A City And The Clever Folks Who Live There

“Rollicking” is a word for the page. It is read, not spoken, and it invariably paired with “good fun.” No one has rollicking misery, rollicking shingles, or a rollicking breakfast – though good company, a delicious omelette and fine coffee are very good fun. Boris Johnson, mayor of London, shameless promoter of the city and of all things Boris Johnson, is an accomplished man. Author of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, journalism and countless posts and articles, he recently penned Johnson’s Life of London, The People Who Made The City That Made The World. It is, at least for its first half, a rollicking good read.

In love with the city he leads, Johnson’s pseudo-history is a panegyric to London through short biographic study of approximately two dozen Londoners. Johnson’s prose is a delightful mixture of erudition and the corporeal, if not scatological. It is not surprising, for example, to read about the invention of the flush toilet or the sex life of J.M.W. Turner. Johnson admires ambition and those that live hard, work hard and play hard. His admiration for Geoffrey Chaucer, Robert Hooke and Winston Churchill leaps from the page.

Johnson’s history is not history, though. It is dinner party chatter, enjoyable anecdote and observation. Enthusiasm and humor drive the stories. It is a book that was dashed off from an erudite brain and energetic personality. It is charming, as I’m sure Boris Johnson would be in person. That doesn’t mean that he would necessarily have my vote.

October 27, 2012 Reviews

When Running Away Makes Sense

Carissa Phelps’ memoir, Runaway Girl: Escaping Life on the Streets, One Helping Hand At A Time, recounts a horrific childhood and adolescence. Born into poverty and growing up in central California, Carissa was sexually exploited by the age of twelve. She was living on and off the streets of Fresno by the time she was thirteen. Raped repeatedly, sold for sex and trapped in a culture of drugs, violence and abuse, Carissa repeatedly ran away. She ran from home, from the juvenile detention centers she was sent, and from the men and women who hurt and used her.

Always smart, always good with numbers, Carissa did not stay in school, either, until her mid-teens. With the ongoing support of a teacher and a counselor, Carissa slowly started putting her life together. She graduated from Cal State Fresno, and then later a JD and an MBA from UCLA. It was never an easy journey. Even as she began to succeed educationally and professionally, difficult choices and decisions troubled her. Steady relationships, trust and “normal” relationships with others challenged her. It is understandable, too. How does one reconcile such a life and move on?

Now an advocate, attorney and speaker, Carissa Phelps tells her story and works to help young men and women. She is a vocal presence warning of the horrors of human trafficking and childhood abuse. She is using her story to give help and hope to others.

I would like to say that the book is uplifting or optimistic, but it is not. Written in a flat, matter-of-fact tone, Runaway Girl has the bluntness of a police report. It is difficult to see how it could be otherwise. Phelps’ uses language and the narrative to both share and hide. She cannot explain. It is impossible to do so. All that she can do for most of the book is describe. The cumulative effect is one of great sorrow.

Ms. Phelps’ strength is that of a survivor. Like a boxer who is able who is beaten round after round but remains standing, Ms. Phelps’ determination is admirable. But there is no joy in taking the beating.

Though not a feminist text, the book is a primer in misogyny. Carissa is a recurring site of exploitation and hatred. The moments in the text when she describes others treating her humanely, valuing her as a person, stand out.

At a larger level, the book makes clear the dystopian culture of poverty, drugs, abuse and indifference in our culture. The streets for many of our young are Hobbesian camps of power and exploitation. With sex and drugs are the prime economic drivers, other values stand little chance of gaining a toe-hold. The memoir also demonstrates the colossal ineffectiveness of our “system” to address adolescents who get into trouble. Happenstance is what helped Phelps survive, not planning, not thoughtful care, and most definitely not a system.

A story of success on one level, the book is also a story of many failures, many lives lost and ruined. It is, in many ways, a nightmare, a vision of what many young people must see as a life without hope or love.

October 20, 2012 American Culture Today, Reviews

Trying To Make Sense Of The Incomprehensible

Bookstores shelve books about the past under the heading of history. Historians have other preferences.

Two new books about World War II highlight the historians’ perspective. Both works were sparked by family histories and both show the strengths and shortcomings of personal history.

In The Boy Who Went to War, Giles Milton recounts the story of Wolfram Aichele, a reluctant German soldier and Milton’s father-in-law. Rachel S. Cox’s Into Dust and Fire recounts the story of five Americans who volunteered to fight the Nazis before the United States was at war. Among the five was Robert Hill Cox II, Rachel Cox’s uncle.

