Mike Gonzalez - Rebel's Guide To Marx

Mike Gonzalez's contribution to the excellent "Rebel's Guide" series must have been the hardest to even consider. How do you compress the life, times and political thought of one of the world's most important and influential philosophers into a book of less than 50 pages?

I have to say that Gonzalez does well. There are many more indepth and longer biographies of Marx - and the author hasn't tried to out do them, rather he's tried to draw out the key strands of Marx's thought and put them beside a description of how Marx develops politically. Starting from Marx's early student days, Gonzalez looks at how the radicals of the time where starting to view society and life as being based on material realities, he then charts Marx's development along the route of historical materialism.

Gonzalez never pretends Marx was simply a philosopher. Quoting Marx's famous comment "The philosophers have merely interpreted the world... the point is to change it", Gonzalez shows us a Marx immersed in the radical activities of the time, helping to instigate the First International and attending meetings of the International Working Men's association. Much of Marx's writings come of out these activities - The Communist Manifesto being the best example. But Gonzalez also shows us how Marx's examination of the Paris Commune helps him develop his theories of the state and political organisation.

Ultimately there is much that must be left out. But this is as close to the best short introduction to Karl Marx and his ideas that you can get and Gonzalez gives plenty of other suggestions for further reading.

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Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett - Good Omens

This hilarious novel combines a clever spoof of the horror genre (in particular the Omen films) with razor sharp wit centred on the real-life horrors of the 16th Century Witch Trails.

Given the two authors probably haven't written an unfunny word in decades, you'll enjoy this if you need to escape the taxation of reading long books about philosophy, history, or, indeed if you have the 'flu.

I'm actually considering doing one of those lists - Top 100 books to read while sick in bed. This would be in there somewhere.

Of course, this classic (!) tale of good versus evil can't have a simple ending - neither good, nor evil actually wins. But that doesn't matter.

Can anyone tell yet that even though I only finished it yesterday, I am so unwell I've forgotten most of the plot? I also really liked the character of "Dog" - Hell's Hound, who for reasons that I can't go into, is a Yorkshire Terrier. Or some such small dog. Oh I'm giving up and going back to bed, read the Wikipedia entry on it, it's more comprehensive.

Harry Mount - Amo, Amas, Amat... and all that; How to Become A Latin Lover

Harry Mount might well be amused, given his impassioned plea that the end of this book for more people to learn and be taught Latin, that my partner, upon seeing his work on my bedside cabinet assumed that it wasn't about learning a new language at all.

That aside, this is an interesting book about what is commonly joked as being the "dead language". It's a basic introduction to the vocabulary and grammar of, as the author makes clear, the language used to write some of "the most heartbreaking poetry ever written". His style is amusing and accessible - he starts of by translating the tattoo on Angelina Jolie's belly "Quod me nutri me destruit" - "What nourishes me destroys me". Even if you don't know who Angelina Jolie(*) is, you can find amusement in the fact that this inscription was one her heavily pregnant belly.

Unfortunately, at least for me, Harry Mount failed completely to achieve his stated goal. I read this book as an entertaining read - enjoying the explanations of the origins of common words, or famous Latin phrases that we see on a regular basis - but I came away from reading it, not knowing Latin at all, and certainly not inspired to learn or study it further. Perhaps this is my old hatred of foreign languages coming to the fore. Though I would have thought I would have been within Mr. Mount's target group - I do enjoy reading Roman authors in translation, and perhaps I would benefit from reading heartbreaking poetry.

There is interesting stuff here - I now know why there isn't a year zero between 1BC and 1AD for instance, but very little of it is actually about speaking the language.

Finally, Mount's impassioned plea in his final chapter for more Latin teachers, harder Latin examines and more taught Latin doesn't ring true. I take his point, after-all, Latin is something that is required for many other subjects, but I'd rather see an education system that looks forward to new ways of learning and improving education wholesale, rather than harking back to the days of prep-school Latin and enforced translations of Catullus.

(*) A film actress apparently.

Primo Levi - If Not Now, When?

This is a work full of unimaginable pain and suffering. It follows a loose group of Jewish partisans behind German lines in the last few years of World War Two as they attempt to both survive and exact some military suffering on the German occupiers. Then as the war finishes, it follows their slow and difficult journey towards Italy and the hope of a ship to Palestine, where they dream of building a Jewish haven - Israel.

This isn't simply a work about the pain of war, nor the cold of the Soviet winter, though both of these are backdrops to an intense, difficult story. This is the story of people who have seen and survived horrors which we can't comprehend. The young Jew who watched the SS (boys scarcely older than himself) murder his family, the older Russian soldier who escaped a POW camp, and the man who watched all the Jews from his village forced to dig their own mass grave, before the Einsatzgruppen shot them all.

But these are people who don't give up. In contrast to those who would portray the victims of the Holocaust as men and women who meekly went to their deaths, Primo Levi celebrates those who never gave in. Those who fought back, those who took part in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and those who believed that Nazism could be stopped.

But we are also confronted with other difficult facts. The liberating Russian army was as likely to lock up Jews, the defeated German villagers would still take pot-shots at Jews and for all the Zionist talk of Israel, the British made it hard for those who had escaped persecution to try and find refugee in Palestine.

Because this novel's characters are living, breathing individuals, who debate history, politics and religion, who question everything around them, it is much more than a simple tale of war. And because this was the most brutal of wars, the characters are never simple. They love, hate and seek revenge. But they also have hope. It's this hope that keeps them fighting and the novel is brilliant enough to fuel our hope that we can stop fascism, racism and anti-Semitism wherever they raise their head.

Thomas Mann - Death in Venice and Other Stories

From the evidence of this collection of stories, Thomas Mann was not a happy chap. Or at the very least, he enjoyed discussing the inner conflicts of man, and those emotions that could tear the best of people apart.

Saying that though, Thomas Mann clearly is one of the 20th Century’s greatest writers – his text reads almost poetically, though the subject is often heartrendingly painful.

Here for instance, are the opening sentences from his 1897 short story Der Bajazzo (The Joker)

“The end of it all, the upshot of life – of my life – is the disgust with which it fills me. A worthy ending indeed! Disgust with it all, disgust with the whole thing, this disgust that chokes me, goads me to frenzy and casts me down again into despair – sooner or later, no doubt , it will give me the necessary impetus to cut short the whole ridiculous, contemptible business and clear out for good.”

Such an passionate suicide note at the start of a story, indicates that it might not have the happiest of ending. But the genius perhaps of Mann, is to use such emotions to illuminate the human condition.

The titular story, Der Tod in Venedig, (Death in Venice) written in 1912, far surpasses the other tales in this collection. The story of the aged writer, reflecting back on his life in the glorious city of Venice, while falling in love with a beautiful teenager holidaying there was itself turned by Visconti into one of the greatest films ever made. This isn’t surprising – the theme which mixes the beauty of the city, with it’s rotting core, and the impossible love for a young man with the growing pestilence around them – mixes up just about every emotion that can be thought of in a single tale.

Few can read a work like this without wondering at the inner turmoil of the writer, but whatever the authors own emotions; these are works that make the reader reflect on the very feelings that make us human.

John Bellamy Foster – Ecology Against Capitalism

This collection of essays on a general theme of capitalism and the environment was first printed in 2002, though all the essays are from the previous decade. They predate, but predict many of the arguments that are emerging on the left (and within the wider environmental movement) as issues such as Global Warming become a serious mainstream political issue.

However the essays differ from many of the works coming out at the moment about the environment. In particular, they centre on what I believe should become a major debate within the environmental movement – whether capitalism can solve the environmental crisis we face.

