To Hell and Back

To Hell and Back

By Ian Kershaw

The centenary of World War One has seen an avalanche of books revisiting the Great War. Seen in isolation it is a somewhat mysterious catastrophe. No one really needed it and its ostensible cause – the assassination of an unpopular crown prince in an obscure province of the Austro Hungarian Empire -  hardly seemed to justify four years of industrialised carnage. But historians such as Eric Hobsbawm have long argued (his The Age of Extremes – the Short Twentieth Century 1914-1991 was published in 1994) that the “short” twentieth century – the period between 1914 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991) needed to be considered as a coherent whole.

In To Hell and Back Ian Kershaw attempts a single volume history of the first half of this period -1914 to 1949. If the reason we read history is to understand and learn from the past then it is essential that the unit of analysis used– what historians call periodisation -  be capable of yielding meaningful conclusions.  In Kershaw’s analysis the reason Europe rebounded from what Hobsbawm calls the Age of Catastrophe and embarked on the Golden Age of Prosperity (up until about 1974) lies in the following: the end of Germany’s great power ambitions; the purging of war criminals; the formal division between the West (under American protection) and the Soviet bloc; economic growth; and the threat of nuclear war. Together these factors militated against a revival of the unchecked nationalism of the inter war period and ushered in a period of stability.

In To Hell and Back Kershaw gives what could be described as the liberal version of the first half of the short twentieth history. In contrast to Hobsbawm, (who was a Marxist) he downplays the contest between Capitalism and Soviet Communism and sees a much more contingent series of events driven ultimately by the interaction between Germany’s drive for European dominance and the various structural instabilities arising from the aftermath of the fall of multi–ethnic empires in Eastern Europe.

The book has the problems of any single volume overview of complex multiple subjects. Readers familiar with Richard Evans’ two volume history of the Third Reich for example will not be overly impressed by Kershaw’s necessarily abbreviated treatment of this subject.  In particular, his treatment of the amazingly rapid consolidation of Nazi power following Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor in 1933 (which, when one thinks about it, is at the root cause of a whole series of consequences which made the 20^th century so uniquely terrible) begs more questions than it answers.

Nevertheless, Kershaw’s knowledge of the period is detailed (his two volume biography of Hitler puts that beyond doubt); his command of economic statistics is impressive; and his conclusions are all eminently defensible. Essential reading for those interested in Modern History but follow it up by revisiting Hobsbawm.

On Stalin's Team

On Stalin's Team

By Sheila Fitzpatrick

Okay here is the thing about Stalin and historiography. He manages to crystallize every major ideological conflict of the twentieth century. As a result, the debate about Stalin oscillates between those like Robert Conquest who portray Stalin's regime as the embodiment of totalitarianism and Stalin as the greatest mass murderer in history and a bungler to boot; those like Simon Sebag Montefiores whose Court of the Red Tzar depicts Stalin as brilliant, charismatic and cruel; and the revisionists, such as Sheila Fitzpatrick and Arch Getty, who seek  to interpret Stalin as a rational albeit ruthless political operator.

One thing is for sure, while Stalin was the boss (and that's what they called him in Russian) millions and millions of Soviet citizens died. Now admittedly, about twenty million of those were killed by the Nazis but that still leaves a massive butcher's bill.

And yet, what if Russia had not industrialised during the twenties and thirties at break neck speed and at the cost of massive human suffering? Well no T-34 tanks for a start. And the Germans could probably have held onto Festung Europa until they developed nuclear weapons. It really does not bear thinking about.

In On Stalin's Team Sheila Fitzpatrick seeks to revise the view that Stalin operated as dictator surrounded by sycophantic yes men. The opening of many Soviet era archives since the 1990s does mean that it is possible to revisit the Cold War Robert Conquest view of Stalin; the risk is - as Fitzpatrick acknowledges in her introduction - that by humanising Stalin and interpreting his actions as, in a sense rational, one can be seen to become an apologist for his crimes.

Fitzpatrick makes a pretty compelling case for her argument, at least up until the post war period. It is indeed striking that Stalin's own family suffered as much or more in the Great Purge as other Politburo members. Also the phenomenon of "dosage" - the way in which team members fell gradually from high office to the  Gulag or worse  - is indeed best explained by Stalin's need to sell his decisions to other team members.

What the book lacks however is a detailed analysis of what the various team members actually achieved in their areas of relative autonomy (with the exception perhaps of Molotov).  Orzhonikidze in industry and Mikoyan in trade for example have fascinating stories to tell but, to be fair to Fitzpatrick, this would require a much larger book.

The Edge of the World

The Edge of the World - How the North Sea Made us Who We Are

By Michael Pye

In The Edge of the World Michael Pye  gives us a brilliant rethinking of the way in which medieval Europe became modern Europe. This is the story of seafaring and trading people - the Frisians, the Norse, the Hanseatic league and all the peoples who engaged in the economy of the North sea.