Wolfram’s story is fascinating. The book is described as “narrative non-fiction” It is not history, but it is not fiction, either.

Wolfram grew up in Pforzheim in southwest Germany, a happy boy in a household whose values were strongly anti-Nazi. A talented wood-carver and artists, Wolfram avoided service until he was drafted/coerced into national service. Sent to the Crimea, where he almost died of diphtheria, Wolfram was later re-assigned to France, where he was captured and subsequently sent to a POW camp in Oklahoma. Wolfram’s story and the story of his family reveals the tremendous heartache and horror of World War II. Pforzheim, for example, was firebombed by the British at the end of the war and almost completely obliterated.

The book makes clear its sympathy for many of its characters. It also emphasizes the complete lack on individual knowledge or agency of how lives were completely upended by the conflict.

Milton writes with clarity. His organization is mostly chronological and he links, when possible, local stories with broader historical knowledge. He is acutely conscious of what people knew and what they did not, and his narrative takes pains to give consideration to contextualizing the events faced by his protagonists. The prose helps the reader, too, making accounts lifelike in their detail.

Cox’s story relies heavily upon the letters of the five: three Dartmouth undergraduates, Charles Bolte, Jack Brister, and Charles McClane, and two Harvard students, Rob Cox and Heyward Cutting.  Three of the young men were graduates of St. Paul’s prep school in New Hampshire. They enlisted to see action, to take advantage of an historical tie between America and England, and to serve. The book describes their training in England and their hardships in North Africa. While the three took a courageous step, the machinery of the war treated them with indifference. Three of the young men died and the fourth lost a limb.

Unfortunately, Cox approach to the text is circuitous. She tries to build tension, but what results is a constant checking for which protagonist in what circumstance. It is a hard book to follow – and I have read reviews that have misunderstood information. The directness of the accounts does add to the reader’s sense of the overall contingent nature of the war, but that’s not necessarily the characteristic that one wants to emphasize. Periodization, structure and organization are problematic.

Even with these shortcomings, the heroism of the young men shines through.

Read in tandem, both works remind us that much remains to be learned about World War II. They also make clear that personal accounts and personal stories are a poor vehicle for historical argument or a broader understanding. Tolstoy’s famous description of the Battle of Borodino in War and Peace , a senseless slaughter carried out in fog and smoke, turns the horror of war into something transcendent. First hand accounts of lives lost and ruined are not art but their accuracy drives home a deep sense of tragedy.

October 8, 2012 Reviews

Deep In The Heart Of . . . . What?

The argument in Gail Collins‘ new book, As Texas Goes . . . How The Lone Star State Hijacked The American Agenda , is neatly captured in the Appendix. Collins reprints a biannual report by the Legislative Study Group of the Texas House of Representatives. Titled “Texas on the Brink,” the report in Harper’s Index style tabulates Texas’s ranking on a host of state by state measures. Key indicators include:

  • Texas in 2nd highest in the US in terms of public school enrollment, 38th on expenditures per student, and 50th in terms of percent of the population 25 or older with a high school diploma.
  • Texas is ranked 43rd in terms of graduation rate.
  • Among all 50 states, Texas is number one in terms of percentage of uninsured children (highest), percent of population uninsured (highest), amount of emissions of carbon dioxide, volatile organic compounds, toxic chemicals released into water, and hazard waste generated.

In fact, a ton is wrong with Texas.

Collins, in her acerbic but jokey style, eviscerates the Texas miracle in this book. She pokes holes in Texas myths, Texas decision-making, Texas culture and Texas politics. It all has a sharp tone, which can grate, but her points are difficult to refute. The Lone Star State is driven by cultural myths that simply do not align with geographic, demographic, economic, or political reality. The state is a mess and doesn’t even know it.

The kicker is Texas’s over-size impact on what happens to the rest of the United States. Blame it on leadership, the Texas committee that recommends textbooks for children,  or the durability of the cowboy and Wild West – Texas generates strong feelings in a way that Ohio cannot. And this would not interest Collins, save for the eerily power of Texas in defining America.

Reading Collins is a bit like sour candy. Tangy, tasty, and liable to leaving you feeling a tad ill if you have too much. Even though she’s funny and right, As Texas Goes  is a bit much for one sitting.

 

September 21, 2012 American Culture Today, Curiouser and Curiouser, Reviews

How’s a Flaneur To Get Around Today?

