Paul McGarr & Alex Callinicos - Marxism and the Great French Revolution

This book is actually a reprint of a special edition of the International Socialist Journal. Published near the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution, it consists of two excellent essays - though the original had an extra essay by John Rees on the Algebra of Revolution which is not online. The first, by Paul McGarr is an excellent introductory account to the French Revolution. McGarr doesn't dwell in great detail on the details of the Revolution, preferring to paint a general picture that concentrates on the forces clashing within French society. Here, McGarr gives the reader a sense of the changing nature of French society and the tensions developing within it:

The French state under Loius XIV pursued vigorous 'protectionist' economic policies... designed to serve the interests of the state in its conflicts with its rivals. But they were also designed to help French trade, commerce and manufacture - and thus the bourgeoisie. Significant elements of the bourgeoisie used their wealth and influence to obtain lucrative positions within the growing bureaucracy of the absolutist state... In short the absolutist state was an adaption to, and partial incorporation of, the bourgeoisie but within a reshaped and restabilised feudal political structure.

Such tensions could not be contained indefinitely, and the author explains well how the economic changes influenced political interests, which eventually exploded into rebellion. But for the Revolution to be carried through required the direct involvement of the masses. McGarr explores the way that this took place through the networks of radical clubs and organisations which discussed, debated and took action. These clubs were numerous and frequently large. The Jacobin clubs in Marseille, for instance, in 1791, involved 2,000 people. McGarr writes

Some estimates put the numbers as high as one million at various points in the revolution... This mass political organisation and its press were the backbone of the revolution. We know more about events in Prais and in the Convention, but too often the fact that behind this stood real organisation right across the country, on a historically unprecedented scale, is forgotten.

What did this mean in practice? McGarr argues that the bourgeoisie needed to break the old order in order to push forward their class interests. But were not able to do this on their own. So they also needed the "class demands" of the peasants and urban masses to drive the revolution on.

The peasants and urban poor were not capable of forming an independent force capable of taking power in society. Only the bourgeoisie had the potential to be a new ruling class. This gave them hegemony in constructing the new order.

Their victory meant that the bourgeoisie now formed the dominant, exploiting class. McGarr argues this because he wants to demonstrate that those who argue that the political and class struggles of the French Revolution were immaterial to the changes in French society are wrong. Students of the French Revolution will find that McGarr's article is a useful short introduction to the debates within the left (and with the right) about the nature of this change.

It is in this context too, that Alex Callinicos' essay is extremely important. Luckily it is available online. Callinicos' has written extensively on the subject of the transition from feudalism to capitalism. This essay, Bourgeois Revolutions and Historical Materialism is an excellent introduction to this topic, particularly in the context of the French Revolution. Though having said that, Callinicos briefly examines other changes such as Revolution's "from above" like that in Germany, the United States and Japan.

One key argument for Callinicos is over which class "led" the revolution. Here he challenges those who simply argue that bourgeois revolutions must be led by the whole bourgeois class. Clearly in the case of many revolutions this isn't the case, the gentry fought on both sides, or changed sides.

Bourgeois revolutions must be understood, not as revolutions consciously made by capitalists, but as revolutions which promote capitalism. The emphasis should shift from the class which makes a bourgeois revolution to the effects of such a revolution – to the class which benefits from it. More specifically, a bourgeois revolution is a political transformation – a change in state power, which is the precondition for large scale capital accumulation and the establishment of the bourgeoisie as the dominant class. This definition requires, then, a political change with certain effects. It says nothing about the social forces which carry through the transformation.

It seems to me that this is the only sensible analysis. The origins of the need for revolutionary change arise behind the scenes so to speak. They are the consequences of actions by people who change their way of making wealth gradually over time, and bring within them other interests and needs. This isn't necessarily a conscious activity and does not automatically lead to conscious needs for change. Nonetheless, eventually, critical mass is arrived at and different forces in society a forced to clash. I think the English Revolution demonstrates this very clearly, as parliament gradually is forced to confront the king over more and more key economic and political questions until eventually he has to be fought. Few, if any, who took up arms in 1642 for Parliament did so imagining they would be bringing down the monarchy.

Callinicos puts it very well

Capitalism, involving...  the spread of commodity circulation, necessarily develops in a piecemeal and decentralised way within the framework of feudal political domination. It gradually subverts the old order through the infiltration of the whole network of social relationships and the accumulation of economic and political power by capitalists. The effect is both to the many capitalists to the ancien régime but also to change the nature of that régime, so that old forms conceal new, bourgeois relationships.

Or as Engels wrote (quoted by Callinicos) ‘The political order remained feudal, while society became more and more bourgeois.’

Again, as in McGarr's article, Callinicos tackles those, such as the political theorist Theda Skocpol, who argue that what took place in the English Revolution was a "political but not a social revolution". To demonstrate this, Callinicos examines the changes that take place in the role of the state. Again, these arguments should be read by anyone seeking to understand the political and social transformations taking place in England and France during the Revolutions. Key to these changes though, are the various political actors. In the French Revolution we have the peasants and urban masses, with the Jacobin revolutionaries (like Cromwell) forced to play a balancing act between the groups' differing interests. This is why the historical analysis of McGarr's piece is so important, because the revolutionary process taking place as social forces grow and develop during the Revolution are key to understanding why different groups acted in particular ways at different times. Revolutionary change was not inevitable, and as Callinicos points out, the Bourgeois revolution failed in its classic sense in countries like Germany, having to be imposed from above. Revolutions

in which the existing state apparatus was used violently to remove the obstacles to the construction of unified capitalist economies. It is essential, therefore, to consider some of the main features of these revolutions.

Finally, Callinicos notes that the contemporary changes have taken alternate forms. The Russian Revolution needed workers to lead the peasantry to victory in 1917. But in countries were this wasn't possible, various alternative revolutionary leaderships were able to play this role "often marching under ‘Marxist-Leninist’ colours but dominated by the urban petty bourgeoisie, were able to lead and organise successful peasant wars against imperialism and its allies."

Callinicos concludes,

The historical irony that movements claiming the inspiration of Marxism should do the work of capitalism, merely underlines the fundamental difference between bourgeois and socialist revolutions. Bourgeois revolutions are characterised by a disjunction of agency and outcome. A. variety of different social and political forces – Independent gentry, Jacobin lawyers, Junker and samurai bureaucrats, even ‘Marxist-Leninists’ – can carry through political transformations which radically improve the prospects for capitalist development.

This however is not enough. The revolutionary defeat of feudalism and the introduction of capitalism, was a historic progress step. But today Capitalism is a fetter on the further development of human society. Understanding the forces that led to that change, helps us better understand the nature of the beast we must destroy today. These two essays should be read by anyone seeking to turn the world upsidedown.

Related Reviews

Jaurès - A Socialist History of the French Revolution
Callinicos - Making History
Heller - The French Revolution and Historical Materialism
Birchall - The Spectre of Babeuf

Jean Jaurès - A Socialist History of the French Revolution

The French Revolution was a profoundly important historical event. But just saying this can underestimate its impact. The Revolution didn't simply change the course of French, or even European history, it helped to shape the way generations of people viewed historical change. A glance at the writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky will see repeated references to the Revolution and its key figures. Debates about the processes of historical change, particularly the transition from feudal society to capitalism, continue to discuss the French events, and radicals today continue to be inspired by the nameless thousands who stormed the Bastille, and at crucial moments forced reluctant politicians to embrace change.

In this context then, this important new abridgment of Jean Jaurès' classic history of the French Revolution is very welcome indeed. Jean Jaurès was a leading French socialist of the early 20th century. Assassinated for opposing the First World War, he had an enormous impact upon the French socialist movement. But he also helped to shape the study of the French Revolution with his monumental Socialist History. Spanning multiple volumes it is a work of brilliant scholarship that seeks to apply the Marxist method to the revolutionary events and its leading figures. It is also immensely readable.

Translator Mitchell Abidor has done a brilliant job in bringing Jaurès work to an English audience. His translation is superb but his selection from Jaurès is also excellent, managing to convey the full breadth of his history, without losing the author's eye for detail.

As a 20th century socialist, Jaurès was concerned with the role of ordinary people in the Revolution. But he understands that there was a contradiction. The urban population may have stormed the Bastille, but

The Revolution's origins were so profoundly bourgeois that a few weeks after July 14, when the National Assembly, freed by the people from the court's attacks, set up the electoral regime and excluded millions of the working poor from the vote... not even the most democratic of them remembered that at the Bastille the workers of Paris had conquered the title of active citizens for the poor of France.

