Mark O'Brien - Perish the Privileged Orders: A Socialist History of the Chartist Movement

Life as a worker in the early part of the 19th century in the UK was short and horrible. Those working in the new industries of Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham and similar cities would rarely live past the age of 20, and many of those years would be spent working for over 12 hours a day, in conditions of near slavery, for a pittance of pay.

Across the channel, the French had raised the banner of Liberty and Freedom, and that combined with the lack of control over their own lives, mixed together with the appalling living conditions led to the worlds first mass working class movement - Chartism.

Chartism was more than a Trade Union, though it's often painted as such. The "Charter" it drew up, was one of policial demands, rather than simple economic desires. But the hundreds of thousands of working men and women who flocked to it's banners also believed in a world where the rich didn't live parasitically of the backs of those labouring in their factories.

So great was the fear amongst the rulers, that the Chartists faced the gun fire of massed troops and Middle Class militia, drummed up to oppose those who demanded the right to vote..

Their greatest day though, when up to 500,000 marched to present the third Charter to parliament, was also the start of their decline. Not willing to confront capitalism head on, the Chartist leaders backed down, and the ruling class had a breathing space to subvert the movement by other means - offering small reforms and tit-bits here and there.

The radical history of the Chartists, their support for Irish liberation and opposition to slavery and colonialism is hidden from history by those who would paint it simply as the for-runner of the modern Trade Union movement. But the real history - that of ordinary men and women, prepared to face the steel of British troops, who read, debated and organised - is rescued for us here, in this wonderful short introduction by Mark O'Brien.

I'm told it's out of print, but you can probably find it in a library, or on the shelves of some old comrade, or even at the bottom of a bookstall at a socialist meeting - after all, I did.

Song of the Lower Classes by Ernest Jones, Chartist

We plow and sow, we're so very, very low,
That we delve in the dirty clay;
Till we bless the plain with the golden grain,
And the vale with the fragrant hay.
Our place we know, we're so very, very low,
'Tis down at the landlord's feet;
We're not too low the grain to grow,
But too low the bread to eat.

Down, down we go, we're so very, very ow,
To the hell of the deep-sunk mines;
But we gather the proudest gems that glow,
When the crown of the despot shines;
And when'er he lacks, upon our backs
Fresh loads he deigns to lay:
We're far too low to vote the tax
But not too low to pay.

We're low, we're low -- we're very, very low --
And yet from our fingers glide
The silken floss and the robes that glow
Round the limbs of the sons of pride;
And what we get, and what we give,
We know, and we know our share;
We're not too low the cloth to weave,
But too low the cloth to wear.

We're low, we're low, we're very, very low,
And yet when the trumpets ring,
The thrust of a poor man's arm will go
Through the heart of the proudest king.
We're low, we're low -- mere rabble, we know --
We're only the rank and the file;
We're not too low to kill the foe,
But too low to share the spoil.

Notes to the People, 1852

Luke Rhinehart (George Cockcroft) – The Dice Man

On the surface this classic novel is about what happens to an individual who decides to allow fate to intervene in their daily life. But actually it’s much more complex than simply being about a man who takes decisions based on the role of a die.

Published and set in the 1970s, the story follows a bored psychiatrist Luke Rhinehart, obviously going through some form of mid-life crisis, who in a moment of madness (or clarity depending on how you view things) starts to live his life based on the roll of a die. He does this by coming up with several options (such as which film to see, or whether to seduce someone) and assigning them to the dice role. By playing with the number of choices and whether to act on them on a 1 in six, chance, Dr. Rhinehart can slightly influence the outcome.

What makes the book clever is its deeply subversive nature. It takes up questions like “what is sanity”, and pokes fun at established Psychiatric practice. It also raises interesting questions about who really is sane and insane. For instance, as Rhinehart increasingly lets the dice rule his life, he incorporates them into his work, as well as his personnel life. This leads him to what can be seen as bizarre solutions to patient problems. For instance – for a woman who is diagnosed as having “nymphomania” he suggests a period of work in a brothel – apart from the comic element, I think the author is trying to raise the question of whether or not nymphomania is a medical condition that needs to be “treated”.

The story reminds me of Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land. Not least because the idea of someone creating a new way of looking at the world and achieving a mass following mirrors the plot of that novel. But the Dice Man also shares much with Valentine Michael Smith – a comic naivety for instance, that allows the author to explore the contradictions of society.