Taras Grescoe is a travel writer and flaneur for the 21st century. A Canadian-born global citizen, Grescoe has authored five books of non-fiction:  Sacre Blues, an unsentimental study of Quebec; End of Elsewhere, a tale of his journey from one end of the planet to another; Devil’s Picnic, Grescoe pushing the limits of fun all around the world, Bottom Feeder, a query into whether or not one can eat seafood ethically, and most recently, Straphanger. Grescoe is an engaging writer whose curiosity and excitement carry his ideas and prose. It is clear that Grescoe greatly enjoys traveling and writing. It is easy to imagine coming across him at a restaurant or train station and having a very interesting conversation.

Straphanger is a study of mass transportation systems and their cities. An avowed user of public transportation, Grescoe avoids cars whenever he can. Grescoe is also an urbanite, drawn to the juxtapositions of dense city living. His book is a first-hand journey to twelve cities – New York, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Paris, Copenhagen, Moscow, Tokyo, Bogota, Portland, Oregon, Vancouver, Philadelphia and Montreal – through the lens of the cities’ mass transit. History, politics, economics and urban studies are sprinkled lightly into the mix, as are interviews and chance encounters.

The subtitle, “Saving Our Cities and Ourselves from the Automobile,” addresses a recurring theme. Grescoe aims to give a compelling account of better ways to live and to get around. Here he is less successful, but not for want of trying. The book is helpful and informative, but far from authoritative or even particularly insightful. Grescoe’s argument is grounded in the excitement and expertise of a well-read tourist.

Hovering around the narrative are harder to answer questions. Was it particular conflations of leadership and opportunity that led to the development of certain cities and certain systems? Or are there lessons and models to consider? Compounding the queries is Grescoe’s approach itself. He’s an unencumbered man about to become a father. His responsibilities, as they are, consist of journeying to interesting cities, riding their mass transit systems and asking a few folks along the way some questions. Of course he doesn’t have to drive – and one wonders if he ever really grasps the day-to-day of the workers in the cities he describes. Accessing a bus or subway to get to an interview is one thing; to use mass transportation to try to juggle work and child care is another.

I, like Grescoe, feel at home in cities. I welcome density and the stimulation that comes from urban environments. I also readily acknowledge the multitude of costs that accompany driving an automobile on a regular basis. But I don’t believe that any of the above would make for supporters of public transportation. That assertion has to based on something harder, more universal, and much more practical. And that argument requires one to sit down, take root, and really learn about a city.

 

September 16, 2012 Reviews, Things someone who grew up in NJ might write

To Get an International Job Done

Amid partisan wrangling, international conflict, and the quantification of risk, is it possible today to do something grand on the international scale? A war, perhaps, but what about project with global implications? And can anything be done in the Middle East? To answer just that question I recently read Zachary Karabell’s Parting the Desert: The Creation of the Suez Canal.

Karabell is a twenty-first century Renaissance man. He is an economist and money manager, has overseen mutual funds, and has his own firm looking at economic and political trends. He is also a Harvard educated historian with extensive knowledge of global economic development and the author of several books. Most importantly, Karabell has the background, training and perspective to explain one of the most daunting construction projects of the nineteenth century: the building of the Suez Canal.

The waterway, which connects the Mediterranean and Red Seas, was a massive engineering feat when first completed in 1869. It did not, though, require all that much by way of innovation or cutting edge technology. What made the building of the Suez Canal such an extraordinary undertaking was the politics and the people involved. This is the focus on Karabell’s thoughtfully written study.

Many since the time of the Pharaohs recognized the value of connecting the two seas through canals. Ptolemy led one such project. The earlier efforts silted up, however, and it was not until Napoleon invaded Egypt that the idea gained traction. Numerous studies were undertaking, but none had a clear champion the vision, perseverance, connections and will to bring the idea forward. Until Ferdinand de Lesseps, a well-connected diplomat whose career derailed due to French politics in 1849, took up the cause.

Karabell patiently explains the conditions and leadership of Egypt at the time. He makes clear that while de Lesseps may take the hero’s role in the tale, Egypt’s Khedive, Sa’id Pasha, was essential in creating the political environment for the Canal’s success.  De Lesseps knew Sa’id Pasha as young man, and as Karabell regularly notes, de Lesseps multinational connections were invaluable. Not only did Egypt have to approve the Canal and provide the labor to dig the waterway, de Lesseps sought international funding of the company, as well as the support of France, England, the Ottoman Empire, and other European leaders.

