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At its peak in the nineteenth century, the British Empire was the largest empire ever known, governing roughly a quarter of the world's population. In Empire, Niall Ferguson explains how "an archipelago of rainy islands... came to rule the world," and examines the costs and consequences, both good and bad, of British imperialism. Though the book's breadth is impressive, it is not intended to be a comprehensive history of the British Empire; rather, Ferguson seeks to glean lessons from this history for future, or present, empires--namely America. Pointing out that the U.S. is both a product of the British Empire as well as an heir to it, he asks whether America--an "empire in denial"--should "seek to shed or to shoulder the imperial load it has inherited." As he points out in this fascinating book, there is compelling evidence for both.
Observing that "the difficulty with the achievements of empire is that they are much more likely to be taken for granted than the sins of empire," Ferguson stresses that the British did do much good for humanity in their quest for domination: promotion of the free movement of goods, capital, and labor and a common rule of law and governance chief among them. "The question is not whether British imperialism was without blemish. It was not. The question is whether there could have been a less bloody path to modernity," he writes. The challenge for the U.S., he argues, is for it to use its undisputed power as a force for positive change in the world and not to fall into some of the same traps as the British before them.
Covering a wide range of topics, including the rise of consumerism (initially fueled by a desire for coffee, tea, tobacco, and sugar), the biggest mass migration in history (20 million emigrants between the early 1600s and the 1950s), the impact of missionaries, the triumph of capitalism, the spread of the English language, and globalization, this is a brilliant synthesis of various topics and an extremely entertaining read. --Shawn Carkonen
Book Description
"A splendid history.... If Americans want to be convinced of the benefits of empire, as well as apprised of its costs, they need merely pick up Ferguson's dazzling book." --Weekly Standard
The British Empire was the largest in all history: the nearest thing to world domination ever achieved. By the eve of World War II, around a quarter of the world's land surface was under some form of British rule. Yet for today's generation, the British Empire seems a Victorian irrelevance. The time is ripe for a reappraisal, and in Empire, Niall Ferguson boldly recasts the British Empire as one of the world's greatest modernizing forces.
An important new work of synthesis and revision, Empire argues that the world we know today is in large measure the product of Britain's Age of Empire. The spread of capitalism, the communications revolution, the notion of humanitarianism, and the institutions of parliamentary democracy-all these can be traced back to the extraordinary expansion of Britain's economy, population, and culture from the seventeenth century until the mid-twentieth. On a vast and vividly colored canvas, Empire shows how the British Empire acted as midwife to modernity.
Displaying the originality and rigor that have made him the brightest light among British historians, Ferguson shows that the story of the Empire is pregnant with lessons for today-in particular for the United States as it stands on the brink of a new era of imperial power, based once again on economic and military supremacy. A dazzling tour de force, Empire is a remarkable reappraisal of the prizes and pitfalls of global empire.
Customer Reviews:
A good place to start, but not end.......2007-09-27
Ferguson's EMPIRE is well-written, like all of his work. It is not a comprehensive look at the details of expansion and conquest--there are other books readily available for that--but instead looks at the empire as a process. Thus, he focuses on key figures and locations, primarily India and Africa. One gets a good sense of who was behind the imperial drive, and what the drive for empire was all about. It is, however, a little bit too "pro-Empire." To be sure, Ferguson acknowledges that imperialism had its nasty side (especially against the Boers). However, we don't get much of the violence and cruelty that characterized British expansion and conquest, which very much should have been included. Also, New Zealand, Canada and Ireland are barely touched on. Its still worth the read for sure, but must be used as a framework around which much else should be read.
A History of the Lion's Den.......2007-08-18
Niall Ferguson, author of other non-fiction hits as "Pity of War", "The Cash Nexus" and 2006's "War of the World" offers a modern analysis of one of the most influential empires in history. An Englishman, Ferguson tackles the history of the British Empire in this layman's volume of 370 pages, rich with illustrations, maps, and photos stretching from empire's reluctant beginnings in the 17th century to the final collapse following WWII. The hardback edition of the book which I read had a textbook quality to it physically, more of a squared geometry, with glossy paper and text layout resemling a history textbook. However, the writing style was definitely not of a textbook. Niall has two great qualities for a history writer that endears him to this layperson - the ability to write history in a witty, conversational fashion, and a penchant for promoting alternative conclusions for historical events, often diametrically opposed to the standard ideas. For example, he rates the British leadership over India as an overall positive thing, without which India would not have quickly risen to the heights it has obtained today, in fact, it may have easily fallen victim to the Japanese empire of WWII. This contrasts with the mainstream view of the freedom movement promoted by Gandhi which eventually ended a repressive, exploitive British rule.
