M.V.Ramana - Nuclear is Not the Solution: The folly of atomic power in the age of climate change

A few years ago I had the arduous task of reviewing Bill Gates' book on dealing with climate change. I noted that Gates' was obsessed with technological solutions to the climate crisis, in particular nuclear power - an industry which he has got a material interest in. The hunt for technological fixes to environmental crises has a long pedigree. Gates was just one of the billionaires who is most open about it.

The nuclear industry is both wealthy and adept at using the media to put across its case. The argument that nuclear is not a solution is not necessarily straightforward or obvious. So the environmental movement, and indeed the movement against nuclear weapons, should rejoice that M.V. Ramana's new book is available.

Ramana is a trained physicst, who has researched and written extensively on the nuclear industry. He is also greatly concerned about the climate crisis, and understands the intimate connection between the question of energy and reducing emissions. The book demolishes the case for nuclear in two ways. Firstly Ramana challenges the promises of the nuclear industry, both in terms of the potential for nuclear energy and in terms of the technology itself. More importantly though Ramana shows how nuclear power is closely connected with the very systems of imperialism and capitalist accumulation that drive the climate crisis. Let's look at his arguments in turn.

This review is not the place to rehash Ramana's arguments against particular corporations or particular types of nuclear reactors. If you want that I would urge you to read the book itself. But in general Ramana's book explains that

expanding nuclear power production is neither a desirable nor a feasible solution to climate change. Due to the use and production of radioactive materials at reactors, expanding nuclear energy to mitigate climate change will inevitably result in a variety of undesirable risks and environmental impacts. Not is it compatible with environmental and social justice. The consequences and burdens of such an expansion will fall primarily on ecommunities that are distant from the centers of power and economically and politically too marginal to figure in the calculations of decision makers.

Let's take one example - the cost of nuclear power. Ramana discusses research by the "financial firm Lazard" (not a hotbed of radical politics). 

Lazard calculated that the average construction costs of a utility-scale solar photovoltaic plant in the United States... was $875 per kilowatt of generation capacity. (For comparison, the cost of a residential rooftop photovoltaic system in the US was about $2,600 per kilowatt.) These estiamates are averages over many different projects and thus smooth over the peculiarities of individual locations, differential labour costs, and geographical variations. Lazard estimated that a nuclear plant costs around $10,300 per kilowatt - or nearly twelve times the corresponding cost for utility-scale solar photovoltaic plants. 

Interestingly while the cost of energy generated by renewables such as solar has dropped dramatically, that of nuclear has risen. The costs of "building a new nuclear reactor rose from nearly $6,800 per kilowatt in 2013 to $10,300 per kilowatt in 2021".

Given the problems of potential accidents, nuclear waste storage and the length of time taken to build new nuclear plants, the starting point for opposition to nuclear power should not be the costs. But Ramana's book makes the point that the costs matter precisely because nuclear continues to be touted as the solution by the industry, governments and politicians (of centre-left and right). In other words powerful groups remain committed to nuclear power despite its extremely high cost. Why is this?

One part of the problem is that these groups ignore or downplay the impact and threats of nuclear waste, potential accidents and the impossibility of deploying nuclear power plants on the scale and in the numbers to deal with the existing climate threat. But the real problem is that nuclear power is being promoted by people who have a lot to gain from the investment in nuclear power. Here Ramana's knowledge of the industry proves fascinating. In several examples he shows how nuclear companies have promised to build nuclear plants, then seen costs mushroom and profits leap. Sometimes the costs (and timescales) are astronomical. The now discredited company Westinghouse plannted to build a nuclear reactor in Georgia, which despite their claims it would cost $4 billion and take 36 months, ended up costing "$35 billion for such two reactors and a construction time of over ten years".

It doesn't take a genius to conclude as one commentator told the press, that "every euro invested in new nuclear power plants makes the climate crisis worse because now this money cannot be used to invest in efficient climate protection options". Indeed the "nuclear renaissance" that George W Bush launched in 2005 has cost $40 billion dollars, but "has not yet avoided a single molecule of carbon emissions".

This brings us to the second theme of Ramana's book: the wider context. I was intrigued to understand the cross over between nuclear power and the fossil fuel industry. Ramana shows how many nuclear companies also have investments in coal and oil. He points out that "talking about future nuclear power... is a strategy to shift attention away from their current energy mix". I would add though that it is also a way of maintaining the status quo. Such companies can claim they are reducing emissions elsewhere and continue with their fossil fuel activities. 