Bellamy Foster is excellent on this question, which is approached from a number of different angles in the different essays. He examines for instance, how economists attempt to make the environment part of the market, so as to make a profit from it. He quotes Marx:

“For the first time nature becomes purely an object for humankind, purely a matter of utility; ceases to be recognised as a power for itself; and the theoretical discovery of its autonomous laws appears merely as a ruse so as to subject it under human needs whether as an object of consumption or as a means of production”

All the essays are fantastically written, clear, concise and informative. Several in particular deserve particular mention “Global Ecology and the Common Good” is a brilliant counter argument to the idea that “we are all in it together”. “Capitalism’s Environmental Crisis – IS Technology the Answer” looks at whether simple technological improvements or innovations can provide solutions. He examines the so-called “Jevons Paradox” which argues that the consequences of technological innovation in improving fossil fuel efficiency has led to more fuel being burnt (as it becomes cheaper and more profitable to use it), rather than reduction in it’s use.

Finally, the essay which Bellamy Foster wrote to mark the 200th anniversary of Malthus’s Essays on Population is an excellent rejoinder to those who, still today, argue that the environmental crisis we face is a consequence of over-population, rather than an economic system that destroys everything in it’s path in the drive for profit.

Bellamy Foster is absolutely convincing on this. There cannot be a good capitalism, nor can there be good capitalists. The exploitation of the earth’s natural resources, in an inefficient, unsustainable way is part and parcel of the mechanisms at the heart of society. The ultimate “saving of the planet” will only be won, through the destruction of that system and it’s replacement with one based on need, not greed.

Mark Lynas - Six Degrees

The February 2007 part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's report made a number of stark predictions about climate change. In particular, it examined the science behind global warming and made a number of consensus predictions about the effects.

Mark Lynas's book looks at the consequences in great detail. The basic science is very simple, the world gets hotter and various changes start happening - ice starts to melt, deserts spread and so on. As the world gets hotter these changes increase, but more worryingly, a number of "feedback effects" kick in. In other words, the consequences of even quite small amounts of global warming are to make further climate change more likely.

Lynas looks at 6 scenarios, though really they aren't separate. He examines how the world will look as temperature increases by one, then two degrees, all the way up to six. A planet that is six degrees hotter will be one that is uninhabitable by the standards we set today. Lynas backs his arguments up by looking not just at computer models, though there are plenty of those, but also at historic times when the world was warmer by up to 6 degrees.

Lynas paints a frightening future, but as with many other writers he argues it isn't inevitable, we just need to change major aspects of our lives. In this section, the book is not as detailed or as clear as other works (in particular George Monbiot's Heat). However, to be fair to Lynas, this isn't the major point of his work either.

My one criticism, is that sometimes the book reads like the six degree world is entirely seperate from the one and two degree one. To get to sixth degree of temperature rise, the world will have to travel through a time when the horrors of the other times are inflicted.

This is important, because as the world gradually heats, the effects will be immediate and this will have horrific consequences for many people. It will also, however make it even more clear to millions of people that the environment is changing. Hopefully by then, it will not be to late to do something about it. in the meantime, this is a very readable book that will hopefully alert thousands to the dangers and get them to start campaigning now.

(*) Full title - Six Degrees, Our Future on a Hotter Planet

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Mike Davis – Planet of Slums

I suspect that most of the people who read this book (or indeed this review), will never have seen a slum. I don’t mean the run down bits housing estates that blight the cities of northern England; I mean a slum on a truly different scale. Mike Davis describes in terrifying detail just what sort of world it is, that huge numbers of people live in.

He starts of with the growth of the city, quoting UN reports he says

“In 1950 there were 86 cities in the world with a population of more than one million; today there are 400, and by 2015 there will be at least 550”

This explosion of growth for cities doesn’t bring with it prosperity or jobs. While the “world’s urban labo[u]r force has more than doubled since 1980, and the present urban population – 3.2 billion – is larger than the total population of the world when John F. Kennedy was inaugurated”, huge numbers of these people have no meaningful income from work. According to a CIA report in 2002, by the late 1990s, a third of the world’s labour force, a “staggering” one billion people, had no work, or were underemployed.

The figures for the growth of slums are similarly shocking. People flocking to the cities in the search of employment, or because they have been pushed off the land, form giant illegal or semi-legal areas of housing. 60% of Mexico’s growth is due to people building their own homes on “un-serviced peripheral land”, similarly in the Amazon, “80 percent of growth has been in shantytowns”.

The word un-serviced is important here. These are huge areas of human population with little or no running water, sewerage systems or electricity.

Davis documents two facts that flow from this – how governments and the state ignore or give lip service to the people living in such poverty, and how often the role of NGOs is limited to trying to make the slums slightly better, rather than look at the root cause of the problem.

But Davis’ real fire is reserved for international financial policies that have helped create the slums in the first place and limited the ability of the state and government to provide services to help the poorest of the poor. The neo-liberal policies of the World Bank and the IMF have, since the 1970s, caused unemployment through the destruction of industry and public services and have meant that services that are offered to the poor (such as water provision) are often privatised. It’s an irony, that privatised water companies end up charging the poor huge amounts of money for what should be a basic human right.

“The situation in Luanda is even worse: there the poorest households are forced to spend 15 percent of their income on water that private companies simply pump from the nearby, sewage-polluted Bengo River.”

What's true for drinking water is also true for sewage:

In “India – where an estimated 700 million people are forced to defecate in the open – only 17 of 3700 cities and large towns have any kind of primary sewage treatment before final disposal”.

Mike Davis paints a picture of billions of people living in squalor, poverty and unemployment, unable to find work and ignored by governments more interested in making a few people richer. However he finishes on an interesting point. Military thinkers around the world already plan how they might intervene in such slums. Fearful of insurrection and “anarchy” they worry about how the chaotic unplanned slums could be controlled – But “If the empire can deploy Orwellian technologies of repression, its outcasts have the gods of chaos on their side”, Davis concludes.

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Arthur Ransome - We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea

All the children's novels Arthur Ransome wrote are escapism. This one deals with the unlikely story of four children alone on a sailing boat that is swept out to sea during a night of fog and storm, and how they navigated it safely to Holland. Perfect reading material for the bored child.

Like many of his books, this is full of nautical detail - but not enough to drown the reader who doesn't sail. In fact much of the detail is of great interest to anyone, but Ransome's great gift was to describe adventure from a child's point of view - these kids aren't above crying for their mum when things get tough.

If you know the other novels, you'll remember Susan. The eldest girl, rather motherly in outlook - always responsible for cooking, cleaning and looking after the other children. As the ship is pummelled by the waves and she finds herself with uncontrollable seasickness, she cries bitter tears of panic. No one reading this will fail to identify with her - even if you don't know your sailors knots.

One final point of historical interest. These novels, written in the 1930s, are from an era when foreign travel was rare, even for the well off. So the children's arrival in Flushing in Holland, is cause for Ransome to spend time in detail describing the sights, sounds and smells of a foreign port, with all the excitement that would mean for his readers 70 odd years ago. Today in an era when children have crossed the channel by 'plane and ferry, crossing it in a small sail boat might seem at first unexciting. Ransome's skill is to bring more innocent era back to life, and make us wish we were kids then too.

Duncan Hallas - Trotsky's Marxism

This little book by Duncan Hallas, one of the longest standing members of the SWP in Britain until his death in 2002, contains a brilliant summary of the work of the great revolutionary Leon Trotsky. In particular, it takes a critical look at four key strands of his ideas.

In my previous review of a book about the Russian Revolution, I said that one of the argument levelled against that revolution was that it was a coup, as opposed to a workers' uprising. Another argument against it, common amongst some political parties at the time, was that Russia was too backward to have a successful working class revolution.

So, in the first section of this book, Hallas looks at Trotsky's groundbreaking theory of "permanent revolution" - this was Trotsky's belief that a backward country did not have to follow the path of development towards industrial capitalism BEFORE reaching the stage where a socialist revolution could be carried through. He argued that rather than the emerging capitalist class of Russia playing a progressive historical role as they had down in Britain, they would be unable to carry this through for fear of the powerful, emerging working class.