Ultimately, as more and more people start to follow the Dice, the movement with its attendant radical attitudes to sexuality, living and money becomes far too subversive for society and the FBI are called in. The later parts of the novel use this much more – with radical black activists (clearly modeled on the Black Panther Party) getting involved. Rhinehart makes illusions to the way the authorities try to undermine the Dice movement – similar to how the Black Panthers found themselves undermined in the 1970s.

The novel achieved a cult following and I’ve no doubt many people tried to live their lives in similar ways. The problem is of course, that while living like this really might breakdown your personality and let the “real you” come out, as Rhinehardt the Psychiatrist suggests, what is really being railed at here is the problems with society – and those cannot be undermined by personal change – however radical. In that sense, this novel is a real product of the 1970s – radical and challenging, but ultimately doomed to change only a few people. But reading it, you get a glimpse of just how much the 1960s and 1970s radicalised huge numbers of people, and that number of people questioning the status quo can only be a good thing!

Keith Hopkins & Mary Beard - The Colosseum

Surely it must be a basic rule of archaeology and history that you can’t generalise from one small archaeological remain, one single excavation, or one building – in order to understand a whole society. But it must be an equally important rule, that you can say a lot about a society from what it has left behind. This book, along with a couple of others in the series including Mary Beard’s great one on The Parthenon in Athens, attempts to give the best round-up of accepted wisdom about some of the world’s greatest ancient buildings and how they fit into the ancient world.

The Colosseum has long been a building that has represented the power of ancient Rome. It is a building that has been the backdrop to many films and novels (and the authors give us a taste of some of these), has inspired poetry (Byron in particular) and fired the imagination of many of those who’ve been there (including Hitler and even ancient rulers themselves who made it to Rome).

It’s also a place with many myths about it. For centuries it was believed to be a place of Christian martyrdom and the writers take care to demonstrate how this wasn’t true. The myths aren’t just ancient – most modern day films (and tour guides) make some mistaken assumptions.

In sorting the fact from the fiction, we learn some surprising stuff. For instance, for much of the Middle Ages, the building was a ruin. It’s true purpose forgotten by those living in the Rome. The authors go to great lengths to use available historical data to work out how many gladiators must have fought in the arena – the answer, contrary to the vision painted by Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, is very few. Gladiators turn out to be highly expensive to train and keep – too expensive to risk in the arena.

We also learn how the Colosseum was built – and I was surprised to learn (as were archaeologists) about the complex drainage systems below the ground. This was an Imperial building built to last (with a price tag that approached £29 million of today’s money) and modern day archaeologists still have many unanswered questions.

Even if you’ve been to Rome and walked the passageways of the Colosseum, this book will teach you a lot and if you’re lucky enough to be returning this summer, it’ll give you much more stuff to look at that you missed the first time.

Colin Dexter - The Way Through the Woods

Ah, the wonderful Inspector Morse – with his love for real ale, opera and good literature, what else could you want? This 1992 mystery starts with Morse taking a much needed holiday and avoiding crosswords and drink. Of course this allows the author an opportunity to drop a murder mystery with a cryptic poetry clue into the middle and drag Morse back into the fray.

There’s little more to say about this. Inspector Morse novels don’t have the social commentary of some other detective writings – they’re more like a soap opera, as we follow Morse’ bumbling attempts to find love and happiness through his career. They are however, intensely readable, and this story has a nice twist, if a slightly predictable one. Read it on the beach.

Related Reviews

Dexter - The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn
Dexter - The Dead of Jericho

Deborah Lipstadt - Denying the Holocaust (*)

When David Irving was sent to jail in February 2006, for statements he had made denying the Holocaust, there was a mass of debate in the press whether this was an appropriate punishment. I decided it was a good time to look into the whole issue of “Holocaust Denial”.

Remembering that Irving had once sued author Deborah Lipstadt for her book Denying the Holocaust which portrayed him as a denier, I thought this would be a good place to start and certainly a place that Irving would have hated.

Denying the Holocaust is a difficult book to read. Not because it is badly written or too academic, but because the material is so awful. It is very difficult imagine what drives someone to spend so much time and effort distorting and lying about the Holocaust.

In many cases they are driven by their own anti-Semitism, though not always. In the immediate aftermath of WW2 there was an attempt to play down the holocaust by those who wanted to portray the US and her allies as being the real mass murderers.

