Iain Fenlon - Piazza San Marco

The heart of Venice, the Piazza San Marco is properly considered one of the most beautiful centres of a city anywhere. Its history is inseparable from the history of Venice - it is here that city leaders met, invading armies occupied, rebellions focused and visitors - pilgrims at first and tourists in more recent times - have gathered in their millions.

For the author though, there is a dangerous tendency to see the Piazza simply as a lovely square surrounded by individual buildings - the Doges' Palace, the Basilica of San Marco and the Campanile tower for instance. Rather, he argues, we should see them as a collective whole that has evolved over time, to encapsulate Venice as a place with a history.

This history is surprisingly complex, though mostly it centers on Venice's unique geographical position that allowed its merchants to become fat on the wealth generated from being a maritime power near the juncture of the West and the East. Its Churches brought in wealth by becoming the focus for pilgrimages to see the extensive collection of relics. Today less than 60,000 people live in the city. The millions of tourists are served by a visiting population, unable to afford to live in the city, but their dollars or Euros are no less sucked up by the city.



In some ways, Venice is remarkably artificial. No more so than in the constant worry that it will sink beneath the lagoon if left to nature. But its history is also unnatural. To justify their wealth and power, the city's rulers had to invent a host of traditions and myths to explain the city. Many of these lasted centuries, even now receiving an echo in tourist guides.

Fenlon shows how the city's decline in the Napoleonic era led to its re-discovery by modern artists and writers, for whom Venice came to symbolise some mythical romantic ideal. The city being "raised from the spoils of the teeming Orient" wrote Disraeli. But for others the city symbolised decadence and decay, perhaps most artfully visualised in Visconti's film of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice.

Today Venice is the ultimate tourist trap. Its history seems oddly remote and immaterial, a backdrop to a ornate decorations and art collections. Iain Fenlon has done a service to bring it to life for the casual reader and for those who would like to visit the city and have some idea of whence it came.

Related Reviews in the Wonders of the World series

Tillotson – Taj Mahal
Goldhill - The Temple of Jerusalem
Gere - The Tomb of Agamemnon
Ray - The Rosetta Stone
Hopkins & Beard - The Colosseum

Thomas Malthus - An Essay on the Principle of Population

The work of the Reverend Thomas Malthus can easily be said to have had a major influence on subsequent thought. Indeed, it must rank up there with works like the Communist Manifesto as books that have shaped the thoughts of entire generations. This is a shame for several reasons. Firstly, Malthus is unashamedly a partisan of the establishment. Secondly, a through reading of the various editions of his most famous work “An Essay On the Principle of Population” will demonstrate that his arguments are flawed and don't argue what is commonly believed.

For those who use Malthus' name as shorthand for a particular argument – that the world has only enough resources for a set number of people, will find themselves baffled by the content of the Essay. At the core of his work is the idea that human populations will always outstrip the available food supply. But his work isn't really about that problem. It is a series of polemics against a much more dangerous idea to the rich and privileged members of Malthus' class.

Malthus is taking up arms again those dangerous radicals who, inspired by the French Revolution of a few years previously, believed that it would be possible for humans to live in a just and equal society. While understanding that the lot of the poor and lower classes wasn't pleasant, his belief was that the lower orders were inherently greedy. Increasing the amount of money for the poor wouldn't improve their lives, it would simply make them lazy

“The receipt of five shillings a day, instead of 18 pence, would make every man fancy himself comparatively rich and able to indulge himself in many hours or days of leisure..... in a short time, not only the nation would be poorer, but the lower classes themselves would be much more distressed than when they received only 18 pence a day.”

This cynical attitude to the “lower orders” filters through into his views on population growth. If a utopian society was to exist, it would soon collapse, “from the inevitable laws of our nature.... into a class of proprietors and a class of labourers”. But such a society couldn't exist anyway, because if the abundance available in such a society were to come true, then human nature would rapidly destroy it. With no worries on childcare women would simply have more and more children for instance, rapidly driving society beyond its means of sufficiency.

Malthus' views of people are perhaps summed up by his view of the life of a “savage”, who would;

“slumber for ever under his tree unless he were roused from his torpor by the cravings of hunger or the pinching of cold... the exertions that he makes to avoid these evils are the exercises which form and keep in motion his faculties, which otherwise would sink into listless inactivity”.

And those who would create a society with more free time for the hardest working run into a further problem according to Malthus,

"Leisure is, without doubt, highly valuable to man, but taking man as he is, the probability seems to be that in the greater number of instances it will produce evil rather than good."

Of course there is reason to all this.

“The principle, according to which population increases, prevents the vices of mankind, or the accidents of nature, the partial evils arising from general laws, from obstructing the high purpose of creation.”

In other words, the check on the growth of human population exists to ensure that the amount of vice created by man is kept to a minimum.

Malthus believed in three checks on population growth. The first Moral Restraint, was obviously a good thing for the Reverend (how he wails about those who marry early and thus must have more children). The second was Vice. Malthus believed, like many of his time, that increased sexual behaviour reduced birth rates - but obviously, increased sex, drinking and other leisure pursuits of the lower orders was not a good thing. Finally, Misery was the largest check – famine, war, plague and so on.

Despite the impact of his work, Malthus had many critics. Not least because of the lack of evidence for many of his most central observations – that human population growths geometrically while food production only increases arithmetically for instance. Some of his most consistent critics were radicals like Marx and Engels who understood that Malthus' work was an assault on the very idea that you could improve the lot of the poor. I will deal with their criticisms elsewhere, but I would direct readers who want a brief introduction to the Marxist arguments against Malthus to the essay written on the 200th anniversary of its first publication in John Bellamy Fosters book “Ecology Against Capitalism”. [My review of that book here.]

Malthus lived in changing times. Much of the beliefs he held true would be swept away as the industrial revolution continued to transform society. The United Kingdom can easily support a population in excess of 56 million, even though he believed it impossible. There are other checks on population growth – contraception and abortion were words that the morally restrained author couldn't even consider. But the truth is, that the more educated and richer a society the lower birthrates are likely to be.

Today, Malthus is claimed by those who argue that environmental crisis can only be solved by a reduced population. But we must argue that the problem is not the number of individuals, but a social and economic system that delivers not in the interests of those people, but for the needs of big business. The biggest polluting nations per capita, are not necessarily the most highly populated. But even if they were, the danger with these neo-Malthusian arguments is that we blame the poorest in society for the situation the world is in, rather than challenging an inherently irrational system.

Peter Linebaugh - The Magna Carta Manifesto, Liberties and Commons for all

Peter Linebaugh's sweeping history of Magna Carta, one of the founding documents of law couldn't come at a better time. This ancient text, with its limits on tyranny, its prohibition of torture, its securing of the right to trial by jury and of course, habeas corpus, has never been needed so much. Under the guise of the war on terror, many governments have sought to undermine these ancient rights and in the first instance Linebaugh's book is a rallying cry to defend them. It is with a only a limited irony that the author can quote a legal expert recently saying "If anyone had told me 20 years ago that fighting for the rights in Magna Carta or the rule of law would be seen as revolutionary behaviour, I would have laughed."

However, Linebaugh's history shows us something else. Magna Carta has always been a battleground - it evolved out of the struggle between the Barons and King John, and its interpretation has been used by everyone from those who would fight for liberty and freedom, to those who would establish the free market in the New World and justify slavery.

Through the book we read of rebellion and counter-rebellion. From peasant revolts to lawyers seeking to prove the slave trade illegal, it takes many forms. But often what marks the rebellion is Magna Carta. Sometimes it's quoted legally, sometimes it's inscribed on banners or referred to in rhetoric. It's always part, however, of a collective consciousness.