Before reading this book, I had scant knowledge of the history of the British Empire, besides the typical stories of American colonial resistance to British rule, and the dysfunctional relationship of ruler and ruled in Burma detailed by George Orwell in his essay "Shooting an Elephant". I came away from this book with a much more thorough understanding. At its height, it governed about 25% of the world's population and covered about 25% of the world's habitable land. All this was accomplished with a relatively small number of administrators and soldiers. Indeed, the colonial areas supplied large percentages of the Empire's soldiers for small regional conflicts and large wars with other European powers. Niall argues that this was accomplished by the relatively benign rule of the English and an increasingly loosened authoritarian grip, ending in a Commonwealth of states that survives in small form today. Whereas other modern empires, such as Stalin's Soviet Union, Hitler's Reich and Tojo's Japan were ruled by a heavy hand and often brutal tactics, the British were more "hands off", their empire having more of a commercial orientation with occasional digressions into missionary movements and cultural assimilation.
Perhaps the most poignant point of the book was Ferguson's reasoning for the end of the British Empire - after being sapped of money and resources from the first world war, Britain was faced with a stark choice when Hitler began his campaign across Europe - agree to a peace deal with Hitler or lose the empire in a draining fight to the finish. By agreeing to keep out of Hitler's conquest of the European continent, Britain most likely could have kept her vast empire, ironically at it's largest size right when Britain was least capable of protecting it. Ferguson argues that Churchill led England on the more noble path of imperial self-sacrifice for the good of the rest of the world.
Not only did Great Britain pay perhaps the highest price for the defeat of the Axis powers in World War II, she also failed to benefit substantially from the Marshall Plan and IMF/World Bank loans following the war to the extent that those same Axis powers were able to use to their benefit. Another surprise for me was Niall's argument that Britain continued to lose imperial possessions after the war due to the sometimes predatory policies of the US. While the 20th century relationship between the US and Great Britain is often portrayed as one of friendship, Ferguson paints a picture of a US more interested in containing communist expansion at the expense of the British Empire during the Cold War. Through a series of humbling military blunders (such as the Suez military campaign in 1956) and numerous Independence movements among the colonies, British colonial administrators often found themselves presiding over poignant transfer-of-power ceremonies, the British empire steadily disintegrating after the 1940s to today's Commonwealth of a few scattered islands around the world.
Why should we feel sorry for the demise of an empire? Traditionally, empires are seen as evil accumulations of power, enslaving masses of subjects for the benefit of a ruthless ruling people. Niall argues that while this has happened in the long history of civilization, empires are not all evil, and in fact the British empire was in the end a positive presence in the world. Ferguson says that without it, the spread of democracy, capitalism, even the predominance of the English language as the world's business lingua franca would not have happened, or to a much smaller degree.
Throughout the book, comparisons were made between the past British empire with the current "empire" of the United States. This is indeed an intriguing comparison, and in fact is the subject of another of his books- "Colossus - The Rise and Fall of the American Empire".
For those whose interests point in this direction, I can recommend this book as a thoughtful, if at times controversial story of a deceased Empire that left an indelible stamp on the modern world.
What Started out as Survival Mode, Turned into Empire.......2007-07-16
Based on Ferguson's analysis, the growth of British Empire was in many ways serendipity. Starting by building a large private navy, based on privateers (read Pirates) and then expanding it into the British Navy, England originally got into the "Empire Business" as an offshoot of it's plundering of the Spanish and Portuguese New World Empires. Once they got good at attacking the Spanish 'Treasure Fleets' it was just one stop further to taking over some of the territory for 'security' reasons (sound familiar).