The role of the "people"

seemed a glorious and fearsome accident that could not be allowed to become the rule in the regular workings of a free and ordered society.

But even so, Jaurès notes that,

thanks to these valiant men there is nothing under the sun today that belongs wholly to the bourgeoisie, not even its Revolution.

Time and again, the masses, take the stage to direct and shape the direction of the Revolution. The peasants, fearful of "brigands"  and knowing

That the proletarians were neither bold enough, conscious enough, nor organized enough to substitute their revolution for the Revolution, they marched lightheartedly against the chateaux and turned against the ancien régime the weapns they'd seized... We can see that there was a kind of conservative movement of contraction, or tightening, which was followed by a revolutionary expansion. Under the fear of the unknown and before the uprising of the have-nots, the communities of the villages withdrew into themselves, elected men of whom they were sure, established a militia, and, having thus guaranteed the order of property within the Revolution, attacked the feudal system. 

This contradiction runs through Jaurès' history. The dynamic between the limitations of the new order and the desire for change of the masses at the bottom of society. But it is in Paris and the other key urban areas that we really see the revolution pushed forward. The most radical deputies are elected from these towns, and they are the ones most clued into the desires of the masses and most keen to press forward under pressure from below. As events progress, the masses become less and less passive, and their leaders, are pushed forward, or aside.

Jaurès is not afraid to critique some the heroes of the Revolution. He is skeptical of Marat, saying his "theories caused bewilderment and even scandal among the people", and noting Marat's hope that the rich might "save themselves" by "act[ing] in good faith by giving a poor a portion of their excess". But here I think Jaurès is ahead of himself. Hindsight is wonderful, and I think that the author is limited by his belief that a proletarian movement already existed within the French masses, akin to the modern working class.

As Henry Heller points out in his introductory essay, Jaurès' "moved toward socialism without breaking from the radical republican and parliamentary tradition". So his history ends up suggesting that the struggle for socialism under capitalism is the continuation of the French Revolution. As Jaurès writes

Perhaps it wasn't possible for one generation alone to bring down the ancien régime, create new laws and rights, raise an enlightened and proud people from the depths of ignorance, poverty, and misery, fight against an international league of tyrants and slaves, and to put all passions and forces to use in this combat while at the same time ensuring the evolution of the fevered, exhausted country towards normal order and well-ordered freedom.

But precisely because the French Revolution was a bourgeois revolution that brought in capitalism, this would be impossible, unless you believed French capitalism could provide well-ordered freedom. Jaurès writes "Strong class action by the proletariat is needed in order to wrest the Revolution and democracy from all that is now outdated and retrograde in the bourgeois world view".

My second criticism is that this selection neglects the impact of the Revolution outside of Europe, in particular its role in helping to inspire revolutions in Haiti against colonialism and slavery. This is a serious ommission in my opinion, given the importance of that event in helping to end slavery itself.

One problem with the nature of any abridgment is that it must miss out stuff, both contextual and factual. So the reader new to the French Revolution may at times struggle in understanding who certain individuals were, and their motivations. While Mitchell Abidor does a heroic job in framing each selection, there are inevitable gaps which mean that some readers might want to read further on the Revolution.

While these limitations are important, they do not entirely detract from this important book. Henry Heller's useful introduction frames the book for the reader who can enjoy Jaurès writing for what it is, a celebration of the need to change the world, and the role of ordinary people in doing so.

Naomi Klein - The Shock Doctrine

Naomi Klein's recent book This Changes Everything has helped reignite the climate movement and radical discussion of the environment and its relationship to capitalism. Having enjoyed it, I have turned to an earlier book of hers to try and understand more about how Klein sees capitalism and the alternative to it. I began The Shock Doctrine expecting to disagree with her analysis of contemporary capitalism. While I did, in places, I found much to agree with in the book, and many astute and important pieces of journalism.

According to Klein the Shock Doctrine is the way that contemporary capitalism uses chaos and disaster to open up markets to privatisation and more extreme exploitation. In her words,

the coup, the terrorist attack, the market meltdown, the war, the tsunami, the hurricane - puts the entire population into a state of collective shock. The falling bombs, the bursts of terror, the pounding winds serve to soften p whole societies much as the blaring music and blows in the torture cells soften up prisoners.

Using examples from 1970s Latin American to Iraq following Bush and Blair's war, to the aftermath of "natural" disasters like Hurricane Katrina or the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami, Klein develops a series of examples that show how capitalism has become adept at utilising the aftermath of shocks to destroy public services, privatise nationalised utilities and open up whole economies to the free market.

Those driving these ideas do not do so, she suggests out of nastiness. But out of a belief that what will improve the world is more free-markets and less state intervention. She looks at the economics of individuals like Milton Friedman who "dreamed of depatterning societies, of returning them to a state of pure capitalism, cleansed of interruptions - government regulations, trade barrier and entrenched interests." Klein frequently uses the analogy of torture, and describes the way that experiments in the 1960s tried to see how humans could be "wiped clean" through sensory deprivation. Such human shocks are a metaphor for what the shock of war, or disaster, might do to societies.

I think she stretches this metaphor too far. Though the chapter on how the CIA developed its torture techniques is truly terrifying, not least because of the role that torture has played in allowing the United States to further the economic ideas of individuals like Friedman.

But we should look at some of the examples that Klein uses. Some of them are simply outrageous. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it is relatively well known that the government closed all the public schools and sacked all the teachers, rehiring some on worse contracts and making them teach in new, private schools. Precisely the sort of education that Friedman advocated. What I didn't know is the extent to which right-wing think-tanks then shaped how the government responded. In part this is the way that private enterprise was deployed to "rebuild". But its not just that government money poured into the pockets of companies like Haliburton giving them contracts to do everything from build new hotels or clear up bodies, but also in the way that such ideas encouraged Bush to do things like suspend the laws about low pay in the region.

Significant sections of the book deal with the Iraq debacle. Many of us involved in the anti-war movement at the time suggested that the post-war Iraq would be built up in the interest of US companies and private enterprise, what Klein shows is far worse. The vision of Iraq was of a country wiped clean of its past, built in the image of a neo-liberal utopia, with private schools and malls vying the the oil money that a grateful population would throw.

Klein also examines some historic examples. The way that in Chile in 1973 the money men overthrew the radical socialist (popularly elected) government of Allende and replaced it with the Pinochet regime. Chile became a laboratory for neo-liberal fantasies, though the separation of economic from political meant that many of the Chicago School economists who had encouraged the opening up of Chile's economy could pretend that the "excesses" were nothing to do with them. The screams of the tortured and the tears of those who lost a loved one "disappeared" didn't reach into the ivory towers of Chicago University's economic department.

However Klein's criticism isn't simply at those who caused the horror. Pointedly she also criticises those whose solidarity work only looked at the violence and neglected the wider impact of the free-market policies imposed on the country. For Pinochet to succeed he had to destroy any potential opposition, and once that opposition had disappeared he was able to drive down wages, destroy services, and remove civil liberties. In Amnesty Internationals 92 page report on the Junta,

It offered no comment on the deepening poverty or the dramatic reversal of programs to redistribute wealth, though these were the policy centrepieces of junta rule. It carefully lists all the junta laws and decrees that violated civil liberties but named none of the economic decrees that lowered wages and increases prices, thereby violating the right to food and shelter

This is a central point of Klein's book. She understands that the violence of the "shock" cannot be separated from the violence caused by the economic and political changes that follow, nor the damage caused by the corruption that inevitably follows.

So profitable has the shock doctrine been that some right-wingers inevitably speculate on what could take place if they could control the shock and chaos. Take neo-liberal economist John Williamson. Naomi Klein quotes him

Whether it could conceivably make sense to think of deliberately provoking a crisis so as to remove the political logjam to reform. For example, it has sometimes been suggest in Brazil that it would be worthwhile stoking up a hyperinflation so as to scare everyone into accepting those changes... Presumably no one with historical foresight would have advocated in the mid-1930s that Germany or Japan go to war in order to get the benefits of the supergrowth that followed their defeat. But could a lesser crisis have served the same function? Is it possible to conceive of a pseudo-crisis that could serve the same positive function without the cost of a real crisis?