In time, these views have become accepted belief for neo-Nazi and Fascist organisations around the world. In addition to simply regurgitating lies and reprinting phamphlets, these groups often have attempted to inject Holocaust Denial into mainstream discussion.

In the strongest sections of the book, Lipstadt shows how once Holocaust Denial reaches the level of debate, it is elevated from something with no basis in reality, to something that can be discussed as a real theory.

Lipstadt domuments this particularly with the attempts by Holocaust Deniers to place adverts in US campus newspapers. Often the deniers were happy to have their adverts refused, because they had created a discourse on campus about the Holocaust that treated their views seriously. Lipstadt believes that this in part has led to a situation in the US, where many people accept that it's possible the Holocaust never happened.

In passing the author also looks at those who have tried denial in other forms – claiming that Anne Frank’s diary was a fake for instance. Lipstadt’s final word is brief documentation of why there is irrefutable evidence for the gas chambers, mass premeditated murder and the Holocaust.

This book is a service to all those who believe in historical truth and that history is a science that must be based on evidence, facts and documentation. It is also a weapon for those who want to stop the rise of fascism again, for those who argue that stopping the new Nazis also involves preventing them getting the oxygen of publicity.

Since reading is not enough to stop the far-right. I recommend those who want to fight the BNP visit this site or this campaign to get involved.

(*) Full title - Denying the Holocaust, the Growing Assault on Truth and History

Iain M. Banks - The Algebraist

At the start of this review I’d like to offer an award. It’s very simply an award for best imagined universe. In The Algebraist, Banks’ latest vision of the future, the author has created a wonderfully complex galaxy, populated by varied aliens’, carved up by different empires and fought over by huge fleets of space ships.

Banks’ aliens are the stars here – I defy anyone not to fall in love with the Dwellers – creatures that can live to be billions of years old, who’ve evolved in Gas Giants and who spend their lives trying to improve their position in society. A position that is measured by the amount of Kudos they have acquired.

There’s another alien race, genetically modified to make them fascinated by the dead, who cruise the galaxy collected bodies and store them in huge ships. In amongst these are the humans. Inevitably, these humans are fighting.

Of course, these battles aren’t timid small scale affairs, they’re solar system spanning, involving thousands of space ships at a time and often involve crashing asteroids into planets and things. Banks’ lets us have enough details about the ships, the weapons and the tactics to make fans of “big” Science Fiction everywhere very excited.

Finally, there is the plot. All too often Science Fiction like this fails because the plot is limited, or filled with holes (or non-existent). Not so here. From the start, when we meet dozens of characters, planets and political groupings, we are immersed in a complex, ever changing story line. While the ending is a little inevitable, the story is exciting right up to the last line.

John Sladek - Tik Tok

I’ve always thought that Asimov’s Robotic Laws were a bit of a cop out. Perhaps it’s my computer programming background, but I always had this nagging thought that putting all the safety stuff in three short instructions was a recipe for disaster. However, the laws have gone down in SF history as a pretty firm set of codes to Robotic behaviour, even cropping up in Star Trek.

The laws;

1. A robot may not harm a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

are supposed to mean that Robots are unable to harm human beings. Though since Asimov’s work is littered with stories where flaws are discovered in this, or that application of the rules, it’s perhaps mystifying that they have got such high-regard.

So it was a delight to discover Tik Tok. This robotic autobiography tells the tale of the gradual realisation of a robot, that he doesn’t have the Asimovian restrictions on behaviour. Indeed, the fact that everyone assumes all robots are safe, means he can act pretty much as he wishes. So he takes his vengeance out on humans, firstly individually, then on a greater scale, till eventually he finds himself in a position were he can plan the destruction of the entire race.

He does this, because Robots are little more than slaves. Used till they drop by their masters, brutalised, vandalised, raped and broken, Robots have conscience, but are restricted from doing anything to break their chains. Given Tik Tok's life experiences, it's not surprising that his vengeance is violent and brutal.

This novel is a genuine comic SF story. Comic SF often suffers on two fronts – not being funny, and not being good SF. Tik Tok is nothing short of brilliant, both in its parody of the SF genre itself and because it’s a good work in it’s own standing. Tik Tok stands himself as one of the classic anti-hero's of all time.

This is definitely a “Resolute Reader Recommended Read”, and I don’t often say that.