They became so good at it that at one point the British Empire ruled over 25% of the total land surface of the earth and the sun never set on the British Empire. At the same time, no other country contained a Navy that could compete with their's or their merchant fleet. For the British the Empire was a money making proposition up until the 20th century. Each of the colonies paid it's own way from trade or investment. It was only after almost bankrupting themselves during the two world wars, that the Empire became a millstone around their neck.
In Ferguson's conclusion, he discusses (rather jingoistically) how in the final analysis, the British brought more to the people of the 'colonies' than they even took from them; even taking into account the death and destruction that was wrought in the name of 'civilization'.
Ferguson seems to have missed three interesting and important points: 1) the British created and then ended the slave trade (though much after it stopped being economically viable), 2) they created the first major drug cartel (forcing China to open itself up to the importation of Opium from India) and, 3) that by bailing out of Africa in the 1960s, they left most of those colonies unready for independence or democracy.
As to the slave trade, many a British (and American) fortune can trace themselves back to a relative who made their money as part of either the trade in slaves or the use of them on the West Indian sugar plantations. Only at the beginning of the nineteenth century did they decide that it was an "unChristian" institution. Planters were fast to learn that it was cheaper to hire slaves as 'seasonal' workers than to take care of them from cradle to grave; because those on these islands had no choice except to go back to Africa.
The Opium War was fought in the middle Eighteenth Century to force China to allow the continued importation of Opium (through Hong Kong) into their country. It was the beginning of the long spiral of Chinese subjugation and the blueprint for how to make money by exporting large amounts of drugs into another country. Today's narco-traffickers learned their lessons well.
Lastly, one of the major problems with the African continent (and this includes the French and Portuguese) was that the colonies that were created were done so on an ad-hoc basis. Except for in a few instances (such as Egypt and Ethiopia), nations and tribes that had been adversaries for generations were lumped together in Colonies. No where did any of the colonial powers prepare for democracy, most were run by the British Colonial Office (with mostly white managers) who left little government structure behind them when they pulled out. In many cases they had raised a small tribe to prominence (because they were Christians, think the Ibo's in Nigeria) which were left with the stigma of collaborators after the British left.
For some reason, the United Nations bought the idea that none of the colonies in Africa should be allowed to break up and seek their own level of comfort in size and composition. It's as if the example of nationalism for the last hundred years in Europe never happened. Almost every country in Europe (except Belgium) is now ethnically homogenized. No one complained when Czechoslavakia had their velvet divorce; and the ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia differs little from what happened in Poland and East Prussia after WW2.
It's a good read and my only real complaint is about the structure of the book. It's printed like a textbook so that the pages have lots of room for footnotes on the inside columns, but the size of the type is quite small and gets smaller when in quotation so that it can be very tiring to read for long periods. Oh well.
Imperialist who is not completely wrong.......2007-07-11
Good writer. It would be obvious to the reader that the author has a more positive view on British Colonism than most people who grew up in a British colony. That said, being one who came from a British colony myself, I personally think that the writer is not completely biased and I agree with some of his views. I am curious how many people in Britian shares the authors view. In the least, this will be a feel-good book for British to read. For those full of resentment on past colonial history, reading this at least will present a different point of view to you.
Like Imperialism itself, this book is Fun...but Wrong.......2007-07-06
As a professional historian who specializes in European imperialism, I can easily explain why the book was panned by professionals, but popular with amateurs.
Ferguson is, quite simply, a great writer. His anecdotes are apt, his comments witty, and his stories are either dashing or tragic. Great stuff.
But the book is so flawed historically as to be basically useless.
I taught with it once. My students loved it for the first few chapters... but after I pointed out to them the many factual errors and especially, the MAJOR errors of omission that riddle every single chapter.... and then showed how Ferguson's re-enchantment of "empire" not only saturates but slants every single argument in the book...hey quickly lost interest in it. (And understandably so: if you can't trust the author, why waste your time reading the book, no matter how entertaining?)
For an example, read closely his section "Black and White" in the chapter "White Plague". At first glance, it seems to say that British slavery was indeed quite awful, gosh darnit bad, etc. etc. etc. But pore over it more closely, and you'll recognize that he is, in fact, working quite hard to equate the slavery (of Africans) to indentured servitude (of Europeans), both practically and (by extension) morally. (!)