Inevitably some suggest that some shocks are deliberate. There are plenty of sites on the internet that argue that 9/11 was an inside job to allow Bush (and by extension Haliburton etc) to get into the Middle East. Klein cautions against this, pointing out that reality doesn't need such conspiracies. The opportunity is always there.

However having said all this I want to add my own note of caution. I am slightly sceptical that the Shock Doctrine is as real as Klein suggests. There is no doubt of course, that the neo-liberal governments that have followed Reagan and Thatcher in the US and Britain have seized every opportunity to impose their vision of a privatised world on the globe. I'm not sure this is any different to what has happened in the past. I'm reminded of the way that British capital entered India, destroyed its markets and impoverished millions in order to expand the profits from its home industry (a story told brilliantly by Mike Davies), or of the way companies have always destroyed competition, used the state to conquer territory or resources or simply changed the world in their own image. Klein herself acknowledged this to a certain extent

The mantra 'September 11 changed everything' neatly disguised the fact that for free-market ideologues and the corporations whose interests they serve, the only thing that changed was the ease with which they could pursue their ambitious agenda.

Secondly I think Klein's alternative is over-simple and doesn't actually guard against the dangers she has so eloquently described. Effectively she argues for a reformist, democratic capitalism, along the lines of Allende's ambition in 1970s Chile, or more recently the radical visions of Latin American governments in Brazil and Venezuela. The problem is that these leave the beast intact. Capitalism will come back and reforms can only blunt its greed. Stopping the neo-liberals means doing more than having friendly left-wing governments. It will mean challenging the system that breeds war and economic crisis.

I also think Klein is weak on the way that "shocks" can demoralise those best placed to stop the imposition of neo-liberal policies. Her example from the UK, where Thatcher used the 1982 Falklands War to destroy the miners and introduce privatization doesn't fit the facts. The War got her elected, but it was the failure of the trade union leadership that ultimately led the miner's strike to defeat - not a shocked union membership who, on the contrary, showed enormous organisation and self-confidence. On several occasions that movement nearly brought down Thatcher, rather than it being a completely one sided victory for neo-liberalism.

Klein celebrates the role of social movements in changing the world and notes how, in places, movements have been able to stop the neo-liberal onslaught. She quotes several South African activists who, with hindsight, note that they lacked an understanding of what capitalism would do to them after the fall of apartheid. For me, this is the key lesson. We need mass anti-capitalist movements that understand the nature of capitalism and the state that protects it, in order to build a new society based on a different economics entirely.

Related Reviews

Klein - This Changes Everything
Solnit - A Paradise Built in Hell

Antonia Fraser - The Six Wives of Henry VIII

This meticulous study of Henry VIII's six wives is a fascinating examination of the position and role of ruling class women in Tudor society. Traditionally we see these women as the passive victims of the increasingly irrational and tyrannical behaviour of Henry VIII, victims of his lust and violence. Antonia Fraser however challenges the cardboard caricatures of these women, suggesting that it is false to see them

"as a series of feminine stereotypes, women as tarot cards. Thus Catherine of Aragon becomes The Betrayed Wife, Anne Boleyn is the The Temptress, Jane Seymour The Good Woman; Anna of Cleves is The Ugly Sister, Katherine Howard The Bad Girl; finally Catherine Parr is the Mother Figure."

Instead, she argues, that "on thew contrary, a remarkably high level of strength, and also of intelligence, was displayed by them at a time when their sex traditionally possessed little of either."

Fraser takes us through the lives of these women, of whom we often know a surprising amount of detail from their letters and other documents. Catherine Parr for instance, who survived Henry, was first the resourceful wife of Lord Latimer who managed their estates at the time of the rebellion known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. She championed her own religious beliefs , until they clashed with the king's when she was forced to make an abrupt turn.

Here is of course the problem for these women. Fraser brilliantly describes the way that the court revolved around Henry VIII, like planets orbiting the sun. Henry was the centre of court life, and through him extended wealth, privilege and the future of families. Thus the manoeuvres by families to position their daughters to catch the King's gaze were the cynical manipulation of a concrete situation. While Henry himself, in the words of Fraser,"a romantic man... [who] married four of his six wives for love and even managed to fall in love with Anna of Cleve's picture" was also trapped by the reality of his role as king. For him, and countless other kings, having a son to carry on the line was the key requirement of a marriage. Indeed Fraser points out that had Catherine of Aragon had a male child that survived, their divorce might well not have happened and the future history of England would have been radically different.

This is not to let Henry off the hook. He was a violent man prone to revenge and happy to murder and kill to protect his position. That multiple women could be discarded in the search of a male heir is testament to the unique, and somewhat irrational, role of the monarchy.

This is an enormously readable account of Henry VIII's life. At times it is like some sort of Tudor soap opera, though events are painfully real. There are moments of horror, such as Anne Boleyn's execution and the tragedy of Katherine Howard, and the sadness of the life of Anne of Cleves, abandoned by Henry and left to live out her days in what she seemed to think was extreme poverty (though the peasants of England might well have considered her large houses and considerable estates luxury). The life of the vast majority of the people of England is almost entirely absent from this book, but that doesn't make it invalid. Understanding the machinations of Henry and the consequences for wider society are important to both the history of the period and for years afterwards. That some of these changes were linked to Henry's marriages is a reflection of the nature of Tudor society and Henry's personality. By telling the story from the point of view of the women at court, Antonia Fraser gives us a fascinating angle on the period.

Related Reviews

Duffy - The Voices of Morebath
Moorhouse - The Pilgrimage of Grace

Mark Everard - Breathing Space: The Natural and Unnatural History of Air

Mark Everard's new book covers a neglected topic in environmentalism. Given the importance of air to us personally, as well as wider eco-systems, this is a strange omission. Everard argues that

Despite its vast bulk, the fluidity, transboundary nature and lack of ownership of the airspace renders it not only the world's greatest 'common; but also the most commonly overlooked natural resource. An integrated approach to the recognition and wise use of this ecosystem is therefore long overdue, and needs to be instituted on a consistent international basis.

In Breathing Space, Everard sets out to do just this. He begins with a useful discussion of air itself. How scientists understand it, as well as its origins; its role in the world's eco-systems and how humans use air. Everard's approach is one that you might describe as dialectical - understanding the components of a system in terms of their wider impact upon each other. While he doesn't mention their work in his bibliography, Everard's approach has similarities to that of the scientists Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin. In particular this is noticeable when Everard discusses the way that living organisms both depend upon, and shape their environment, a topic that Levins and Lewontin devote much space to in their book The Dialectical Biologist. Everard notes that the very existence of the atmosphere as we know it today, capable of supporting life and in turn shaping wider eco-systems, is only possible because of the historic role of early life-forms in transforming the poisonous smog that blanketed Earth millions of years ago.

We continue to alter the atmosphere, most notably through the emission of fossil fuels. Everhard writes

Deposits of fossil carbon, metals, phosphorus and other substances now mined to support modern lifestyles are a product of progressive sequestration from the atmosphere and the wider biosphere over geological timescales. To release these mined substances back into the biosphere is therefore inherently dangerous, as accumulating concentrations in the air reflect earlier, more contaminated biospheric history.

Following this approach the author looks at the way that our air is being damaged, altered and polluted. Tragically there are a myriad of ways that this is happening and Everard devotes time to summarizing these. However the limitations of the book begin to become apparent when Everard discusses the way that contemporary society misuses nature and tries to find solutions.

Everard rightly notes that under capitalism nature is externalised from the economy. He approvingly quotes Nicholas Stern's words that climate change is the "greatest market failure". In other words it hasn't yet been adequately integrated into economic models. It is the sort of approach that has led to market mechanisms such as carbon trading being offered as the solution to global warming. The problem is that this approach is inherently flawed, and Everard falls into the trap of arguing, like Stern, that more such mechanisms are what is needed. He argues that "There is also a role for new economic tools, such as payments for ecosystem services (PES) that integrate formerly overlooked ecosystem services into the economy."

In New Zealand, Everard notes that the Maori have "cultural values" in their approach to land use and ownership, suggesting that the example of Ngati Porou Whanui Forests Ltd, a company which "has been established as a tribal cooperative bringing together Maori landowners and Maori agencies to benefit from market opportunities for ecosystems services" is a positive example of what can be achieved.