Through incessant effort and skillful political management, de Lesseps increasingly engaged French government in the project. He parlayed cultural fascination with things Egyptian into support. Karabell has a firm understanding of French culture in the 1800s and regularly connects the colonial exoticism of Egypt with the domestic politics of France. The creation of the Canal basically came about through a France – Egypt partnership under de Lesseps driving vision. Opposed to the project, England may have benefited the most from the increased opportunities for world trade and maritime power.

Ultimately, as Karabell makes evident, the Suez Canal provided significant benefit at significant cost. One senses the author’s identification – with the key players in the story of the Suez Canal – and also with his admiration for the success of the project. It truly took an international vision with international expertise. And it would be an equally daunting task today.

August 19, 2012 Reviews

Sam Spade on ADHD – Mystery or Farce?

The blurb on Greg Palast’s latest book, Vultures’ Picnic, describes him as a cross between Sam Spades and Sherlock Holmes. Throw in Karl Kolchak of the Night Stalker and Inspector Clouseau and it’s a more accurate appraisal. Sporting a fedora in his head shots and incessantly veering off-topic, Palast may have serious investigative skills, but there well-hidden. The Vultures’ Picnic stands as one of the most frustrating books to cross my desk in while.

A vulture, Palast tells us, is a billionaire investor/financier who holds a nation hostage for its national resources. Palast’s book is a global kaleidoscope, through space and time, chasing down the relationships between global finance, multinationals and the exploitation of oil, gas and minerals. It is an extraordinarily important topic with consequences for how we think about economics, politics, the environment and energy policy. So why cannot Palast write about it?

Vultures’ Picnic is a mishmash of notes, anecdotes, assertions and asides. Palast is so in love with the image of what he’s trying to do that he never actually does it. He may have worked with top news organizations at one point but it’s clear why he is not now. The book would registered as such a disappointment had it not consistently referenced nuggets and germs of truly important ideas.

August 12, 2012 Reviews, Things someone who grew up in NJ might write

Tasty Neuroscience, With a Dollop of Evolution and Anthropology, Please

Brain science is cool and getting cooler. Scientists from different disciplines are collaborating, researching, wiring brains up and proposing ever more provocative insights into how we think, why we think, and how we ended up the way we are. The pace of discovery is increasing and there’s every expectation that it will continue to amaze.

Within that ever-changing environment of what is known, suggested and considered, John S. Allen has written a solid book, The Omnivorous Mind. Accessible but not simple, the work grounds contemporary neuroscience with an anthropological understanding of evolution and change. Food is an important and relevant fulcrum for observation and argumentation. Eating is fundamental, yet carries with it so much more than basic biology. Allen uses the centrality of food as a framework for his book and to engage the reader. All in all, he is surprisingly effective at balancing tone, topic and narrative. It’s a fun read and imparts a sense of wonder and curiosity.

The book’s fundamental question is how do humans “think” food. We know how to obtain food, we know how to cook and to eat. What do we think about it all? And why? The ultimate answer that Allen proposes, a theory or network of food akin to a theory of the mind, is somewhat problematic. But that doesn’t discount the value of the journey. Allen enlightens on many subjects, from chimpanzee sex to the brain’s limbic system. He does so clearly, with a light but firm touch. It is a pleasure to read.

Starting off with an extensive discussion of “crispy” – which is different from “crunchy” – Allen sketches out linguistic, cultural, historical and anthropological frameworks for analysis. Crispy, for example, often carries with it cooked (a good thing for many reasons) or fresh (another good thing). Working more from a biological perspective next, Allen offers a high-level review of what the human body needs to eat and how it has gone about obtaining it. The senses figure prominently in this equation and they are part of what makes us want to eat more and more, and not necessarily wisely. Food decisions, too, are grounded in experience and memory. In fact, food memories may be more important than other kinds of memories as triggers. These memories and meanings, woven together, establish a food-view something akin to a world-view.

What this means in real life is that we think of some birds as food as some as not. Further, this distinctions exists across cultures and is not necessarily related to caloric output or taste. Whether we realize it or not, all potential “foods” are understood within categories of what is or is not good or tasty. These categories are richer, too, than what we think of as good or bad food, which are freighted with personal and cultural meaning.  Eaten any insects lately? Allen weaves these themes together in a discussion of how foods evolve, from the creativity of opportunity to the brilliance of chefs. His narrative here works less effectively as strays farther from the underpinnings of the book.