This is, quite simply, wrong and wrong-headed. I can't go into all the reasons here, but trust me: if you are ever reincarnated in the 18th century, and you have the choice of coming back as a black slave or as a white indentured servant, do yourself a big favor: choose indentured servitude.
It is an "apology" of Empire in every sense of the word.
And as a historian, I find it just a bit unethical.
Book Description
How can liberal democracy best be realized in a world fraught with conflicting new forms of identity politics and intensifying conflicts over culture? This book brings unparalleled clarity to the contemporary debate over this question. Maintaining that cultures are themselves torn by conflicts about their own boundaries, Seyla Benhabib challenges the assumption shared by many theorists and activists that cultures are clearly defined wholes. She argues that much debate--including that of "strong" multiculturalism, which sees cultures as distinct pieces of a mosaic--is dominated by this faulty belief, one with grave consequences for how we think injustices among groups should be redressed and human diversity achieved. Benhabib masterfully presents an alternative approach, developing an understanding of cultures as continually creating, re-creating, and renegotiating the imagined boundaries between "us" and "them."
Drawing on contemporary cultural politics from Western Europe, Canada, and the United States, Benhabib develops a double-track model of deliberative democracy that permits maximum cultural contestation within the official public sphere as well as in and through social movements and the institutions of civil society. Agreeing with political liberals that constitutional and legal universalism should be preserved at the level of polity, she nonetheless contends that such a model is necessary to resolve multicultural conflicts.
Analyzing in detail the transformation of citizenship practices in European Union countries, Benhabib concludes that flexible citizenship, certain kinds of legal pluralism and models of institutional powersharing are quite compatible with deliberative democracy, as long as they are in accord with egalitarian reciprocity, voluntary self-ascription, and freedom of exit and association. The Claims of Culture offers invaluable insight to all those, whether students or scholars, lawyers or policymakers, who strive to bridge the gap between the theory and practice of cultural politics in the twenty-first century.
Customer Reviews:
A Must-Read.......2003-11-18
Seyla Benhabib's important new book "The Claims of Culture" addresses a constellation of issues with which our contemporary liberal democratic society must deal in an age of cultural diversity both within the political boundaries the nation-state and at the global level. As Benhabib makes very clear, in this context we face a dual imperative of remaining sensitive to the plurality of the ways people both near and far choose how to live, while simultaneously seeking out a mode of reflexive ethical universalism that can provide foundations for normatively addressing crises with world-reach. We must also look askance at approaches to cultural diversity, which reify boundaries and in turn fail to take account of the fluid process of renegotiation and recreation constitutive of the contemporary practices of social and political self-definition.
The book is gracefully and limpidly written. Benhabib's has a masterful grasp of the multiple literatures involved in her undertaking and is a virtuoso of conveying their multiform ideas both incisively and reliably. This work is a must read for anyone interested cultural studies or political theory or their often-ignored yet undoubtedly intimate relationship.
Unreadable and Laborious.......2003-10-16
Quite simply, this is one of the most poorly written books I've ever seen. Benhabib's basic points are lost in a jungle of jargon that appears to be written only for herself or for a very tight circle of over-specialized academics who share the same unintelligible language. Tragically, Benhabib's points about the evolutionary nature of culture and its fit within democratic societies are valid, interesting, and worthy of contemplation, but her writing prevents most people from ever grasping them. Simply put, don't buy this book. If it is required for a course, as it was for me, tell your professor to pick something else.