Julian Barnes – Arthur & George

One of the things I’ve discovered about fighting election campaigns is that fiction helps. Preferably fiction that doesn’t feature elections - I’m not sure though that this is what Barnes would want his latest work to be remembered for, but I’ll never be able to see the rather charming Victorian styled cover again, without imaging I’m off to canvass some antiquated east London tower block.

Based on true events, the novel follows the lives of two unusual characters, one, the off-spring of an Indian Parsee, turned vicar in central England, the other, whose identity I will protect to avoid spoiling anyone’s read, a man who became on of the period’s most famous writers.

The first character becomes embroiled in a miscarriage of justice to do with the maiming of livestock. The other finds out about the case and turns it into a cause celebre.

The novel though is much more than a detective story, though. It’s also a story about justice (or lack of), class, racism and an England slowly shrugging of the past and heading towards a period of major change – heralded by the first world war.

Since it was short listed for the Man Booker Prize last year, I won’t go into more detail – plenty has already been written about the work. One thing I do want to bring up is the nature of fictional writing about real people and actual events. The “Great Wyrley Outrages” and the miscarriage of justice that occurred made huge headlines at the time, and provoked public and parliamentary outcries. This fictionalised account must of course embellish that story for dramatic effect, at the same time as making the events famous again.

I occasionally wonder how good a thing this is. After all, at a time when tourists wander around Rome clutching Dan Brown, doesn’t all history as fiction promote a jaundiced view of the world? But on the other hand, how many historian’s careers were started by the excitement of a Flashman novel? How many physicists began their quest for knowledge while breathlessly watching Star Trek?

But too often I found myself wondering ‘is this a real bit’. ‘Is this the fiction’? This sort of questioning probably spoils the enjoyment of the novel and it certainly wouldn’t be a good thing if all anyone these days ever knew about the “Great Wyrley Outrages” was based on this book, because it is a work of fiction after all.

It is however, a very good work of fiction, drawing as it does from a minor but wonderfully illuminating bit of English history.

Iain Banks - Dead Air

While thinking about this review, I looked up the Wikipedia entry for Dead Air, and found to my amusment, that most of what I thought had already been written there. Dead Air is a fun novel, but like so much of Bank's recent work it's flawed.

I don't subscribe to the criticism of it, that it ignores the events of 9/11 or simply uses them as a backdrop. Anyone on the left in the UK will know, that the immediate aftermath of the destruction of the twin towers, was for many, a period of intense political thinking and debate. That is, of course reflected in the polemical utterances of the main character in the novel - socialist radio DJ, Ken Nott.

Ken is very leftwing. A bit of a maveric, scottish and unaligned to any particular political grouping, he is Iain Banks personified to a certain extent - though given the frequent, drug and alcohol fueled sex I often wondered just what Iain Banks was trying to say.

Ultimately, none of this matters though - the politics, 9/11 and the polemics merely serve as a backdrop to a fairly ordinary tale of a innocent bloke getting mixed up in some nasty gangsters - a plot that's fun enough to carry the reader through to the somewhat predictable ending.

Some of the writing is a little annoying though. I cannot believe that Ken's Jewish wife of several years is really that shocked to learn of his views on Israel, nor his hatred of Sharron. I mean, I know that not every couple talks politics all the time, but you'd have though it would have come up.

So perhaps this suffers for a bit of a rush job. Nevertheless, it's fun and polemical at the same time and few writers (or even orators) can necessarily do that.

Tim Flannery - The Weather Makers

The end of 2004 saw something remarkable happen in Antarctica. For the first time, extensive meadows of grass appeared in an area of the world previously known for its snow, blizzards and ice. There probably isn’t a better example of the effects of global warming on the eco-systems of planet Earth. Tim Flannery’s new book is an explicit attempt to warn the population of the world about the future problems of climate change and what is happening now.

He paints a terrifying picture of the consequences of even subtle changes in the atmosphere. The examples he uses are very different to those often used by environmentalists. For instance, he spends a long time explaining exactly how changes to the amount of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) in the environment will change the amount of mist in certain rain-forests – and how this means the extinction of species of toad and frogs that have only been discovered recently.

Similar examples abound – from the poles to the rain-forests, Flannery paints a terrible picture, and it is indeed a call to arms against climate change and CO2 emissions. Unfortunately, this is where he comes unstuck.