In this model, "Some forest areas may also be eligible for funding for carbon sequestration services" Everard notes happily. But this approach is precisely the opposite of what is needed. The further commodification of nature in this way can only serve to put nature further into the hands of those who want to make money. This is most notable when Everard discusses REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries). Everard explains that

REDD+ includes a wide range of mechanisms... These in turn could open up market mechanisms through which payments made by industrialised nations for emission offsets would reward developing countries for protecting ecosystems that are of value for many purposes

What Everard doesn't mention is that REDD+ has been roundly condemned by environmental organisations. Friends of the Earth International describe REDD as "a risky and false solution to climate change, both in theory and in practice". While the author does note that "There remain some concerns about 'putting a price tag on nature'" he argues that the Ecosystem Approach that he advocates contains enough internal safeguards to ensure that PES schemes and the like are not abused and "provide benefits to different stakeholder groups".

I am skeptical. The Ecosystem Approach certainly has its benefits over the unfettered way that capitalism degrades nature. It attempts to look at different aspects of nature as part of a wider continuum. Something that can only bring benefits. Approach questions of pollution in this way has enormous benefits. For instance, Everard points out that an approach to reducing pollution from vehicles in urban areas by replacing them with electric vehicles, might well ignore the impact on the environment of manufacturing those vehicles, or poisoning other eco-systems with the chemicals from their batteries. Instead Everard urges us to consider how our cities are designed, how we travel to and from work, and where we work in relation to living and so on. Such an approach, which challenges the inherent anti-environmental aspects to capitalist society can only be supported.

Unfortunately, trying to solve these problems by playing the system at its own game will not bring the sustainable society we need. The vested interests of the corporations and the governments that are in thrall to their wealth need to be challenged. We need a vision of a different society, where nature is integrated into the economy, but in a way that breaks from a world driven by the desire to make profit. This is not to say that changes cannot be made in the here and now. Though all the evidence is that the action needed from governments is not further markets, but investment in public transport, insulation schemes and renewable energy. Such changes, as outlined in the UK trade union One Million Climate Jobs report, can bring both real change and act as a incentive to further challenge capitalism.

Recently Naomi Klein has brilliantly outlined why Capitalism is a barrier to sustainability. Mark Everard's book contains some useful information on air as an important ecosystem and a better approach to questions of environmentalism. But his solutions are ones that cannot succeed in the face of a economic system that starts from the accumulation of wealth for the sake of accumulation.

Related Reviews

Klein - This Changes Everything: Capitalism versus the Climate
Böhm and Dabhi (eds) - Upsetting the Offset, The Political Economy of Carbon Markets
Carbon Trade Watch - The Carbon Neutral Myth, Offset Indulgences for your Climate Sins
Burkett - Marxism and Ecological Economics: Toward a Red and Green Political Economy

Eamon Duffy - The Voices of Morebath: Reformation & Rebellion in an English Village

Eamon Duffy's classic book The Voices of Morebath is an extraordinary and unique study of Tudor society undergoing dramatic transformation. For 54 years Christopher Trychay was the priest of the tiny village of Morebath. For all that time he kept detailed records. Most of these deal with the financial dealings of the parish - the income and expenditure of the church, the costs of candles and repairs, the donations from parishioners and the cash given in their wills to help ease their way to heaven. But though most parish records like these are dry, Morebath's priest kept his records in detail - far more than simple columns of numbers. His notes were spoken from the pulpit and his records enable the historian to construct the detail of life in a village going through some of the most traumatic changes of its era.

Duffy's book is excellently written, but his historic analysis is also superb. He has an eye for detail and an ability to see through numbers to tell a wider story. Here is, for instance, his summary of how the church "ales", the periodic sale of drink to raise funds, were part of wider village life.

After the church, the most important building in the parish was the church house, also called the church ale-house. Located on the SE side of the churchyard, in the cluster of ten or eleven dwellings that made up the village centre or ‘Morebath town’ it was the parish’s place of public entertainment, a two storey building furnished with a fireplace and spit, with cups and platters and trenchers of treen [turned wood] and tin and pewter: its trestle tables and tablecloths were sometime loaned to parishioners for events like weddings. Visiting merchants could hire a ‘sete’ or stall there to sell their wares, like William the merchant who had a ‘standing’ in the house in 1535, or the Tiverton ciderman John Walshman, who sold cider there for four weeks in 1538. The ‘pleers’ [players] who paid 12d to the wardens to perform in Morebath at Easter 1533 may well have been hiring the church house. Above all, the fund-raising banquets known as church ales, organised by the churchwardens and by the Young Men of the parish (the ‘grooming ale’), and which between them provided the bulk of the parish’s income were held here. Beer brewed or bought by the wardens and food cooked in the church house itself were sold and served at these ales: in 1527 the menu at the high wardens’ ale included a roast lamb from the church flock, which had accidentally bled to death after being castrated. By Elizabeth’s reign and perhaps before, minstrels and a local man, John Timewell the harper were being paid to entertain the drinkers. Parishioners were expected to attend and spend their money, and official representatives came and supported from surrounding parishes, a favour which had to be returned when the parishes concerned held their own ales.

If Dufy's book only concentrated on village life it would be interesting in an of itself. But at the core of his work is an examination of the impact of the religious changes that began under the regein of Henry VIII, continued under his son Edward, and were reversed by Queen Mary and then further continued and extended under Elizabeth.

Henry's break from Rome had an enormous impact on the whole of English life. Even a village like Morebath, with barely 150 inhabitants had to adapt and change. New bibles and prayerbooks were introduced, icons and statues had to be removed. Funds could no longer be raised to pay for candles under the parish's statue of St Sidwell. Through all of this Trychay's metivulous records note the impacts of the changes and in particular the funding shortfalls as the parish can no longer sell ale, or raise funds in ways that it used to.

The changes provoked anger, frustration and out-cry. In 1549, Duffy shows how Morebath sent five of its young men to join the big Western Uprising that rebelled against the new prayerbooks. Giving money from church funds, the parish's sons left to join the rebel camp near Exeter. Several of them died in the massacre of the rebels. While Trychay may come across as a pompous self-important man at times, he clearly loved his flock and cared deeply for them. As Duffy notes,

He had been the spirit of Morebath, the chronicler of its dramatic and sometimes tragic share in the religious revolutions of that turbulent age, and the custodian of its blunt attitudes and salt speech. He had baptised their children, buried their dead, married every one of them. He had been the guide of their pieties, he had almost certainly encouraged their sons into rebellion, and, when the time came, he had eased them into a slow and settled conformity to a new order of things.

Duffy's book is an excellent study of an English village in a period of transition. It is happy conincidence for us, that Morebath was so close to the historic events of 1549 and that they were detailed by such an obsessive figure as Christopher Trychay. Duffy notes that a "study of the Reformation in an Essex or Suffolk village... where many ordinary men and women welcomed the Protestant gospel... would look very different." Nonetheless, this is an important insight into the impact of that change and the way that ordinary people in one part of England responded. That Duffy puts it all so well into context means that this book is a triumph for both the casual and academic historian.

Gregory Benford & Larry Niven - Shipstar

Some sort of compulsive behaviour drove me to read Shipstar after I had denounced the first part of the two volume story. Its predecessor, Bowl of Heaven, was clunky and painful to read in places. But Shipstar seemed to have been better edited and planned. The first book left two teams of humans stranded on an enormous spacecraft. The spacecraft is a type of zoo, which has collected species from planets around the galaxy and now heads towards a distant star, also the destination of a space-craft of humans.

The problem is, as this book proceeds apace towards its end, the authors dump good idea after good idea over board. The whole story becomes about find out who built the flying space zoo bowl and why. As the explanation becomes increasingly obvious, readers must be squirming in disbelief. Then gasp audibly as they realise that both authors chose this particular explanation over ones that might be slightly believable. When they've got over that, and they make it to the end, where the authors' postscript offers some sort of scientific justification surly most authors would be wondering what the point was. I'm only grateful that I didn't pay for it. If you like science fiction, please, do not buy this book.

Related Reviews

Niven - Destiny's Road
Niven - Crashlander
Niven - Ringworld's Children
Niven - Ringworld
Niven & Benford - Bowl of Heaven

Geoffrey Moorhouse - The Pilgrimage of Grace

The Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536-7 was one of the most important Tudor rebellions. It is relatively unknown, yet the tens of thousands of rebels that were involved very nearly broke Henry VIII's government and had they marched on London history would almost certainly have been very different. Geoffrey Moorhouse's history of the Pilgrimage, and the Lincolnshire Uprising that took place immediately beforehand is an important account of this neglected event.