His method reminds me very much of Inga Clendenin's close reading of the primary sources as evinced in Dancing with Strangers, or Philip Jones'  analysis of post contact Aboriginal artifacts in Ochre and Rust. Pye  focuses on very specific historical detail - be that a known historical event, a clause in a contract, or a physical artifact -  and  by interrogating them for meaning is able to draw plausible wider inferences.

Thus he focuses on the meaning of cash hoards as opposed to hack silver; silk trimming on shoes found in the ruins of an 11th century Norwegian town; the specifics of the construction of Norse buildings at Anse aux Meadows in New Foundland; the details of marriage contracts. Combined with the surviving literary sources this close reading of the sources yields rich insights.

Pye is particularly interested in the way in which the use of money as an an abstract measure of value is related to the development of mathematics and science. In the world of the North Sea this dynamic had its most immediate application to trade, navigation and ship building and windmills. There were implications for politics, capital formation and the status of women.

Along the way he manages to recover innumerable fragments of past lives and by relating them to the larger patterns he infers give them a meaning beyond what the physical artifact or contractual clause alone could achieve.  An unusual and valuable work. 

The Australian moment – How we were made for these times

By George Megalogenis

One suspects this book was conceived and written in the aftermath of the GFC in 2009/10 when Australia really did look to have dodged a bullet and before the slow down of 2011 which, at least in the South East of the country, felt as bad as anything since the early 90s (if not the mid 70s).

The book’s central thesis however remains valid, even if subjectively it is hard to relate to. Megalogenis argues persuasively that Australia, of all the developed economies in the world, is best placed to weather the current difficult economic times. To make his point he gives a lucid account of Australian economic and political history since the mid sixties. For readers of a certain age and disposition this is a very engaging march down memory lane to a time when politicians had not had media training and when the issues of the day were the kind and extent of economic and social reform. The personal peccadilloes of our elected representatives, while noted in passing, were scarcely the point.

Megalogenis’s argument is essentially that each of our governments since the early 70s can take some credit for producing the uniquely robust set of policies which puts us in the solid position we now, apparently, enjoy. Whitlam lowered tariffs. Fraser decisively changed the immigration mix. Hawke and Keating floated the dollar, deregulated the banking system, managed the trade unions and produced fiscal surpluses when it was appropriate. Howard gave us the GST and didn’t stuff up what Hawke and Keating had achieved. Rudd handled the GFC according to the textbook before imploding. And now, even if there is a double dip recession, Australia is well placed to deal with it. Not that you would know that watching the news (and George has something to say about what is wrong about the intersection between our media and politics, not all that different to what Lindsay Tanner said in Sideshow).

Megalogenis is one of the more interesting journalists writing about Australian economics and politics today. He has some interesting gripes (down on baby boomers for example) but while clearly dry economically does not follow the News Limited script. Highly recommended.

SPQR - A History of Ancient Rome

By Mary Beard

Ever since the mid 18th century when  Edward Gibbon wrote The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire the Roman world has been the subject of  intensive scholarly and popular writing. Mary Beard's SPQR is the latest in a long line of general histories of the late Republic and early Principate. To mention only a few, Tom Holland's Rubicon and  Dynasty and Robin Lane Fox's The Classical World cover similar territory as does Adrian Goldsworthy and Christian Meier's respective books both called Caesar and Alan Everitt's the First Emperor.

A number of questions arise. Why so many books on this period; what is the fascination? And is Mary Beard's contribution worth a visit?

To answer the last question first: absolutely. Beard is a classicist with a strong knowledge of cutting edge archaeology as well as an exhaustive knowledge of the surviving classical written sources.  Unlike say Holland who in his recent Dynasty tended to take the ancient sources at face value, Beard is an astute reader of ancient agendas and skilfully interrogates her sources to test the received wisdom while avoiding revisionism for its own sake.  She is able to cut through Cicero's self serving depiction of Catiline and Augustus's of Anthony; both of whom suffered the fate that befalls losers in the historical record.

Beyond that Beard is a knowledgeable guide to Roman literature and society. Critically, she understands that the Ancient World is a very strange place not withstanding the frequent moments when it seems strikingly recognisable. As she puts it, it is like "walking on a tightrope, a very careful balancing act."

Which brings us to the fascination. Partly it is that Roman politics is comprehensible albeit brutal. The motivations of  Caesar, Brutus and   Octavian are quite explicable. The contest between libertas and dictatorship and between the "people' and the optimates has been played out innumerable times and, given that this history has been studied by European elites since the Renaissance, there is a real sense in which the fall of the Roman Republic operates as a template for all of the innumerable subsequent transitions from some kind of popular rule to authoritarianism. And then the Romans invented constitutional monarchy, although they never quite perfected the succession problem.

But the fascination also derives from the alien nature of the Roman world. A lot of it is shocking: exposure of unwanted children; the routine sexual exploitation of slaves (and the radically different conception of sexual orientation); the gladiatorial games; the endemic disease and violence.