Hallas summarises this beautifully - and even though this book was written in 1979, the argument remain of course important for areas of the world undergoing radical change today (in particular one thinks, South America).

Hallas looks at other strands of Trotsky's thought. He rescues the idea of the United Front (the idea that revolutionary organisations must often work together with reformists) from the distortions that it underwent by those who followed Stalin.

The final part of the book looks at how Trotsky, and his small band of followers survived when the traditions of genuine socialist thought were being smashed by Stalinism. He looks at how Trotsky viewed Soviet society, even though it was clearly no longer socialist in a way that any genuine follower of Marx could believe.

This bit of the book is probably the most interesting for those, like me, whose political activity came after the 1980s and 1990s when small grouplets' discussions were dominated by theories on the nature of Russian society. It's a useful introduction to ideas of "Degenerated Workers States" and a brief introduction to the theory of State Capitalism.

Hallas' belief that Trotsky was one of the greatest revolutionaries, who carried the flame of socialism so a new generation of activists could carry on the struggle, bursts through in every section of this book. But his belief that revolutionary leaders are never perfect marxists who never make a mistake, particularly when they become isolated from the great movements that have made them, means that Hallas is never afraid to criticise Trotsky, in order that the new generation is better armed for future battles.

Trotsky's Marxism by Duncan Hallas, can be downloaded from the Marxists Internet Archive here or find out if Bookmarks has a second hand copy.

Since writing the above review, I've been told that Trotsky's Marxism is available in Arabic as a PDF here.

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S.A.Smith – Red Petrograd; Revolution in the Factories 1917-1918

For those who want to attack the Russian Revolution of October 1917, there are many myths to peddle. Chief amongst these, are that the revolution wasn’t anything of the sort, rather the argument goes, it was a coup, organised by the minority Bolshevik party with little popular support.

There are many ways to demolish this myth, one of them, is to actually look at what ordinary workers in the stronghold of the revolution – Petrograd – thought and did. In particular, the struggles they fought and the people they supported in the heady days of 1917.

Anyone with an interest in the Russian Revolution, and by extension, an interest in defending it against it’s right-wing critics, will be fascinated by Smith’s book. It’s an in-depth look at the Petrograd working class, particularly those in the major factories.

Smith comes to many conclusions. The most important of these, is that he paints a picture of a revolutionary city, that throughout 1917, starting with the overthrow of the Tsar in February, is thinking, acting and fighting for itself. The slogans of popular power and worker’s control aren’t imposed from outside, rather they are slogans that are raised by the workers themselves in response to the day-to-day experience of revolution.

As 1917 progressed, many forces came into play. The immediate gains of the February revolution gave confidence to the mass of workers. Their organisations, in particular Factory Committees started to fundamental alter the balance of society. In the factories, men and women began evicting management and changing every aspect of working life. Ending “piece work”, removing rude or particularly oppressive overseerers and, most importantly, starting to organise production themselves.

It would be impossible to go into the detail in this review. Smith’s book is an extensive look at what happened in those months. Its conclusions are backed up by huge amounts of facts and figures (from strike statistics to information about literacy) and often the arguments are supported by the voices of the Petrograd workers themselves.

While the Bolsheviks are by no means the most important or the largest socialist party at the beginning of 1917, Smith shows how their consistant argument, their principled opposition to the war and their support for working class control of production gradually win them more and more support.

Their members aren’t isolated from the workers. They are the workers. It’s only by seeing this, that we are able to understand just how the revolution became possible. The final thing that Smith does is to show that the very backward nature of the Russian economy left the revolution dependent on international revolution. The war and economic crisis (followed by the western invasion in 1919) left the country drained. With the failure of the German revolution, and the isolation of Russian Soviet power, the rise of a bureaucracy and the eventual development of a new “capitalistic” society became almost inevitable. However this is beyond the scope of Smith’s book. What this book does do, is to nail the lie that the October revolution was something imposed from above and we see the revolution for what it really was – a mass action by ordinary people fed up of war and poverty, who believed they could create a better world.

Cornelius Tacitus – The Annals of Imperial Rome

This ancient work by Tacitus is a history of one of the most important periods of Imperial Rome, the period between the death of Augustus, the much loved, powerful emperor to the brief civil war that consumed the empire in AD69 and saw at least three emperors come and go in quick succession.

It is also a work that covers the period in Robert Graves’ novels about the rise of the Emperor Claudius, for those of you who base your knowledge of the period on those great works of fiction, though Claudius’ reign doesn’t get as thorough a treatment as some of the emperors described.

Written 50 or 60 years after the events it describes, the book is a historical manuscript of the highest order – covering not just the minutiae of the period but some of the most famous of Roman events – the fire that all but destroyed Rome in AD 64 in particular (the one that Nero is supposed to have fiddled during) and the revolt of the British tribes under Queen Boudicca for instance. Also of passing interest is the only “pagan Latin” reference to Christ’s execution by Pontius Pilate. (Tacitus is describing Nero’s scapegoating of that minority religion for the fire).

Mostly this work will be read by non-scholars for its description of the Emperor Nero’s descent into madness – Penguin have explicitly quoted Tacitus’s words (“Nero was already corrupted by every lust, natural and unnatural”) on the cover to attract these readers, though you’ll find less gossip in these pages than you might in Suetonius (or even Robert Graves). Tacitus’ book has a great deal of interest though beyond Nero’s insanity, at times though I felt bogged down in the detail of Roman individuals, most of whom seem unremarkable a few pages later.

This new Penguin edition also benefits from an excellent introduction by Michael Grant, discussing not just the historical period, but also what Tacitus would have meant by history.

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A.E.W. Mason - The Four Feathers

This Victorian novel of courage, bravery and honour, described as "The gripping tale of one man's struggle to ease the brand 'coward' from his name" on the cover is much more than similar tales of daring do.

Anyone who has seen any of the various films made from the novel, might be disappointed to find that there are few military details or epic battle scenes. Rather this novel is about the thoughts and emotions of a few individuals caught up in another of Britain's myriad of colonial wars.

Harry Faversham resigns from the army, just before his regiment is sent to fight in the Sudan. Immediately he is given four white feathers (three from his friends and one from his fiance - who also makes it clear that no Victorian lady will marry anyone with a tinge of cowardice to his name). The novel then follows Faversham's trip to the Sudan where, for the next five years he learns to blend in to the natives, and save the lives of his friends. He hopes, as a result to win his love back.

Here of course, we have all the settings for a classic Victorian action novel. Now, it'd be wrong to pretend that this is all that different a book, filled as it is with examples of stiff-upper lipped English bravery and dodgy attitudes to the locals. However it does have some interesting insights into the Victorian attitudes to heroes and cowardice. And in a contemporary time of war, it does also make clear (albeit obliquely) that those who don't want to fight, are also sometimes brave.

Fred Pearce - The Last Generation, How Nature will take her revenge for Climate Change

There are a plethora of books coming out at the moment about Climate Change, a colleague of mine half jokingly described it as “the new religion”, and in part he was right - since the latest IPCC report, the existence of Climate Change cannot be denied and now, the rush to make money from the issue has begun.

But amongst all the “Rough Guides to Climate Change”, and the “No Nonsense” guides, there are some gems. Monbiot’s book “Heat” is a fantastic example, and Tim Flannery’s look at the impact on the world’s eco-systems is well worth a read too.

Journalist Fred Pearce (who writes for the New Scientist) has also produced a readable book and it doesn’t simply regurgitate other books. In other ways (though not necessarily ones that are politically or scientifically problematic) it is very annoying.