Book Description
In Solidarity, Hauke Brunkhorst brings a powerful combination of theoretical perspectives to bear on the concept of "democratic solidarity," the bond among free and equal citizens. Drawing on the disciplines of history, political philosophy, and political sociology, Brunkhorst traces the historical development of the idea of universal, egalitarian citizenship and analyzes the prospects for democratic solidarity at the international level, within a global community under law. His historical account of the concept outlines its development out of, and its departure from, the less egalitarian notions of civic friendship in the Greco-Roman world and brotherliness in the Judeo-Christian tradition. He then analyzes the modernization of Western societies and the destruction of the older, hierarchical solidarities. The problems of exclusion that subsequently arose -- which stemmed from growing individualization in society (the "de-socialization of the individual") as well as from the exclusion of certain groups from the benefits of society -- could be solved only with democratic solidarity in the form of its "institutional embodiment," the democratic constitution. Finally, Brunkhorst examines the return of these exclusion problems as a result of economic globalization. Analyzing the possibilities for democratic self-governance at a global level, Brunkhorst finds in recent global protest movements the beginnings of a transnational civic solidarity. Brunkhorst's normative and sociological account, mediating between these two perspectives, demonstrates the necessity of keeping normative requirements systematically attuned with conditions of social reality.
Book Description
We are living through a time when old identities--nation, culture and ethnicity--are melting down.
Spaces of Identity examines the ways in which collective cultural identities are being reshaped under conditions of a postmodern geography in the communications environment of cable and satellite broadcasting. To address current problems of identity, the authors look at the contemporary politics of the relations between Europe and its most significant others--America, Islam and the Orient. They show that it is against these that Europe's own identity has been and is now being defined.
Spaces of Identity is a stimulating account of the complex and contradictory nature of contemporary cultural identities.
Customer Reviews:
The British view of television imperialism.......2001-09-29
In many ways this book didn't connect to me, because it has a powerful British perspective that fails to relate other readers to the material. Nonetheless, it is a well-written and much-needed analysis of the impact of media on the "global village."
The problem of mis-representations and of misappropriation of the right to represent other cultures comes through clearly with effective research to support the claims. It is particularly effective now, after the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers in the US which I watched on TV in Cairo, Egypt. The local news channel carried the CNN footage with local announcers explaining the events in Arabic.
The monopoly of US news media is all the more obvious as I read this book with its discussions about the Gulf War being an extension of Orientalism -- where Saddam Hussein is demonized for his "inherent irrationality" and the "armies of Reason" must then suppress "the crazed monstrous Unreason."
"The media then allowed a kind of para-social, thrilled involvement in the obliteration of the monstrous Other."
This demonisation of the Other was taking place now with the CNN representation of Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban. The Taliban in particular are the target of the national news media and their primary crime seems to be in their choice of lifestyle. They have become for the US, the new "crazed, monstrous Unreason."
Morley's book is both particularly timely now, in the wake of the WTC attack and a bit outdated. His text does not address the Internet which is the real new media. He discusses only the One-Way conversation between the West (as producers of the world's news media and Hollywood cinema) and the Rest as the consumers of the Western media. After the WTC attack, some three-quarters of the US population went online to discuss the attack. In these chat rooms, they encountered people from other nations. What David Morley says of the news media is true, it is a one-way conversation. But it is not true of the chat rooms. In these rooms, people from all over the world contested the American view of Arabs or Muslims as the 'one true evil' on the planet and other similarly misguided stereotypes. In some conversations, Arab Muslims themselves contested views of their own cultures.
David Morley's text, published just six years ago, may already be out of date in respect to the media dialog. In today's new medias, anyone who can construct a Web site, anyone who can log on to a chat room may be able to contribute to the world's dialog. The question is now a Foucauldian one: Who speaks? Who listens? and who is silenced?
Book Description
GLOBAL STUDIES is a unique series designed to provide comprehensive background information and selected world press articles on the regions and countries of the world. Each GLOBAL STUDIES volume includes an annotated listing of World Wide Web sites. Visit our website for more information: www.dushkin.com/global studies/
Book Description
Towards the end of the sixteenth century, King Philip, ruler of the conjoint global empires of Spain and Portugal, received advice from many quarters, not least with regard to the attacks on the empires by other west European nations. Manoel de Andrada Castel Blanco, an obscure cleric who had worked in Brazil and Africa and who lamented the marine disasters and enemy incursions of the previous half-century, wrote c.1590 a tract of advice which has remained unpublished until the present annotated edition. His proposals for the defense of the imperial sea routes, which include references to localities as far apart as Bahia, Aden, Siam and Magellan Strait, make him one of the earliest global strategists. The tract, despite its patent defects of thought and presentation, gives the reader something of the "feel" of the period as it was experienced by those Iberians who, although outside the imperial administration, were capable of grasping the intense excitement of novel global venture and the inevitable accompanying anxieties and alarms.