Sometimes the book is hard going. Linebaugh's florid style can be hard to follow and sometimes I felt there was a certain expectation on the reader having some legal knowledge. Nonetheless, there is much here for a casual reader. Linebaugh is on of the best contemporary historians in the "history from below" school, and deserves a read.

Peter Linebaugh's explicit reason for writing this history is to put the idea of "the commons back on the agenda of the political constitution". In other words, the concept of collective rights, of equal access to resources and land, of social organisation and living must be part of our future, just as it is part of our past.

Related Review

Linebaugh - The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century

Leon Trotsky - An Appeal to the Toiling, Oppressed and Exhausted Peoples of Europe

This short book in the Penguin "Great Ideas" series, is actually a collection of essays and speeches spanning the period immediately before the Russian Revolutionary year of 1917 until Leon Trotsky's death - the last essay is his testament as he lies on his sick-bed, injured in an attack by Stalin's agents.

The essay opens with the Zimmerwald Manifesto against World War 1, written by Trotsky after the 1915 anti-war conference of socialists. It's much more grand sounding than the conference actually was, at this stage in the war, the genuine socialist movement was fragmented and small, the majority of socialists in Europe having swung into line behind their own governments and supported the slaughter. In his elegant and simple style Trotsky urges a new revolutionary movement of internationalism against the conflict.

"Workingmen and working women! Mothers and fathers! Widows and Orphans! Wounded and Crippled! We call to all of you who are suffering from the war and because of the war: beyond all borders, beyond the reeking battlefields, beyond the devastated cities and villages - Proletarians of all countries, unite!"

However most of the essays are of interest not because of their polemic, though most of them are this, but because of the insight you get into the actual workings and experience of the Russian Revolution. Particularly of interest are several speeches Trotsky gives to the Petrograd Soviet (the working class organ of elected delegates from across the city), immediately after the insurrection, and one just before May Day 1918 (there is no more precise date) as the Red Army is about to be formed to defend the Revolution from the belligerent capitalist nations who have sent armies to destroy workers power.

One if the speeches lists the questions that Trotsky answers from the floor, the accountability and debate that was taking place is clear and is a fascinating look at the living, breathing revolutionary moment.

If there is one criticism of this short work, it is the complete lack of context - the essays and speeches are reproduced with almost no clarifying information. Few dates are given, and given that Trotsky was speaking to the supreme body, it should be mandatory to explain to the casual reader what the Soviets were during the revolution. Nonetheless, if you do have a passing knowledge of the revolution and an interest in how the Bolsheviks organised and Leon Trotsky's life, then this is a brilliant and cheap addition to your bookshelf.

Dan Gardner - Risk, The Science and Politics of Fear

This is a sober and thoughtful examination of something that is altogether the opposite of those sentiments - fear. We are taken through a list of the most modern of paranoia's. Everything from concerns over cancer, terrorism to the threat of an asteroid impact wiping out life on Earth.

Along the way, the author doesn't simply explain how these things shouldn't terrify us as much as they do, but rather he tries to understand why we perceive some of these things as more dangerous than they actually are and asks, why we react to danger in the way we do.

Dan Gardner claims that it is "fear that defines us". Now I'm not sure how true that actually is, but certainly he is reflecting the way, in the modern world, political and social discourse is governed by threats to our way of life. As I read this, Swine Flu was dominating the headlines of every newspaper and TV news report, in a way that the ongoing deaths from preventable disease, war or hunger never does. Gardner points out that there actually has "never been a better time to be alive" - even in some of the poorest developing nations, people are healthier, living longer and suffering less from disease than at any other time in history. Yet we continue to believe that we are worse off, or in more danger than in the past.

Some of the most interesting chapters are those that unravel the myths behind the giant headlines. The discussion on Terrorism, focuses on precisely how unlikely anyone is to die of cancer, yet millions of US citizens continue to think they are personally under immediate threat of death from terrorism. Gardner uses some statistics that are almost comical if they weren't so sad - even if a 9/11 type attack had happened every month for a year, with the same death toll, the chances of a US citizen being killed would have been "roughly one in 7,750" yet the likelihood of dying in a car crash annually is "one in 6498".

Of course the threat of death by terrorism serves a purpose - it helps generate support for a political course of action by a government, it can help get through changes to the law that undermine civil liberties etc etc, but Gardner is most concerned here with why it is we are most likely to believe in the scary story, over the rational analysis. Only part of this, he argues, is because the media lie, or promote the unusual, exciting stories over the more sober ones.

For Gardner, our fear is down to the basic hard-wired instincts our ancestors developed millions of years ago as hunters, living by our wits, in the Savannas of Africa. We are governed by our "Gut" instincts - the instincts that helped our ancestors recognise the immediate threat of a man-eating lion, over the slower, more rational "Head" which calculated the risk.

There must of course be some truth in this, though it came across as a simplistic explanation to this reader - we have after all developed beyond our natural evolution in a way that allows us to think and work above our basic natural instincts. It's also true, that we rarely get to make judgements based on the complete picture of information - that's not how modern politicians, media outlets or headline writers work - so we aren't able to over come our instinctive fear of mugging, because we're constantly warned of the threat.

All in all though, this is a fascinating book, full of information on our modern lives that deserves to be made clearer to the public. Its a damning critique of how information is used in our society and can only help fuel a wider discussion of the issues.

Cecil Woodham-Smith - The Great Hunger, Ireland 1845-9

The Irish Potato Famine of 1845-9 probably resulted in 1.5 million deaths. A further million people fled the country looking for food and work. It's legacy, for millions of people in the Irish diaspora was a hatred of the British ruling class.

The potato blight that destroyed repeated crops was a purely natural phenomena. The starvation that followed however was entirely man made, and a direct result of racist, colonial attitudes of government in London. In addition, ministers were more interested in the profits of food merchants than the relief of the poor.

Cecil Woodham-Smith's social history of the period and of Ireland before and after the famine is a detailed extensive history of this sad period. She points fingers clearly, particularly at those ministers who would do nothing to provide assistance, seeing the Irish as a source of trouble, rather than people to help. "Would to God the Government would send us food instead of soldiers" lamented a starving citizen in County Mayo as soldiers arrived in the region.

Sir Charles Trevelyan, who oversaw relief efforts (such as they were) during the famine, had little but contempt for the Irish... "The Great evil with which we have to contend, is not the physical evil of the famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people." For Trevelyan, the greatest problem was that famine relief might upset the profits of merchants and undermine free trade.

Particularly during 1847, Ireland continued to export grain, which that year was a bumper harvest. The population had no money and no employment, and the grain crop was exported to pay rent. Speculators and landlords amassed huge profits - indeed Trevelyan saw opportunity for profit in the famine, rather than horror. At one point he ended relief completely as economic downturn arrived, saying that he would "leave the rest to God."

The author documents the few attempts at resistance - but the population was too exhausted and hungry to mount any serious attempts at rebellion or insurrection, and she shows how "the Irish people starved and died in one world, the landowning classes inhabited another."

First published in 1962 this book is a valuable read for anyone who thinks that there is something natural about natural disaster. It is a grim reminder that the rich and powerful care little for the poorest of the poor.

Related Reviews

Davis - Late Victorian Holocausts
Kee - The Most Distressful Country

Iain M. Banks - Against A Dark Background

Iain M. Banks' Against A Dark Background is perhaps his most militaristic novel. It's heroine Lady Sharrow begins the novel living in exile. The Huhsz, a merciless religous cult, believe that the coming of the messiah cannot take place until her bloodline is ended, and Sharrow begins a long, complex and winding quest to find the last "Lazy Gun", the only prize that will buy her enough credit with the corrupt Huhsz to escape her inevitable murder by them.