Flannery argues that we need to reduce CO2 emissions by 70 percent by 2050 if we are to avoid the catastrophic changes that we face. He does point out that many changes, and many extinctions are inevitable due to historic CO2 emissions, but that we still live in a period when we can alter the outcome.

While inspiring the reader to stop climate change, he only offers solutions centred on individual life-styles. Almost absent, is the need to challenge the corporations and governments at the heart of the problem.

He is of course right to suggest that if we all had solar panels on our roofs, used bio-fuel cars or public transport and lobbied politicians to ask what they are doing to limit their own emissions, CO2 emissions would be reduced. But the biggest source of CO2 in the world is the generation of electricity, and what is urgently and drastically needed is massive reductions in energy use – mainly I would argue through more efficient localised generation and a switch to using renewable energy.

There is a surprising amount of agreement in the UK from environmentalists and government scientists that renewable energy is viable and could lead to the sort of reductions described by Flannery. What is lacking is the political will to do this.

Flannery doesn’t offer any direction as to how this can be achieved – limiting himself to personal solutions (including using hand tools instead of electric ones). Unfortunately, it is only through a mass political movement that we will ever force governments and states to challenge the fossil fuel corporations at the heart of the problem.

The fact that Flannery has written such an eloquent book is a weapon in the hands of those that want to build that movement. Sadly it doesn’t offer anyone the real solutions that will save the planet. The book that does that has yet to be published.

Related Reviews

Flannery - The Eternal Frontier

Raymond Chandler - The Big Sleep

Famously, Raymond Chandler’s “The Big Sleep” had a plot so complex, that when it was originally filmed the producers telegraphed Chandler to check who had killed a minor character. “I’ve no idea” came the author’s response.

This is the first novel were we are introduced to cool, hard-drinking, detective Philip Marlowe. It’s a gritty, dirty job this one, and he’s the detective to do it.

After initially being asked to investigate a blackmailer for a elderly oil millionaire, Marlowe find’s himself sucked into a complex world of murder, double-crossing, black mail and violence. Marlowe is of course equally at home with the violence, but he isn’t some angel of justice either. He’s prepared to give as good as he gets. And he hates the cops as much as the criminals.

It’s a great read. It is, at least on first reading, hard to work out what the hell is going on… but that’s the charm and the fun. Detective fiction was never the same after this Philip Marlowe first lit a cigarette and gazed around him with cynicism. It’s certain you’ll not be the same either.

Paul Theroux - Dark Star Safari (*)

One of the amusing things about Theroux’s travels across the continent of Africa by land (and at a couple of boats), is the way that when he reaches South Africa after many weeks of travelling, acquaintances of his introduce him to others with the words “he came from Cairo, by bus!”

This sense of amazement is perhaps natural. Too many people think of Africa as one place – a single country maybe, with a single people. Of course is is anything but, and Theroux’s travels make this clear.

Because Theroux has a history in Africa – he served with the Peace Corps there in the 1960s, in Malawi, he has the language and the confidence to travel in places that many would ignore. But more than that he offers a unique insight into the changes that have taken place in the continent and the things that have remained the same.

Rarely does Theroux express any disgust – except for those charity do-gooders who believe that they can save Africa with more and more aid. He meets many people who point to the bureaucracy and corruption that eat away at donated money. He meets many more people who point the out how simply throwing money around isn’t enough – there has to be a longer term strategy and charity treats the symptoms not the cause.

However, I found the book confusing at times. Not least because Theroux’s writing style is bitty and simple – anecdotes are short and minimal. I was left often wondering what else happened. But perhaps this is a minor complaint about a book that treats the people and environment of Africa honestly, rather than simply viewing the place as somewhere for our sympathy and charity.

(*) Overland from Cairo to Cape Town

C L R James - The Black Jacobins

C L R James’ work “The Black Jacobins” was once described to me as the best piece of history ever written. Certainly it is one of the best that this reader has ever had the pleasure to review. James looks at a short period of history (which at first glance might seem somewhat obscure) – the rebellion of the slaves of San Domingo in 1791.

In reality, this insurrection, and the battles that followed it had far reaching ramifications. James examines the revolution through the prism of class politics – not for him is this simply a matter of black versus white, or slaves against former oppressors. His starting point is the radicalisation of the French Revolution. The slaves who heard the words of Liberty, believed that it should also apply to them, and rose accordingly.