To explain what the book is about, I need to explain about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports. These are regular reports (the most recent was in Feb 2007, the previous was in 2001) on Climate Change, and they are effectively a summary of scientific understanding on the subject. However, they are a consensus of scientific belief, ignoring the more extreme ideas, or those that are still hotly debated. Pearce’s book doesn’t ignore these ideas. In fact what he does is to concentrate on the aspects of climate science that the IPCC reports might skirt around.

In particular he looks at tipping points, or positive feedbacks. These are aspects of the climate/environment that can, in some models, lead to massive changes to the climate from small changes. For instance (and I pick a standard example) the melting tundra of the northern wastes of Siberia, will release methane gases that have been trapped under the icy soil. These gases will, once released, contribute to further climate change, but are frozen in disproportionate amounts. As the planet warms from historical emissions, more gases are released from the tundra, and the world heats exponentially.

There are many such examples, and Pearce documents them all. Some of these issues are the subject of intense scientific debate. If this was all that Peace did, it would be a boring (and depressing) book. What Peace also does is to look at historical climate change.

Climate Change has always been part of the world’s history, as he points out there have been only two prolonged periods of stability in the earth’s climate. But in documenting how the earth’s climate history has been punctuated by moments of rapid and extreme climate change, the author is showing just how dramatic an effect the consequences of human society are. Currently we are responsible for adding “4 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide a year to the atmosphere”. This is a colossal amount, and it is enough to nudge to fragile climate systems in dangerous directions.

Ultimately, this book cannot help but be a manifesto for change, as most of the other books (good and bad) are. There is nothing special about Pearce’s calls for renewable energies or reduced car use. I was struck by his argument (which I haven’t seen before) that to buy some breathing(!) space, we should concentrate on removing gases like Methane from the atmosphere first. Methane molecules “measured over the first decade after their release… causes a hundred times more warming than a molecule of carbon dioxide”.

As an initial step, blocking emissions from land fills etc could have a major impact on short term global warming, buying the human race much needed time to reduce carbon emissions.

Unfortunately, the book’s clichés (“His name was Bond, Gerrad Bond”) are predictable and in places very annoying. Also annoying is the jacket quote from John Gummer MP, (who famously made his daughter eat beef during the BSE crisis) which is printed above the slogan “Read this book. Your children’s future depends on it”, with no trace of irony.

Finally, I think the title was chosen to sell books, rather than reflect the material within. Nature will not have "revenge", rather the environmental systems will react to environmental changes according to physical laws, unfortunately with appalling consequences for life on earth.

Nevertheless, the book serves a purpose – it highlights something often unmentioned by popular and political accounts of climate change, we don’t face a problem which is gradually going to get worse, we face a situation where existing climate problems will create greater problems that snowball out of our control. Unless of course we all act, collectively, to solve the problem now.

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Monbiot - Heat, How To Stop The Planet Burning
Flannery - The Weathermakers

Terry Pratchett - Wintersmith

Terry Pratchett's Wintersmith is at once an age old story of how a God falls in love with a mortal, it's also a story of how the God (really the elemental of Winter, the Wintersmith) doesn't get his own way (cough) because he falls for a mortal who is also a witch the 13 year old Tiffany Aching.

There's little add to this - the Discworld is faced by eternal winter, unless Tiffany can spurn the advances of the Wintersmith and a certain young boy can complete a dangerous task. We also meet some of the Discworld's best characters again, Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, and are treated to the formers superb "Headology".

A couple of times, I wondered whether I'd read some of this before - the descent into hell, that forms part of the quest felt a little like Will and Lyre's trip into a similar place in the third volume of Phillip Pullman's wonderful "His Dark Materials" trilogy. And is it just a coincidence that Tiffany's true love, setting out on his world saving quest is called Roland?

Nevertheless this is a fun read for all Pratchett fans, though definitely not a good starting point for someone new to the series, and can I add how lovely it is to read a good novel in hardback, something that I rarely get a chance to do.

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Lizzie Collingham - Curry, a biography

Anti-capitalist protesters like to rage at the practices of Starbucks. The US coffee chain that seemingly pops up everywhere, drowning out independent shops and forcing it's wares onto a public who have no choice but to visit its venues.

Surprisingly, this isn't a new practice. In the late 19th and early 20th century, the Indian Tea Association practically forced it's wares onto an Indian public unused to the drink. They used all the best capitalist practices, giving away free samples, chasing out those who would try to compete and above all, swamping an area with tea. A market needed to be created for a crop that could grow well in India. England had adopted Chinese tea and now was selling it to the Empire. Now, the Indian tea market is huge and millions around Britain believe that tea originated there.

I tell this particular story from this book on the history of Curry, because it illustrates an important fact about that food. Curry, is not a single dish. It's a food that has been adapted, changed and adopted. A food that has been changed sometimes so many times in other countries that it would be unrecognisable to an Indian. But it is also a food that means different things to different people in diverse parts of India.

The author shows how over the centuries, various invaders have come to India, bringing their own traditions and tastes. Not least the Portuguese, who brought chiles from South America, radically altering the taste of India's food. The English of course, most famously took curry back home, though the experiments with Indian food that involved curry powder and sultanas probably are best forgotten.

Curry is a food recognisable by name from America to Japan (where it is particularly popular as a fast easy to prepare food), but it's taste is radically different.

I'm not enough of a curry connoisseur to fully appreciate some of Collingham's finer points about spices and tastes (nor good enough to attempt her recipes). I most enjoyed the sections of social history that she brings into the tale - the Bengali sailors who took over East London Fish and Chip shops in the 1950s, leading to the curry houses that every Eastender considers there own for instance.

This is a book that is really about globalisation, but it also shows us how a global market economy, doesn't automatically lead to identical blandness everywhere, but how each community interacts with others, often (except in the case of Sultanas) making something new and better!

Esme Choonara - A Rebel's Guide to Trotsky

Few individuals can have had as full a life as Leon Trotsky. A radical from a young age, a Marxist organiser who was sent to prison in his 20s and exiled from his home in Russia, he never stop organising, writing, publishing or speaking in support of the cause of socialism.

Where this all he had achieved, he would certainly be an interesting historical character. But Trotsky returned to Russia for the 1905 revolution, swiftly rising to head the chief organisation of that revolution – the Petrograd Soviet. With the defeat of this revolution and the start of the First World War, Trotsky once again had to live in exile. Again, with the start of the February revolution of 1917, Trotsky once again returned to Russia and became centrally involved in the soviet Arguing that the revolution had to continue beyond the gains it had already made, Trotsky worked closely with Lenin in the run up to the October “workers” revolution.

This revolution, as Choonara explains, usured in one of the most “equal and democratic” societies, history has ever seen. In isolation though, the revolution was doomed. Both Lenin and Trotsky had always argued that socialism couldn’t be built in isolation, that the revolution needed to be international, and certainly that backward Russia wouldn’t survive for long. Indeed, in the years that followed the October uprising, Trotsky had to form, then lead a Red Army, to defeat the dozen or so invading armies that the Capitalist powers sent to destroy the revolution.

While defeating these invaders was one of Trotsky’s greatest triumphs, it left Russia isolated and exhausted - perfect breeding ground for the rise of Stalin’s bureaucracy. The author illustrates how Trotsky’s last great battle was to expose and organise against Stalin – but how the material conditions simply didn’t exist for Trotsky to win this battle. But Choonara points out how that pure fact that Trotsky did fight this fight, ultimately leading to his murder, has left a legacy of revolutionary socialism, which “could have been broken forever by the rise of Stalin”.

Choonara concludes this short little pamphlet by pointing out how today the world has many differences with Trotsky’s time, but also many similarities. The ideas of Trotsky, she argues – particularly his unwavering commitment to the central tenet of Marxism, that the world must be changed by the mass of ordinary men and women, have much to offer those struggling for change in the 21st Century.

Releated Reviews

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Charles Stross - Iron Sunrise

Iron Sunrise starts with a remarkable act of terrorism - a sun is artificially made to go supernova and billions of people die. However the rest of the story is not just about identifying the culprits, it deals with a more interesting aspect of this act of terrorism - the consequences of the revenge enacted.