Sharrow assembles a gang of friends and former comrades, who used to steal antiques and relics with her, and they begin to follow a series of increasingly bizarre clues to the location of the Lazy Gun. Several of the clues are genetic - in one case, contact with Sharrow's blood leads a local aristocrat to dance in a seemingly random way, until his heart stops. Later mapping of his dance route, reveals the next stage of the quest.

Against A Dark Background is also very concerned with technical and scientific aspects of Sharrow's career and planetary life. Detailed descriptions occur of her weapons. Here's Sharrow buying a replacement gun, a heavy duty weapon known as a HandCannon, from a shopkeeper who makes the mistake of trying to sell her a more ladylike weapon;

"And a HandCannon, with the eighty-mill silencer, five GP clips, three six-five AP/wire-flechettes clips, two bipropellant HE clips, and a Special Projectile Pack if you have one -- the one with the embedding rounds, not the signalers. I assume the night-sight on this toy is compatible?"

Being a Banks' novel though, the book isn't short on interesting social commentary and details of everyday life. Nor is it afraid of pointing out the differences in life for the adventurous Sharrow and the ordinary people of the planet who have, it seems suffered through a series of violent civil wars and religous crusades.

In the end though, the novel boils down to an exciting chase and battle. On the one side Sharrow is the last of her small band, with a loyal android for assistance. On the other, the evil and tyrannical figure who would destroy the planets way of life for good. In someways there are many cliches, but Banks does it with such stlye that he can be forgiven for this. Standing alone from the Culture novels, this is certainly not just a read for hardcore Banks' fans, but it's one that will entertain all lovers of Science Fiction.

Related Reviews

Iain M. Banks - Matter

Francis Pryor - Britain in the Middle Ages, An Archaeological History

Francis Pryor makes it clear in his introduction that this isn't intended to be either a definitive academic history, nor a social history of life in the British Isles 1000 years ago. Rather its a narrative history, which tries to bring out the general trends of the period following the departure of the Roman legions and the approximate end of the Middle Ages with the dissolution of the monastries.

Pryor's emphasis on archaeology (and indeed his breathtaking openness towards public and amateur involvement) leads him to view the period of history, very differently to those who perceive this era of time as the Dark Ages.

The most fascinating parts of the book are when Pryor looks at the buildings and other artifacts of the time. We discover a world that is constantly developing, growing and occasionally moving backwards. Foreign invaders - the Vikings and the Normans for instance bring their own changes and traditions, though, in the case of the Vikings, they are far from the destructive warriors, clad in horned helmets so beloved of Hollywood.

Pryor says that this isn't a social history. Though neither is this a history of kings and other great men. In that sense, it is also a history of change and social transformation - well worth reading if you are bored of Kings and Queens.

Related Reviews

Francis Pryor - Britain BC

Nicholas Monsarrat - The Cruel Sea

Everyone should have at least one favourite novel that they return to year after year. One of mine is Nicholas Monsarrat's The Cruel Sea.

The novel deals with the terrors and horrors of the Atlantic conflict in World War II - specifically, the experiences of a group of tremendously inexperienced men sailing an escort ship in protection of the convoys bringing supplies to the UK from Canada and the US. In this sense, the novel is like many others that came out of the Second World War - written by men who had served in the armed services, had seen action and perhaps used the process of putting the stories down on paper, as a method of dealing with their memories.

What makes The Cruel Sea more than just a war novel, is the intensely detailed portraits of the men and women involved. You know these people intimately. You follow them as they stay up for hours on end, because the gales are so strong they can't sleep. You stand next to them on the bridge as they scan the horizon for U-boats. You're with them most painfully, as they rescue wounded sailors and desperately try to comfort dying men.

But, and this is what makes the novel truely brilliant, you are most with them when they die. No one can comprehend war who hasn't seen it. The suffering of the victims of conflict is usually reduced to numbers - 3 dead in Iraq, 2 wounded in Afghanistan. Monsarrat creates these fully rounded characters - hurt by cheating wives, worried about the coming baby, scared of the sexually transmitted disease they've contracted - and their sudden and painful death brings the reality of conflict to the reader like a slap in the face.

This isn't an anti-war novel like Johnnny Got His Gun. But it's a novel that is about the reality of war and as such, it should be read by everyone, particularly those who think war is a game, or those who can play so easily with other men's lives.

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Monsarrat - Three Corvettes

Brian Clegg – Infinity, the Quest to Think the Unthinkable.

The concept of infinity is one of those slightly misunderstood scientific ideas. Everyone thinks they know what it means, but Brian Clegg's book is about showing that the concept itself has had a complex history. For children, “infinity is the biggest number there is”, I remember being very young and announcing to bemused parents that I was going to “count to infinity”.

Clegg's examination into how infinity has become a much more formal (I was going to say concrete, but it is anything but) mathematical construct is a fairly easy and enjoyable read. His introduction to set theory is one of the most straight forward I've ever read, and his little pencil portraits of everyone from Aristotle to Einstein help enliven the subject.

By the end of the book, you get to examining such strange constructs as Gabriel's Horn, a simple shape with a finite volume, but infinite surface area. You could fill it with paint, but it couldn't contain enough material to coat the inside of the horn itself! I particularly enjoyed his explanation of Cantor's proof that there are an infinite numbers between 0 and 1... leading to the idea that there are different “levels” of infinity.

This isn't a book for mathematicians, though I am sure they'll enjoy it, particularly if its been 15 years since they last looked at a Venn diagram, it's a great introduction to a fascinating subject for the layman. Worth a read, if you've ever gazed at the universe and wondered at what it contains.

"My Bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite."

Shakespeare, Romeo & Juliet, II. ii 133

Andrew Kaufman - All My Friends Are Superheroes

Despite the strange world that Andrew Kaufman's book is set in – one populated by a limited, but significant number of superheros (Toronto, Canada has 249 Superheroes we learn, “None of whom have secret identities.”) - the story is actually about that most important of ideas. The human condition.

In this case, Tom our hero, isn't of the super variety. He is an ordinary guy, whose friends and friends of friends all have particular special abilities. His girlfriend, The Perfectionist, can put things in order with the power of her mind. Unfortunately, on her wedding day, her jealous ex-boyfriend “Hypno” uses his own superpower to hypnotise The Perfectionist into not seeing Tom.

For reasons too complex to go into here, Tom has the length of a short flight to Vancouver to get The Perfectionist to see him, otherwise their love will be destroyed and his heart broken.

Now anyone who has suffered from unrequited love, will know Tom's predicament. To be invisible to the one you most desire is an unpleasant experience, but to be in that situation, while knowing that the other loves you intensely and can't understand your absence is pure torture.

The beauty of Andrew Kaufman's work though isn't this bizarre concoction of a world. It's the little aspects of the lives of those living in it that illuminate our own, non-super, ordinary lives. There is a beautiful moment in the book, described by Tom as he reflects on his love affair with The Perfectionist, and in particular their first night together.

The Perfectionist takes him to a hitherto unseen room in her house. Inside there are only two boxes. One labeled “Lover” one labeled “Friend”. She makes him choose which one to get in. Tom picks up the one marked “Friend” and puts it into the other.

“Then he turned around, picked up the Perfectionist, and lifted her inside the boxes. He climbed in with her. In the morning, there wasn't much left of either box.”

What starts off as a seemingly clunky metaphor, becomes a beautifully surreal examination of the complexities of relationships.

