Posts Tagged 'nonfiction'

Books! The true story of the Congress of Vienna

Published December 20, 2012 reading 1 Comment
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Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna by Adam Zamoyski is not a book to approach lightly. It demands commitment and a willingness to wade through the numerous individuals involved in the Congress of Vienna. Ultimately though it is a great book and at times brings to life an exciting period in European history.

The book opens with the beginning of Napoleon’s downfall and his race back to France after the failed invasion of Russia. The Treaty of Paris helped to end the Napoleonic Empire and the wars, but Europe was left with many unsettled issues such as the status of Poland, who gets what territory and more. The Great Powers of Europe convened several committee meetings in Vienna that lasted for almost a year and discussed a variety of issues facing the continent. My favorite was the Statistical Committee. As Zamoyski explains, “In all the negotiations at the congress the political value of land was calculated not in acres or hectares, but in numbers of inhabitants, commonly referred to ‘souls’” (pg 386). The committee’s job was to verify the figures that the Great Powers were calculating thereby determining the value and the fair distribution of land.

The value of the book is in its retelling of the congress, especially its attention to detail. While this can become monotonous at times with dozens of unfamiliar names, Zamoyski brings out the flavor of the period by not only discussing the official proceedings but also describing the unofficial and at times debauched activities of the participants. Between balls, dalliances, hunts, and eating, it is a wonder they had any time to negotiate the future of Europe. It makes the politicians dealing with the fiscal cliff seem like a bunch of stodgy old monks.

The book also has a different take on the effects of the Congress of Vienna. In political science we tend to teach the Congress as resulting in the establishment of legitimacy of states in Europe and the beginning of stability on the continent. This is in part due to the writings of Henry Kissinger and Paul W. Schroeder. Zamoyski argues that the congress actually had negative effects because it left so many question unanswered, dreams unfulfilled, and completely ignored the rising tide of liberal thought in most of Europe. Although he doesn’t say this directly, in many ways the congress set the stage for the disasters of the next century.

While it is long and only for the determined, if you are interested in the Congress of Vienna and the late Napoleonic era, this is  a fantastic work. Very well-written and researched.

Books! Black helicopters?! Um, No.

Published December 14, 2012 reading 1 Comment
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I doubt this book will be the most popular entry for Cannonball Read, but I’m counting it as one of my 52. Get over it.

Of course everyone wants to know all there is to know about the United Nations. Or rather, I wish more people knew more about the UN. The United Nations by Sven Bernhard Gareis is called an introductory textbook, but it is pretty hefty and goes into incredible detail about the major UN functions. However, the chapters on peacekeeping and reform are good introductions to those topics. The chapters on collective security are a bit of slog and could use with some editing and reorganization.

The author reiterates throughout that the failings and successes of the UN fall squarely on the shoulders of the states that make it up. Without the member states, especially the P5, there is no UN. There is a tendency for students to judge the UN as an entity without considering that its failings cannot be easily separated from the actions of states. The actions we take in the US have a direct effect on the efficacy of the UN as an institution.

The book would be great for someone teaching an entire class on the United Nations or International Organizations as the chapters can easily be separated out for class readings. I definitely recommend for higher level courses though and not as an introductory text. For the individual reader, be sure you have a strong interest in the functioning of the UN. You will need it.

But! If when you think of the UN all you think about are black helicopters or Ahmadinejad denying the Holocaust, then this probably a book you should put on your list. At least read the introduction. Please.

Books! The ethics of savior siblings #cbr4

Published December 13, 2012 reading 1 Comment
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I would have never picked up The Match by Beth Whitehouse on my own. I read it as part of our Friends of the Libraries book discussion group. They read three books each semester and I try to read most of them. The Match is eye-opening, but definitely not a book to approach lightly.

The story follows the Trebing family after their daughter is diagnosed with Diamond Blackfan anemia, a debilitating disease that requires monthly blood transfusions. Because the transfusions lead to a build up of iron in the heart and liver, her parents begin to search for alternative methods. They find out that the bone marrow of a sibling with the same genetic match as their daughter could cure her, but would require a potentially life-threatening transplant. They use several cutting edge procedures to give birth to a “savior sibling,” including preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) and in vitro fertilization.