But the biggest example of how nuclear power is promoted and desired, despite its dangers and costs, is its links with nuclear weapons. Here, I must confess, I learnt a great deal. In fact my own writings against nuclear power have underplayed this angle. The argument is best made by a quote that Ramana has from the physicist Robert Oppenheimer, the man who led the Manhatten Project. Oppenheimer said of a proposal for the international control of nuclear weapons:

We know very well what we would do if we signed such a convention: we would not make atomic weapons, at least not to start with, but we would build enormous plants, and we would design these plants in such a way that they could be converted with the maximum ease and the minimum time delay to the produciton of atomic weapons.

As Ramana shows the nuclear power industry has often been used by countries as a stepping stone to nuclear weaponary. The intimate links between the industry and nuclear bombs, submarines and so on, are carefully documented. Ramana says, "it is remarkable that whenever the nuclear power industry is in trouble, the strongest argument that officials use in order to obtain government support is to emphasize the overlap with military uses." This overlap is in producing raw materials, skills and training. The industry however is wary. The Dalton Nuclear Institute at Manchester University warned that the links must be "carefully managed to avoid the perception that civil and military nuclear programmes are one and the same". 

Those in favour of nuclear power argue for it against all logic. They do this because they recognise that nuclear power plays a role within a wider economic and political system. Ramana quotes the billionaire Sam Altman (who runs OpenAI). One of Altman's concerns is of course having enough power to run the computer banks that power AI systems. But his fears for the lack of energy are also about wider critiques of capitalism:

The alternative to not having enough energy is the crazy de-growth stuff people talk about. We really don't want that... I think it's insane and pretty immoral when people start calling for that.

What Altman says here is just what the capitalist class think. As Ramana concludes:

Nuclear energy is being promoted by powerful elites in governments and businesses precisely because it comes with the promise, even if it will be ultimately a false promise, that the economic system can continue more or less along the same path while avoiding large-scale climate change.... Talking about nuclear power from new reactors serves to delay dealing with the climate crisis. Procrastination might be the thief of time, but it is good business strategy for companies that profit from the current system.

Ramana's book is a comprehensive demolition of the lies and technological limitations of nuclear power. But it is particularly powerful because he places these lies within the wider context of capitalist society and the logic that has caused the current environmental crises. While I felt that some of his points could have been expanded - I would have liked more on the carbon costs of the nuclear cycle (from mining to storage of waste) - there is plenty of material here to arm those looking for a rational, and sustainable energy policy. You don't have to be anti-capitalist to oppose nuclear power on the grounds of danger, waste or cost. But understanding the position of the industry in wider capitalist society illuminates a great deal. MV Ramana's book is thus urgent and necessary.

Related Reviews

Lochbaum, Lyman, Stranahan & UCS - Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster
Walker - Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective
Caldicott - Nuclear Power is not the Answer
Commoner - The Poverty of Power: Energy & the economic crisis
Jungk - Brighter Than 1000 Suns

Gates - How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The solutions we have and the breakthroughs we need
Bird & Sherwin - American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer

Thomas King - The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America

One of the first things that struck me about Thomas King's famous account of "Native People in North America" is that The Invonenient Indian doesn't particularly take much notice of the border between Canada and the United States. After all this imaginery line is really only that. Imaginery. The people who lived in North America (or Turtle Island as some groups describe it) didn't distinguish between the two nation states that were eventually imposed upon them. This ought to be an obvious point.

But so used are we to thinking about the nation state, that we impose it backward. King's book doesn't make that mistake, though in his history of people he does deal with the different paths that have led to different laws, politics and struggles among indigenous people. He writes "while the line that divides the two countries is a political reality, and while the border affects bands and tribes in a variety of ways, I would have found it impossible to talk about the one without talking about the other."

The second thing that struck me was one of King's comments about the hunt for the correct term for the people of North America. First Nations, Indians, Native Americans. What was the correct phrase to use? "Why do we need one?" he counters. After all these were not a single group of people at all.

The point I got from these initial thoughts was how easy it is to slip into very crude and simple approaches to people that stem from the world we live in today. "Being", Marx said, "determines consciousness". And the modern framework of nation states, imperialism and earlier colonialism still shapes these thoughts. 