One of the planets destroyed in the explosion, New Moscow, had within the outer reaches of it's solar system a Weapon of Mass Destruction designed to prevent attack on it's owners because of the sheer awfulness of the response. Back in the 1960s, the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) between the Cold War protagonists went something like this - the use of a nuclear weapon or weapons would inevitably provoke a nuclear response. The response, coupled with the original attack would cause such horrific destruction, that the original attack was rendered pointless. There could be no winners.

Charles Stross has updated this. The destruction of New Moscow unleashes Faster Than Light weapons bombs that cannot be detected, and will utterly destroy their target worlds. The catch is, that they will take three decades to reach their destination and no one knows what their destination is.

Stross has very cleverly used the great gulfs of interstellar space to his dramatic advantage here. Normally these distances are annoying for SF writers - space based action would take too long for exciting stories. Here it gives the characters in the novel plenty of time to speculate on the consequences of the attack and hunt down the people with the abort codes.

This is very much SF for the early 21st century. Email and blogging is updated, lack of bandwidth is an interstellar problem and there are dictatorial regimes around the galaxy, while an impotent United Nations looks on. Iron Sunrise was written in 2004, so a plot line that deals with an imperialistic knee-jerk response to a terrible terrorist attack has obvious real world parallels. It's too the author's great credit that this doesn't dominate the novel in a patronising way, while simultaneously making some great politic points.

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A. G. MacDonell - England, their England

I fear that this wonderful comic novel is on it's way to becoming a forgotten classic. I desperately hope it doesn't perhaps this review may go some way towards rescuing it for a new generation.

The central character, like the author is a Scotsman wounded out of the trenches of the first world war who sets himself the task of writing a book to explain Englishness. Over the course of a year he spends his time at country house parties, political rallies, in pubs with journalists and authors and (most hilariously) playing cricket.

Of course, there isn't a glimmer of truth in any of MacDonnell's exaggerated characteristics. What makes the book so funny, is that it's a comic vision of the sort of society that those who think they are English would like to live in. So all the old soldiers are buffoons, the sportsmen all play for the team and elections are all fought with genuine friendliness on both sides. Also there doesn't seem to be any poverty, discontent or racism.

Here we have the Tory Candidate that Donald, our hero ends up supporting at the election. Having just sat down from making a speech, questions from the floor are called for.

'Mr. Chairman, when the candidate says he is in favour of work for all, how does he propose to provide it?'

Donald groaned. The very first man had put his finger on one of the vital weaknesses. Sir Henry rose

'I am very glad indeed that the question has been asked,' he said 'and I should like to take this opportunity of thanking the gentleman who asked it, and of congratulating him. Our policy roughly speaking is to see that jobs and adequately paid jobs are provided at once for everyone.' He sat down again amid applause.

Donald gasped. 'Good God! he though, 'they'll start throwing things'

The man who had asked the question rose again.

'Thank you very much' he said and sat down.

Beautifully observed satire, not least because it could, unfortunately be true.

John F. Hoffecker - A Prehistory of the North

John Hoffecker's book is an extrememly scholarly look at one of the oldest questions of archaeology - just how and when did humankind spread around the world. His particular concern here is how people came to live in the most inhospitable parts of the globe, when they did so, and how they succeded living in some of the coldest regions with the most primative of technologies.

Hoffecker starts way back. One of the skelton's he describes from Lake Turkana in Kenya dates from 1.53 million years ago. So far back it almost defies comprehension. The spread of humans from their place of origin in Africa, is not simply one of gradual exapansion. The book documents the waves of occupation that took place - climate changes often providing a trigger for human movements.

Human's have shown a remarkable ability to adapt to circumstances. And the circumstances sound unbelievable to us. Modern humans before 20,000 years ago, probably couldn't tolerate January mean temperatures of minus 30 Celcius, yet Hoffecker describes the changes to human anatomy that allowed some people to do just that.

This isn't an easy book to read - it's scholarly, but it's also academic and probably isn't aimed at the layperson, but it's worth reading if you have a bit of grounding in human evolution and climate change. At 140 pages it's probably one of the most succinct summaries of the issues.

Cormac McCarthy – The Road

There’s a point near the beginning of this novel where the father and son ‘heros’ find an old destroyed soft drinks machine in the rubble of a long looted supermarket. Scrabbling around in it, the father finds an unopened can of Coca-Cola. Giving it to his son to drink, the boy drinks the over sweet drink for the first time and offers some to his father. Initially his dad refuses it, then takes a small sip. Wondering why, the boy suddenly realises

“It’s because I wont ever get to drink another one, isn’t it?”

In these few words, the total collapse of human society are summed up. Coca Cola's global brand, that symbol of capitalism, the logo known from Alaska to Australia, Russia to South Africa, is forgotten and has become the stuff of dreams.

Cormac McCarthy has created a terrible world. Or at least he has understood how terrible the world could be. Wisely he avoids ruining the book by speculating on what caused the terrible collapse of society. Instead we consider the minutae of the lives of those struggling to survive on a planet where nothing grows, most food has long ago been looted, and in small pockets, slavery, cannibalism and murder are daily realities.

The titular road, is the journey that our father and son make, on an odyssey to the coast – we never learn the reason. We do however learn, that in such a society there are no morals. Good and bad aren’t necessarily what they were, they become what you do to survive. The gradual awaking of the son to this reality is heart-rending.

Ultimately, it’s a stark road they travel. The ending is painfully emotional, which is surprising given some of the places we visit during the journey. There are few novels that cover genuinely new ground, this is one of them.

Soumya Bhattacharya – You Must Like Cricket – Memoirs of an Indian Cricket Fan

Watching the Australian cricket team destroy the pathetic English equivalent over the last few months has been a joy for those of us who support “anyone but England”. But for those of us who love a good game of cricket, such capitulation in the face of superior skills is a shame because a more balanced match, might produce a more special game.

There are great differences between the experience of cricket supporters in England and India, but there are many similarities too.

Indian cricket is so much more popular. Clearly it is a sport followed by millions of ordinary Indians; contrary to the way that cricket historically has been the province of the middle and upper English classes. Bhattacharya detects however, how the cricket grounds are no longer just the realm of ordinary people though as corporate boxes increasingly dot the arenas. He also tells how Indian cricketers are often superstars, their faces selling soft drinks and health aids, something Flintoff et al. have only got involved in very recently.

For the cricket fan this book is a lovely work – any true fan of the sport (as opposed to a particular national team) will recognise the authors tales of following the game at work, or dreaming of the impossible in the middle of the night as a game is recounted over the radio from the other side of the world.

There is more though than amusing anecdote - the author describes being in the middle of a match that descended into rioting as rivalries between the Indian and Pakistan nations were played out on the field.

Sport of course, can’t be separated from the society within which it’s played. Simultaneously, it offers some escape from those societies too. But something else is true, there is a universal experience that all sports fans have. This wonderful little book shows the hope, despair, and passion at the heart of all sports fans, wherever they are in the world. Knowing this, reminds us that we are all, after all, human.

Kate Evans - Funny Weather - Everything you didn’t want to know about climate change but probably should find out

About three quarters of the way through this comic book introduction to the perils and issues around Climate Change, Kate Evans’ main character stamps his foot and laments “You know for a comic book this is not very cheerful”. Given that in the same panel, we’re told that Britain’s emissions of Carbon Dioxide have increased by 9% since 1990, you can perhaps understand the sentiment.

Kate Evans’ has created a brilliant introduction to the subject. By utilising the comic format, she will I hope, reach an audience that might be put off by other works on Climate Change, but the format in no way patronises the reader, nor dodges the science.