Either way, we find it hard to look away. One does not have to posit that the study of the Roman World provides lessons directly applicable to our current dilemmas to recognize that even so there is something to be learnt about our human potential and experience.

The Big-daddy of population limitationists in Australia reconsidered.

In the light of recent bleatings about Australia's rate of population growth I thought I'd post this (somewhat critical) review I wrote of the biography of the big daddy of "small Australia". Originally published in the Canberra Times.

Griffith Taylor – visionary environmentalist explorer

By Carolyn Strange and Alison Bashford

National Library of Australia. 283 pp.

By any measure  Griffith Taylor had a fascinating life: he studied geology at Cambridge; went on Scott’s last Antarctic expedition; founded Sydney University’s school of geography and became a controversial public intellectual; later he taught in Chicago and Toronto. A building is named after him at Sydney University. And yet he is largely forgotten. His books are out of print and the Griffith Taylor Building is a mediocre example of the International style.

But life is long and Griffith Taylor is enjoying something of a renaissance. Timothy Flannery in The Future Eaters describes him as ‘one of the greatest and most courageous scientists Australia has ever produced’ praising him for his opposition to the “Australia Unlimited’ boosters of the 1920s and to the White Australia policy.

In Griffith Taylor Strange and Bashford revisit their protagonist’s well documented life and retrofit him as a visionary and environmentalist by emphasizing his early careers as a geologist and meteorologist. Considerable space is devoted to his participation in Scott’s last expedition where he served creditably. The book’s thematic organization means however that his early career – up until the mid 1920s – is rehearsed in a number of different contexts and this tends to obscure the fact that Taylor, while enjoying a successful academic career in the United States and Canada from the late 1920s had by that time ceased to be a significant public figure.

But even as an academic geographer Taylor’s achievement was questionable. The version of human geography espoused by Griffin Taylor and known as  ‘geographic determinism’ is neither hard science nor humanity. While it is indubitable that humans live in and are affected by their physical environments it is far from clear why primacy should be given to the physical environment (any more than, say, economics, culture or history) as an explanatory factor in human affairs. If this is in doubt then the rationale for geographic determinism becomes somewhat murky.

The problem goes deeper than mere methodology. Following Scott’s expedition, Taylor returned to Australia, a made man, and worked in the Bureau of Meteorology where he became fascinated by the relationship between climate and race. This is deeply unfashionable territory these days and rightly so. But by the 1920s western culture was saturated with concepts of race and social Darwinism and Taylor found a receptive market for his ideas on human evolution and geography. He became known as an advocate of geographical determinism – the idea that the physical environment has a decisive role to play in the formation of human culture and evolution. Taylor exhibited a talent for self promotion which, combined with his large literary output and facility for presenting ideas diagrammatically, secured him plenty of space in the newspapers and a significant public profile during the 1920s.

Taylor was always something of a maverick. He went to the Kings School but didn’t like rugby and later in life his ideas were not all popular. Above all Taylor considered himself a scientist and if scientists thought that a particular skull shape was the most highly developed form of human then so be it. In 1927 he published Environment and Race the basic thesis of which was that the more advanced races had taken control of the most desirable portions of the earth, pushing their less advanced cousins to the periphery. The most advanced race however was not the ‘European’ but the ‘Mongolian’. This conclusion, by the way, led to considerable interest in his work in imperial Japan.

Taylor was relaxed about intermarriage between Europeans and Asians and maintained that the concept of pure race was absurd. He also wrote however that the ‘negro peoples…stand on a lower plane than white or Mongolian. Racial mixture with them may be a deterioration for the other races’. But not to worry: one of his predictions, which receives less publicity than his pessimism about Australia’s carrying capacity, is that negroes will ‘ultimately disappear’ – bred out by half castes; just as was happening to the Australian Aborigine. ( refer p340 of Environment and Race, Oxford U.P. 1927).

So Taylor’s ideas on race were quirky but hardly cuddly. What really got him into trouble in the 1920s (and what Dr Flannery applauds now) was the suggestion that the Australian continent had a limited capacity for population growth. He predicted a maximum capacity of about twenty million people. Many considered this unpatriotic at a time when Australia was thought by many to have the potential to be another America.

Taylor’s work in fact has little bearing on whether the population limitation environmentalists such as Dr Flannery are right or wrong. Taylor predicted a maximum number which is close to the present population but his assumptions were idiosyncratic. He thought for example that Europeans would not live in the tropics. He thought much of Western Australia to be useless; not forseeing that we could one day dig it up and sell it to China (and use the proceeds to pay for desalinated water).

But what Taylor’s career does show is that the certitudes of intellectual fashion change over time. Taylor was a talented man who invested his considerable ability and energy in areas of study  which today are considered frankly embarrassing. Geography goes on because there is something informative in seeing humans in the context of their environment but the lessons we draw from that study have changed radically. In Griffith Taylor Strange and Bashford have given us a detailed and handsomely illustrated account of a man who is almost forgotten and probably rightly so; but fascinating all the same.

.