Thus King's book is refreshing in that its narrative is not a simple linear one of conquest, defeat and oppression. Though this material is all there - and sometimes it is shocking and unpleasants. Rather it is a discussion of what it means in terms of how Native Americans (for want of a better term) are seen, indentified, protrayed and understood by non-Native Americans today. King uses two categories to explain this, the Dead Indian and the Live, or Legal, Indian. The former is acceptable in a sense, because it is the Indian that lives in the imagination - in a thousand western films, or in books, or on food containers. It is the Native American of fantasy. It is one that can be dressed up as. The Legal Indian is the existing one, who has rights and land and as King says in a reprinted interview at the end of this book, "the Legal Indian is the Indian that Canada is trying to kill. They don't want no more Legal Indians".

Here King touches on the way that the "Legal" indian, with their land and (some) rights is a barrier to North American capitalism. Their land ownership, their legal rights, their reservations stop the profit machine. Here is the "inconvenience" of the title - the fact that Indians have fought for their rights, to defend and extend them - from the Indian Wars to the Wounded Knee Occupation in 1973. Some of the best parts of the book are those where King describes these more rescent struggles - or at least the battles of the 20th century over fishing rights, land access or wealth.

King makes a final, and important, point. He rejects the idea of a static Native American culture, or indeed one that is particularly mystical. Instead he says that "the fact of Native existence is that we live modern lives informed by traditional values and contemporary realities and that we wish to live those lives on our terms." Reality means that doing that will mean a constant struggle - against racism, oppression and exploitation. King's book shows that there is a long tradition of that and he does this with verve, passion and humour. Highly recommended.

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Karl Marx - Herr Vogt: A Spy in the Workers' Movement

Herr Vogt is a strange and difficult book, even for dedicated followers of Karl Marx. It is a detailed, dare I say, obsessive, response to libelous attacks on Marx and his comrades by Carl Vogt, a German philosopher, politican and scientist. Usually, when referred to in books about Marx authors lament that Marx took time out from writing far more important work to respond to attacks that today might be irrelevant and forgotten. Indeed, like Eugen Dühring who was the target of Engels' work Anti-Dühring, it's entirely possible that Vogt would mostly be forgotton today if Marx had not decided to refute his slander. But the book is not an easy read. The problem was well described by Franz Mehring, one of Marx's biographers who wrote in 1918:

It is the only one of Marx’s independent works which has never been reprinted: and there are probably very few copies still extant. First of all, it is very long, amounting to 192 closely printed pages (Marx declared that in ordinary print it would be twice as long), and secondly, it would require detailed commentary to make all the references in it clear to the present-day reader. For the most part this would not be worthwhile, because much of the matter with which Marx deals was forced on him by his opponent and relates to affairs which have long since been completely forgotten and rightly so. In reading the book one involuntarily experiences a sense of discomfort to hear Marx defending himself against slanderous attacks which did not touch him even remotely.

Today the book has been reprinted and is available online. But the other problems remain. The reader may struggle with several things - firstly the people, groups and events that Marx references in his sometimes meandering demolition of Vogt's allegations. The second is that Marx's often refers to individuals, especially Vogt himself, in slang, insults or with literary references. "Falstaff" is a frequent example. If anything the one thing modern readers will learn from the book is that Marx had an enormous grasp of poetry and literarture and was not adverse to quoting or paraphrasing such to make a point.

In one example Marx describes the skunk in detail, referring to its "horrible offensive" smell. He then describes Vogt as a "naturalised citizen of the 'Animal Kingdom'" who, "in the manner of the skunk", "sprayed" allegations against his enemies. In this particular case the allegation is that Marx and his comrades were "live off the sweat of the workers". Its an attack that clearly, and rightly, enrages Marx and he marshals several letters from supporters, including the editors of the New York Tribune who point out his paid work and his sacrifices for the workers' movement. In Herr Vogt, this is frequently Marx's approach. He refutes and allegation and summons letters from mutiple acquaintances, enemies and supporters to prove his point and refute the slander.

What was Vogt's purpose in his attack on Marx? Clearly it was to discredit Marx and those around him arguing for revolutionary politics. Why did Vogt do this? Marx asks:"Is Karl Vogt paid to be an agent?" Marx doesn't really know for definite: "Who knows whether Plon-Plon has not promised his Falstaff the post of Commander of the Mouse Tower in the Rhine at Bingen". But Marx notes:

In any case, rumour has it, I know, that there is a more prosaic explanation of things. Thus 'with the turn in the situation since 1859' there is said to heave been a turn in the conditions of the 'jolly companion' (who had, a short time previously, been joint chief of a joint stock company in great difficulties and involved in criminal investigations.