In building his conclusion, Allen goes deep into neuroscience and the approach begs the questions as to whether he is more interested in brain or mind. They need not stand in opposition, but it is clear that any theory of the mind has a profound impact on our thinking about any other systems, real or proposed.

My takeaway was not dissimilar from a tasty meal that doesn’t fill me up – really good fun but more is needed. I am very much looking forward to more works by Mr. Allen and more studies that render neuroscience digestible for the rest of us.

August 12, 2012 Reviews

A Not-So-Grand Pursuit

Economics? Numbers and graphs spring to mind. As for economists, the image of dully older men in bow ties lecturing dominates. There are good reasons it is the most dismal of sciences. Silvia Nasar, a successful journalist and author (A Beautiful Mind was her last book) struggles to challenges these stereotypes in her latest book, Grand Pursuit: the story of economic genius. it’s a valiant struggle, but not wholly successful – it’s not really clear why she assigned herself the task.

Grand Pursuit is a social history of economists, from the early Victorian years in England through post-World War II in the United States. Nasar’s key figures include Karl Marx, Alfred Marshall, Beatrice Potter, Irving Fisher, Joseph Schumpeter, John Maynard Keynes, Friedrich von Hayek, Webb, Joan Robinson, Milton Friedman, Paul Samuelson, and Amartya Sen. It is an interesting list. They are important thinkers and policy makers, to be sure, but it would be difficult to argue that there are the most influential economists. It is an argument that Nasar does not advance.

Nasar effectively sketches the lives of these men and women, highlighting their key works and their lives. Relationships figure prominently, as do breakdowns, health scares, and drama. The biographies are not complete, however; we only learn particular segments without a deeper understanding of context. Equally frustrating, Nasar never squares the circle with these people. A social history should not require ongoing reference to Wikipedia.

A deeper frustration, however, is that the ideas of these economists is never fully fleshed out. Particular aspects of their intellectual priorities receives attention, but it would be impossible to provide a high level synopsis of the key ideas of any of these men and women. More importantly, the development of economics as a professional field of study and its relationship to politics and history is bypassed.  That, in many ways, is the key to understanding the relative impact of these individuals. It is missing, sadly, even though the components of that theme occasionally surface in the narrative.

What remains? A well written social history of a select group of people who played an important role in economic thought over one hundred years. Good social history, however, demands careful attention to context. Nasar’s book may started with an interesting conceit – the lives of economists – but she never created a structure in which that focus could succeed.

July 28, 2012 Reviews

Sad Stories

“This is the saddest story I have ever heard.” It is the famous beginning of Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier and it applies, too, to David Finkel’s The Good Soldiers. Lyrically haunting and extraordinarily depressing, Finkel’s account of an 8-month im-bed with a battalion stationed in Iraq during the surge is an exercise in the horrors of modern warfare. The book captures the voices, the perspectives, and the kaleidoscopic disunity of war. The portraits of the soldiers are compelling.

Life, death, and disfigurement are random events, unconnected to training or preparation. The specter of IEDs undermine a soldier’s relationship with the environment. Everything can be lethal. In that environment, the very nature of what it means to be a warrior is problematic. It often means exposing of the self to an unseen enemy – amid millions of dollars of technology – and not fighting, trusting to a populace that neither understands nor can communicate. While physical heroism, in some imagined state, used to mean physically challenging and fighting an enemy, today’s courage is strangely more often about not fighting. But where does a soldier locate trust in Iraq?

Overlay that suspicion with the acute suspicion that there is no point, no telos to the conflict – a realization that is so powerfully undermining that it can never be voiced – and the pathos of these soldiers and their predicament is acutely rendered. They have to believe in the job. If they don’t, they can’t endure the horrors of the job.

Finkel’s prose is haunting. It is a difficult book to pick up and an even more difficult book to put down.

Each generation, I suppose, has to discover its good soldiers and to wrestle with the gap between nationalistic rhetoric and the carnage of the battlefield. It happened in Vietnam, it happened in Korea, and it even happened in the “Good War” – World War II. But perhaps it was most acutely rendered in World War I, as the late Paul Fussell repeatedly observed.

In fact, the acute chasm between romantic rhetoric and military action is a less-explored but fundamental component of modernity and post-modernity. Subjectivity gains greater agency even as its ability to affect outcomes, render meanings, or even to gain understanding is sapped.  Nowhere is that more clear than in war, when the manifestation of abject chance overwhelms induction, deduction, and even superstition. It is the ultimate black box – with an indifferent operand.

May 31, 2012 Reviews