The book does a fine job bringing up the ethical issues of preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) and the idea of “savior sibling”. One question she discusses with doctors and ethicists is whether parents may use PGD to choose traits like eye color or intelligence. Another is the protection of the savior siblings and whether desperate parents wanting to save another child will consider fully the medical interests of the savior sibling. I can’t imagine any parent not loving their child,  treating them equally, and keeping them from as much harm as possible, but people are crazy (Toddlers in Tiaras are evidence of this).

Well-researched book about an extremely difficult subject. It is short and accessible though. I definitely recommend if you are interested in issues of medical ethics.

The Match

Books! Making of a President 1960 #cbr4

Published November 13, 2012 reading , Uncategorized 1 Comment
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“For the President of the United States is not only the many men listed in the official catalogue of his powers–he is also the nation’s chief educator, the nation’s chief persuader, the nation’s master politician. Where he leads, his party, his instruments, above all his relectant people, must be persuaded to follow.”

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Published in 1961, Theodore H. White’s The Making of the President 1960 is the seminal work on the 1960 campaign and election season. While White certainly expresses his overwhelming enthusiasm for Kennedy, he does a wonderful job highlighting the internal workings of both campaigns and the changing demographics of American society. This is a rich and extremely well-written work, so I can only highlight a few aspects.

First, reading this work with the hindsight of the 21st century is heartbreaking, especially when White projects into the future with statements like, “unless he does this, so portend the election results of 1960, he will be dramatically vulnerable to Republican counterattack in 1964.”

Second, it is amazing to see how dramatically the demographics of the American electorate have shifted since 1960. White lists the Southern states that went for Kennedy (Louisiana, South Carolina, Texas, etc) versus the states that were solidly Nixon (Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio). It makes you realize how much has changed both in America and in our two major parties.

In my favorite chapter White describes at length the sea-change in American demographics discovered in the 1960 Census (primarily with the emergence of the suburb and the death of the cities). Just one fun fact is that in 1950 11% of Americans owned a television whereas in 1960 88% owned one. He uses these statistics to highlight how critical the televised debates were to the election. And yes, he discusses those pesky debates!

Finally, I found fascinating his descriptions of the party conventions and how they served as sites of contestation rather than the crownings they now seem to be. I can’t think of a single convention in my voting life where we didn’t already know the name of the heir-apparent. Part of this is decided by the primary system, which was much more limited back then, but it made me long for a convention process that is actually contested, heated, and full of real debate. Heck, maybe I would actually watch them then.

This is a fantastic work to read in light of our recent election and perfect for anyone interested in the Kennedy-Nixon election as well as the continuing drama of American Presidential politics.

Books! A hawk and a dove walk into a bar … #cbr4

Published October 7, 2012 reading 1 Comment
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and the Cold War starts and ends and throughout they remain friends.

The Hawk and the Dove: Paul Nitze, George Kennan, and the History of the Cold War by Nicholas Thompson is a fabulous double biography of two of the most influential thinkers during the Cold War. We see Kennan as he develops his strategy of containment as a young FSO in Moscow and then Nitze as he subverts it with NSC-68. We see Nitze becoming a forceful anti-Soviet crusader while Kennan becomes the more passive but eloquent anti-nuclear sage.

Thompson covers their lives from their early careers to their very last days while keeping the reader’s eye on the bigger story of the Cold War. Unlike Gaddis’ biography of Kennan, we aren’t immersed in the minutiae of the two men as much and Thompson does a great job setting the stage for readers who might be unfamiliar with details of the period. Even if you aren’t a Cold War history buff or a fan of these two men, the story of the Cold War is accessible as told by Thompson.