Kate takes us through some quite complex issues. She doesn’t just look at what causes the Greenhouse effect, she takes on those diminishing numbers of individuals who argue that the effect is not related to human activity, and she successfully skewers those politicians and corporate fat-cats who would put the future of the planet at risk, rather than address such thorny questions as reducing emissions.

By humanising these characters – corporate interests are represented by a cigar wielding, suit wearing business men – Kate prepares us to discuss and debate the issues with those around us. The “hero” of the book, a young man who debates and questions the corporate fat cat, concludes at the end, that his opponent is a “maniac”, whose policies will lead us “all to fry”.

Rather cleverly this brings in a factor that I think is missing from many articles on climate change. The issue is so great, the challenge so large, that once you hear the facts and figures, it can lead you to despondency. Kate’s comic book hero, falls into a fit of depression, only to rally and become a campaigner for change.

I don’t necessarily agree with all of Kate’s suggestions. Or perhaps it’s better to say that I would emphasise some things differently – I doubt that horses will become a major feature of urban transport this side of a total collapse of modern civilisation for instance. But these slight disagreements shouldn’t lead anyone to dismiss the book. I don’t believe that the environmental movement and the scientific community have yet found a perfect answer to how an environmentally friendly society would look – that’s something we can argue along the way. The great task at the moment is to clarify the issues for ordinary people, and offer some practical suggestions about how we can start campaigning and changing things now.

At the end of the comic, her characters (including a George Monbiot look-alike) join a demonstration, making the point that the major changes that are needed to save the planet will need to be fought for – and Kate Evans should be applauded for writing an extremely useful weapon in the battle to save the planet.

Larry Niven - Ringworld's Children

The final part of the Larry Niven’s Ringworld SF series is a brilliant return to form. Millions of readers like me thrilled at Niven’s original novel, depicting as it does a mysterious ring around a far sun, populated by billions of humanoids and advanced, strange technology. It was the ideal place to set a story of exploration.

The first volume was superb, rightly winning awards and public recognition. The second book Ringworld Engineers was very good. Personally I found the third unreadable - a confusing plot that missed out the exciting stuff about exploring the strange new world.

This final book ties up all the loose ends of the series - and from a few of Niven's other stories. It centres on the final “battle” for the Ringworld which is now a prize for all the galactic civilisations of Niven’s “Known Space”.

The Ringworld takes damage as those civilisations fight to get control, but there are other forces on the Ringworld who want to protect it. Their ingenious idea to save this unique structure is mind-boggling. But this after all is speculative fiction, and it is a fitting climax to one of SF’s great series.

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Charles Portis - True Grit

True Grit, is one of those films that everyone can quote at least one line from. I particularly remember John Wayne (that ardent anti-communist and white-supremacist) as Rooster Cogburn drawling "I never shot nobody I didn't have to". [wav file here]

It's a delight then, to find that Charles Portis' original novel has all the excitment of the film, as well as most of the memorable lines (if not the Hollywood ending).

The Wikipedia entry on the novel, has lots about the themes of "transition" and change. It is that, but it's also a fairly straight-forward tale of revenge. We meet Mattie Ross, an aged spinster who looks back on what must have been the most exciting moment of her frontier life - the time she road into the wilderness to avenge the killer of her father. Along the way, we meet a variety of characters, some good, some bad, but all of them flawed who give us a unique insight into some of the whys and wherefores of western life.

Particularly annoying and illuminating is Mattie's christianity, which gives her courage and helps her drive onward. Unfortunately it also gives her an incredibly blinkered view of the world, though her self-righteousness is wonderfully humourous at times. Also interesting at times is the insight into how the civilising force of commerce is seen as taming both the west and the wild men who live in it. Rooster Cogburn is seen in this context as the last of a breed - frontier men whose justice was as hard as the land around them, and whose morals needed to be modernised.

Donna Tart's new introduction to this reprint, rightly awards the accolade of "Cult Novel" to the book. If you liked the film, it's well worth a read, but even if you hate westerns you might get something out of it.

Jared Diamond - Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive

There are many places on earth, some of them tourist shrines, some of them deserted, covered by the sands of deserts or choked by the surrounding jungle, where mighty (or even, not so mighty) civilisations once stood. Jared Diamond’s book Collapse looks at why some of those civilisations failed and why some of them succeeded. In doing so, he hopes to draw some generalised conclusions about all societies, and perhaps make sure that our society (or at the least the readers of his book) learns some lessons in order to avoid becoming another buried society

As in his previous bestseller, Guns, Germs and Steel, Diamond tells a fascinating story. His descriptions of the rise and collapse (often sudden) of various civilisations are at turns amazing and terrifying. In particular, I found his chapters on the rise of the Vikings and their spread across the seas and oceans, as far as the US mainland fantastic. By comparing and contrasting Viking settlements on the Eastern Seaboard, in Iceland, Greenland, the Orkneys and elsewhere, he can tell a tale of how minor aspects of a civilisations setting (in particular, but not exclusively the physical environment) can have major consequences for a societies ultimate fate.

There is a danger when writing history of this type that you simply take the starting natural conditions (poor soil, excellent forests, good fishing) and extrapolate. Diamond avoids doing this, though he perhaps puts too much emphasis on these factors. Certainly the environment in terms of agricultural possibilities and climate changes did ultimately mean the doom of the Viking civilisation in Greenland.

But actions by societies themselves (whether they choose to cut down all the trees, grow unsuitable groups or introduction alien flora and fauna) often is a greater determining factor. Following on from these factors, whether a society adapts to changing circumstances or not is another major factors. The Vikings in Greenland didn’t try to adapt, instead attempting to continue the lives that they would have led in mainland Christian Europe meant that they were doomed. Diamond points out that the leaders of those societies, in blocking change and continuing in the old ways, merely ensured they were the last to starve.

Diamond’s later attempts to look at how these lessons can be applied to modern societies and nations are less convincing. At this point I must make it clear that I side with Diamond’s ambitions. Many of the factors that led to the collapse of Mayan, Viking, some Native American societies are visible around the world – and not just with the global warming that currently obsesses me and many like me. Deforestation, a factor in the failure of many historical civilisations, is a major issue for countries like China, today. Changes to water availability or the erosion of arable land are issues around the globe. But in a modern, globalised, technologically rich world, it’s not enough to point simply to these as the determining factors.

To be fair to Diamond, I’m being slightly crude here, he doesn’t really believe that modern civilisation will collapse overnight, but he is trying to show how in a globalised economy, there are a number of weak links in the economic and political chain that threaten the whole structure.

But the problems with Diamond’s thesis become clear, I think, when you look at some of his solutions. In particular when he looks at how some of the worst environmental criminals have tried to be part of the solution. In a couple of case studies, he shows how companies (such as a Chevron subsidiary) have cleaned up their act to make their oil drilling environmentally sound. Now one word that I didn’t spot in Diamond’s whole book (it’s certainly not in the index) is capitalism.

Capitalism is the latest stage (the highest even – to quote a 20th century writer) of class society. It is a system were productive capacity of human kind has far exceeded that of any previous society. Capitalism’s driving force – the quest for profits, goes to the heart of every aspect of society. Diamond himself points out, how this is not just an economic law, it’s a legal reality as well. In the US, it’s a legal responsibility of a company director to avoid making business decisions that reduce profitability. Under this sort of economic reality, it’s impossible to believe that every company will start to behave in a green way. Even though it is, as the author makes clear, in the interests of society as a whole, and sometimes of an individual company, to operate in a clean, environmentally conscious way, economic competition between companies mean that every advantage one company can get over another will be grabbed with both hands.

So, if a company can get an economic edge by cutting back its environmental policies, dumping waste instead of processing it, releasing more emissions instead of cleaning the gases or indeed cutting back on environmental inspections instead of hiring more inspectors, the directors will authorise it. The price of not seizing such economic advantages will be reduced competitiveness and ultimately bankruptcy.