Many reviews of the book concentrate on the small little vignettes of other superheros. The Projectionist, The Battery, The Sloth, The Wild Mood Swinger. The details don't matter, but the names hint at their flaws and thus become more of a metaphor for us mere mortals than any description of human life can do.

Tom's desperate struggle to get his lover to see him is really about how we all struggle with the odds stacked against us. His solution to the problem, is of course, a triumph of logic, rather than some fantastical unknown super power that some may expect. That in itself hints at the solution to all of our problems.

Thomas M. Disch - The Word of God

Organised religion certainly needs the fun poked at it, and Thomas Disch certainly does that here. Now any book that contains the line "Jesus loved creme brulee" would be a sure fire hit with this avowed atheist, but Disch's book is so much more than that. It pokes fun at the concept of religion and God, by being the word of God himself. In this case, the God (there are many) is the author himself. Self declared as such, Disch argues his particular world view, proves his point with a few minor miracles, and tells the improbable story of his origin.

Along the way, we meet a few famous characters in history, many of whom are tangled up in a complex plot of Satan's to destroy Thomas Disch's parents liason, and thus prevent God occuring. One of the side effects of this, is that Germany and Japan will win World War II. The chief instrument of Satan's scheme is the resurrected Phillip K. Dick. For the purpose of this novel (and perhaps in reality) Phillip K. Dick holds an almightly grudge against Disch, carried with him down into the bowels of hell after his death.

It's all quite fun - very little of it means anything particularly deep, though we have the occasional nugget of philosophical thought, ruminations of opera and art, and snippets of favourite books and poems (some of which are even real I trust) but mostly this should be read for the cynical humour and barbed jokes.

It is a clever book, worth reading, if only to annoy and amuse someone more religious than me.

Frank Henderson - Life on the Track; Memoirs of a socialist worker

Since I heard it was going to be published, I've desperately be waiting for Frank Henderson's auto-biography to be published. For those who've never met him, or heard him speak, Frank is a retiring character - for someone whose life has been as full as his, he doesn't seem to be someone who has spent his life in struggle.

Born in 1925 to a Trade Union family in the West Midlands, Frank was old enough to serve in the later days of the Second World War, and be part of the British forces that put down rebellion in Greece and Palestine in the war's aftermath. But for most of his life, Frank was a socialist militant working in the car industry "on the track". Much of this time was spent working in the Longbridge plant. That giant car factory that dominated so much of working class life for the people of Birmingham for many years. Frank describes a time when Trade Union organisation was so powerful it seems almost impossible today.

Working in car industry in the 1960s, a period of boom for the UK companies, Trade Unionists had effectively controlled production. If the workers didn't like something, the profits stopped until management had solved the problem. Even before and during the war the union movement had great power. Frank describes being 15 and being asked to do the job of a 16 year old. Despite his manager wanting this done, the union Branch Committee had to make a ruling. Their ruling was that Frank could do the work, but only if management paid him the adult rate - twice what he was on. Management accepted the decision.

Trade Union politics for much of Frank's life were dominated by the politics of the Communist Party. Frank never joined the CP - instead his political life followed the ups and downs of the British Trotskyist movement, though eventually he joined the International Socialists, forerunners of the current Socialist Workers Party in the UK.

Frank sees being in a socialist organisation as crucial to his activity. Describing the aftermath of the Birmingham Pub Bombings at Longbridge he says he had "never been so scared in his life". In the anti-Irish lynch mob atmosphere that followed the IRA attacks, Frank had to speak out.

"I said the people responsible for the bombing were the people responsible for all the trouble in Northern Ireland and that was the British imperialists."

While the meeting voted to go on a planned protest march, Frank thinks that he made a small different to the atmosphere.

"I noticed, possibly as a result of what I'd said, that a lot of banners saying "Sack all the Irish bastards", "Kill the Irish Bastards", and slogans like that were chucked on the floor and people were walking over them. From the end where I'd spoke people were carrying banners saying, "Bring our boys home". Now, "Bring our boys home" is a long way from a slogan like "Troops out now", but it's a bigger distance from "Hang all Irish bastards".

Frank doesn't think that he could have done what he did without being a member of the IS, "giving him a bit of backbone when things are tough." I think he is right to feel proud when he goes on to say;

"I felt, possibly for the first time in my life, a little pride in myself for doing something. It was a lesson in the value of being a party member that has stuck with me ever since."

Frank saw it all. From the Battle of Satley Gates and the miners strikes that destroyed the Tory governments of the early 1970s, to the 1984 miners strike, Thatcher's victory and the defeat of the Trade Union movement. His thoughts on the role of rank and file movements to give confidence to genuine shop stewards networks, the role of the Communist Party in undermining the left, as well as militancy in a time of economic downturn are particularly interesting and relevant.

If you're interested in Oral history and the working class movement of the last 60 years, this is an excellent read. It finishes with a afterword by Marxist historian Matt Perry who goes through some of the detail of the period, in particular the reasons behind the decline of British manufacturing industry.

Bookmarks have done a great service to a new generation of political activists by bringing out this book. It will help them understand the importance of workplace organisation and socialist politics. There could be no greater tribute to the life of a socialist than being able to learn the lessons from him or her and Frank Henderson certainly has much to teach us.

Iain M. Banks - Matter

The sheer scale of Iain M Banks' Science Fiction always excites me. His ability to blend far reaching ideas with a galactic scale, without ever loosing sight of the minutae that make up society gives his fiction a real depth. His latest SF outing, Matter, doesn't disappoint, not least in the scale of the printed book. Weighing in with 550 plus pages, a glossary of characters and ship names, you know as you pick it up, that you are in for a detailed read.

At it's most basic, this is a classic story of revenge. In fact, the basic tale of a murdered King's son seeking justice as well as a route to the throne in the context of a changing Feudalistic society is one that has been done many times in the fantasy genre. What is clever about this take, is that the Fuedal society we read about in Matter is actually located on a "Shell World". Not only is it bottom of the league in terms of technological development, it is actually physically underneath many other layers of this artifical planet.

In Iain M. Banks' universe, such constructs are not unusual, though no one really knows their point. In this novel they serve as a metaphor for social and technological power. Leaving aside the technical details of how such worlds work (something the author doesn't do, I should add), as you rise through the strated societies, each alien grouping tends, in the simplest explanation, to control, or at least influence the weaker societies below.

The stage is of course set for a clever interaction of different societies and different cultural understandings. Central to this is the journey of Prince Ferbin out into the external galaxy to search for his sister. As he encounters other races, societies and cultures his own conceptions of the status quo break down. His sister has gone through a similar process. Most interesting though, is the Prince's relationship with his servant - someone whose understanding of how society really works is much more critical than his Prince would dare suspect.

With this novel, Banks' has made his imaginary universe a much more real and deep place. It isn't all good - when a more powerful society intervenes in the internal workings of a weaker one - things don't often turn out well for the majority of people in the weaker place. (You might want to think about foreign intervention in the Middle East or Africa while you read the book, as, I am sure the author would have wanted you too).

Alongside most of Iain Banks' more recent SF, this novel is one to read and re-read. Unfortunately, his recent non-SF fiction tends to be more plodding and shallow. Perhaps this is pro-SF prejudice on my part, but I think sometimes political polemic works better in a novel when its slightly below the surface, rather than thrown at the reader.

If you want to know more about the book, you might like to read the interview that Iain M. Banks gave to Socialist Review when it was first published, it gives more information on the ideas behind its development. SR's own review is here.

Raymond Chandler - The Little Sister

The Little Sister is not one of Raymond Chandlers better known novels. It is however one of the classic Phillip Marlowe novels and has all the hall marks of the better known stories like "The Long Goodbye" and "The Lady in the Lake".

