I've just finished reading a book called 'Churchill' by Roy Jenkins. Unsurprisingly, given the rather simple title, its all about Winston Churchill. And it was excellent, if not ridiculously long for a single work. Somewhere in the region of 900 extremely informative pages, with the text laid out in a very small typeset, it has taken me the better part of three months to work through the volume (although I have given my attention to various other books and projects in that time).
Still, as I said it was a great book to read if only for the fact that Winston Churchill was such a facsinating - nay remarkable - man. Almost 45 years after his death we probably think of him soley as the great wartime leader, the man who saved Britain from the tyranny of Hitler ( or, in death, as the subject of rather petty bickering over Barack Obama's decision to remove a bust of Churchill from the Oval Office in the White House). The War of course figures quite significantly in Roy Jenkin's book and its facisinating in its own way (for instance Churchill meeting frequent disapproval and hostility during the War and even calls for him to be replaced as Prime Minister). However for the most part the book sheds far more light on the long and feverish life of Churchill before and after the events of 1939-1945.
I can try and sum that life up a little here but Jenkins struggles to do so in 900 pages (and he certainly doesen't waffle) so bare with me if it seems a little scant on detail. The defining characteristic of Churchill seems to have been a defiant stubborn, self-centered belief in the cause he believed in. This seems to have changed from time to time, but whatever had Churchill's attention at the time, he sought to drive it through whatever opposition there was with all his strength and capability. At times this seems to have driven his contemporaries and peers mad and ensured that Churchill was frequently at odds with the held values of the day. It also produced occasions of great hypocrasy in which one year Churchill would demand that virtually all of the national wealth should be given over to purchasing new battleships (when he was First Lord of the Admiralty) and the next year he would decry the waste and folly of buying 'ruiness' and 'pointless' ships (as Chancellor of the Exchequer) even though he had fought so hard for them in the first place. Not unsurprisingly this made him few friends.
And yet this stubborness, this self belief, this determation to fulfill his given task to the fullest was the singularly most important 'virtue' when he led Britain during the Second World War. Then all that unmovable drive and energy set the country firmly on a path, and once on that path Churchill would not be moved. Its curious that an aspect of his character that caused so much difficulty and frustration not just to his peers but also to Churchill (because he would be rejected by those peers and effectively punished) should for a short, five year period be one of the most crucial character traits of one of the key leaders of the War.
Churchill was also remarkably perceptive. Don't me wrong, he wasn't perfect and did make errors (some considerable, some minor) but on many issues he saw situations as they turned out to be, often far before others who at the time though he was the fool. His warnings of the dangers of Fascism and Stalinist Russia are relatively well known, but in truth he was ahead of the game (so to speak) before the First World War and even forsaw the creation of the European Union. At the same time he had the ability to discern a threat and place blame or emphasise danger whilst also urging compassion. The best example of this was in his passionate opposition of Hitler and the Nazi's, whilst expressing the need to be loving to the German people who had been taken hostage by their own government.
On top of all that he was remarkably involved with so many of the defining events of the late Nineteenth Century and early Twentieth Century (for example, he was a senior Cabinet minister in the First World War, managed to be in New York on the day of the Wall Street Crash, oversaw the creation of the Jordanian Royal family etc etc), as well as mixing with so many remarkble figures of the day (Lawrence of Arabia, the German Kaiser, various Kings, many Presidents etc etc, many of whom courted his opinion and presence rather than the other way around - Harry Trueman in particular looked on in awe at Churchill apparently). He also held virtually every Cabinet postion in government, sometimes twice, before he became Prime Minister. This gave him a level of experience that makes some of our current and past Prime Ministers look like complete novices.
He was also very much a 'hands on' figure. Forced to resign from his Cabinet position in the First World War he chose to go and fight in the trenches. He had previously served in the army in India and later South Africa. And in the Second World War he had to be restrained from joining the Allied Invasion on D-Day (by a combination of the King, President Roosevelt and General Eisenhower and then it only just worked), though he did get his own way in being allowed to climb on to the roof of 10 Downing Street during air raids, much to the consternation of his staff. Away from war he passionately set out into the country during elections and strongly disliked leaving himself hidden away in the political world of London.
Finally, Churchill seemed to be surprise, certainly me. This great bastion of Empire and the military (being the great war leader of course) laid the foundations for unemployment benefit and the European Union, as well as being the man who effectively urged governments to earn considerable sums of money from petrol tax. He had a strange affinity to Mussolini and Stalin for a considerable period of time before opposing them both vehemently.
In summing him up he reminds me a little of John Adams, the second President of the United States (and someone I've written about before on my blog). Adams was rather blunt, very strong in his opinion and not well liked by his contemporaries. And yet in that he made decisions, stood for causes that few others would. Churchill exemplified those characteristics to an even greater extent. They were both also clearly flawed and yet both remarkable. I'd recommend the book but only if you have a huge passion to learn about Churchill.