Of course, as Jared Diamond makes clear there are other factors here. Government legislation, political and consumer pressure and campaigners can force better policies, but these will necessarily be undermined by the underlying economic realities. While we must support such initiatives, the ultimate challenge for us is not simply better legislation or greener company directors; it is changing the whole economic reality of our society.

The subtitle to Diamond’s book is “How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive”. Here again we face a difficulty. Granted some societies in the past did consciously decide to alter their behaviour to avoid collapse. But the economic and political structures of modern capitalism mean that making a decision in the interest of the whole of society is not easy, if it goes against the interests of those who wield the most economic power. The majority of people in the UK believe we need to reduce the use of fossil fuels to stop runaway climate change. But we have a government whose economic interests coincide with those of the oil companies. Those who take decisions about our agriculture, environmental policy or energy strategy are the same who took us to war in Iraq despite the opposition of the vast majority of the population.

Here we should return to the Vikings. To us, with hindsight we can say it was insane and irrational that they attempted to build a society in Greenland based on breeding cows, when the environment and climate was against them. It was further insane that they refused to reap the bounty of the oceans around them and catch fish to provide the protein that would have helped them through the cold winters. But that irrationality was the logical outcome of the position they found themselves in and their desire to continue to live in the way that they had done in their homelands.

Today, we live in a society that has irrationality built into its economic heart. It is economically sane to plunder the world’s resources even though it condemns millions to death.

The future salvation of human kind will require as Diamond makes clear, ordinary people to become aware of the lessons of history. However, it will not be enough for us to simply tinker with legislation and donate a few pounds to good causes. It will require the fundamental transformation of society - the creation of a society were the use of global resources and the production of material for human consumption is planned in the interests of people and planet, not the profits of the multinationals.

If that seems impossible, remember the people of Easter Island, the Mayan Kingdoms or Viking Greenland who must have argued that nothing can change. Jared Diamond’s work is a major tool to awaken us to the threat we face, but its conclusions are not the manifesto for change that we need.

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Paul Foot - The Vote

On 15th February 2003 up to two million people marched through the streets of London against the forthcoming war in Iraq. Around the globe millions more protested, demonstrated, expressing their disgust at the seemingly inevitable war. For those of us involved in the anti-war movements there was a strange contradiction; then as now it seemed almost impossible to find anyone who supported the invasion of Iraq. Certainly a majority of people in this country opposed the war yet the so called democracy we lived in, ignored this majority opinion and its parliamentary leaders blithely followed the US administration to war.

Paul Foot’s monumental history of the struggle for the vote (and the subsequent undermining of the votes’ power) tries to address how this contempt for democracy came about. As his starting point he looks at how during obscure debates of the English Revolution the English ruling classes expressed their fear that representative democracy would “threaten their property”. For almost 350 years various propertied minority ruling classes struggled against extending the vote to the unpropertied majority.

And yet when universal suffrage became law the rich didn’t lose their lands, wealth and property. In fact, as Foot points out the main beneficiary of universal suffrage, the British Labour Party has retreated totally from its ambition of reducing capitalism and governing for ordinary people.

But Foot points out that this was not inevitable. In three brilliant chapters, one on the Chartists, one on the Reform Acts and one on the Suffragettes, we see how the struggle for the vote was often part of far more radical demands, demands that would have fundamentally altered the balance of power in favour of the poor. Foot points out that many who entered parliament on the back of universal suffrage learnt to their dismay that simple democracy means nothing, if the power of the rich, the unelected bankers and financiers and the capitalists remains untouched.

Paul Foot was one of the greatest socialists that the British Left ever produced. Here, in his greatest book, we see how his passion for justice was a reflection of his absolute belief that society needs to be transformed by ordinary people.

The Vote: How it was won and How it was undermined has recently been republished by Bookmarks. You can buy it online from their website here.

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Iain M. Banks - Look To Windward

This Iain Banks novel is about war and the consequences of war. In Bank's universe where societies span thousands of solar systems, a war means hundreds of billions of people can be affected.

As in several of these novels, we see how the Culture intervenes subtley into the affairs of other civilisations. Though this time, they get it wrong and the Chelgrian civilisation collapses into civil war - 5 billion loose their lives, and the Culture suffers a sort of collective guilt.

The novel deals with the consequences. We can't comprehend the deaths of 5 billion - rather like the Holocaust is difficult to imagine. So Banks tells us the stories of a few individuals - one in particular who is coaxed into a mission of revenge, because he cannot escape the lose of his lover in the war. The story of attempted revenge, exile, war and religion feels a little thin on the ground - but Bank's wonderful writing makes up for this, and once again I was left breathtaken by the sheer scope of the novel.

As an aside I was surprised to see the novel dedicated to the Gulf War Veterans. Until I remembered a pervious Gulf War and the men who still fight for justice because of the chemicals they were exposed to over 10 years ago. Sometimes Science Fiction can be very close to the truth.

Stephen King – The Dark Tower – The Gunslinger

In the introduction to this, the revised and expanded version of the novel, Stephen King makes it clear that he thinks that the series of novels that starts with “The Gunslinger” is his most important and complex work. His Magnum Opus if you like.

Certainly it’s a very good novel, a blending of fantasy and SF, with influences from all sorts of imaginable genres - King makes clear his debt to “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” for instance.

He also makes clear his debt to “The Lord of the Rings” and here I think is were it starts to unwind. King didn’t want to re-write the “LOTR”, thank God. Nor did he want to steal, borrow or copy the characters, locations and settings. Unlike just about every other fantasy author you can think of. King clearly set about trying to capture the scope and the imagination of Tolkien’s invented lands. But I think he tries to hard.

The tale is of a lone gunslinger (the last of his breed, as a film caption writer will no doubt have it one day) pursuing a mysterious black clad man across a desert. The story moves quickly from its classic western style opening to become more fantastical. With magical goings on and a confusing sense of time for the characters contributing to a tale that’s both readable and confusing. But at every stage you feel King’s setting up a wider mythical back-drop. Rather than the story arising naturally out of events it feels clunky, like things have been bolted on rather than fleshed out.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Stephen King’s a fantastic writer – the novel “IT” is one of the most enjoyable books I have had the pleasure to read and re-read over the years. I just think that in this early book, King spent too long trying to create an epic, rather than telling a story which would naturally pull in the epic around it, purely because of it’s scope.

The fan-sites imply it gets better with volume two. Lets hope so, otherwise it could be a long turgid trip to volume seven.

Terry Pratchett - Thud

Thud, Terry Pratchett's latest Discworld novel to hit paperback continues pretty much where the last few have left off. Once again, we are in the city of Ankh Morpork, and once again, the city is under threat. This time, the threat isn't some tear in the fabric of reality, war or dragons, it's the very nature of the city itself.

Over the span of 35 discworld novels, the city of Ankh Morpork has grown (as well as being fleshed out). It's become a multi-cultural society, with Dwarfs, Trolls, Vampires and every other creature imaginable living (or existing) side by side. We see industry developing, new forms of entertainment, and most of all we see issues arising from the arrival of new people to the city.

How Ankh Morpork has dealt with the growing "ethnic" nature of the town previously has been a theme that Pratchett has returned to time and again. He is, of course echoing some of the debates that have been common recently in Britain. And he does poke fun at some of those who hold the views of the tabloid press.

In truth though, I think Pratchett tries too hard. The story here of bubbling tensions below the surface of Ankh Morporkian society works quite well - it's entirely believable in a world were senior goernment ministers are happy to scapegoat one particular section of society. Whether this makes for good Discworld entertainment is a different question.

I'd like to see less of Ankh Morpork for a while, and more of what made the earlier books so original - but the opening chapter of his next novel, helpfully included in my edition, seems to be a return to the Lancre - the land of the witches. A break from the problems of the city watch will do us all good.