Moorhouse explains that the Pilgrimage had many causes. It has often been seen as reactionary in the sense that it was opposed to the changes Henry VIII was making to the English Church, particularly the dissolution of the monasteries. However to simply see it as a backward looking uprising is to miss some of the key dynamics of the period. While the Catholic Church and monasteries were not popular across the whole of England, in the north in particular, they fulfilled an important social function. As Moorhouse explains

The monasteries as a whole might spend no more than five per cent of their income on charity, but in the North they were a great deal more generous, doubtless because the need was greater in an area where poverty was more widespread and very real. There, they still did much to relieve the poor and the sick, they provided shelter for the traveller, and they meant the difference between a full belly and starvation to considerable numbers of tenants, even if they were sometimes imperfect landlords.

Northern monasteries also contributed significantly to the local economy, operating sheep farms, coal mines as well as their religious roles. The northern population of England felt neglected by London and if Archbishop Cranmer's words are anything to go by, they had some justification

a certain barbarous and savage people, who were ignorant of and turned away from farming and the good arts of peace, and who were so utterly unacquainted with knowledge of sacred matters, that they could not bear to hear anything of culture and more gentle civilisation.

It is noteworthy for instance, that one of the demands of the rebels was for a northern parliament, possibly at York, and certainly the apparent concession that this would happen was one of the factors that helped disperse the mass of rebels towards the end of the rebellion.

Other economic factors were to play their roll in stimulating the uprising. Henry's taxes were never popular and added to the woes of an impoverished people. But religious changes were the dominate feature. On several occasions rebellion was sparked by Henry's changes to traditional holidays. When the priest failed to announce the forthcoming saint's day, parishioners protested and mass meetings, and demonstrations followed.

The rebels restored many monks to their monasteries enormously angering the king, and some rebels expressed anger and surprise when they found out that their comrades from other parts of the country had not done the same, suggesting that one of the most important aims of the revolt was putting "religious persons in their houses again".

The rebellion spread through messengers and the ringing of church bells. But this was not simply a peasant rebellion, nor just a revolt of those at the bottom of society. Local landowners and gentry often led different armies, though strangely many of these did so only after being pressed into service. Their lives, or the lives of their families, being spared if they did so. It is striking though, how once in leading roles, the gentry often seem to have taken to their position with gusto. Heading up negotiations, leading military operations and helping spread the uprising. But many of these men also had genuine grievances. The most famous leader, the lawyer, Robert Aske certainly opposed many of Henry VIII's plans. Moorhouse points out though, that most of the gentry began "looking for a way out as soon as a hint of one appeared".

The rebels were enormously successful, with tens of thousands of poorly armed men in the field and no standing army to oppose them, they were able to control much of the north of England capturing key castles and towns.

The banner of the five wounds of Christ a symbol used
by many of the rebels

The majority of the rebellion ended following negotiations with the king's representatives who seemed to give in to many of the rebels' demands. The demands themselves were mainly those of the gentry, reflecting their own class interests, though these were clearly influenced by the tens of thousands of ordinary people in arms through the country. Henry VIII seems to have failed to understand quite how endangered his position was, and even though the rebels had been pardoned, he used the excuse of an outbreak of fighting to renege on his promises. Some leaders, like Robert Aske, were executed as a result.

Had the rebels not disbanded, and marched on London, things would have been very different. In the final chapter, Moorhouse speculates on the differences that might have taken place. Henry VIII has few options, he could have fought (and likely would have been defeated) or fled, both of which would have been disastrous for his rule. He could have negotiated, but that would have meant a weak government that likely would not have survived. Certainly figures like the hated Thomas Cromwell, a man who one rebel leader, Lord Darcy denounced at his trial, would have been killed. The reformation might have been still born, and English history very different indeed. The rebels didn't march on London and Henry VIII emerged stronger than ever, though his paranoia and revenge accounted for the lives of many linked to the Pilgrimage. Moorhouse points out, that the economic and social problems didn't disappear and Henry did nothing to improve matters, which helps why in 1549, barely 15 years after the Pilgrimage of Grace, England erupted in rebellion again as peasant armies rose around the country.

This is an important and useful book. Sadly it feels over-written in places and suffers enormously throughout from a lack of footnotes and source material, a major problem for the reader trying to delve deeper into this important history. Nonetheless this is an important piece of history for the reader learning more about the neglected social history of England.

Related Reviews

Hoyle - The Pilgrimage of Grace and the Politics of the 1530s

Foster, Clark & York - Critique of Intelligent Design: Materialism versus Creationism, From Antiquity to the Present

Intelligent Design has yet to make a significant impact on politics in the United Kingdom. But it has an acceptance in the United States where the authors of this book are based. The Design movement is an attempt to reassert religious dogma in the face of scientific explanations of evolution and society, and the authors have written this book to help explain and counter-act the proponents of Intelligent Design.

The battle between Creationism and Materialism has been one that has stretched back to ancient times. Indeed, the debates have shaped modern science and society. The authors point out that

Western science itself is a product of a large part of a 2,5000-year critique of intelligent design that was tied to larger social struggles occurring over the same vast period.

Intelligent Design, they write, is a "counterrevolution against science", an attempt, in the modern context to undermine and challenge materialism. Its leading proponents are well aware of this.

Intelligent design seeks not so much to triumph over materialism in public schools and other institutions as to burn iot on the cross. Intelligent design proponents see the argument from design as part of a larger crusade against materialism that traces the problem not to Darwin but to Epicurus in antiquity. Epicurus is regarded as the archetype of materialism and the greatest single enemy of creationism. Hence, the refutation of Darwin is seen as necessary but not as the final or sufficient goal in a much larger inquisition. Indeed intelligent design criticisms embrace the entire materialist tradition extending from Epicurus... to the unholy trinity of Darwin, Marc, and Freud in modern times.

Why is this so important to the reactionaries? In the words of one key figure in the Intelligent Design movement, Benjamin Wiker,

The larger materialist package supports all kinds of things which are mortally repugnant to Christians, not only... Social Darwinism and eugenics, but also sexual libertinism, abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, cloning and so on... [quoted by the authors]

Thus the Design movement wishes to challenge materialism as part of a wider reassertion of a Christian viewpoint that is inherently anti-science. The authors explain how the Design movement uses the metaphor of a "wedge", challenging at first particular aspects of science and integrating their ideas and people into wider public discourse, and ultimately "to see design theory enter into the physical sciences, but also 'psychology, ethics, politics, theology and philosophy in the humanities."

Much of this book then looks at understanding the historic development of materialist science, and the way that design was "from the beginning a response to materialist/atomistic physics". Thus the authors demolish both the failings of Design theory scientifically, but demonstrate why their approach is driven by ideology rather than a real attempt to understand the world. The authors also examine the key ideas and works of the "unholy trinity" of Darwin, Freud and Marx, who the Design movement single out as being the chief enemies. They give useful summaries of the work, particularly, at least for this reader, those of Darwin and Freud whose work is often misunderstood and caricatured by Intelligent Design proponents.

Importantly however, the authors do not simply lay out their critique of Intelligent Design and religion through simply atheism. As Marxists, they have a more nuanced critique of religion, which argues that pure-atheism isn't enough. Indeed such an approach to religion can lead to reactionary positions. For instance, when some leading atheistic thinkers label all followers of Islam as bigoted.

Marx's approach, which understood religion as offering both hope to the oppressed, as well as dulling their senses and holding back, or limiting, their movements for self emancipation, allows revolutionaries to relate to religious individuals and movements, without crudely labeling them as backward. This, as the authors point out, helped shape Marx's approach

As a materialist, Marx opted not to invest in the abstraction of God and religion. At the same time he did not attempt to disprove the supernatural existence of God, since that transcended the real, empirical world and could not be answered, or even addressed, through reason, observation, and scientific inquiry. Instead he forged a practical atheism through his scientific commitment to a historical materialist approach for understanding reality in all of its dimensions. The practical negation of God and the affirmation of humanity and science demanded an active movement for revolutionary social change, the real appropriation of the world to pursue human development - the growth and expansion of human capabilities - and freedom.

While this book is a useful critique of Intelligent Design, its real importance is in reasserting an approach to religion which is more than simply asserting that science is right. Indeed the authors conclude by pointing out that "reason, science and human freedom can only commence" when the "gods have at last been banished from the earth". That won't happen until a new world has been built, based on the interests of the majority of society and removing the real basis of religion - oppression, exploitation and inequality.