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
Jeeves and Wooster
I finished a great book the other day - 'Carry on, Jeeves' by P.G. Wodehouse. The basic premise (if you have never come across Jeeves and Wooster) is that you follow the life of a man named Bertie Wooster who is a young aristocrat living in the inter-war period (I think late 1920s) and the ridiculous situations he finds himself in. Jeeves is his butler/servant, ever faithful and frequently to the rescue with his superior wisdom and skills. Its silly stuff, lots of ridiculous language (posh 1920s English), crazy situations and I love it. It frequently had me lauging out-loud and I devoured all the stories - this book is a collection of various calamities - very quickly indeed.You may be more familiar with the television adaptation made of Wooster and Jeeves in the 1990s staring Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry (see picture and link below). This is actually how I came to read this book and if you like this, then you shall like Mr Wodehouse's original. Very funny indeed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRT9QU-Q7K8&feature=related
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Historical Fiction
I recently finished reading a book entitled 'The Black Death: The Intimate Story of a Village in Crisis', which I realise does not sound like the most cheerful, nor the most riveting book ever published. And it isn't! Being about the medieval plague it lives up to expectations of a time of great fear, anxiety, pain, misery and death.
However, one of the main reasons I picked this book up is in light of what the author (A chap called John Hatcher) was trying to achieve with it. In essence he has to taken historical knowledge and academic scholarship and spun that into a fictional exposition of a real Suffolk village called Walsham. I find this interesting essentially as its an attempt to help turn the often bland, dry, seemingly irrelevant history of academia into a more readily enjoyable format. So, how did he do?
Well, i'll start with that blend of history and fiction. Historians are good writers, simply because to be a historian requires considerable levels of writing and reading. When you are churning out essays, journal articles and theses, a ability to write well is an inevitable by-product. However, being a good writer does not necessarily translate into being a good fiction writer, and I think this shows in 'The Black Death'. I don't mean this in an over-critical sense as I am by no means a good writer of fiction (and at the moment don't seem to have the general organisation to write history). Still, Hatcher's book is exceptionally dry as far as story telling goes. The characters of the village have no personality, no quirks, no flair (perhaps not unsurprising given they are living out their historically fictional lives in the midst of a mini-apocalypse), rather seeming to fulfill the sole purpose of being case studies for the historical examples we have of the time period. Thus it is that this book becomes a poor fictional novel.
Unfortunately, in pursuing the fictional element this book also falls down in the historical sense. One of the central problems is that the book is telling the story of a single village. The premise is good, not least as its based on a number of remarkable sources from the period of the Black Death about the village of Walsham. Thus the names of the villagers, and to an extent the narrative of the Black Death in the village, are real. However, that information only goes so far, and thus the author must fill in the gaps by taking other sources of information from the same time period. This is not an unusual practice in studying history. Generally information on a certain period or event is so scant that it is a necessity to take multiple sources and try and produce a generalisation. However, most of the time a good historian will make that plain - ie, this is a story about 'people A' in 'place A' but to tell that story i've used information from 'place D' and 'people C' and thus the final conclusion is mere supposition.
In the case of 'The Black Death' though, it becomes hard to do that (in his defence, I do think John Hatcher attempts to explain the diverse nature of his source material and the problems of that diversity) not least because the narrative of the village places extra emphasis on this being a real story, or real people. Yet, it clearly isn't a real account of what happened and is based upon accounts from all over Britain and Europe. Thus the dividing line of fiction and reality becomes blurred and the real history and its original context is utterly lost. We really don't know how people in Walsham or many English villages responded and reacted to the Black Death, but this book portrays the slim evidence as a compelling account of the truth, confused by the fact that the names and dates in that place are real. What you end up with then is a dry and quite boring novel and a compromised history book.
I do admire Hatcher's attempt though. I think he tried to do something that is very difficult to achieve and his result is perhaps an inevitable consequence of trying to balance out reader interest with good scholarship. And, given that one of the main issues in history at the moment seems to be that of helping people to see why on earth the subject is relevant at all to society, its good that people are trying to break from the mold of dry, dull history textbooks.
As for the history in the book, well the Black Death is a very bleak topic in history. Death, misery, pain all feature highly, and I didn't necessarily enjoy the book for that reason. It is remarkable, and terrifying, to even consider the events and times that the people of medieval Europe and Asia lived through. Knowing that this wave of death was sweeping towards you, striking every class and creed must have been terrifying. When it did arrive, within months half of your village, your community and friends, family, where all gone. The social change was exceptional, the sorrow staggering.
One of the more difficult things for me to read in the book was that of the issue of faith. Faced with a bold and striking understanding of their own mortality and the shortness of life, people were consumed with a desire to know and love God, to seek salvation and redemption. In a way that (if true) is heartbraking though, many (misled by the Church and society) sought that salvation in the Virgin Mary, not Christ. Others where consumed with the reality that they would only be saved if they had sufficient money or if they were buried with the right form of service, only to find that failed harvests (because of a lack of labourers owing to those who had already died) and a total breakdown in regular society meant that people neither had the money, nor the people to help perform said services. Thus the means to salvation that was being taught failed, and despair consumed those hungry to know God.
Its hard to know what the reality was for many people seeking God in the middle ages, and especially in the Black Death, predominantly because source material is so limited and examples can't be assumed to be accurate, but if there is any truth in those tales at all its so sad to think of all those people hungry for faith and being misled.