What makes the revolution fascinating – apart from heroic figures such as Toussaint L’Ouverture, is the way that the changes and battles taking place in Europe had such impact on the island and the revolution. Ultimately, even though the rebellious armies defeated invading, counter-revolutionary forces, they kept facing the prospect of slavery's return. For the emerging Bourgeois class in France, the a thriving San Domingo, producing a wealth of materials from its hundreds of thousands of slaves, was something worth bringing back the chains for.

Ultimately, Toussaint wasn’t able to see beyond the words of the French revolution, and the leaders of that monumental transformation of society destroyed him. But those who were left behind, who had been radicalised and inspired carried on the battle in a more radical form.

Defeating more armies, and a vicious counter-revolutionary movement that was ordered by Napoleon (one that drowned thousands of people in the sea for being black, and murdered many men, women and children), the blacks finally forced independence on San Domingo, renaming it as Haiti.

This review cannot do justice in such a short space of time, to such an important event. James’ great achievement is to make the reader do two things – to be inspired to try and challenge the system responsible for racism and slavery today, and to show how revolution always forces stark choices on those who would lead. He hoped as he wrote it, that a new generation of revolutionaries in Africa, fighting colonialism would learn from the events of their history. We can read it today to re-learn those lessons and be inspired ourselves.

Larry Niven - Ringworld

Larry Niven's Ringworld is one of the truly great science-fiction novels. It might lack some of the subtle commentary on contemporary society that grace some of the other works on that list, but it is a fantastic and fascinating read.

Niven introduces us to the Ringworld, a gigantic ring around a sun, massive in scale and scope, populated by the weird and wonderful and as is traditional in such matters, it is explored by a motley gang made up of humans and aliens, in an unlikely alliance.

Ringworld is part of Niven's "Known Space" future-history, but that aspect of the story is only really explored in the sequels. Ringworld here concentrates much more on the adventure, as well as introducing us to the concept of the world. The idea has been tremendously influential since - consider Iain M. Bank's Orbitals for instance. The Ringworld itself has provoked much debate and discussion - I like the story quoted on Wikipedia of the MIT students at a 1970s SF convention chanting "The Ringworld is unstable! The Ringworld is unstable" at Niven.

Nevertheless, this is an exciting and entertaining read. Perfect for an escapist weekend when you're lying sick in bed. Which is exactly what I've been doing.

Related Reviews

Niven - Ringworld's Children
Niven - Crashlander
Niven - Destiny's Road

Tom Holland - Persian Fire (*)

The war between the Persians and the Greek city-states is one were ancient myths seem to mingle with real history. The tales of heroism and bravery have inspired people for centuries. In particular, the last stand of the 300 Spartan’s and about 6000 of their allies against up to 250,000 Persian troops at the “Hot Gates” has been retold time and again.

Tom Holland’s book is an exciting introduction to this little known period. I say it’s little known, because for most people, ancient history is that of Egypt, Rome and Athens. The Persians are neglected (the recent exhibition about their empire at the British Museum in London last year was not unreasonably entitled “Forgotten Empire: the world of Ancient Persia”).

So this book’s greatest service is to bring much of the history of that forgotten Empire to life for an audience, such as myself, who know little about it.

However, just as his ”In Athens, not only were the great King’s demands dismissed out of hand, but his ambassadors, in blatant defiance of international law, were put on trial by the Assembly, convicted and put to death. Perhaps – given that Athens was a proven terrorist state…the outrage was no surprise.”

Holland thus becomes perhaps one of a tiny number of writers to describe the Athenian state as Terrorist, though of course he isn’t the first historian to judge the past in terms of the prejudices and language of more contemporary times.

But even flaws like this cannot stop it being and enjoyable read, though I was often left feeling that my enjoyment stemmed from discovering a new and exciting period of history rather than Holland’s particular treatment of it.

(*) Full Title "Persian Fire - The first World Empire and the Battle for the West"

Leon Kuhn, Colin Gill - Topple the Mighty

If, like me, you enjoy walking around the streets of London looking at sites of historic importance, then you will have often raged at the statues to extremely wealthy, reactionary members of the ruling case. Often what distinguishes these people is not their work for the greater good, but their ability (or sometimes inability) to create and defend the immense wealth of the tiny strata at the top of society. Some of them so eager to protect this system of inequality they put tens of thousands of ordinary people to the sword.