Related Reviews

Siegel - The Meek and the Militant

Thomas Keneally - The People's Train

This fictionalised account of the life of Russian Revolutionary Fyodor Sergeyev is one of the best portrayals I have read of the experiences of those taking part in the Russian Revolution. Renamed Artem Samsurov, the novel covers much of his incredible life. Imprisoned for his roll in the 1905 uprising, Artem escapes and travels across Russia in disguise, into China and eventually finds his way to Australia. Australia is viewed by many as a workers' paradise, because workers' parties are in government. But Artem quickly discovers the reality is different. Artem quickly gets to organising the Russian emigre community, building unions and discussing politics. The Australian police quickly try to suppress the socialists, and Artem experiences an Australian prison - his time in Russian prisons serving him well. When the Russian Revolution breaks out in February 1917, Artem returns, quickly being elevated to the ranks of the Bolshevik Central Committee. The final part of the book, dealing with the turbulent times running up to the October insurrection are through the eyes of Artem's friend and comrade Paddy Dykes, an Australian union journalist who reports on what he sees.

Keneally's novel is a detailed and faithful account of events, as well as the politics of the Russian socialist movement. Pitching the novel like this however implies it is some sort of dry historical tome. But the opposite is the case. Keneally's writing is brilliantly clear, his characters beautifully portrayed and their discussion of politics is less about Marxist pedantry, than their attempts to understand, and explain the world. Few novels have got to the heart of what motivated Russian revolutionaries to risk life or imprisonment. When Artem discusses Lenin, he can't imagine him being motivated by romance, rather a dedication to the cause. But all the characters here are actually motivated to fight revolution, because of their intense love for people and their desire for a better world. Indeed, the love stories at the heart of the book are very much an exploration of the way powerful and intense events bring individuals together, for good or bad, and how they must sometimes be put to one side for the sake of a bigger cause. The novel ends with the seizure of the Winter Palace and the muddied confusion of actual revolution. The insurrection itself is not the clean, romantic ideal, but is uneven and on-occasion unpleasant. I do hope that Keneally writes the promised sequel - Artem, or Fyodor's post revolutionary life was shaped by the rise of Stalin and the defeat of internationalism. It will be fascinating to see whether Keneally does this period as much justice as he with his portrayal of Russian revolutionaries and life before 1917.

Frederick Taylor - Dresden: Tuesday 13 February 1945

After reading this detailed, balanced and incredibly well written account of the destruction of Dresden in 1945, I am left with no doubt in my mind that those who ordered the attack committed a war crime. Taylor's eyewitness accounts and his historical research bring home the full horror of the firestorm that engulfed the hitherto untouched city, leaving tens of thousands dead, thousands more injured and homeless, with relatively little military impact. I don't think I will ever forget reading about the hundreds of civilians who died after climbing into a reservoir of water to escape the flames. The hastily built tank had been made to supply water for potential firefighter operations, and didn't include any steps to leave. After treading water for hours these people must have drowned horribly in the most appalling of circumstances.

Because of stories like these, and rumors of other atrocities by the Allies during the attack on Dresden it has always been a political hot potato. Figures of casualties, sometimes as high as 450,000 have been given, which has ultimately meant that February 13 1945 came to symbolize the very worst of the Allies. Two groups seem to have been most responsible for this. The first is the far-right and the neo-Nazis. Unsurprisingly Hitler's regime made huge propaganda out of the Dresden raid. But since the end of the Second World War the far-right has used Dresden to suggest that the Allies were as bad as, if not worse than the Nazi dictatorship. The attack on Dresden was Germany's own Holocaust they suggest.

As the Cold War continued, the Eastern Bloc too encouraged a view of the attack as symbolizing the viciousness of the US and British, prepared to murder thousands of civilians in a pointless attack.

As a result, Taylor's book has to tread through much myth and falsehood. As with the debate about whether or not US planes strafed civilians shows, memory is often little help to understanding what took place. A number of eyewitnesses say that US planes committed these war-crimes, but Taylor makes it clear, drawing on several detailed studies, that this didn't take place. This is an unpopular position in Germany today, and historians have drawn tremendous fire for even suggesting that such recollections are inaccurate.

Taylor puts the Dresden attack into historical context. Firstly he gives us Dresden's fascinating history, though I am not sure he needed to go as far back as the Roman era. In part this is to show just what was lost historically and culturally in the attack. But also it is to challenge those who argue that Dresden was not a military city. By the Second World War the city was an important transport hub (even more so when the Russian's broke through Poland and were closer to Germany) and a center for the manufacture of important components for weapons (such as optics).

The author also traces the history of air-bombing. Again this helps to put the attack in context. In particular Taylor examines the strategies of Britain's Bomber Command during the war. Here the key issue is the Chief of the Air Staff, Arthur Harris' insistence that Germany could be defeated through massive destruction of towns to undermine the country's ability to wage war. As a strategy this was clearly failing, and Taylor makes it clear the limits to the bombing (in particular inaccuracy, and the ease at which industry and transport recovered). Harris doggedly held onto his strategy as the war progressed. But by the time of Dresden, it is clear that massive destruction of cities could no longer be justified as a valid way of waging the air war, if it ever was. Of far more importance was destroying Germany's dwindling oil stocks, something that was widely accepted by the military hierarchy but dismissed by Harris.

That said Harris is not the only one responsible. Others helped selected targets, and Taylor makes it clear that Churchill himself approved a renewed offensive against urban targets, even though the Prime Minister rapidly distanced himself from the attack on Dresden.

But Taylor makes it clear that Dresden was not unique. For many of us, it feels unique, precisely because it has been such a political football. Taylor's comprehensive analysis suggests are far lower casualty figure than other headline numbers, he concludes

The fairest estimate seems, therefore, to lie between twenty-five thousand and forty thousand. This makes the loss of life in the city less than the total for Hamburg (although Hamburg possessed at least twice Dresden's population), and as a proportion of the total population, less than that for towns such as Pforzheim or Darmstadt.

This is not to downplay what took place in Dresden, but to show that it was part of a much larger, and more systematic destruction of German cities that targeted the civilian population. We remember Dresden because of the firestorm, but Taylor makes the point repeatedly that this was a particular set of circumstances, and barely a few weeks later the Allies might well have done the same to Berlin, as they did in Hamburg. In fact their bombing strategy was deliberately designed to create destruction and slaughter through firestorms. In Dresden the fascist authorities are also to blame. Their lack of shelters, lack of experience and their deliberate attempts to suggest that Dresden would not be attacked resulted in thousands of deaths. The bravery of ordinary German's in the circumstances reflected everything positive about humanity, in complete contrast to the barbarity of the city's government.

There is much more in this excellent book including a history of the Jewish community in Dresden, and accounts by those who survived. Taylor also demolishes the inaccuracies of writers such as the right-winger David Irving who has written extensively on the Dresden attack.

In clarifying what actually took place on February 13 1945, and why, Frederick Taylor has in no way diminished the suffering of Dresdeners. What he has done is to put it into context of the "total war" of both the Allies and the Axis powers. The lessons are there for all of us.

Related Reviews

Kershaw - The End
Moorhouse - Berlin at War

Anne Alexander & Mostafa Bassiouny - Bread, Freedom, Social Justice: Workers & the Egyptian Revolution

The overriding image that many people have of the Egyptian Revolution that began on January 25 2011 is of the thousands of people gathering in Cairo's Tahrir Square. This "Republic of Dreams" was indeed for many commentators the Egyptian Revolution. While Tahrir Square was inspiring, "uniting Muslim and Christian, secular and Islamist activists against Mubarak's regime", it is only part of the story, and in fact, not the most important part.

This important recent book discusses the crucial role of Egypt's enormous and powerful working class during the Revolution. Mubarak's fall came, not through the masses in the squares of the major cities, but through the strike wave that spread early in the revolution. That is not to belittle the mass demonstrations. Without those mass actions there would likely have been no strikes, but putting the workers at centre stage enables us to both understand the dynamics of the revolution, as well as the successes, so far, of the counter-revolution.

Anne Alexander and Mostafa Bassiouny lay out the 20th century history of Egypt, describing the growth of the working class and its victories and defeats. This history is important - the process that brought Mubarak to power, also helped shape a workers' movement that was effectively an appendage of the state. While there have been enormous changes to Egypt's industry and its working class, and the neoliberal era has seen many of these, industry remains central to the economy. The authors write that

the last thirty years have demonstrated that the industrial working class remains central to the strategy of accumulation pursued by the Egyptian ruling class in the neoliberal era. It is a working class that has been restructured, and suffered some heavy defeats in the process, but not a class that is in the process of disappearing.