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Michael Grant - Cities of Vesuvius - Pompeii & Herculaneum

When Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum stood little chance. Both were less than 10 miles from the volcano, and both were rapidly overcome by material from inside the earth. Thousands of people fled the volcanic mud and ash. Hundreds died and the archaeological record shows that many of them died because they returned for valuables, or tried to wait out the falling rocks in places of shelter.

Pompeii is one of the great tourist sites for those interested in history and though Michael Grant starts this wonderful book, with details of some of those who died in the eruption, the vast majority of the work is an illumination of the ancient town's streets, houses, shops, theatres and brothels. There's much of interest - and it's fun to compare and contrast our lives today, with those of the Roman's in AD 79. Surely if London was overcome by natural disaster many of use would die clutching our valued possessions. But we also find familar the love that the Roman's had for fine art, for good wine and for love and literature.

There is staggering evidence for how the Roman's lived. Having been to Pompeii, I've seen the cart tracks in the streets and stood in the fine rooms of the houses, you looked at the casts of those who died clutching their children to their breast. But I didn't know archaeologists had found the remains for bread in ancient ovens or tracked the artists responsible for different murals in Roman houses.

Grant's section on graffiti is amusing - not least because so much of it is reminisant of slogan's scrawled on walls today. "At least six inscriptions compare brunettes with blondes" he tells us and "a certain Septumius employes the same medium [graffiti] to launch obscene attacks on anyone who reads his scrawl." So much was written, that many walls had signs warning against the practice - to no avail. This certainly wasn't a practice limited to adults - the relative height of different graffiti show many children had a go, often as in the case of their adult scrawlers quoting famous works of literature.

Though first published in 1971, this appears to be the first paperback edition of this short book, dated 2001. I'd recommend anyone interested in ancient lives picks up a copy, particularly if you plan to visit the Naples region anytime soon.

Barbara W. Tuchman - The Guns of August

The outbreak of war in 1914 was greeted in many countries by rejoicing. Indeed, many of the most ardent and eloquent opponents of the expected conflict rolled over and supported their governments.

Barbara Tuchman's history of the first month the First World War is an excellent military history, dealing with a forgotten part of the conflict - the war of maneuver that all the European powers engaged in, before becoming bogged down in the trench warfare that we all think of when hearing about the conflict.

Up until the 1914, all wars had been on a relatively small scale, and very few (with the interesting exception of Lord Kitchener) believed that the coming war would be anything but a short war of conquest. Certainly no-one expected the slaughter that would take place.

The scale of the outbreak of hostilities however, shocked everyone. The first German attacks on the French forts on the second day of the conflict cost the lives of thousands of men. Tuchman describes how the “dead piled up in ridges a yard high” and points out the attitude of the German commanders in this battle “spending lives like bullets in the knowledge of plentiful reserves to make up the losses” set the scene for the later battles at the Somme and Verdun, were both sides wasted the lives of millions.

But not all of this history is as unsurprising as the horrific casualty figures. We learn that the British Army in France, who famously fought a brave battle at Mons in the first days of the war, under the cowardly leadership of Sir John French retreated in the face of the enemy, only returning to join the French in the battle to defend Paris. This is the second shock – how close the German’s came to capturing Paris, and ironically Tuchman points out that it’s precisely this failure on the part of the German military that sets the scene for the long, drawn out war of iteration.

As I finished the book, I was reminded of Rosa Luxembourg’s wonderful opening chapter of her anti-war pamphlet, written in 1915. She describes how the scenes of joyous crowds waving the armies off, had been replaced by a sullen acceptance of the horrific realities of war. In a memorable phrase, referring to those who were rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of a long drawn out war – the capitalists who could make money from it, she wrote “and the profits, spring like weeds from the fields of the dead”. An eloquent description of a wasteful war which altered the face of the last century.

Tuchman’s book is an amazing historical introduction to the leaders who led their countries into this war, the politicians and generals prepared to sacrifice the lives of their soldiers and the horrific battles in which their armies lost their lives.

Francis Wheen - Marx's Das Kapital - A biography

Francis Wheen wrote one of the best books about the life of Karl Marx, an accessible, interesting and often funny look at the great man's life, ideas and activities. His latest book is much shorter, but nonetheless an interesting way of looking at what Wheen thinks is Marx's most important work.

Das Kapital was the culmination of Marx's life work. It's a sprawling, multi-volume look at the economics that underpin capitalist society, a prediction of what was to come and an examination of capitalism's impact on people's lives. Not simply in the realm of how the capitalists cut wages and keep and army of unemployed, but how the worker becomes alienated from his labour's product and thence from society. These complex ideas are brought to life by Wheen quoting Marx's florid and engaging prose - rescuing the real Marx from the dogmatic Stalinist language we might be more used to.

Wheen's enthusiasm for Marx (and Das Kapital) means that he feels the need to rescue the book from those Marxists (Lenin and Trotsky in particular) that Wheen thinks abused the tradition of Marxism, but these are the weakest sections of an otherwise interesting read.

Wheen concludes by pointing out how increasingly economists and commentators have found themselves drawn to some of the central points of Kapital - though unfortunately not it's revolutionary conclusions, and concludes that "Marx may only now be emerging in his true significance. He could yet become the most influential thinker of the twenty-first century". Let us hope so.

George Monbiot - Heat, How To Stop The Planet Burning

The greenhouse gases that humans have emitted into the atmosphere since the industrial revolution will lead to an almost certain temperature rise of 1 to 2 degrees Celsius. Already the temperature changes that we have seen are having catastrophic effects around the world – melting polar ice, shrinking glaciers and an increase in hurricanes being amongst some of the most obvious of these.

The human consequences (never mind those to fragile eco-systems around the world) have already been catastrophic. The suffering in New Orlean’s Superbowl may have been just the most visible of these, but no less is the suffering of those facing crop failures and flooding elsewhere. Even a small increase beyond the 2 degrees mentioned previously will have even more dramatic consequences. George Monbiot points out that one piece of research shows that rice yields drop by 15% for every degree temperature increase, and a 2.3 degree temperature rise will expose around 200 million new people to the threat of malaria.

In this context, Monbiot sets himself the task of showing how Greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced to minimise a temperature rise beyond 2 degrees Celsius. He argues that the UK (and by extension) the US and other industrial nations need to implement strategies to reduce our Carbon Dioxide emissions by 90%. This startling, and frightening figure offers perhaps humanity’s greatest challenge over the next few years.

Monbiot starts controversially – he points out the hypocrisy and double standards of some who claim to lead green lifestyles, yet still regularly fly around the globe. But he will also upset other Green apple carts – some of his research has led him to believe that previously accepted practices – such as arguing for localised wind turbines on home roofs will have limited effect.

What Monbiot does offer are concrete strategies in a variety of areas – power generation, transport, housing and retail for example. He proves, though sometimes it is hard, that we could achieve a 90% cut. In some cases (like transport) this is easy – a rapid switch towards public transport in the UK would lead to an almost immediate 90% cut in emissions. Proper insulation of homes and offices would do similar.

What he doesn’t prove is how we get it done. In my mind, such dramatic changes to energy, transport and housing policies will require government and state intervention - investment to make the technology a reality and legislation to force companies to make the changes.

This is unlikely to happen if left to the politicians who have vacillated long enough, rather we need a political movement to force them to do it. Monbiot explicitly doesn’t attempt to describe his vision of that movement and this I think is the books real weakness – the reader is left with a desire to save the planet, but with limited options (other than the campaign groups listed in the books appendixes) about how to do it.

I do believe we can build the political movements required, and Monbiot’s book is a manifesto for the sort of strategies we need – to this end, every activist should read the book and take its themes and arguments into their Trade Union branch, their community group and their environmental organisation. This is a call to arms, and comes very highly recommended.

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Tim Flannery - The Weathermakers
Fred Pearce - The Last Generation