It begins with Marlowe, bored in his office, chasing the flies that are annoying him. His boredom is disturbed when the oddly named Orfamy Quest visits, looking for a private detective to help her find her missing brother. Orfamy comes from a tiny town in Kansas and holds all the prejudices that you might imagine for someone visiting the big city, with all its vices, for the first time.

The plot itself matters little - Chandler's novels should be read for their atmosphere and description, rather than the complex tales of intrigue and betrayal. This is the sort of story that you just join up to for the ride. On this trip, we follow Marlowe as he meets sex-starved movie starlets, murder victims with ice-picks in their necks and corrupt policemen, as well as nasty gangsters. In some ways, all the cliches are here, in others it's a fabulous example of the detective genre.

Chandler is an amazing writer, whose cynicism towards the inhabitants of the big city will bring many a dry smile to the modern reader. Worth digging this one out from the library.

Related Review

Chandler - The Long Goodbye

Graham Greene – Brighton Rock

The classic story of the low level gangster trying to break through into the big time has been told many times. Rarely though, has it been told with such a biting cynicism for the human condition. Nor has it been related with such a bleak outlook on a whole town.

The Brighton of the 1930s, so well described in Graham Greene’s classic novel, is a city slowly being swamped by the dreams of those who visit. From the London Day Trippers we meant in the opening chapter – desperately seeking respite from the big city and their dull, boring lives, searching for alcohol, entertainment and love – to those who circle around the visitors on race-day, hoping to make a few pounds to keep their own heads above water, these are by and large a people without hope, with repetitive lives, whose only hope of something better is a lucky break.

The novel has a lot of luck in it – Hale, the unlucky, doomed victim we meet in the opening paragraphs of the book, makes a living from leaving messages in public places on behalf of his newspaper. If he is challenged, his finder wins a prize, as do those who find his message cards. His editor likes him to be found, but occasionally go undiscovered, to save on a few pounds. Sadly, Hales pride in his ability to o the job properly doesn’t allow him to escape his own luck and destiny. He knows, as the opening lines put it, “that they meant to murder him”.

The killers – a small time Brighton mob outfit – have their own dealings with luck. A few coincidences and their ability to get away with the crime will fall apart. Instead, their leader, Pinkie, has to pile crime upon crime, upon murder in a desperate attempt to escape the law. Of course, his own self-belief, means that those around him suffer, and more and more innocents are pulled into this growing circle of bad luck, until the only hope in this ever darker story is a single woman, who herself only met Hale through chance, refusing to belief the official story of his death.

The tragedy of the story is not the individual crimes. Pinkies’ self belief loads the stakes so high that few can escape the final collapse of his plans. The innocent girl he drags into the mess as the story continues escapes almost totally from what has happened. Indeed the reader is led to believe that she has actually, unlike almost everyone else in Greene’s Brighton broken free of the restraints upon her, restraints imposed by class, family and poverty.

The final lines then, “the worst horror of all” aren’t then about her personal pain, nor those of all the victims along the way- it is the crushing of her dreams and the realisation that there is no hope at all, something few of us could really survive.

Tony Cliff - Trotsky; Towards October 1879 - 1917

This first volume of Tony Cliff's biography of Leon Trotsky is a compelling read. Unfortunately, it isn't the best introduction to the politics and ideas of Trotsky - reading it requires a certain knowledge of events leading up to the Russian Revolution of October 1917. That said, it doesn't require the deepest historical understanding - with this work Tony Cliff was trying to reassert the importance of Leon Trotsky's ideas to a new audience.

You cannot however understand Trotsky without knowing a great deal about Lenin. This might at first seem strange - the two revolutionaries had a political falling out early on in their careers - over a seemingly trivial decision about the nature of the socialist organisation they were trying to create. During this period (Trotsky called them his "wasted years") the two men, who were to go on to lead the Russian Revolution, frequently exchanged polemical attacks on each others ideas and methods.

However Trotsky's brilliance was his ability to develop and understand events in Russia, he developed the theory of Permanent Revolution, which Lenin later came to support - this was the idea that even a backwards, effectively feudal country like Russia, with an underdeveloped working class could lead a working class revolution. This theory was, of course, to underpin the reality of the Russia Revolution and simultaneously to make both Lenin and Trotsky internationalists. The backward Russian working class could seize power, but without international revolution, their state would soon become isolated and distorted.

Cliff's biography comes alive when the events of 1917 are described. The 1905 revolution which Trotsky helped lead is fascinating, primarily because it shows Trotsky as a leader who can handle defence and withdrawal in the face of a stronger opposition. When Trotsky is re-elected to the leadership of the Petrograd Soviet in 1917, the balance of power rests much more on the side of the revolutionary workers and Trotsky's brilliant organising and strategising demonstrates the "art" that is insurrection.

Despite Trotsky's heroic life, this isn't a biography that hides Trotsky's failings. The writers who, as part of the International Socialist tradition, rediscovered the genuine revolutionary tradition for a new generation of socialists, were never afraid to criticise Trotsky's mistakes, in order to learn the lessons of History. In particular, Cliff repeatedly underlines the error that Trotsky made in distancing himself from Lenin's Bolshevik party. To be fair to Trotsky though, this was something that he himself wasn't afraid to acknowledge.

Shining through this volume of the work, is Trotsky's brilliance. As a polemicist, a theoretician and a writer. He is also a man of humour and emotion. But most of all he is someone who dedicated his life to making a revolution happen, defending its gains and constantly trying to organise those who had the power to change the world. Learning from his life is part of learning how we can challenge the existing system in the future.

Related Reviews

Cliff - Trotsky; Sword of the Revolution 1917 - 1923
Hallas - Trotsky's Marxism
Choonara - A Rebels' Guide to Trotsky
Trotsky - An Appeal to the Toiling, Oppressed and Exhausted Peoples of Europe

Richard Overy - Russia's War

Despite what you learn from a childhood watching British war films, or even the potted history of the war you can pick up from The History Channel, World War II wasn't won by the British and Americans invading France - despite the importance of that conflict. Hitler's German was military defeated by enormous sacrifices from the ordinary people of the Soviet Union.

Some of these sacrifices were, to be frank, unnecessary. Joseph Stalin's supreme self confidence led him to underestimate the likelihood of an attack and the country was ill prepared. More of his decisions were suicidal for the people involved - Germany's war machine was to powerful to be even hindered by small group of lightly armed militia. However the method of fighting the war changed, and it is this transformation that is so well documented in Overy's book on the Eastern Front.

Terrified of being challenged in his position, Stalin was initially reluctant to allow the freedom of movement and imagination to his generals. This led to a monolithic response to the German invasion - one that refused to adapt to changing German tactics. In later years, Stalin was prepared to devolve much more control to his generals, and these, in particular Zhukov, proved brilliant at defeating German armies in gigantic set piece battles.

This is a short book, so it is necessarily lacking in details. But it is intended to be a sweeping history of the period, so it doesn't bring out all the terrible defeats. The 900 day siege of Leningrad is dealt with in a short chapter, as is the unbelievable ferocious conflict at Stalingrad. This isn't a problem though, it is a fascinating read - those particular battles are dealt with in great detail in other excellent works.

Overy uses the recently opened Soviet Archives to illuminate his accounts, and challenge other ideas and myths. He argues for instance, that the British and US aid sent to the USSR, was far more important in victory than has hitherto been thought.