It is also a class that has seen significant victories and, in the early years of the 21st century in reaction to the changes imposed by neoliberalism, as well as wider political questions such as the anti-war and pro-Palestinian movements began to flex its muscles. The authors note, for instance, the way that neoliberal "reforms" impacted on education helped to shape radical demands by teachers during and after the revolution.

Ministry of Education newly qualified teachers have found it difficult to obtain permanent contracts. Tens of thousands are employed in hourly paid work as supply teachers, or teach classes in public schools for no pay at all, in order to be allowed the chance to compete in giving private lessons to the same children after... fee-paying lessons are largely institutionalised and essentially compulsory... with the school administration and the Ministry of Education taking a cut of the profits.. the example of the teachers' strikes since the revolution - which consistently linked demands to improve teachers' pay and conditions to calls for the banning of private lessons- demonstrates that this process is not an insurmountable obstacle to collective action... in the process of taking collective action, the teachers transformed themselves from agents of the market into a powerful force leading the fight for an education system for all.

The fact that the existing unions were an extension of the state bureaucracy meant that as workers' struggles grew, new, independent unions sprang up. Often these were lead by activists who wanted new forms of organisation, free of the limits imposed by the state, lead by the rank and file with a leadership held accountable to the membership. The authors trace the growth of these important unions, noting however the difficulties in sustaining these models of work-place and industrial organisation when struggle subsided, or under the impact of the counter-revolution, or even the actions of the international NGO and union movement which helped to impose a western model on the movement.

"The Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions supports the demands
of the people's revolution and calls for a general strike of Egyptian workers,"
Photo by www.arabawy.org

The revolutionary process frequently led to those "drawn into the orbit of the workers' movement, adopting forms of collective action and organisation", such as fishermen, hospital doctors, tourist Nile boat operators and even mosque imams. One notable emergent union group, the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions formed in Tahrir Square, and the authors note that while "they formed only a small fraction of the huge crowds, activists from the tax collectors' union, with their banners and trademark blue baseball caps, were very visibly an organisation in the midst of a sea of individual protesters."

As the revolution subsided, the lack of independent political organisations of the working class meant that reformists of various shades were able to move to the revolution's head. The authors note the process by which this happened, and how revolutionary demands were first used and sidelined. In particular, the role of the Muslim Brotherhood is discussed in detail. Vague suggestions by Morsi that the MB would "improve the conditions of workers and peasants" led to a number of promises. But as the authors point out,

Careful reading of the policies of Morsi's 'Renaissance Project' revealed a different goal: the articulation of a neoliberal programme clothed in the rhetoric of reform.

It is this that brought the workers movement and wider revolutionary activists back into conflict with Morsi and his government. A key question was Tathir, the cleansing of the old system of Mubarak's corrupt bureaucrats and followers. Tathir from below in workplaces - the sacking of a Mubarak era manager, or the changing work place conditions, or temporary workers' control opened up an opportunity for workers to see themselves differently and to see a new way of organising the system. The authors give a number of impressive and inspiring examples of when and where this process began. But there was an emerging and growing contradiction, fueled by the lack of mass revolutionary, working class leadership

Participation in the revolution transformed millions of ordinary people from passive victims of history to its makers, but they state they confronted on 25 January 2011 remained essentially intact. Meanwhile the legitimacy of the largest former Islamist opposition party, the Muslim Brotherhood, had already been badly damaged by the failure to achieve meaningful political and social reforms.. .This deepening contradiction helps to explain why on 3 July 2013, the Armed Forces under the leadership of Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi... was able to intervene decisively and turn the Muslim Brotherhood's crisis in the face of an explosion of popular anger to the advantage of the core institutions of Mubarak's state.

The revolution in Egypt has been setback. But the authors are also clear that it is not over. One of the most important gains has been that hundreds of thousands of people have engaged in a political and social process which has changed them. This echoes the experiences of those in some of history's greatest revolutionary movements. Like Russia in 1917 or Paris in 1871, the authors note that one of the most important experiences for Egyptians has been the way in a minority of workplaces workers experienced direct democratic control,

"Its organic expression in workplace struggles has largely been based on the idea that workers' leaders should be elected delegates, not representatives; it fuses executive and legislative authority and breaches the separation between political and social struggles enforced by bourgeois democracy"

The revolutionary movement in Egypt will rise again. A generation of workers learnt invaluable lessons between 2011 and 2013. But one lesson that we can all learn, is that revolutionary organisation must be built today. Alexander and Bassiouny finish with the importance of that organisation in Egypt, but for activists everywhere, the building of socialist organisation must remain an immediate task if we are to build on the movements that will continue to arise as capitalism tries to make ordinary people pay the price of bosses greed.

Gregory Benford & Larry Niven - Bowl of Heaven

Larry Niven's Ringworld was the original Big Dumb Object of science fiction. In that eponymous novel his characters explored a giant ring around a sum, encountering a variety of aliens species (some lethal, and some not) and, rather oddly in some of the sequels, offering to shag them.

Bowl of Heaven has a similar premise, if not the shagging. Perhaps under the influence of his fellow author Niven has curtailed his penchant for sex (Rishathra as Niven chose to call the practice) with aliens and instead their combined talents concentrate on the descriptions of the Bowl, the Big Dumb Object of Bowl of Heaven.

The spacecraft Sunseeker leaves Earth bound for a planet, oddly named Glory, in an attempt to colonise it. On their voyage they encounter the giant flying bowl. The bowl, with a surface area of millions of planets, travels along with its' sun towards Glory as well. Short of supplies, due to some unexplained gravity anomaly, the crew of the Sunseeker are forced to explore the Bowl. In doing so they encounter some unusually dangerous creatures who run the Bowl, apparently as a sort of intergalactic zoo. These bird-people don't Rishathra with aliens, but are obsessed with hunting and eating them.

The bird people are so intelligent they have created an enormous space-faring bowl which moves along with its own star. They have captured, genetically modified, and dominated countless species on their voyage. Yet they are outwitted by a small group of plucky earth-men and women, who use their intelligence and guile (and their unique brains) to outmaneuver the nasty aliens.

Frankly this novel is fairly terrible. I suspect that when I was fourteen I would have lapped it up. But almost thirty years later I wonder what the point is? The tragedy is that I will read the sequel, or part two as they publishers should title it, as volume one nearly finishes mid-sentence, if only to find out how the aliens stop their giant flying bowl when it gets to another solar system. But I'll be damned if I'll pay for the next book. Is there any good new science fiction out there? Or is it all just rehashed ideas from the bad end of the 1960s.

Its terrible, but frankly its not Larry Niven's worst. Gregory Benford should find someone else to co-author his next.

I don't award stars on this blog. But if I did, I'd give this one star.

Related Reviews

Benford & Niven - Shipstar
Niven - Destiny's Road
Niven - Crashlander
Niven - Ringworld's Children
Niven - Ringworld

Juliet Barker - Agincourt

The Battle of Agincourt has been much mythologised by the English. Part of the fault is Shakespeare's who used it to create an image of Henry V as a heroic, brave and above all, patriotic king. But there are others too, not least Churchill, who according to Juliet Barker, urged Laurence Olivier to make a film of Shakespeare's play to prepare the English people for the Normandy invasion. The removal from that version of the plot against Henry help create a sense of a unified country going to war against France in everyone's interest.

With her typical attention to detail and scholarship Juliet Barker restores the real story of Agincourt. Here are knights with armour rusted from a long march in the rain, trying to avoid engaging the French to early. Here are bodies stripped naked on the battlefield as victorious English soldiers took anything of value from them, before the local peasantry removed what remained. Here are also the English army who suffered so badly from dysentery that they cut their trousers off to improve matters before the battle, and Henry's massacre of French prisoners in the aftermath of the battle when thinking a French trumpet call meant counter attack was imminent.