I have to mention my favorite line from Kennan, which Thompson quotes. You need to understand that Kennan was a fabulous and prolific writer in addition to being an authority on Russia. He wrote after the Cold War that “The suggestion that any Administration had the power to influence decisively the course of a tremendous domestic upheaval in another great country on another side of the globe is simply childish.” (pg 331)

I so wish Kennan were still around today …

Books! The very long life of George F. Kennan #cbr4

Published August 25, 2012 reading 2 Comments
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Sadly it looks like I won’t make my goal of 52 books this year for Cannonball Read. I might still be able to read close to that number (maybe) but I don’t know that I can force out all of the reviews I have let slide. This book, in my opinion, should count for 3 or 4 books though!

As an ex-Political Scientists I’ve read Kennan’s X article in Foreign Affairs several times. The article argues for an approach to the Soviet Union that would contain its expansive tendencies. This later became “containment” and official policy of the United States, a slight distortion as he was arguing primarily for diplomatic containment and not military.  Kennan’s ideas and writings were complex and, as John Lewis Gaddis in George F. Kennan: An American Life shows, sometimes contradictory, which tended to lead to Kennan’s own frustration when his ideas were put into policy.

Gaddis succeeds at showing us the full picture of the man through this expansive biography. He had access to all of Kennan’s writing, letters, and diaries and even the family. At times I wished for more discussion of the events of the day, but this is again a biography and not a history.

Although the work isn’t for the casual Cold War era reader, it is worth the effort if you want to know more about Kennan’s development as a public intellectual and his influence on the events of the 20th century.  Gaddis has created a biography of which Kennan could be proud.

Atoms atoms everywhere #CBR4

Published March 11, 2012 reading 1 Comment
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My seventh book in the CBR4 read was The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt. I picked this up on the recommendation of a friend who figured that a librarian would want to read about a guy searching for ancient texts (they are sweet, aren’t they). I have to admit the central story didn’t grab me (I’m not big on bibliomania), but I was pulled in by Greenblatt’s attempt to connect an ancient text, On the Nature of Things by Lucretius, to the marvels of the Renaissance.

Greenblatt follows the travels of Poggio Bracciolini, a Florentine book hunter, in the early 15th century as he searches the monasteries of Europe for copies of ancient Roman texts. He finds the poem On the Nature of Things written by Lucretius who had been a follower of Epicurus. Epicurean philosophy focuses on the pursuit of pleasure rather pain, a philosophy that latter is subverted to mean hedonistic partying, but had meant a focus on the simple pleasures of living life as it is. The poem discusses the existence of atoms as the basis of life and the delusions and cruelty of organized religion. The swerve is the idea that life as it is exists because of the random movement of those atoms not because of the intentional act of a distant creator. Puggio copies the book and sends it on its journey back into the world of Renaissance Italy, in a sense creating the poem’s own swerve, where, in Greenblatt’s reading, it becomes a touchstone for many great thinkers (Machiavelli, Montaigne, and Jefferson among them).

While some of his connections may be tenuous, his prose is beautiful. It is difficult for a mere librarian like me to convey the gracefulness of his writing, so let’s let Greenblatt speak for himself:

“Of course, all Poggio could hope to find were pieces of parchment, and not even very ancient ones. But for him these were not manuscripts but human voices. What emerged from the obscurity of the library was not a link in a long chain of texts, one copied from the other, but rather the thing itself, wearing borrowed garments, or even the author himself, wrapped in gravecloths and stumbling into the light” (pg 180).

How could you not love a writer that not only describes the link between text and thought so perfectly, but also can then give a slight nod to zombies? I mean really people?!

I predict this will be one of my favorite books this year. It may not be perfect in its scholarship or history, but the basic story holds well and the language is captivating. On a side note, I was introduced to Greenblatt (the actual man) at some point in the 00′s (don’t remember the exact year as I had no idea who he was). He was giving a lecture to our English Department on Shakespeare and someone thought to say “Oh, and this is our secretary.” I don’t remember who the introducer was, but that person created their own swerve as I may not have bothered to note the name when my friend mentioned the book and may have never read it. I thank them wholeheartedly for their condescension. It has introduced me to a wonderful book!

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