I am thankful that my salvation is guaranteed because I have a living and real faith in Christ, not dependant on works or acts of ceremony, but by grace alone. Awesome.
As for the book, then its ok. Not bad certainly, but not great.
However, one of the main reasons I picked this book up is in light of what the author (A chap called John Hatcher) was trying to achieve with it. In essence he has to taken historical knowledge and academic scholarship and spun that into a fictional exposition of a real Suffolk village called Walsham. I find this interesting essentially as its an attempt to help turn the often bland, dry, seemingly irrelevant history of academia into a more readily enjoyable format. So, how did he do?
Well, i'll start with that blend of history and fiction. Historians are good writers, simply because to be a historian requires considerable levels of writing and reading. When you are churning out essays, journal articles and theses, a ability to write well is an inevitable by-product. However, being a good writer does not necessarily translate into being a good fiction writer, and I think this shows in 'The Black Death'. I don't mean this in an over-critical sense as I am by no means a good writer of fiction (and at the moment don't seem to have the general organisation to write history). Still, Hatcher's book is exceptionally dry as far as story telling goes. The characters of the village have no personality, no quirks, no flair (perhaps not unsurprising given they are living out their historically fictional lives in the midst of a mini-apocalypse), rather seeming to fulfill the sole purpose of being case studies for the historical examples we have of the time period. Thus it is that this book becomes a poor fictional novel.
Unfortunately, in pursuing the fictional element this book also falls down in the historical sense. One of the central problems is that the book is telling the story of a single village. The premise is good, not least as its based on a number of remarkable sources from the period of the Black Death about the village of Walsham. Thus the names of the villagers, and to an extent the narrative of the Black Death in the village, are real. However, that information only goes so far, and thus the author must fill in the gaps by taking other sources of information from the same time period. This is not an unusual practice in studying history. Generally information on a certain period or event is so scant that it is a necessity to take multiple sources and try and produce a generalisation. However, most of the time a good historian will make that plain - ie, this is a story about 'people A' in 'place A' but to tell that story i've used information from 'place D' and 'people C' and thus the final conclusion is mere supposition.
In the case of 'The Black Death' though, it becomes hard to do that (in his defence, I do think John Hatcher attempts to explain the diverse nature of his source material and the problems of that diversity) not least because the narrative of the village places extra emphasis on this being a real story, or real people. Yet, it clearly isn't a real account of what happened and is based upon accounts from all over Britain and Europe. Thus the dividing line of fiction and reality becomes blurred and the real history and its original context is utterly lost. We really don't know how people in Walsham or many English villages responded and reacted to the Black Death, but this book portrays the slim evidence as a compelling account of the truth, confused by the fact that the names and dates in that place are real. What you end up with then is a dry and quite boring novel and a compromised history book.
I do admire Hatcher's attempt though. I think he tried to do something that is very difficult to achieve and his result is perhaps an inevitable consequence of trying to balance out reader interest with good scholarship. And, given that one of the main issues in history at the moment seems to be that of helping people to see why on earth the subject is relevant at all to society, its good that people are trying to break from the mold of dry, dull history textbooks.
As for the history in the book, well the Black Death is a very bleak topic in history. Death, misery, pain all feature highly, and I didn't necessarily enjoy the book for that reason. It is remarkable, and terrifying, to even consider the events and times that the people of medieval Europe and Asia lived through. Knowing that this wave of death was sweeping towards you, striking every class and creed must have been terrifying. When it did arrive, within months half of your village, your community and friends, family, where all gone. The social change was exceptional, the sorrow staggering.
One of the more difficult things for me to read in the book was that of the issue of faith. Faced with a bold and striking understanding of their own mortality and the shortness of life, people were consumed with a desire to know and love God, to seek salvation and redemption. In a way that (if true) is heartbraking though, many (misled by the Church and society) sought that salvation in the Virgin Mary, not Christ. Others where consumed with the reality that they would only be saved if they had sufficient money or if they were buried with the right form of service, only to find that failed harvests (because of a lack of labourers owing to those who had already died) and a total breakdown in regular society meant that people neither had the money, nor the people to help perform said services. Thus the means to salvation that was being taught failed, and despair consumed those hungry to know God.
Its hard to know what the reality was for many people seeking God in the middle ages, and especially in the Black Death, predominantly because source material is so limited and examples can't be assumed to be accurate, but if there is any truth in those tales at all its so sad to think of all those people hungry for faith and being misled.
I am thankful that my salvation is guaranteed because I have a living and real faith in Christ, not dependant on works or acts of ceremony, but by grace alone. Awesome.
As for the book, then its ok. Not bad certainly, but not great.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
The Anglo-Saxons
I've just finished a three month long trawl through a book entitled 'A Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons'. Sounds thrilling, I know. However, as much as the 300+ pages of Anglo-Saxon history were frequently filled with sufficiently obscure names, events and other material that proved to be a curious mixture of the dull and the overwhelming, for the most part I really enjoyed the journey through England's (and by result of later events many other nations) past.
