chickenfeet

Once in a while I read a book that makes me go "wow!" because the author has taken a complex topic, presented it in a comprehensible way and caused me to think differently about some pretty big issues. Göran Therborn's Between Sex and Power; Family in the World 1900-2000 is one of those books. It's what the title says; a sociological history of the family, across the whole world, in the 20th century. It's soundly fact based (which hasn't always been my experience with books on gender related issues) yet is not afraid to grapple with theoretical issues or develop theses that are perhaps unfashionable such as the impact of the Bolshevik revolution on family structure and the undermining of patriarchy in Eastern Europe or the role of the United Nations in furthering the rights of women. I'd recommend it to anyone with an interest in broad social trends and developments.

I've just finished PJ Cain and AG Hopkins British Imperialism 1688-2000. I would have to say it's one of the most interesting books I've read in a long time. The book deals with how British domestic and overseas policies were shaped by the financial imperatives of the economic system that developed in and out of London during the period in question. Central to the analysis is the construct of "Gentlemanly Capitalism"; an alliance of landed, financial and rentier interests that, it is argued, dominated British government throughout the period. A crucial element in the argument is that industrial interests were marginal and largely ignored and, by implication, as have been given a role far beyond their actual importance by economic historians, especially those of a Marxisant tendency. It's an argument I find compelling. I can't see how else to explain London's continuation as a financial capital and Britain's continued status as a world power right up to 1939 despite the virtual collapse of British manufacturing between 1880 and 1925. Certainly the authors can find many, many compelling examples where sound money and free trade were seen as far more central to Britain's "national interest" than the preservation of markets for industrial goods.

A particularly interesting aspect of this line of analysis is how the authors deal with the evolution or self-reinvention of the gentlemanly capitalist elite. Central to this is the creation of the Gladstonian state as a successor to "Old Corruption"; the high spending, high taxing entity that won the long struggle for global supremacy with the French. The expansion and transformation of the public schools and the old universities to be the training grounds for the entrants to this elite is seen as central to the process. The authors also have an interesting perspective on how the Labour leadership was brought into the fold in the 1940s as the Treasury and the City sought to create a new form of Empire out of the Sterling Area.

It's not a light read; 680 pages plus apparatus of dense argument and a fair amount of quantitative data, but it really is one of those rare books that force one to reconsider some pretty basic assumptions about patterns of historical development. It also makes me ask (though it's beyond the authors' scope), what is Britain's role in a world where she is neither a financial nor an industrial power and what does it mean to be British. How do you reinvent a value system that was predicated on a world that no longer exists? Similarly, if the inflow of vast amounts of foreign capital and the nurture of the service industries associated with them tend to lead to a hollowing out of the manufacturing base then whither America?

Norman Naimark - "The Russians in Germany A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945-1949", Cambridge, Mass 1995

This a hefty read; almost five hundred pages plus apparatus. It's a good reminder too that history is not inevitable. Few events seem more inevitable in hindsight than the division of Germany or the collapse of Soviet communism but as Naimark demonstrates neither seemed likely and the latter unthinkable to the Russians and Germans who shaped the Soviet Zone and ultimately created the GDR.

Soviet policy in 1945 favoured the creation of a demilitarised, neutral and anti-fascist Germany that would eventually mature into a People's Democracy on the Russian model. The manifest superiority of the Soviet system had been demonstrated by the Soviet achievements in the 1930s and, above all, by the victory over Germany. An overwhelming sense of cultural and political superiority drove the policy makers in the Soviet zone.

However, the need to pillage German industry and agriculture to rebuild the ravaged Soviet economy and the unwillingness or inability of the occupation authorities to restrain the behaviour of Russian troops in the zone alienated large sections of the population. Even among dedicated communists and socialists support for the 'Russian way' was eroded by robbery, rape (on a scale probably unprecedented in history, confiscations and the activity of the Soviet security agencies. By late 1946 support for the KPD had all but evaporated and the elections of that year were a huge blow to the Soviets. Increasingly policy veered to accepting the division of Germany with the eastern portion under clear Soviet control.

Naimark, using documents made available from Soviet and GDR archives in the 1990's reconstructs the story in convincing detail with thematic chapters on extraction of reparations, robbery and rape, cultural and educational policy, political developments, the creation of the apparatus of the police state and so on. It's very comprehensive and impressive.

I've just finished reading NAM Rodger's The Safeguard of the Sea and The Command of the Ocean; the first two volumes in his naval history of the British Isles which takes the story from Anglo Saxon times to 1815. It's a very ambitious study encompassing strategy, naval administration, technology, the sociology of shipboard life and, most interestingly, the impact of naval affairs on the broader national history. The net result is that there is a lot to be got out of these books for anybody interested in British history even if the thought of reading conventional military or naval history gives him or her hives.

I have a pretty good knowledge of British history and, I thought, a better than average grasp on many of the key periods under discussion from a naval point of view but I kept getting jolted by this book, not just by positions that Rodger actually advances but ways in which he made me think about particular issues that he wasn't discussing directly.