Despite the immense victory that the people of the USSR inflicted on Nazi Germany, we shouldn't let this close our eyes to the nature of the dictatorship that led the war effort. Overy documents the torture, murder, massacre and violence at the heart of Russian society. Those of us who have long argued that Russia wasn't a socialist society will not be unaware of this, but for a generation after the war, Russia's victory was further evidence of the socialist nature of its society. That said, no one, least of all the Germans expected Russia to triumph. Overy quotes the American Secretary of War as predicting that "Germany will be thoroughly occupied in beating Russia for a minimum of a month and possible maximum of three months."

The true cost of Russia's war cannot really be comprehended. The figures are almost incomprehensible - here are a few to illustrate the point. "Stalingrad cost the lives of 470,000 soldiers and airmen. The battle of Kursk was won at a cost of only 70,000 dead." Kursk was the largest tank battle of the war - 600 German tanks faced 850 Soviet ones. Half a million Soviet civilians died from bombing raids during the war - ten times the number that died in the London Blitz. In probably the worst siege of the war, that of Leningrad, Overy estimates that over a third - more than a million people - of the pre-war population died.

While this is an excellent history of the war, it is essentially a military history - the background chapters were Overy deals with the Russian Revolution and civil war are much weaker, particularly his peculiar way of examining Trotsky simply as a military hero, who simply "lost interest" in military matters once the civil war was won. This isn't surprising. Trotsky was a revolutionary leader, not a military general. His leadership of the Red Army was based on the need to defend the revolution, rather than a particular desire for military glory. These small criticisms aside, read this book to understand where the cold war came from and to try and comprehend the cost of the greatest military clash of history.

Fred Pearce - When the Rivers Run Dry - What happens when our water runs out?

There is a great irony that we live on a planet which is two thirds covered in water, yet millions of people around the globe live in areas of water shortage, or areas where the water isn't safe to drink.

New Scientist writer Fred Pearce looks at the reasons why water has become such a limited resource - there are many reasons - climate change has played its part, but more often than not, human changes have caused the problems. In many areas of the world - in particular places in the Middle East, though the US and China are great culprits to, people are using ancient underground acquifiers. These fossil reservoirs of water take thousands of years to fill, but are being emptied at a rate far faster then they are replenished.

Pearce demonstrates how sometimes our irrational use of water - to keep the fountains running in desert cities for instance - leads to these shortages. But he also illustrates how attempts to store water have often led to problems. He describes the mania for dams to produce hydro-power and store water for future use, has surprisingly caused more problems then they have solved, being the source of flooding, pollution and destruction of ecological areas. There is the insanity of huge reservoirs in the desert, water evaporating into the air while downstream people die of thirst.

This isn't a cheerful book. Pearce offers us a glimpse of a future were millions of people suffer from drought and water shortages. But he does show how a different approach could solve many problems. He challenges the idea of big engineering problems as the solution, and shows how localised projects across the world could solve many of the problems associated with wate - in this sense the book is a hopeful one that does also offer a glimpse of a much better society - where human society is much more in balance with the rhythms and cycles of the natural world, in this case, the very ebb and flow of the rivers, streams and seas.

Peter Biskind - Easy Riders, Raging Bulls

The 1970s was an important era of transition for Hollywood. It marked the time when the blockbuster summer film came to the for, making the major film companies rich beyond anyone's imagination. It marked a brief time, when film directors were gods, commanding huge amounts of cash and ruling, dictatorially over actors, film crew and even the movie companies themselves.

Inspired in part by the radical years of the late 1960s, but more often, inspired by great European film makers whose own radical ideas led them to challenge film convention, a new breed of US director shook up the industry. This was a period when great films stunned viewers - Raging Bull, Apocalypse Now, The Godfather, American Graffiti and the first of the blockbusters, Jaws and Star Wars.

The men who made them, garnered fabulous wealth and Peter Biskind here looks at those directors. They are all larger than life, many of them seem to have severe character defects (or at least eccentricities), Biskind lets us eavesdrop on the gossip and stories of the time, tells us just how cocaine was the fuel for the entire industry, and shows how alcoholism was part and parcel of a film maker's life.

Women do feature, though usually as the abused, ignored and hated spouses of these men. With the power and wealth of the directors came lots of sexual encounters - the myriad of affairs destroying many a Hollywood marriage.

If you like film, you'll probably love this book. Though the book has little on the films themselves, concentrating more on the processes that allowed their creation - the deals, the characters and the traumas (as well as the occasional over-budget disaster), it is an easy read and will probably mean you watching the movies with a slightly, perhaps more jaundiced eye.

Related Reviews

Biskind - Seeing is Believing
Frankel - High Noon

Dalton Trumbo - Johnny Got His Gun

Few novels can be as responsible for fundamentally changing the outlook of its readers as Dalton Trumbo's classic anti-war story, "Johnny Got His Gun". It is ironic that as fervent a reader as myself, with over 7 years of anti-war campaigning in the Stop the War Coalition here in the UK has never read it.

Written in 1938 as the clouds of war loomed above the world again, it's centred on young US soldier drafted to fight in the trenches of the First World War. The horrific reality of Joe Bonham's situation becomes clear as the story begins, he awakes to find himself without a face, arms or legs - though with perfect clarity of thought and feeling in the remaining parts of his body.

Joe begins years of a loneliness that we can hardly imagine. His carers don't know that he can think or understand his surroundings, so they clean and change him as regular as clockwork, while all Joe can do is remember his past, isolated from everything around him. No one even knows his name, so no friends or family visit, though Joe reflects that his lack of a face wouldn't be much to look upon anyway.

Time is measured by the hospital routine, Joe begins to have a purpose as he works out his surroundings by the vibrations of the bed and the touch of the different nurses, but a truely poignant and painful moment is when Joe learns to tell the dawn from the temperature on his skin... "if I never have anything else I will always have dawn and morning sunlight".

But inside him, rage at the world that has left him to suffer like this grows. In the introduction Trumbo tells us that a retired military man claimed that the work was a "pacifist" novel. This isn't true. The seering rage and anger at the heart of the story, the blood spitting angry climax is nothing less than a call to revolution, to turn the gun onto those who would make war, and send young men to die and suffer.

By a strange coincidence I read this through the night as most of the world waited to see whether Barack Obama would win the US election. When I heard that he was the new president, my first thought was that I hoped he had read this novel as he prepared to take over US foreign policy. Even if he has, its time a new generation of people read it - just in case.

Marcus Rediker - The Slave Ship – A Human History

Marcus Rediker is one of two historians of the “Revolutionary Atlantic”. Along with Peter Linebaugh, he co-authored one of the best accounts of emergent capitalism in the countries that surrounded that ocean. His latest work, is a study of the Slave Trade, examined through the historical records and accounts of the people who built, crewed, and lived aboard the slave ships, as well as those who were transported, tortured and killed on them.

The Slave Trade was a moment in human history that is almost unparalleled in suffering. In his introduction, Rediker explains that over the “four hundred years of the slave trade, from the late fifteenth to the late nineteenth century, 12.4 million souls were loaded onto slave hips….. along the dreadful way, 1.8 million of them died, their bodies cast overboard to the sharks that followed the ships. Most of the 10.6 million who survived were thrown into the bloody maw of a killing plantation system.”

Rediker points out that this figures underestimate those who died and suffered as many more people died as they were forcibly marched from inside Africa to the slave ships waiting on the ocean. He quotes a conservative estimate of a further 5 million men, women and children dying before they reached the sea.

This blood-bath existed only to feed the profits made from the sugar plantations in the Caribbean and the United States. But this is not a history of that aspect of slavery, rather it is an account of the brutalities that made up the actual transportation. This illuminates two things – firstly the immense profits available from the actual trade were worth huge investments by European and American traders, despite the real dangers that could threaten the success of a slave voyage. Secondly, at every stage of the voyage, the enslaved resisted what was happening to them. Rediker recounts many tales of insurrection and resistance, from hunger strikes to murder, and he also makes the painful point, that once your own body is the property of someone else, suicide is not just an escape from imprisonment, it is also an act of rebellion.