For one the Anglo-Saxon period of English history was one of remarkable fluidity. The initial kingdoms that sprang up after native Britons were defeated/fled/crushed (delete as appropriate) led to a very different nation than the one we know today. For many years power rested between two kingdoms centred on the Midlands - Mercia - and Northumberland/York - known as Deiria and Bernecia for a while before being unified as Northumbria - and the rulers of these kingdoms vied for power and lordship over the smaller Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (essentially the areas that now make up the Home Counties). In doing so they frequently came into conflict with or tried to make alliances with powerful Welsh rulers.
There was a great deal of spiritual vibrancy too. This was an age in which there was a great fight for the spiritual heart of England, with missionaries and churches springing up all over. This eventually led to England being regarded as the great centre of learning in Early Medieval Europe and a hotbed of missionary activity to the Continent. Thus English missionaries and scholars travelled across Europe and influenced some of the great rulers of the time, including Charlemagne or 'Charles the Great.'
What I found most interesting and perhaps most startling (thinking in terms of much we take for granted the continued security and prosperity of our own nation) is the way in which Anglo-Saxon England seemed to recurringly reach a stage of financial prosperity, great learning and literacy, military power, political stablity, only for it all to be quite literally annhilated. The first such occurance saw centuries old kingdoms wiped off the map by Viking raiders to the point that the last remaining vestige of English power was the then King of Wessex, a man named Alfred, who was forced into hiding with a few supporters on a tiny island. Largely through the efforts of Alfred (who I shall come back to very shortly) the Anglo-Saxon culture and political establishment was to be revived, but only after virtually everything that people took as granted had been destroyed.
Alfred, known to us now as Alfred the Great, is a particularly interesting figure (at least to me) as he came from nothing short of a hopeless postion (trapped on an island he visited as a child, few supporters, massive and overwhelmingly successful Scandanavian armies controlling the entire realm of the English) to paving the way for a revitalised and ultimately far reaching Anglo-Saxon culture. Not only did he defeat the Viking armies, he retook and paved the way for the re-establishment of English rule over Danish settlements in Britain. He also greatly revived English literature and used the vernacular as a means to which legal business was carried out. Theres a great deal else about Alfred that really does boggle the mind, however you'll have to bare with me as I leave that out - mostly as I read it in February and have forgotten some of the more important details!
One crucial part of Alfred's reign that I can remember is that he, seemingly more than any other Anglo-Saxon king before or since, emphasised the importance of reading and writing (both in English and Latin) principally as a means for his people to grow in their understanding of the Bible. That understanding of God's word was the overiding priority, and according to Alfred the underlying success of his rule. Ignorance of the Bible was likewise seen as the principle downfall of those Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that had preceeded. Fascinating.
After Alfred there followed a long peace, great prosperity, and a complete lack of Viking activity (which if understood in terms of what had preceeded was nothing short of remarkable). However around about a hundred years later a curious mix of complacency (We see the arrival of a king named Ethelred the Unready, which clearly states how his people percieved him), political infighting and politicians more concerned with their own position than with that of the country (nice to see nothing changes!), coincided with renewed Viking activity. Unlike Alfred (who built fortified towns and raised small armies to fight the Vikings regionally), Ethelred decided the only way to stop the Viking war parties was to buy them off with increasingly large sums of money. Unfortunately for Ethelred this strategy didnt work, and, with a timely piece of greed-based treachery by one of the most powerful nobles in the country, a Viking named Swein Forkbeard eventually gained control of England, largely unopposed.
What followed was rampant destruction of all that people held dear - once more, this being the second such occasion - and political and dynastic confusion that would eventually lead to 1066 and the arrival of William the Conquerer and the end of 400 years of Anglo-Saxon England.
However, intriguingly it wasn't quite the end, as many of the legal, linguistic, and even monetary reforms of the Anglo-Saxons outlived the Normans and many others and are still in place in the UK and in many other nations.
If you are still reading then this was an interesting book, stacked full of facts and events and from a Christian perspective both interesting and slightly frustrating. Partly it was encouraging to see a people that clearly saw God in everything. Frustratingly the author, whilst not denying the Saxon belief in God, explained it away as being a practice carried out by a people a millenium away. Whilst not entirely wrong - since he was after all talking about people living a 1000 years ago - it was something of a bizarre statement since as a nation we only really stopped seeing God in all things in the twentieth century. With that in mind - that we as a country abandoned God less than a hundred years ago - it seems presumptious and perhaps foolish to see us as being reasoned and wise when Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that seemed more assured than our own (and were much more long-lasting than the post-Christian nation we currently live in) were utterly and totally undone almost overnight.
As we approach a major election in the UK, it was also a little too close to home to read of a nation preoccupied with wealth and filled with duplicitous, self serving politicians, only to then read that that same nation was completely unprepared and unable to prevent a conquest that led to well over 70 years of ensuing turmoil.
However, ending on a lighter note if you like Lord of the Rings then it may interest you to know that Tolkein (who was a bit of an Anglo-Saxon geek) based the Rohan kingdom on the Mercian kingdom which itself was centred on Tamworth, which basically means they were from the black country.
