, assigning peasants cockney accents. In the beginning, I found this quite annoying. To me, I was already listening to a foreign accent, so why not a Slavic English accent? If I were to choose again, I would have made this switch, but it didn't matter so much in the end.

This is a great book.

An Open Letter to Senators Grassley & Ernst to Urge Appointment of a Special Prosecutor

10 May 2017

Hon. Charles Grassley, U.S. Senate, Iowa
Hon. Joni Ernst, U.S. Senate, Iowa

Dear Senators:

I want to join your Republican colleagues Senators McCain and Burr who are calling for a special prosecutor to investigate the issue of whether the Trump campaign and administration has had any illegal or compromising contacts with Russian interests. I know that the Senate has a committee investigating these matters chaired by Senator Burr, but with the firing of FBI Director Comey, I have no faith that any successor will have the credibility to fully and fairly pursue this vital investigation.

Senator Grassley, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and one of the longest-serving senators, I call on you, in particular, to speak out openly and directly on this issue. The White House should hear from you in no uncertain terms that the appointment of a special prosecutor is necessary to making sure that these matters are fairly and completely resolved. I trust that you share my deep concern for the integrity of our legal system. I've been an Iowa lawyer even longer than you've been a U.S. senator, and I shudder to see the compromise of our constitutional system and a weakening of the faith of the people in that system that the Comey firing creates. This wound to the justice and national security systems is a grave threat to our Republic. I urge you to act and become a leader of this cause.

Senator Ernst, there's no time like the present to stand up for the indispensable American value of the rule of law. Leadership goes to those who display it, not those who play it safe to please party or to pander to some voters.

Senators, we look to you to stand up for our values.

Thank you for your consideration.


Stephen N. Greenleaf