But more importantly for Marx he shows that Vogt represents a particular strand of thought among politicans who, during the 1848 revolutions and after sided with Louis Bonaparte. Marx makes sure to demonstrate how Vogt was wrong during the revolution and after and how his "patrons" were keen to abandon principles and side with Bonaparte against democrats, revolutionaries and so on. Much of this material is obscure and hard to follow because Marx is, in his classic method, making his argument by building up to a big picture. Those who want to know more about Marx's thinking about key moments in European history after 1848 might find material here to get their teeth into. Most of us will find it somewhat obscure.

Of more interest is the insights we get into the lives of radical emigrants and refugees and Marx's own circles. Some of the letters have real gems. Charles Dana, editor of the NY Tribune is full of praise for Marx's work, but says "in questions relating to both Czarism and Bonapartism, I have sometimes thought that you manifested too much interest and too great anxiety for the unity and independence of Germany". But he goes on, that Marx has "always manifested the most cordial interest in the welfare and progress of the labouring classes."

In the 1982 edition of Herr Vogt that I have the translator argues that after 120 years (now 160 or so) since first publication, the book remains "a model of the analysis, investigation and exposure of the agents of bourgeois reaction." I, it must be said, remain unconvinced. It is a deep polemic, and there's plenty of Marx in it. But it must have been obscure - even at the time, and typically Marx lost money on the book. Readers wanting to dive in are recommended to read the chapters in Mehring's book which explain the context to the convoluted arguments and persons mentioned. Mehring concludes that Marx should never have got involved:

When the trouble with Vogt began Marx’s friend Imandt wrote: “I shouldn’t like to have to write about the affair and I shall be surprised if you can bring yourself to thrust your hand into such a muckheap,” and similar advice came to hand from Russian and Hungarian friends. To-day one almost feels inclined to wish that he had taken it. The deplorable business won him a number of new friends and, in particular, it caused him to resume friendly relations with the Workers Educational League, which immediately supported him vigorously. On the other hand it tended to hamper the great work of his life rather than further it, despite, or rather just because of, the valuable sacrifice in strength and time which it demanded without offering any commensurate gain, and at the same time it caused him serious domestic difficulties.

On the other hand, as the recent "Spy Cops" investigation has demonstrated, spies in the movement and those seeking to discredit radicals and revolutionaries remain a problem. While Marx's response to Vogt may not be his most important or accessible work. It is, nonetheless, a demonstration of how seriously Marx took his revolutionary activity and how keen he was to defend himself against counter-revolutionary critics.

Related Reviews

Mehring - Karl Marx: The Story of his Life
Marx - Value, Price and Profit
Marx - The Civil War in France
Liebknecht - Karl Marx: Biographical Memoirs

Clara Zetkin - Fighting Fascism: How to struggle and how to win

Editors Mike Taber and John Riddell open their introduction to this short but incredibly useful collection by writing "seldom has there been a word more bandied about, yet less understood, than fascism". That's certainly true. As the right and far-right gain confidence around the globe understanding who and what fascists are and represent is crucial for the left in order to defeat them. We can learn a great deal from those who fought fascism in the 1920s and 1930s, and this short collection of pieces by Clara Zetkin is a superb introduction.

Zetkin deserves a brief introduction. She was a leading figure in the German Communist Party who had been active since the 1870s. A close friend and collaborator with Rosa Luxembourg in the SPD, she was particularly active around the women's movement. Opposed to the First World War and a principled anti-imperialist she joined the Spartakist League and became a leading figure in the KPD. She was an elected member of the German Reichstag, and as this collection makes clear, she fought hard for a United Front of Communists and non-Communists against the Nazis - using Parliament as a platform. When the Nazis came to power she went into exile in the Soviet Union and died in 1933.

The importance of a brief outline of Zetkin's life is to illustrate an important fact - she was part of the Communist movement in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, through the defeat of the German Revolution and into the period of Stalin's counter-revolution against the Russian revolution. Through this time she was part of debates on fighting fascism at the Communist International, and the first, most important documents in this collection are actually reports made to that body.

The first thing to say is how prescient these are. Writing in 1923 she is able to immediate discern what is unique about fascism through her analysis of Mussolini in Italy. Her explanation is important for contemporary analysis. She says:

At first, the prevailing view was that fascism was nothing more than violent bourgeois terror, and its character and effects were thought to be similar to those of the Horthy regime in Hungary. Yet even though fascism and the Horthy regime employ the same bloody, terrorist methods, which bear down on the proletariat in the same way, the historical essence of the two phenomena is entirely different.