The last chapter of this book looks at the slave trade from the point of view of those who struggled to expose its horrors and end it. From those who had experienced the pain and suffering to those whose moral beliefs made them stand up and be counted we learn how the nature of the slave ships themselves became the strongest weapon against the trade. The infamous drawing of the slave ship Brooks, showing its human cargo packed in below decks was printed over and over again to display the barbarity. Rediker’s emphasis on the slaves own rebellion makes it clear that it wasn’t simply action by Europeans that brought the trade to an end, but the groundswell of anti-slavery action in Europe and the US played its role in abolition.

Rediker places the slave trade firmly in its context – in the needs of an emergent capitalist mode of production, that wanted (or even needed) the super-profits available. Its an interesting point that viewed from this point, the victims of the trade weren’t just the African peoples, but also those who were dehumanised and destroyed by the conditions on the ships. Almost 22% of sailors on slave ships died as a result of the poor conditions, appalling food and brutality of the officers. This isn’t to paint the sailors as innocents in the slave trade, rather to put them in their class position, people to be exploited by the ship owners and officers to ensure the maximum profits from a voyage. That these sailors took part in the brutalisation of the captives is of course part of their own complex story, one that also included mutiny and rebellion (like the great Liverpool uprising that targeted those who were central to the slave trade).

The end of the book is a discussion about justice – Rediker ends with a discussion on how to “redress a monstrous historical injustice”. His conclusion isn’t simply one of apologies or financial compensation, rather he imagines a “social movement for justice” led by the descendants of those who suffered, which could come up with proper redress. It’s a laudable idea and one that will stand firmly in the traditions of rebellion and resistance that so marked those who were the victims of this terrible moment in our history.

Related Reviews

Rediker - The Amistad Rebellion
Rediker - The Slave Ship
Rediker - Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
Rediker & Linebaugh - The Many Headed Hydra 

Mary Beard - Pompeii, The Life of A Roman Town

There is a danger with books of archaeology, particularly those that are about sites like Pompeii, where we know alot about the day to day lives of the inhabitants. The danger is that the author and the reader becomes obsessed with the minutiae of the historical people. We end up trying to imagine how our lives are similar, or how "they" did they things that "we" do now.

In and of itself there is nothing wrong with this - though I remember once my mother pointing out to me, while I did some history homework, that when I looked at the past, I should remember that people like us were the people who grew the crops, rather than those that lived in the castles. We can learn alot by imagining how people ate, bathed, travelled and all the rest of those crucial things - but if that's all we do, then we can seriously limit the lessons that history can teach us.

Now Mary Beard's latest book doesn't fall into this trap. There is much here for the casual reader to enjoy, and much to make sure the visitor to Pompeii gets a more fulfilling understanding of what happened in a Roman town. But this book has so much more to offer.

Firstly, Mary takes on those, like the guides on the site, who encourage us to imagine Pompeii as a typical Roman town, suddenly interrupted and deserted. Preserved like a fly in amber, at its moment of death. Of course this is partly true - we have found "loaves of bread found in the oven, abandoned as they baked; the team of painters who scarpered in the middle of redecorating a room, leaving behind their pots of paint".

But those who lived in Pompeii knew what might have been coming, they had after all the experience of an earlier eruption - indeed much of the repair work going on may have been left over from the damage that that caused. Those who remained were likely to be only a small proportion of those who considered the city their home.

Mary Beard brings us the latest in theories and discoveries from the city's remains. Interesting, she often tells us what "some" historians think, and what "others" believe, but refuses to come down on either side, siting lack of evidence, or other plausible theories. The archaeological world that she describes is often one where lack of evidence hasn't stopped someone coming up with a theory to explain something. Of course we also learn how much we don't know. How did the participants react to animal sacrifice, who paid for it, what happened to the carcases afterwards?

Something that comes across strongly from Mary's writings is the class element to Roman society. In some ways, this aspect is obvious - school children learn that Roman had an emperor and slaves, and all the different strata's between. What Mary brings to life is the reality of what this meant for people in Rome.

Here she writes about Roman sex life, comparing it to the way they ate their food.

"... all Roman men married. Sexual fidelity to a wife was not prized or even particularly admired. In the search for pleasure, the wives, daughters and sons of other elite men were off-limits ... The bodies of slaves and, up to a point, of social inferiors, both men and women, were there for the taking. It was not simply that no one minded if a man slept with his slave. That was, in part at least, what slaves were for. Poorer citizens, with a less-ready supply of servile sexual labour, would no-doubt use prostitutes instead. As with dining, the rich provided for themselves 'in-house', while the poor looked outside."

Slave had little or nothing in Roman society, the poorest had little more, and their dwellings rarely had a kitchen or dining area as we know it. Consequently the poor ate out all the time, the rich could entertain and dine at home.

So writ large, in terms of sexual relationships and cooking we have the structure of Roman society and for me, this is far more illuminating than all the guesses about how people might have lived.

Mary Beard's book is a fascinating work on Pompeii. I wish I had had the chance to read it before my only visit. I am inspired to go again, and I will definitely take it with me when I do.

Iain Banks - The Steep Approach to Garbadale

The complex relationships at the heart of big business have been a theme in earlier works by Iain Banks, though in "The Steep Approach to Garbadale" the author looks at the much more difficult business relationships caused by a large family run organisation.

The Wopulds run an immensely successful company that made its initial fortune manufacturing the Empire board game around the world. The game itself seems to be a more complex version of Risk - since it's invention, further success and profits have been made as the game has expanded into the world of arcades, consoles and PCs.

The story focuses on Alban McGill (amusingly nicknamed All Bran by his more working class friends) whose difficult relationship with his family centres on his mother suicide (graphically described early in the novel) and his love affair with his cousin Sophie. Alban is constantly on the metaphorical run, suffering the consequences of his traumatic childhood and the pressure inherent in being a liberal leftie, part of a rich, profit motivated family (at one point he is told off by the family matriarch for expressing his displeasure at her toast 'free trade not fair trade')

All this comes to a head as the Wopulds face being bought out by a giant American games corporation who desperately want to use the Empire! name to consolidate their power. The run-up to the Emergency General Meeting where this is thrashed out forms the backdrop to Alban confronting his difficult past and finally understanding some of the reality behind a carefully constructed facade.

All well and good. It's an enjoyable read, though the "twist" was fairly obvious long before it was spelled out in the books final pages. But I was left with the feeling that it had all been done before - Nasty Multinational Company? See "The Business". Complex family relationships on remote Scottish estate? See "The Crow Road", liberal central character facing personal angst and danger? See "Dead Air" or just about every other Banks' work.

That's not to say that "The Steep Approach to Garbadale" isn't a good novel, there are a few moments of pure writing genius (The suicide scene being a genuinely dark moment, and the tension as the former lovers, Alban and Sophie find their fishing boat breaks down, is palpable) but these seem to stand out in amongst a story that feels a like it has all been done before.

Tony Cliff & Donny Gluckstein - Marxism and Trade Union Struggle, The General Strike of 1926

The events of the 1926 British General Strike aren’t an issue for abstract historical discussion; they are, more importantly, an example of one of the most intense periods of industrial trade union militancy on these isles.

As the authors of this examination of the “Days of Hope” put it, “The key question for Marxists is how to relate to the working class. In countries where the workers are organisd in unions, this question then takes the form of how should Marxists approach trade unionists and their struggles”.