Things it's had me thinking about:

1. If Edgar really did achieve effective hegemony over mainland Britain and its dependent islands by the use of seapower then William's neglect of the fleet is pretty much responsible for the emergence of a Scottish kingdom (among other things).

2. The failure of the Norman kings to maintain a fleet reffectively turned the earldom of Pembroke from an English dependency to a player in the dynastic struggles around the Irish Sea. Where does that leave the thesis that Strongbow's seizure of Dublin was the ur act of English/British imperialism?

3. Edward I starts to look a whole lot less impressive as a strategist when one asks how much more the money he spent on castles might have achieved if it had been spent on a fleet.

4. Henry V starts to look like a pretty damn excellent all around strategist.

5. I didn't realise Charles II was so involved in naval affairs.

6. The discussion of comparative English and French shipbuilding technologies in the 18th and early 19th century casts a new light on why the Royal Navy kept winning battles against long odds.

7. The analysis of issues in the War of 1812, especially to someone who has been exposed to both the American and Canadian national myths about it, is fascinating. I had no idea that Madison almost drove the New England states to secede.

8. The relationship between the Royal Navy and the English industrial and agricultural revolutions really needs to be studied more. There seems to me to be some parallel with the way in which the US military build up in the 1940s transformed the US economy and society. In both cases, of course, creating an almost accidental world power.

9. Rodger's analysis of how many times England/Britain has been successfully invaded since 1066 is a delicious knock at a core national myth.

I'm sure people whose expertise and reading lies in different areas to mine would find other and equally stimulating insights. It's definitely worth a read!

I've been reading quite a lot recently. The list has included:

( Physics and history for the most part )

This is a shout out to anyone who is familiar with current thinking on the "Daughters of Eve" and "Lucy" hypotheses. What's the current cutting edge thinking on the validity of mtDNA based analysis? I think I've seen heard/stuff that suggests that uncontaminated mtDNA is virtually impossible to find and that therefore the whole ball of wax needs to be treated with some scepticism but I might have been imagining it. Opinions and pointers to recent papers on the subject most appreciated.

I recently got hold of a copy of David Carpenter's The Struggle for Mastery, the volume of the new Penguin History of Britain that deals with 1066-1284. I really like it. It was comprehensive in the sense that it gave good coverage to social and economic as well as political issues. More particularly it treated the British Isles in a holistic way (well maybe a bit light on those parts of Scotland beyond the sway of the King of the Scots but generally pretty good). I finished it feeling I had a much better grip on a period I've never really quite understood. Anyhow, I liked the Carpenter enough to want to explore the rest of the series. I'm not sure how many of the volumes have yet made it into paperback, or even print, in the UK, but there were only a few available here so my choice was limited. Susan Brigden's New Worlds, Lost Worlds covering 1485-1603 had pretty stellar reviews. Besides I used to play rugby with her brother when we were at school together so I went with that one.

I had a really mixed reaction. On the one hand it's a really excellent book in its own right. It's particularly strong on the intellectual history of English protestantism and it has very comprehensive coverage of Irish issues. On the other hand it scarcely touches on economic issues and, worse, all but ignores Scotland except insofar as developments in Scotland impinged directly on England. Now I appreciate that Brigden wrote the book she promised to write in her preface, and a fine job she made of it, but what was the series editor (David Cannadine) up to? Either the series is a history of Britain or it's not! And if it is, how on earth can the series editor allow an omission as crucial as the reformation of the Scottish church? I'm frankly flabbergasted.

I have to say I'm wary now about the other volumes. The reviews haven't all been stellar and if there is no consistency in coverage and style, what's the point?

Sometimes there is intense pleasure to be had in going back and rereading an old favourite. Last night I started to read Marc Bloch's French Rural History for the third or fourth time. Now my respect for Bloch as a historian and a person is only just short of idolatry but I had forgotten just how radical he was. Lucien Febvre's preface to the second edition of FRH really is quite fascinating on that point. Here was a man, who in order to understand medieval agriculture got out of the lecture room and the library to talk to real peasants about how much dung an ox produces, how much land that fertilises and how that might affect choices about crop mix. By looking at how "actually existing" landlords and tenants operate he can ask questions about the strategic options and choices facing the rural population that simply can't be considered from wills, cartularies etc. 'It's a fantastic example of how something apparently obvious but previously unthought of can revolutionise a discipline. It's not often that an academic work conceived in the 1920s still retains such a degree of freshness and relevance.

I came across the following passage in Sir Maurice Powicke's The Thirteenth Century 1216-1307:

The married life of Henry and Blanche was brief and tragic. Their baby son was accidentally tossed by his nurse over the battlements of the Navarrese castle at Estella.

Henry, in this case, was king of Navarre; reigned 1270 to 1274. Blanche was Blanche of Artois, niece of Louis XI, who later married Edmund, Earl of Lancaster.

Now tossing babies off battlements is unusual at the best of times but to so toss the heir to the throne and accidentally at that is truly mind boggling. Can anyone throw any light on this incident.