Rather,

Fascism... is not at all the revenge of hte bourgeoisie against the militant uprising of the proletariat. In historical terms, viewed objectively, fascism arrives much more as punishment because the proletariat has not carried and driven forward the revolution that began in Russia. 

Then:

[Communists] view fascism as an expression of the decay and disintegration of the capitalist economy and as a symptom of the bourgeois state's dissolution. We can combat fascism only if we grasp that it rouses and sweeps along broad social masses who have lost the earlier security of their existence and with it, often, their belief in social order. 

Having then outlined some of the "thousands  seeking new possibilities for survival", she explains that its not enough to see the growth of fascism "solely as a result of such economic pressures alone". It is, she repeats, the "halting pace of world revolution resulting from betrayal by the reformist leaders of the workers' movement". The failure of these figures to carry forward the struggle and offer an alternativge vision or "global change" to the embattled middle classes allowed them to find solace and hope in the fascist movement. Fascism she says "became an asylum for all the politically homeless, the socially uprooted, the destitute and disillusioned". But it's her analysis of the dynamics that make the book so useful. She predicts, for instance, that the fascist leadership (as Hitler's Nazis did) would "flirt with the revolutionary proletariat, even though they may not have any personal sympathy for it". This is why they called themselves "National Socialists" rather than for any sympathy for socialism.

Having explored what fascism is, and what it is like in government (in Italy) Zetkin talks about how the left can defeat it - challenging the suffering that people are experiencing and challenge the fascists themselves. Crucial is a United Front of workers from whatever position. As she says:

But proletarian struggle and self-defense against fascism requires a proletarian united front. Fascism does not ask if the worker in the factory has a soul painted in the white and blue colors of Bavaria; or is inspired by the black, red, and gold colors of the bourgeois republic; or by the red banner with a hammer and sickle. It does not ask whether the worker wants to restore the Wittelsbach dynasty [of Bavaria], is an enthusiastic fan of Ebert, or would prefer to see our friend Brandler as president of the German Soviet Republic. All that matters to fascism is that they encounter a class-conscious proletarian, and then they club him to the ground. That is why workers must come together for struggle without distinctions of party or trade-union affiliation.

With the rise of Stalin, and "third period" thought, the Communist International broke with the principled position of United Front strategy and instead labelled the reformists as being the same as the fascists. The editors of this volume explore how this affected Zetkin - she was essentially isolated and ignored, though the Stalinists weren't able to destroy here. Zetkin did, it is true, pull some of her criticisms of Stalin and the direction of the in order to maintain her ability to play a role in the Comintern and the KPD. Nonetheless she did manage to keep arguing for a United Front, most memorably and movingly in a speech to the German Reichstag, while being heckled by fascists and Nazis, in 1932. Extracts from this remarkable speech are reproduced here, with a framing introduction by editor John Riddell,. Riddel explains the context. Zetkin was almost blind and so frail she had two KPD members carry her to the platform. She started by saying

Our most urgent task today is to form a united front of all working people in order to turn back fascism. All the differences that divide and shackle us - whether founded on political, trade-union, religious or ideological outlooks - must give way before this imperious historical necessity.

Tragically the Stalinised KPD was no longer a force willing to construct such a united front and many thousands of Communists would pay the price with their lives in the Nazi concentration camps. Zetkin had not been able to win the necessary argument in the face of Stalin's forces inside the Comintern. But she had never lost hope. She finished:

The united front must embrace all those who are dependent on wages or salaries or otherwise must pay tribute to capitalism, for it is they who both sustain capitalism and are its victims. I am opening this session of the Reichstag in fulfillment of my duty as honoary chair and in the hope that despite my present infirmities I may yet have the good fortune to open, as honarary chair, the first congress of workers' councils of a Soviet Germany.

This collection of essays, brilliantly edited by John Riddell and Mike Taber, is a crucial tool to understand and organise against fascism today. But it is also a tribute to a brave and principled socialist who fought her whole life for the liberation of humanity. Everyone should read it.

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Trotsky - The First Five Years of the Communist International (Vol. II)
Trotsky - The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany
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Guerin - Fascism and Big Business
Sparrow - Fascists Among Us: Online hate and the Christchurch Massacre
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Lyndal Roper - Living I Was Your Plague: Martin Luther's World and Legacy

2017 saw the five hundredth anniversary of Martin Luther beginning the Reformation. By lucky coincidence, rather than design, it was also the year that Lyndal Roper's epic biography of Luther was published. As a result Roper was asked to speak at numerous debates, lectures and events that marked the Reformation and this book, is the result of that experience. In her preface Roper recounts speaking in Wittenberg, the town where Luther was based and were the Reformation was centred. She was in St Mary's Church, where Luther preached and was married, but the Church is also the site of a hideously racist antisemitic sculpture. This then was the occasion for much debate and discussion, and in particular how she thought about Luther himself, and his antisemitism.