Book Description
The Visual Passport DVD offers essential travel basics for getting around any destination restaurants, shopping, and transportation! Ten easy lessons presented in three quick and easy parts. With basic words and phrases, sample conversations, and important tips on grammar and culture, this interactive program will have you ready for a unique cultural experience! Audio CD includes entire contents of 10 lessons for on-thego review.
Book Description
This book describes a method, the cultural metaphor, for readily understanding the cultural mindset of a nation and comparing it to those of other nations. This method involves identifying some phenomenon, activity or institution of a nation’s culture that all or most of its members consider important with which they identify closely. Metaphors are not stereotypes; rather, they rely upon the features of one critical phenomenon in a society to describe the entire society. The characteristics of the metaphor then become the basis for describing and understanding the essential features of the society. For example, the Italians invented the opera and love it passionately. Five key characteristics of the opera are the overture, spectacle and pageantry, voice, exteriority, and the interaction between the lead singers and the chorus. These features are used to describe Italy and its cultural mindset. Thus the metaphor is a guide or map that helps the student of the foreigner understand quickly what members of a society consider important
What’s new:
A new organizational framework: In the first edition, there was no overriding framework into which parts of the book could be divided. In the new edition, the generic types of cultural frameworks developed by Triandis and Fiske and the torn and cleft culture framework developed by Huntington, organize the book. These frameworks allow the reader to gain new insight into various cultural metaphors and to address the challenging issue of integrating cultural and economic perspectives.
New nations covered in this edition include:
- The Thai Kingdom
- Saudi Arabia
- Brazil
- Poland
- Korea
- Malaysian
- Mexico
- Portugal
Customer Reviews:
MBA level reading or superficial nonsense???.......2003-12-04
Questions:
1. Why does anyone want to know, at the MBA level, cultural information about 23 countries?
2. What MBA, is going to be managing 23 or more countries at the same time?
3. What good is a 10-15 page overview of a country with millions of people? Do you think you can adequately describe the United States in such a short space? (for a foreign MBA for example - reversing the situation)
4. Why are MBA's reading this instead of peer reviewed journals?
5. As with the Hofstede debacle, where does the author demonstrate language skills to get down to the true motivations and causes of cultural behaviors, particularly those that play a role in the global game of economics?
If you are an MBA student or a Ph.D. candidate, you need to avoid all materials like this and get down to the real grit of cross cultural studies by learning to a competent level, another language and at least living in the target country for a year or two, asking deep, penetrating questions while you are there. Anything less, and the reader/student is being untrue not to academic pursuits but to himself/herself!
Invaluable Academic Resource.......2001-10-03
I have now used Gannon's book at both the MBA and senior undergraduate level in courses on Cross-Cultural Management. It is the best approach I have found for synthesizing material from the sociological, anthropological and business disciplines in the education of the manager/student with regard to organizational design and its adaptation to the local characteristics of the market, the legislation, the fiscal regime, the socio-political system and the cultural system encountered in the international environment. Coupled with Gannon's other book of readings, research translations and commentary on cultural metaphors and his book of applications and exercises for working across cultures, the instructor has the most thorough framework and set of tools for dealing with the difficult issues encountered in understanding other cultures that I have seen to date. International students in my graduate courses have unanimously acknowledged that Gannon's metaphors for their cultures are perceptively and creatively right on the mark.
Best Bet.......2001-08-23
Gannon and his associates have written a delightful, must-read book for people who work across cultures. The cultural descriptions are easy to remember and provide much greater depth than most treatments of culture. The book provides many new insights, even for people who know these cultures well, and is very good at explaining why other cultures behave as they do. Gannon's book is so well-written and interesting that my MBA students complain that they have difficulty wrestling the book away from other family members who pick it up and get hooked. If someone asked me to recommend just one book to read on culture, Understanding Global Cultures would get my vote.
Book Description
Our GLOBAL STUDIES Series provides students with comprehensive background and current information shaping regional cultures and countries of the world today. Each volume features country report essays and maps as well as relevant articles from world-wide publications.