For one the Anglo-Saxon period of English history was one of remarkable fluidity. The initial kingdoms that sprang up after native Britons were defeated/fled/crushed (delete as appropriate) led to a very different nation than the one we know today. For many years power rested between two kingdoms centred on the Midlands - Mercia - and Northumberland/York - known as Deiria and Bernecia for a while before being unified as Northumbria - and the rulers of these kingdoms vied for power and lordship over the smaller Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (essentially the areas that now make up the Home Counties). In doing so they frequently came into conflict with or tried to make alliances with powerful Welsh rulers.
There was a great deal of spiritual vibrancy too. This was an age in which there was a great fight for the spiritual heart of England, with missionaries and churches springing up all over. This eventually led to England being regarded as the great centre of learning in Early Medieval Europe and a hotbed of missionary activity to the Continent. Thus English missionaries and scholars travelled across Europe and influenced some of the great rulers of the time, including Charlemagne or 'Charles the Great.'
What I found most interesting and perhaps most startling (thinking in terms of much we take for granted the continued security and prosperity of our own nation) is the way in which Anglo-Saxon England seemed to recurringly reach a stage of financial prosperity, great learning and literacy, military power, political stablity, only for it all to be quite literally annhilated. The first such occurance saw centuries old kingdoms wiped off the map by Viking raiders to the point that the last remaining vestige of English power was the then King of Wessex, a man named Alfred, who was forced into hiding with a few supporters on a tiny island. Largely through the efforts of Alfred (who I shall come back to very shortly) the Anglo-Saxon culture and political establishment was to be revived, but only after virtually everything that people took as granted had been destroyed.
Alfred, known to us now as Alfred the Great, is a particularly interesting figure (at least to me) as he came from nothing short of a hopeless postion (trapped on an island he visited as a child, few supporters, massive and overwhelmingly successful Scandanavian armies controlling the entire realm of the English) to paving the way for a revitalised and ultimately far reaching Anglo-Saxon culture. Not only did he defeat the Viking armies, he retook and paved the way for the re-establishment of English rule over Danish settlements in Britain. He also greatly revived English literature and used the vernacular as a means to which legal business was carried out. Theres a great deal else about Alfred that really does boggle the mind, however you'll have to bare with me as I leave that out - mostly as I read it in February and have forgotten some of the more important details!
One crucial part of Alfred's reign that I can remember is that he, seemingly more than any other Anglo-Saxon king before or since, emphasised the importance of reading and writing (both in English and Latin) principally as a means for his people to grow in their understanding of the Bible. That understanding of God's word was the overiding priority, and according to Alfred the underlying success of his rule. Ignorance of the Bible was likewise seen as the principle downfall of those Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that had preceeded. Fascinating.
After Alfred there followed a long peace, great prosperity, and a complete lack of Viking activity (which if understood in terms of what had preceeded was nothing short of remarkable). However around about a hundred years later a curious mix of complacency (We see the arrival of a king named Ethelred the Unready, which clearly states how his people percieved him), political infighting and politicians more concerned with their own position than with that of the country (nice to see nothing changes!), coincided with renewed Viking activity. Unlike Alfred (who built fortified towns and raised small armies to fight the Vikings regionally), Ethelred decided the only way to stop the Viking war parties was to buy them off with increasingly large sums of money. Unfortunately for Ethelred this strategy didnt work, and, with a timely piece of greed-based treachery by one of the most powerful nobles in the country, a Viking named Swein Forkbeard eventually gained control of England, largely unopposed.
What followed was rampant destruction of all that people held dear - once more, this being the second such occasion - and political and dynastic confusion that would eventually lead to 1066 and the arrival of William the Conquerer and the end of 400 years of Anglo-Saxon England.
However, intriguingly it wasn't quite the end, as many of the legal, linguistic, and even monetary reforms of the Anglo-Saxons outlived the Normans and many others and are still in place in the UK and in many other nations.
If you are still reading then this was an interesting book, stacked full of facts and events and from a Christian perspective both interesting and slightly frustrating. Partly it was encouraging to see a people that clearly saw God in everything. Frustratingly the author, whilst not denying the Saxon belief in God, explained it away as being a practice carried out by a people a millenium away. Whilst not entirely wrong - since he was after all talking about people living a 1000 years ago - it was something of a bizarre statement since as a nation we only really stopped seeing God in all things in the twentieth century. With that in mind - that we as a country abandoned God less than a hundred years ago - it seems presumptious and perhaps foolish to see us as being reasoned and wise when Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that seemed more assured than our own (and were much more long-lasting than the post-Christian nation we currently live in) were utterly and totally undone almost overnight.
As we approach a major election in the UK, it was also a little too close to home to read of a nation preoccupied with wealth and filled with duplicitous, self serving politicians, only to then read that that same nation was completely unprepared and unable to prevent a conquest that led to well over 70 years of ensuing turmoil.