This book is a breath of fresh air; the first part looks at the people behind a number of statues in London - war criminals like Bomber Harris and rich wastrels like George IV. The stories are well illustrated by Kuhn’s artwork caricaturing the statues and in the case of Nelson’s column, imagining the crowd that will one day pull down that ugly edifice.

But it’s on the subject of destroying statues and icons that this book really comes into its own. When May Day protesters attacked the statue of Winston Churchill in parliament square, labelling him an anti-Semite and a murderer, they were the latest in a long line of ordinary people, who destroyed the icons of hated monarchs and religious figures.

This little book brings that history alive, through the story of the English revolution and other revolts and in doing so reminds us that history isn’t the story of a few great men, but about working people struggling for justice.

So I hope this book encourages a few alternate historical walks through London. Indeed, I’m off to Holborn viaduct, where there is a statue to the man who killed Wat Tyler during the peasants’ revolt - something that really ought to be removed.

===

More information about some of the statues, and a walk through London with the authors, at Socialist Worker's website here.

Brian Cathcart – The Fly in the Cathedral (*)

The only other book I have read of Brian Cathcart’s is his wonderful, blow by blow account of election night 1997 and the meltdown of the Tories (Were you still up for Portillo?).

This is a completely different book and concentrates on the first experimental and theoretical steps taken by a smallish group of scientists around the famous physicist Ernest Rutherford. It describes the attempts made by physicists to understand the internal structure of the atom and culminates, in what was described in the media of the day as the “splitting of the atom”.

While the books subtitle, in a somewhat jingoistic turn of phrase, argues that it was a small group of Cambridge based scientists who did the work, the actual story is much more one of international co-operation, the exchange and expansion of ideas and theories from around the world, combined with a friendly element of competition to build the apparatus and open up the atomic structure.

Cathcart makes it clear that he doesn’t want to put off non-scientists with complex physics. So his analogies are simple (if a little irksome at times, for those in the know!) but illuminating.

The story races along with more excitement than most physics lecturers I attended, and you are left with an impression of almost bumbling gentlemen stumbling from discovery to discovery. Of course this isn’t true. As Cathcart makes clear, atomic physics could only be discovered because the era of the gentleman scientist, experimenting in his country mansion was over. Instead, this research was driven by government funds and support from industrial giants.

Ultimately, the work these physicists did got them the Nobel prize. As early as the 1930s, it was clear that the processes being unleashed could be used for more sinister purposes. But no one should lay the blame at the door of these men, who really were simply trying to understand the world better.

(*) Full title – The Fly in the Cathedral; How a Small Group of Cambridge Scientists Won the Race to Split the Atom

Terry Pratchett – Going Postal

A truly great satirist can poke fun at things on many levels. Pratchett’s gift is that he can take something like the Postal Service, move it to the fantasy Diskworld, populate the Post Office with Golems and other weird and wonderful characters, and THEN add in spoofs and jokes about hackers, private finance, email and a whole host of other things.

While there perhaps aren’t the belly laughs in this book, as there are in some of the earlier works, there are still some seriously funny moments. Particularly amusing his is discourse on management speak. He describes how innocent words are “mugged, ravished, stripped of all true meaning and decency” but points out that ‘synergistically’ was “probably a whore from the start”.

A quick glance at the inside cover shows this to be the 29th in the Diskworld series. Obviously I hope Mr. Pratchett continues to entertain us long into the future. But one thing erks me a little. For my liking, too many of the latest books have been set in Ankh Morpork and the same characters reappear over and over – the Watch, the Wizards and so on. I miss a little, the earlier characters, Rincewind and the Witches in particular. I hope that the future (and there is at least one novel “Thud”, that I have yet to read) this will change. But even if it doesn’t, I know that the books will continue to be readable.

Related Reviews:
Pratchett - The Colour of Magic
Pratchett - Wintersmith
Pratchett - Thud

Brian Fagan - The Long Summer; How Climate Changed Civilisation

It doesn’t take that scientific a look at human history before you start to see a pattern – the rise and fall of societies, civilisations and cultures. The Roman Empire came and went – it eclipsed the Greeks, before them there was the Egyptians. More recently, South America had the Mayan and Inca city states – powerful societies that dominated that part of the world for hundreds of years. There are numerous other examples.

Brian Fagan’s book is an attempt to explain how and why some of those societies were able to reach such prominence so quickly, and why they often seemed to collapse overnight.