Rather than concentrate simply on the events of the strike, Tony Cliff and Donny Gluckstein start by examining both the Marxist approach to trade unions and the political forces in Britain in the first quarter of the last century.

Their starting point is how limited the Marxist understanding of developed trade unions was at that time. The leading revolutionary thinkers were concentrated in Russia at the time, and there, the slow development of the working class and the illegality of much of its organisations meant that trade unions had little impact on the revolutionary struggle. This in turn meant that leading thinkers in the revolutionary international badly underestimated aspects of trade unionism, leading to many militants in Britain over estimating their influence in the working class, or putting hope in left-wing trade union leaders.

The role of the trade union leaders was to prove crucial in the 1926 strike. At the time, the “triple alliance” of unions in transport and mining were a major industrial force. They’d had the government over a barrel in the near-revolutionary period after the first world war, yet, during the nine days of strike, many of them did their best to limit the strike to their best ability.

The authors examine how trade union bureaucrats form a separate class, the “bureaucracy balances between the two main classes in capitalist society – the employers and the workers.” Since they belong to neither camp, the bureaucracy has a “vital interest not to push the collaborations with employers and state to a point where it makes the unions completely impotent”.

Vacilating between the bosses and the workers, the union fulltimers, both leftwing and rightwing end up desperate to avoid breaking the status quo, even if it means selling the struggles of their members out.

During the general strike, millions of workers took enthusiastic action in support of the strike, yet the union leaders did everything they could to avoid that action either spreading, or taking more militant forms. They encouraged church attendance rather than mass picketing, passivity and friendly relations with the police rather than attempting to stop the government’s organised scabbing operations. Before the strike they did little to prepare their members and during the strike they issued contradictory and confusing instructions.

Though the official histories of the events would tell us that the TUC though that the strikers were wavering, Cliff and Gluckstein show how, in fact more and more workers were preparing to take action and that in many cases the action was developing down more radical directions.

The eventual sell out of the strike lead directly to the isolation of the coal miners (who were locked out by their bosses) and the demoralisation of a trade union movement for twenty years. Here, there is an interesting parallel with the state of trade unionism since the Thatcher years.

The authors conclusion is two fold. The first is that an independent revolutionary socialist organisation is needed to help lead workers struggles, that isn’t confused by its links to either the trade union bureaucracy or the Labour Party. The second is that this socialist party needs to have as one of its most important pre-occupations, the building of a strong rank and file movement of trade unionists, confident to follow the bureaucracy when they fight in the interests of the workers, but prepared to confront and side-step those bureaucrats when they are attempting to sell things out.

It’s a historic task, as important today as it was in the past. As the slogan says, “those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it.”

Unfortunately Cliff and Gluckstein's book is out of print, but a short pamphlet covering many of the ideas and the background outlined above is available from Bookmarks here.

Monthly Review - Ecology, Moment of Truth

I don’t normally carry reviews of journals that I read on this blog, as they don’t really fit the general theme of the site. However the July/August edition of the Monthly Review magazine is simply to important to not record here.

The general theme of this journal’s edition is “Ecology, moment of truth” and in a number of articles, the editors have put together a coherent argument about the centrality of capitalism to the current environmental crisis. There are a couple of general articles that do this, revisiting some of the work that John Bellamy Foster has examined in other books and articles. Several other articles look at more nuanced aspects of the debates – one examining the economics of biofuels (Fred Magdoff) and a fascinating article looking at the problems related to the degradation of Marine ecosystems (Brett Clark & Rebecca Clausen).

There is an excellent article refuting the arguments of the climate change deniers, written by John Farley in response to articles made by journalist Alexander Cockburn. This article is well worth reading, it concludes that while it is important that science is constantly scrutinised, “it is also important to recognize a truth when it has been established…. and to do something about [global warming], while there is still time.”

Other articles examine the “Politics of Large Dams” in India – some 40 million people have been forced from their homes since 1947 in that country and at least 36 “major” dams are planned, though they bring many problems, as well as offering few solutions.

John Bellamy Foster’s article on “Peak Oil and Energy Imperialism” locates the problems of the environment on the centrality of fossil fuels to capitalism and argues for an alternative to capitalism as a solution to long-term ecological problems.

In fact this is the theme of most of the articles – that on Marine eco-systems making some of the points excellently. The intensive production techniques used by modern industrial fishing doesn’t simply deplete whole species, but it impacts on fish that feed on these creatures and those that they feed on in turn. This destablises the whole oceanic eco-system.

Attempts to solve the problem by reducing the consumption of one or other fish, either lead to other animals being hunted to extinction or often, don’t solve the problem because of new imbalances in the eco-system. These problems then link in to other environmental concerns such as the damage to coral reefs by global warming.

Capitalism’s attempts to fix the problem only displace it. Factory farming of salmon for instance requires “four pounds of fishmeal to produce every one pound of salmon” – “aquaculture” thus shifts the problem of fishing onto other wild species elsewhere in the oceans.

While I might have some disagreements with slight nuances of the arguments presented here, I found that all the articles had something to offer Marxists and radicals grappling with the issues thrown up by the environmental crisis. You can read the articles online at Monthly Reviews website, or order the journal here if you want to support the journal.

Tim Butcher - Blood River

When I first looked at this book, I thought that it was a classic case of a journalist with a bit of knowledge about one part of the world, concocting an excuse to write a book about it. However, it does seem, that Tim Butcher's fascination with the Congo river and the country that surrounds it is absolutely genuine. As a journalist on the Daily Telegraph he takes the incredibly dangerous decision to follow in the footsteps of an earlier writer for that journal, Henry Stanley.

Stanley of course, famously found David Livingstone and made his fame bringing the story back to the world of the White European. Slightly less famously, Stanley then set in motion the processes that would allow many of those same white Europeans to take control of, and make fortunes from the people, country and mineral wealth of the Congo.

The Congo suffered greatly when the Europeans finally relinquished control. Butcher tells the story of the countries decline as it's initial post-colonial state was quickly consumed by coups, war and bloodletting. At the heart of much of this was the areas mineral wealth, desired by both superpowers. The Congo never really ceased to be anything but a pawn of outside interests, and the country that Butcher decides to cross is far from safe terrain for outsiders. In places the UN maintain a token presence, as do various NGOs, but this poor, internally divided country is difficult to travel in.

What I like about Tim Butcher's writing is that he starts from the fascinating history of the country and its people. He is openly honest when he views the relics of colonial rule and wonders how it is a country can regress so rapidly. He doesn't fall into the trap of thinking that Colonial rule was necessarily a better time, though he meets many who do think this.

But as he drives across former major roads and finds them little more than paths in the jungle, sees once mighty ships rusting on the shore, or sees railway stations were no train has arrived for years, he finds himself wondering why it is some former colonies threw off their masters and found fortune and others didn't. (I suspect that answer is that places like the Congo never really escaped the era of Colonial Rule and the Imperialism that followed it - the mineral wealth under the ground was too important, then and now).

He recognises though that the Congo had it worst;

"Those sniffy British Colonial types might not like to admit it but the Congo represents the quintessence of the entire continent's colonial experience. It might be extreme and it might be shocking, but what happened in the Congo is nothing but colonialism in its purest basest form."

His journey is full of fascinating people many of whom have little to give, but offer all the help they can. Often they do so with no thought of reward, though most of them clearly think he is insane for attempting the trek. His record of the history of the place, the damage done since independence and the exploitation taking place by major multinationals that leaves no wealth for the inhabitants today is an excellent introduction to this part of the world.

Related Reviews

Pakenham - The Scramble For Africa