However, ending on a lighter note if you like Lord of the Rings then it may interest you to know that Tolkein (who was a bit of an Anglo-Saxon geek) based the Rohan kingdom on the Mercian kingdom which itself was centred on Tamworth, which basically means they were from the black country.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Taste and See
A bit of a different book review than the quite heavy history ones that have preceeded this post. When I was last in America I picked up a book of devotionals by John Piper entitled Taste and See. I bought it really hoping to find something gritty and thought provoking in a Biblical sense, but something that was also relatively accessible and easy to read. Not to dismiss reading more substantial works (I actually have one of John Piper's more substantial works sat on my bookshelf - Future Grace), but I recognise freely that I will easily excuse reading a more weighty tomb because it trully takes investment in terms of time and thought, whereas this book encourages you to take wholesome bite size chunks. In other words if you are pressed for time, this book is a great suppliment to a daily quiet time or for those 15 mins you might have at work (Says the unemployed man!).
Its based upon the Taste and See articles that are also available at www.desiringgod.com , so you can go on there and check out what kind of a book you will be buying, but otherwise I can't recommend it highly enough, not least as it directs you time and again back to the Bible and Christ. I'll probably finish the last of the 140 articles in the next few days and I've already ordered a similar book by Mr Piper. Strongly recommended.
Its based upon the Taste and See articles that are also available at www.desiringgod.com , so you can go on there and check out what kind of a book you will be buying, but otherwise I can't recommend it highly enough, not least as it directs you time and again back to the Bible and Christ. I'll probably finish the last of the 140 articles in the next few days and I've already ordered a similar book by Mr Piper. Strongly recommended.
Monday, January 25, 2010
American Creation
Another year, another book review. American Creation is a relatively short attempt to examine some of the defining events that led to the establishment of what came to be the United States, running from the Declaration of Independence in 1776 to the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. By-and-large it contains some fascinating (and sad) insights into early attempts to limit the effect of European settlement on the Native American population (in essence the government worked hard to stop it, and were completely unable to do so once people simply - and quite innocently it seems - moved beyond the designated border of the new United States), as well as topics such as the Lousianna Purchase.
American Creation also touches upon that seemingly recurring theme of good and bad governance, the good camp being led by George Washington and John Adams who, flawed as they were, believed firmly that the priority in any situation or decsion that needed to be made was one that was right for the country, not what was the most popular. The 'bad' camp is dominated by Thomas Jefferson (and i'm sure many others who I have yet to encounter in the historical narrative) and his ability to consistently see which way the wind is blowing in terms of popular opinion and match it perfectly. Thus even if it was clearly the wrong thing to do, Jefferson was there in support, right up until it was clear for all to see that it was not the right thing to do, at which point Jefferson denied all knowledge!
In developing the narrative the book takes a very pleasant and mostly informative journey through the early years of American history that is far removed from a stuffy text book. It is the product of a man named Joseph Ellis, a Pulizter winning author and a historian who achieves the next to impossible task of pushing a history book to the top of the best seller lists in the United States, and is also a historian who's style I greatly admire. Indeed, if you take a look back on this blog to 2009 you will find a positively glowing review for one of his earlier books, Founding Brothers.
However, on this occasion I'll end this very short review with cautioned criticism. On the one hand are a few personal niggles. Ellis has an uncanny nack for identifying the clear differences between good and bad governance on behalf of those men (and it is largely men at the beginning of American history) he chooses to place his focus upon. So he looks at Washington and Adams and sees and acknowledges that by and large they made the best decision at the time even though it cost them in terms of their personal reputation or the success of their governments endeavours. He even concedes a certain admiration for them. And yet he also continues to pay a near devotional hommage to Thomas Jefferson (and others such as James Madison - if you are confused then wikipedia can fill in the blanks!) for his ability to play a duplicitous hand, and is exceptionally eager to forgive Jefferson et al's folly so as to praise them for their forsighted creation of our modern world.
This is of course personal criticism on my behalf (the more I read on the period of the American Revolution the more I find myself drawn to John Adams for instance, and inevitable the formation of an Adams perspective on things forms), but I also find it supremely depressing since that opportunistic, change with a whim kind of politics seems disasterous to society and here is a historian that has a vast readership recognising the folly and then joyfully patting the fools on the back.
American Creation also seems a little troubling from the perspective of the historical evidence - at least, how that evidence was presented and used. I cannot speak for the whole book as I simply do not have the time, the resources (or perhaps the inclination!) to check each and every reference used and stated, but on at least two occurances Ellis made a statement or quoted material that was already familiar to me, and on both occurances something seemed wrong.
The first related to a letter George Washington wrote to a friend giving an insight into how he interpreted the American success in winning the War of Independence. Among other reasons, Washington clearly stated that he saw 'Providence' (ie God's hand) in the matter. Joseph Ellis on the other hand clearly believed that God played no role at all. Now that is absolutely fine - this is not about trying to say that everyone must believe God was instrumental in the American Revolution, or in history as a whole. That is a matter of opinion and perspective. However, Ellis portrayed it as basic fact, and based it somewhat in the premise that Washington only saw God's hand in things because he did not see the 'big picture' that hindsight offers. By that he meant a full recognition of all the factors evident in securing American Independence.