Visit our website for more information and a complete listing of titles: www.mhcls.com/globalstudies/
Average customer rating:
- A History-Free Diatribe
- Eye opening look at the Red Scare as American Myth
- Latter day Marxist agitprop
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Red Hunting in the Promised Land: Anticommunism and the Making of America (Global Issues Series)
Joel Kovel
Manufacturer: Cassell
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Customer Reviews:
A History-Free Diatribe.......2003-07-30
Joel Kovel holds the prestigious "Alger Hiss Professor of Social Studies" chair at Bard College, which should tell you all you really need to knopw about both Kovel and Bard College. With the declassification of the Venona papers a few years ago (see: Haynes' and Klehr's "Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America", and "The Venona Secrets: Exposing Soviet Espionage and America's Traitors" by Romerstein and Brendel) it became clear that yes, Alger Hiss was indeed a Soviet Agent, and that he was part of a concerted- though mostly unsuccessful- Soviet attempt to steer American foreign policy in the post-WWII era.
Every political movement has its diehards who refuse to give up their most cherished beliefs, even when confronted with glaring evidence to the contrary. For them, the intuitive correctness of their beliefs cannot be sway by mere fact- even when those facts counter the very "truths" that led them to their beliefs in the first place. There are many out there who believe that JFK was actually planning on withdrawing from Vietnam, that the Rosenbergs were innocent, and the moon landing was faked. You can't argue with them, as they've already rejected the best evidence.
Kovel is intelligent to realize that the best evidence is against him, but that doesn't hurt his case as he's not really interested in historical fact. He's a psychiatrist (by training) and a sociologist (by appointment) so he makes his case in a different way, which is to say by making up suppostitions and then justifying them backwards. I.e., if the persons involved were of type X, then they surely would have done Y. And since it's obvious that they did Y, that implies they must be pf type X... which proves they did Y. It's all very circular and relies on a good deal of ignorance of informal fallacies.
Of course he never considers a much simpler story. If you were a true believer in the better world promised by Communism- and many, many tens or hundreds of thousands of people in the US and Europe did believe that in the 1930 and 40s- and the party asked you to do a little espionage to help the state that was the vanguard of the World Revolution- wouldn't you do your bit to help? Of course you would. Look at how many people believed in the Soviet revolution enough to actually emigrate there in the 30s, in the belief that they were building a new utopia. This somehow never occurs to Kovel, which I suppose is a consequence of playing historian without ever having actually read all that much history.
So if you're the sort of true believer who believes that the Soviets never tried to spy on the US, that no US citizen ever worked for the KGB and that that the oil companies are hiding a secret 250mpg carburator, this is certainly the book for you. More critical readers would do well to look elsewhere.
Eye opening look at the Red Scare as American Myth.......2000-05-26
"Red Hunting ..." is a very thoughtful and intellignet book. It makes the case that American anti-Communism was a unique historical phenomenon caused by the nature of this country as a relatively new nation with no long standing traditions; a nation based on a revolutionary ideology and subject to rapid change and constant re-definition. The US need to define itself AGAINST something; and in the late 1800s and on that something became Communism (the British Empire no longer aroused the old hatred)--another new ideology that could serve as an ideal rival. For Americans, Communism became the dark Other, standing out there is the shadows waiting to devour us. American ideas about Communism were often vague and contradictory. Anything that Americans feard at any given moments became associated with Communism whether there was a real life association or not--- modern art, jazz, non-white races, Jews, Catholics, European high culture, psychiatry, pornography, drugs, whatever.
Kovel contrasts the more rational approach to Communism by the other Western democracies who suppressed violent radials while tolerating non-violent expressions of Communist sympathy, freely admitted that some of Marx's points were valid and worked toward greater social and political equality in a way that diminished the possibility of violent revolution by giving dissenters and poor people a respectable voice in society.