But the book then is not another biography of Luther. Rather it is an attempt to understand Luther's life and ideas in a deeper context. It is, she writes to be taken in the spirit of Lutheranism that she admires, "its profund anti-authoritarianism, its political engagement, and its insistence on argument, discussion, and critical appraisal of its own history". At the same time Roper is open that she is critical and prepared to highlight unpleasant and "less comfortable" aspects of Luther's ideas and life.

The book opens with a study of Luther's image. Luther's Reformation ran on image and ideas. He was the first figure in history to make use of the printing press in a systematic way. But the use of the press was for more than producing large quantities of sermons and printed texts. It was also, as Andrew Pettegree has pointed out in his book Brand Luther to create a Brand. Pamphlets had a style, and as Roper shows, Luther's image was carefully curated for "instant legibility". She points out that:

There is Luther the monk, and image which had run its course by 1524; Luther in the Wartburg; Luther as a marrid man; the standard portrait; the full-body Luther; and dead Luther. Each of these was made famous by the Cranach workshop. Finally there is a type I shall term 'Luther and Co.' which was produced only after Luther's death.

This curation of Luther's image created in a time before mass media, an instantly recognisable figure and thus helped propel Luther to leadership of the Reformation itself. But Roper continues, these images went further, "gave rise to a whole new material culture of images.... Indeed, Cranach's portrait proved so successful that it escaped the bounds of Luteranism altogether and became a signifier not just for the Lutheran Church, but for German-ness itself". Luther came to stand in for the religious changes and the society they helped create.

Another chapter looks at the role of dreams in Luther's life and those of his religious contemporaries. How particular dreams are understood was important, but I mostly refer to them because while Roper says that "Luther... wa scharacteristically sceptical about the significance of dreams", she places a some importance on them in understanding Luther himself. Indeed this includes her analysis of Luther's antisemitism. Here she writes:

In contrast to medieval anti-Semitism, Luther's was linked to a set of fantasies surrounding circumcision and the Jews as the Chosen People. Psychologically, in Freudian terms, such fears would be connected with the Oedipal stage and with castration... The infant feels rivalry towarsd the father, and fears that the father will take revenge on him by castrating him. Jews, so the irrational fear would run, have undergone a kind of symbolic castration ... The circumcised Jew would therefore function as a nightmare vision of what might happen to oneself. Anti-Semitism would consequently be connected to issues about sexual difference, power and parents. It would be fundamentally concerned with identity.

This is, I think, a remarkably weak analysis of Luther's antisemitism. It should be said that Roper's account of Luther's antisemitism is incredibly important. She notes herself that it was rarely acknowledged, often ignored, and only recently have books studied it closely. This acknowledgement of Luther's antisemitism by historians, biographers and scholars has been important. But Roper's own explanation of why Luther was an antisemite here, removes Luther, his ideas, and principly the Jewish people from their historical context. Rather than seeking to explain Luther's antisemitism in Freudian terms, we need to locate it in both his own developing religious ideas and the way that Jewish people were the victim of oppression and racism due to their economic and religious positions in 16th century Europe. This chapter was disappointing and inadequate.

Roper, it must be emphasised, does not in any way diminish or excuse Luther's antisemitism. Indeed she notes how it has been both exposed, and forgotten in the final part of her study of Luther's impact - Luther Kitsch. Here she highlights the Luther Playmobil figure, the most popular such plastic figure of all time, and one that was initially made with a version of a Bible that essentially emphasised Luther's antisemitic beliefs. This was hurridly corrected, but the kitsch continues. Even today, many years after the 500th anniversary, Wittenberg's shops are full of socks, ornaments, pictures and even honey, that celebrate the image of Luther.

The essays in Living I was your Plague are interesting, but the book felt disjointed and directionless. I have found Lyndal Roper's work stimulating and enjoyable, and her biography of Luther is unparalled. But this book was weak and in places flawed.

Related Reviews

Roper - Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet
Roper - Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants' War
Treu - Katherine von Bora: Luther's Wife
Stanford - Martin Luther: Catholic Dissident
Pettegree - Brand Luther