The problem with that is essentially two fold. On the one hand Ellis spends a great deal of time elsewhere in the book praising George Washington for his skill, ability and understanding of the wider scheme of things, and explicitly states him as the definative authority on certainly one of the factors in defeating the British that Ellis states Washington must not have known about and was only open to us later in hindsight. In other words, when it came down to the matter of God Washington knew very little about what was going on (in terms of foreign and domestic realites etc etc etc), and at all other times Washington was a master of all he saw in American and beyond. It is a very uneven and unsettling use of the evidence given to firmly push Ellis's own opinion on God and history into the realm of established fact.
The second problem is that no matter what your perspective, historical evidence should always be allowed to stand on its own, presented in such a way as to allow the reader/scholar the opporunity to decided themselves what to make of it. By all means advocate it in the light of a historical argument or discussion and absolutely adorn it with opinion, but make it clear that you are doing that so that the evidence itself can be taken aside and considered. George Washington clearly saw God's hand in what was going on in American history. Whether that makes him a Christian or not is not clear at all. But he did firmly believe that, and whether you or I or anyone else agrees is somewhat irrelevant when presenting that reality. To ignore or simply dismiss it as an unrealistic option is to ignore history itself, and where does that stop?
The second occurance that troubled me again related to Ellis' use of evidence and his willingness to omit if it did not suit. On this occasion it was a recognition of John Adams' uncanny ability to judge the public reaction to the date of American Independence in a letter he sent to his wife Abigail as the Declaration was being signed. So as to demonstrate Adams good judgement Ellis quoted the key passage from the letter, albeit ommitting one sentence. That sentence essentially stated that people should give thanks to God and acknowledge his hand in bringing America to Independence. Now, again this is not about saying that God must be accepted as being a part of the narrative, but Adams clearly believed he should. That Ellis ommitted it was odd not because he cut some text (I have done that plenty of times in essays and my thesis if it was not relevant to the argument), but that he cut that piece of text and left in the remainder of the paragraph even though much of what was left was ittle more relevant than the text about God.
I of course have something of a vested interested in this as I am a Christian and I do believe in God and his sovereignty in the world. Perhaps it was on that basis that I took more notice in what Ellis was saying here. Even so, this is not good history. That I noticed these oddities is troubling because where else has Ellis taken the opportunity to use the evidence poorly or even omit it?
In short be careful when reading Ellis' work (this is especially important since if you live in the States he sells bucket loads of books), and always try to get some good old primary material on a subject if you are reading about history (ie newspapers, diaries etc). I still greatly admire his style and eventually enjoyed the book (it seemed to settle down more towards the end), but this is not the best.
American Creation also touches upon that seemingly recurring theme of good and bad governance, the good camp being led by George Washington and John Adams who, flawed as they were, believed firmly that the priority in any situation or decsion that needed to be made was one that was right for the country, not what was the most popular. The 'bad' camp is dominated by Thomas Jefferson (and i'm sure many others who I have yet to encounter in the historical narrative) and his ability to consistently see which way the wind is blowing in terms of popular opinion and match it perfectly. Thus even if it was clearly the wrong thing to do, Jefferson was there in support, right up until it was clear for all to see that it was not the right thing to do, at which point Jefferson denied all knowledge!
In developing the narrative the book takes a very pleasant and mostly informative journey through the early years of American history that is far removed from a stuffy text book. It is the product of a man named Joseph Ellis, a Pulizter winning author and a historian who achieves the next to impossible task of pushing a history book to the top of the best seller lists in the United States, and is also a historian who's style I greatly admire. Indeed, if you take a look back on this blog to 2009 you will find a positively glowing review for one of his earlier books, Founding Brothers.
However, on this occasion I'll end this very short review with cautioned criticism. On the one hand are a few personal niggles. Ellis has an uncanny nack for identifying the clear differences between good and bad governance on behalf of those men (and it is largely men at the beginning of American history) he chooses to place his focus upon. So he looks at Washington and Adams and sees and acknowledges that by and large they made the best decision at the time even though it cost them in terms of their personal reputation or the success of their governments endeavours. He even concedes a certain admiration for them. And yet he also continues to pay a near devotional hommage to Thomas Jefferson (and others such as James Madison - if you are confused then wikipedia can fill in the blanks!) for his ability to play a duplicitous hand, and is exceptionally eager to forgive Jefferson et al's folly so as to praise them for their forsighted creation of our modern world.
This is of course personal criticism on my behalf (the more I read on the period of the American Revolution the more I find myself drawn to John Adams for instance, and inevitable the formation of an Adams perspective on things forms), but I also find it supremely depressing since that opportunistic, change with a whim kind of politics seems disasterous to society and here is a historian that has a vast readership recognising the folly and then joyfully patting the fools on the back.
American Creation also seems a little troubling from the perspective of the historical evidence - at least, how that evidence was presented and used. I cannot speak for the whole book as I simply do not have the time, the resources (or perhaps the inclination!) to check each and every reference used and stated, but on at least two occurances Ellis made a statement or quoted material that was already familiar to me, and on both occurances something seemed wrong.