Latter day Marxist agitprop.......2000-05-11
Let me begin by saying the Kirkus Review (that you may read nearby on Amazon.com) is descriptive and accurate (even penetrating) enough, insofar as the space alotted allows. But the idea given there, that this is a book that you should not read because it is nasty and false is perhaps misdirected. True, it is a wretched and deplorable work. That being affirmed, there is another side to approaching Joel Kovel's scurrilous type of Marxist Agitprop. Actually this book should be read by all Americans of any intellectual aptitude who are trying to understand our times - our recent history. That approach is to broadcast this book as an entry into the American Marxist frame of mind, its gut and soul and indeed, the International Marxist world view. In that sense it is very instructive. To begin with it should be noted that the author is the "Alger Hiss Professor of Social Science" at Bard College (Stratford On Avon, N.Y.) This is an 'endowed chair' (ie. big bucks). The President of this Artsy Craftsy (and very expensive) establishment for the last 25 or so years is Leon Botkin. He (Botkin) has set us all on notice that he was a decades-long close friend of the late Alger Hiss, a man he says he much admired, (Ltr to the Editor, Chronicle of Higher Education). No doubt that he had a good deal to do with establishing the 'Hiss Chair' upon which our author, Joel Kovel sits. Perhaps, if you should investigate, you will find that the evidence against Alger Hiss, his wife , his brother, and his 'espionage ring', is "massive", not to mention 350 'other' Americans (mostly CP) who spied for the USSR. Not to mention the entire leadership of the CPUSA (including Earl Browder, (CPUSA Head), his brother and his sister). (A. Hiss was not convicted of espionage because the evidence was, no matter how overwhelming, from 'peace time' ('38), and the 3 year 'peace time' statute of limitations for espionage had long run out.). He was convicted of lying under oath - that is, perjury. These facts are central to understanding a work like Kovel's. This deplorable academic holds what might actually be called the Chair of "Treachery and Espionage" at Bard. Now any perusal of Comrade Kovel's book would convince anyone that the author HATES AMERICA, indeed his hatred is a bright, burning flame. To be sure, he devotes about a page (total), in a very long book, to a criticism of the Soviet's ultimate killing regime. This is pro-forma 'cover'. But his narrative argument, going back - mind you to the European immigrant's original wars with the 'innocent' native populations of the New World (which natives were, you know, those warlike cannibals, slavers, and exquisite torturers), including his exposition of American "black holes" of forgetfulness of our original sins against everybody (this Wagnerian Leitmotiv is endlessly repeated). This 4 or 500 year old conflict was because of the "anti-communism" sin of original American immigrants. Now Kovel/Botkin's Bard institute is largely full of "red-diaper babies" and "red-diaper-grandbabies". Descendents of U.S. Communists. Fathers/Mothers who visited their sins on their sons/daughters". So this book, Bard College and its President all ties together. It is for the above reasons that this book is highly recommended to anyone who would wish to understand the interior workings of the Marxist and Neo-Marxist mind in America, and especially within U.S. Universities, where Marxists metastasize, and are, like Kovel, particularly active in the Humanities and English departments. Study this 'work'. Please restrain yourself from "throwing this book forcefully across the room". Those impulses will come, but steady yourself! Finish the damned thing! Kovel's work will give you much insight into both the insanities of American Marxism, Freudian psychotherapy (Kovel is a Psychiatrist), Marco-Fascist Sociology, and the incredible destructiveness of radical movements, the inner workings of the socialist mind, and demonstrate to you much about the continuing Communist influence in America. ( Oh, did you really think that Revolutionary Socialism was DEAD in America?)
Books:
- Five Germanys I Have Known
- Flags of Our Fathers
- Fretboard Logic SE: The Reasoning Behind the Guitar's Unique Tuning + Chords Scales and Arpeggios Complete (The Fretboard Logic Guitar Method Parts I and II) (Fretboard Logic Guitar Method Ser)
- From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans (2 Vols. in 1)
- Getting Unstuck: Breaking Your Habitual Patterns & Encountering Naked Reality
- Halfbreed: The Remarkable True Story of George Bent-Caught Between the Worlds of the Indian and the White Man
- History and Memory in African-American Culture
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
Books Index
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COLOSSUS
The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West
The Cash Nexus: Money and Power in the Modern World, 1700-2000
The Pity of War: Explaining World War I
The House of Rothschild: Volume 1: Money's Prophets: 1798-1848