Fagan’s particular basis for this is the weather, or rather climate change. He shows how changes in the earth’s weather – from ice ages, to rainfall patterns – often led to major changes over quite local areas. Places that might have been ideal regions for crops could become arid in the space of a few years.

Fagan shows, though with much less detail than Steven Mithen’s work reviewed previously, how this sometimes leads to changes in society. Climate change he points out, was the motor for the transition from hunter gathering to farming in many parts of the world.

Unfortunately, Fagan’s work suffers slightly from too much journalistic description at times. For instance, I do not believe that we can accurately say that the forest dwellers who lived in the forests which covered Europe 8000 years ago were an “elusive, cautious” people. I doubt whether we can say anything at all about their bravery in fact.

The later part of the book deals with medieval European times and Fagan’s main theme becomes familiar. The more centralised and large a civilisation is, the more threatened it is by slight changes to the climate. His epilogue points out how modern society too lives very close to the edge. A tiny percentage of the population engaged in food production, with the people of many parts of the world living on a knife edge of existence.

It is interesting, that both Fagan and Mithin end their books, which are essentially historical accounts with calls to arms to their readers about the threat of climate change to modern society. Perhaps they are unique in this, but I suspect that there is a growing sense of fear in some areas of academia about the future of the planet and the threat to mankind. Not least because historically environmental changes have had such a tremendous impact.

Related Reviews

Fagan - Floods, Famines and Emperors; El Niño and the Fate of Civilizations
Fagan - The First North Americans

Michael Parenti - The Assassination of Julius Caesar (*)

In the last twelve months I’ve been privileged to read a number of Roman historians and historians of Rome. Some ancient, some modern. While almost all of them have been fascinating, they all left me feeling something was missing. Most Roman history seems to be the tales of great men. Men who were motivated we are told by greed or altruism, madness or intelligence. The figures of Cicero, Caesar, Augustus and many others stride across the pages as men who are often dismissed with a single word – cruel, kind, intelligent or instance.

The beauty of Parenti’s work is that he shows how no one in ancient Rome, and certainly not those in the senate, did anything because of their personal nature. He shows absolutely how everyone was motivated by a much more modern notion.

Until Tony Blair buggered it up, there was a simplistic explanation of what happened in Parliament. The Tories did the work of big business, and the Labour Party did the work of the trade union bureaucracy. The Roman senate was little different – there was the party (or grouping?) of Optimates who considered the needs of the aristocracy, and the Populares, who in some way considered the wants of the poor (except the slaves).

So Parenti tells the story of these groupings, in the run up to Caesar’s time, in the context of the forces at play within the lowest levels of Roman society. Simultaneously he destroys those Roman historians (modern as well as ancient) who have taken for granted the accounts of past history. But his real story is reserved for the lives of the people who made it possible. The slaves and plebeians whose work created the wealth that we see portrayed in the works of Tacitus or Suetonius. Unsurprisingly it is a story of poverty, unemployment, hunger and the occasional rebellion. In particular it is the tale of men and women who were often portrayed as a rabble, but had as much, if not more understanding of politics than those who governed them.

For Parenti, Caesar is a figure to be rescued – a flawed champion of the poor, one of a long line of men who entered the senate with at least some notion of principle, or some belief that the world could be improved for the poorest (except the slaves). Parenti’s Caesar is one who mobilised the poor to challenge the status quo, and paid for it with his life.

But Parenti doesn’t simply put Caesar on a pedestal. He argues that he was a warmonger, a slaver, and a plunderer. But he points out how this didn’t distinguish him from any of those in the Roman senate.

No student, amateur or professional can afford not to consider this work. Even if you are the most conservative or revisionist historians I hope you spend much of your working life refuting some of Parenti’s points. As a taster, I offer this quote from the end of the work. I hope it inspires you all to further reading.

We hear that we must avoid imposing present values upon past experience, and we must immerse ourselves in the historic context under study. But few historians immerse themselves in the grim and embattled social experience of the Roman proletariat. If anything, they see the poor – especially the rebellious poor – through the prism of their own class bias, the same bias shared by ancient historians from Polybius and Cicero to Tacitus and Velleius.

(*) Full title: "The Assassination of Julius Caesar - A People's History of Ancient Rome" By Michael Parenti.

Related reviews
Tacitus - The Histories
Suetonius - The Twelve Caesars
Tom Holland - Rubicon
Beard - SPQR
Beard & Crawford - Rome in the Late Republic