The first related to a letter George Washington wrote to a friend giving an insight into how he interpreted the American success in winning the War of Independence. Among other reasons, Washington clearly stated that he saw 'Providence' (ie God's hand) in the matter. Joseph Ellis on the other hand clearly believed that God played no role at all. Now that is absolutely fine - this is not about trying to say that everyone must believe God was instrumental in the American Revolution, or in history as a whole. That is a matter of opinion and perspective. However, Ellis portrayed it as basic fact, and based it somewhat in the premise that Washington only saw God's hand in things because he did not see the 'big picture' that hindsight offers. By that he meant a full recognition of all the factors evident in securing American Independence.
The problem with that is essentially two fold. On the one hand Ellis spends a great deal of time elsewhere in the book praising George Washington for his skill, ability and understanding of the wider scheme of things, and explicitly states him as the definative authority on certainly one of the factors in defeating the British that Ellis states Washington must not have known about and was only open to us later in hindsight. In other words, when it came down to the matter of God Washington knew very little about what was going on (in terms of foreign and domestic realites etc etc etc), and at all other times Washington was a master of all he saw in American and beyond. It is a very uneven and unsettling use of the evidence given to firmly push Ellis's own opinion on God and history into the realm of established fact.
The second problem is that no matter what your perspective, historical evidence should always be allowed to stand on its own, presented in such a way as to allow the reader/scholar the opporunity to decided themselves what to make of it. By all means advocate it in the light of a historical argument or discussion and absolutely adorn it with opinion, but make it clear that you are doing that so that the evidence itself can be taken aside and considered. George Washington clearly saw God's hand in what was going on in American history. Whether that makes him a Christian or not is not clear at all. But he did firmly believe that, and whether you or I or anyone else agrees is somewhat irrelevant when presenting that reality. To ignore or simply dismiss it as an unrealistic option is to ignore history itself, and where does that stop?
The second occurance that troubled me again related to Ellis' use of evidence and his willingness to omit if it did not suit. On this occasion it was a recognition of John Adams' uncanny ability to judge the public reaction to the date of American Independence in a letter he sent to his wife Abigail as the Declaration was being signed. So as to demonstrate Adams good judgement Ellis quoted the key passage from the letter, albeit ommitting one sentence. That sentence essentially stated that people should give thanks to God and acknowledge his hand in bringing America to Independence. Now, again this is not about saying that God must be accepted as being a part of the narrative, but Adams clearly believed he should. That Ellis ommitted it was odd not because he cut some text (I have done that plenty of times in essays and my thesis if it was not relevant to the argument), but that he cut that piece of text and left in the remainder of the paragraph even though much of what was left was ittle more relevant than the text about God.
I of course have something of a vested interested in this as I am a Christian and I do believe in God and his sovereignty in the world. Perhaps it was on that basis that I took more notice in what Ellis was saying here. Even so, this is not good history. That I noticed these oddities is troubling because where else has Ellis taken the opportunity to use the evidence poorly or even omit it?
In short be careful when reading Ellis' work (this is especially important since if you live in the States he sells bucket loads of books), and always try to get some good old primary material on a subject if you are reading about history (ie newspapers, diaries etc). I still greatly admire his style and eventually enjoyed the book (it seemed to settle down more towards the end), but this is not the best.
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Christmas
Looking back over my blog it would seem that I have created a somewhat unofficial tradition of writing a review of the Christmas period. This year I shall make that an official tradition and continue the reviewing.
This Christmas has been an odd one, if not even a demanding time. In many respects it has been a period of great change (which is remarkably unwelcome when the rest of my life feels like its being subjected to epic levels of change in all areas already), a period of loss, a period of lonliness. All a bit unpleasant really and frankly a dark time overall.
I read a great little devotional by John Piper on New Years Eve which talked about those times in our lives when we are in the midst of a hurricane, stood watching our lives being ripped apart and sent out in all directions at great speed. That is my life at the moment and its heartbreaking, soul destroying, and altogether epic in its misery. More than once this holiday period (Christmas to New Year) I could be found crying out to God in total despair when in the world so many people were celebrating and heralding these generally lovely days of family and friends.
I have no idea what 2010 will hold but I dearly hope and pray it is a year of new growth and rebuilding as opposed to more loss and struggle.
That said, Christmas and New Year was also a great reminder of some amazing blessings in life, and new joys over the Christmas period. Things to give thanks for.
This Christmas has been an odd one, if not even a demanding time. In many respects it has been a period of great change (which is remarkably unwelcome when the rest of my life feels like its being subjected to epic levels of change in all areas already), a period of loss, a period of lonliness. All a bit unpleasant really and frankly a dark time overall.
I read a great little devotional by John Piper on New Years Eve which talked about those times in our lives when we are in the midst of a hurricane, stood watching our lives being ripped apart and sent out in all directions at great speed. That is my life at the moment and its heartbreaking, soul destroying, and altogether epic in its misery. More than once this holiday period (Christmas to New Year) I could be found crying out to God in total despair when in the world so many people were celebrating and heralding these generally lovely days of family and friends.
I have no idea what 2010 will hold but I dearly hope and pray it is a year of new growth and rebuilding as opposed to more loss and struggle.
That said, Christmas and New Year was also a great reminder of some amazing blessings in life, and new joys over the Christmas period. Things to give thanks for.
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