In my reading of Barker's story, the English come across as incredibly lucky. On two major points popular knowledge matches with historical evidence. The English were lucky in their leader. Henry V was a brave, clever and experienced leader who was able to win his army's hearts and minds. He was also a clever strategist. Secondly the importance of the English longbow was a deciding factor. But Barker also emphasises the weaknesses of their opponents. The French were clearly too confident that their numerical strength would carry the day for them. This also caused a crisis of leadership as all the knights wanted to be in the thick of it. Few, if any, were prepared to stand back and lead. At a key point the French failed to take advantage of their battle field position and allowed the English to move forward, protecting their flanks from the French cavalry and bringing their enemies into bow-range. The heavy over-night rain might have rusted the English armour, and threatened the strength of their bow-strings. But it turned the field into a quagmire that disadvantaged the French mounted knights tremendously. Over-all Barker seems to imply that on a different day, in different weather, and with a slightly less self-obsessed French leadership, English history books would remember Agincourt as the day that the King was killed or captured. English pluck and genius played its role, but so did luck and the enemies' mistakes.

But the strength of Barker's book is not actually just in her description of the battle. The historical context she gives helps explain not just Henry's invasion, but the subsequent English occupation of France. A period she covers extremely well in her later book, Conquest. But she also shows the way that Henry's meticulous planning, his well planned mobilisation and the enormous scale of the invasion made this invasion very much a national event. Through their financial contributions, their involvement in the invading army, and their support for Henry's war the population were buying into the war in a very real way. The tremendous popular support meant that Henry's victory celebrations were both lavish and enormous, as ordinary people joined with him to celebrate and give thanks to god. But this also helps to explain why, when Henry's son Henry VI failed to maintain English possessions in France, the population grew enormously discontented.

Like all of Barker's books this is a well researched, but eminently readable account of a battle that had both a enormous historical impact and helped shape an English consciousness. Both at the time, and in later centuries. While historians and politicians may overlook Henry's more unsavory aspects, Barker isn't afraid of drawing them out. In doing so, she shows that Agincourt very nearly wasn't the English victory we were all taught at school, and that what we were told by our history teachers was only half the story.

Related Reviews

Barker - Conquest
Barker - England Arise!
Green - The Hundred Years War: A People's History

Christopher Dyer - Making a Living in the Middle Ages: The People of Britain 850-1520

The common perception of Medieval society is of an unchanging, backward economy, dominated by a peasantry who had little influence or desire for change and an aristocracy who were the reserve of intellect and political decisions. Christopher Dyer's important book challenges these myths at every stage, arguing that we shouldn't "belittle the achievements of the past and to assume in a patronizing way that medieval people were primitive and ignorant."

He continues,

Formal descriptions of medieval society imply the subordination of the masses. Yet even serfs had some use of property, and had some choice in the management of their holding of land, though they were of course restrained in many ways. One of the dynamic forces in medieval society... was not dictatorial decisions, but the opposite - the competition and frictions between different groups, not just between lords and peasants or merchants and artisans, but also between laymen and clergy, higher aristocrats and gentry, and subjects and the state, and individuals within those various groups. A society that appears to be governed by rigid laws and customs, in reality allowed people to take initiatives.

Much of this informative book looks in detail at the lives, and economic situation of different groups of medieval society as they change through the period. If at times the topics seem dry this is because of the immense amount of detail. This is not a popular history, though it is certainly accessible to the non-specialist.

The great theme of Dyer's book is that medieval society was constantly changing. Even during the later period which is traditionally seen as one of economic stagnation, there were innovations in how people lived, worked the land and organised themselves. There were also changes to social relations between different groups and classes.

In addition to the changes through time, there was also enormous geographical variation. Take agriculture,

The managers of some manors, such as South Walsham on the earl of Norfolk's estate, had by the 1260s given up fallowing entirely, and cultivated all their arable every year. Such intensive methods were adopted in north-east Norfolk, not just because the soil was naturally fertile, but also because the high population density allowed labour to be concentrated on the land, with repeated ploughing, weeding and spreading of manure and marl.

Medieval peasants and lords were extremely concerned with maximising the return from the labour on the land, and Dyer explains in detail the way this meant at different times and places thinking through the best way to use land. "The demesnes' main contribution to technology lay in the management of resources rather than in new inventions or mechanical devices... they could maintain and improve yields by finding ways to combine arable and pasture... through changes in rotation or combinations of crops".

Though we shouldn't dismiss medieval technology, which has been shown to have existed on a large scale - total English mills by 1300 perhaps surpassing 10,000 in number.

But of greatest interest here is the examination of the changing social relations. In particular the way that serfs and peasants gradually began to relate to their superior classes not through obligated labour, but through monetary relations, the paying of rent in kind. In turn we see how landowners moved away from a feudal relationship, encouraging peasants to give a proportion of their crops, and concentrated on maximising income from rents. Over many years this had a tremendous impact upon the population of the countryside, There were many reasons for this, but I was struck by the evidence that must have been apparent to every lord in the country, that those labouring for others tend to be less productive and efficient.

An average day's labour service produced one-third of a carload of hay, while a wage earner doing the same task yielded a half-cartload.... This helped them [the demesne managers] to decide that in some circumstances it was more profitable to let the tenants pay their commutation money - to 'sell' their works.... and to use wage earners instead. This decision was made in the light of the knowledge that the commutation money... did not cover the full cost of the hired workers.

But this was not a one-sided story. Dyer notes that the "aristocracy" were increasingly restricted. On the one hand the sate was limiting their ability to impose discipline through manorial courts and from below the tenants constantly attempted to strengthen their hand, to fight for their customary rights and to reduce their exploitation. This forced lords to find other ways to make money, such as building mills, which further changed social relations in the country. We must also be careful not to judge the aristocracy through the eyes of modern capitalism. They were "not just money-grabbers", status and reputation were also important. They was constant friction between them and their contemporaries, as well as other groups in society, and it was this that helped provide "one of the dynamic forces in medieval society".

External changes however had enormous impacts. In the mid-14th century England went through two enormous social crises, first major famine and then the Black Death. It is well known that this helped undermine medieval society further, by encouraging the movement of the population, driving wages upwards and leading to more lords asking rents, rather than feudal obligations. But Dyer emphasises the role of the lower orders in this change as well, writing that

the Black Death liberated the lower ranks of society; the elite were stimulated into a reaction, which soured relations and provoked rebellion. The revolts established a new balance, in which the authorities adjusted to the reality that the peasants, artisans and wage earners had improved their bargaining power. The fall in population created the environment in which these changes took place, but reduction in rent and the freeing of serfs did not happen 'naturally', The entrenched institutions would crack only if the lower orders developed ideas which contradicted those of their rulers, and asserted themselves in a coherent and organised way.

Dyer suggests that this process was much more complex that we have been lead to believe. Wages not rising as dramatically as we previously understood, but more importantly, the higher wages and reduced population changing demands for goods, which actually stimulated the economy. But the major change was not the increase in wages, or the change to labour services, but the "leasing of lrds' demesnes".

Lords gave up their role as direct producers, and the peasants cautiously accumulated larger holdings. As the masses, including those depending mainly on wages, spent their new wealth, the urban and commercial economy regained some of the lost ground and grew once more.

The crises of the mid-14th century opened up a new era for the countryside and the town that would lead to the beginnings of the rise of capitalist production in the 17th century. This is not to suggest that some areas of the economy did not go backwards, and Dyer describes the abandonment of villages and the shrinkage of the cultivated land in this period. But in countering the idea that England simply entered an total economic plateau in the later medieval period he is highlighting the importance of the changing economic and social circumstances. Dyer is concerned with not trying to find a "grand narrative" to explain all the historic changes. Noting there was not a gradual "upward march", and highlighting the way that population did not increase as dramatically as one might have expected after the decimation of the Black Death. Ultimately though, for Dyer, the key question is the "creation of an enduring framework for production and exchange in the two centuries after 850, and the urbanization of period 880-1300." He continues

The dynamic tension within the feudal regime in the in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries with its element of competition among the aristocracy and the lack of strict controls which enabled peasant initiatives, must be accorded great importance. The relaxation of demographic pressure int he fourteenth century and the opportunities that were given to the upper ranks of the peasantry enabled some growth in a period apparent adversity.... the problems for producers int he next two centuries again allowed a level of consumer demand which kept industry and trade in a healthy state especially around 1400 and again after about 1470.

It this this emphasis on the internal dynamics and the role of production in the economy that helps make this such an important book. It is not without its weaknesses (the lack of footnotes being a major complaint), though it is full of detailed information and the occasional fascinating anecdote. Ultimately through, Dyer never forgets that it is ordinary people who are at the heart of the processes that changed their world.

Related Reviews

Green - The Hundred Years War: A People's History
Gimpel - The Medieval Machine
Bolton - The Medieval English Economy 1150 - 1500