Reading some classics

Currently my reading time is my own. I am taking advantage of that to reread, or read for the first time, some books that I consider classics. Some of it is old science-fiction that I kept when most of my book collection was dispersed on my recent move. For instance, I reread the Man Who Sold the Moon by Robert Heinlein simply because some of the most interesting space exploration at the moment is being financed by the private sector, and that's what Heinlein thought might happen. That book is not really very good, actually. Heinlein's tendency to lecture his readers on how things actually work is on full display. What he thought might happen, based on his experiences up to the 1940s, is not particularly realistic. The sheer scale of private enterprise now as opposed to a private enterprise in the 1940s is staggering.

I am living in a house full of other classics. I have recently picked up Thomas Babington Macauley's Critical Essays. Macauley is a famous, or formerly famous, politician, essayist, and educational theorist of the early 19th century. He wrote the Lays of Ancient Rome, including the famous story of Horatio on the bridge. He also convinced that the British government to make English the language of advanced education in India. He was a Whig among Whigs, a believer in the superiority of modern British institutions and attitudes toward liberty.

Macauley wrote a bunch of essays in the form of a very long book reviews. His book on critical essays includes many re-considerations of the careers of famous politicians of the previous century or even earlier: Thomas Cranmer, Horace Walpole, William Pitt, his son the earl of Chatham are all discussed at length. It's a little bit hard to follow if you don't know British history of the early modern period pretty well. On the other hand, McAuley's early Victorian prose is a delight? Staggering? Amazing?

Here is what he has to say about Cranmer, the Archbishop of Henry VIII so deeply involved in the English Reformation. He doesn't like Cranmer, and thinks that rating him as a martyr is ridiculous:

He voted for cutting off [Thomas] Cromwell's head without a trial, when the tide of royal favour turned. He conformed backwards and forwards as the King changed his mind. He assisted, while Henry lived, in condemning to the flames those who denied the doctrine of transubstantiation. He found out, as soon as Henry was dead, that the doctrine was false. He was, however, not at a loss for people to burn. The authority of his station and of his grey hairs was employed to overcome the disgust with which an intelligent and virtuous child [Edward VI] regarded persecution. Intolerance is always bad. But the sanguinary intolerance of a man who thus wavered in his creed excites a loathing, to which it is difficult to give vent without calling foul names. Equally false to political and to religious obligations, the primate was first the tool of Somerset, and then the tool of Northumberland. When the Protector wished to put his own brother to death, without even the semblance of a trial, he found a ready instrument in Cranmer. In spite of the canon law, which forbade a churchman to take any part in matters of blood, the archbishop signed the warrant for the atrocious sentence. When Somerset had been in his turn destroyed, his destroyer received the support of Cranmer in a wicked attempt to change the course of the succession.

The apology made for him by his admirers only renders his conduct more contemptible. He complied, it is said, against his better judgment, because he could not resist the entreaties of Edward. A holy prelate of sixty, one would think, might be better employed by the bedside of a dying child, than in committing crimes at the request of the young disciple. If Cranmer had shown half as much firmness when Edward requested him to commit treason as he had before shown when Edward requested him not to commit murder, he might have saved the country from one of the greatest misfortunes that it ever underwent.

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Elections and the electorate in Russia and the United States

I was very impressed by this interview in the journal Foreign Policy. The interviewee was the young journalist Evgeny Feldman, who struck me as intelligent, systematic, and sensible. As a result I found his description of the elections in both the United States and Russia to be useful.

It's worth thinking about how elections work in various countries in this kind of detail. Some electoral systems are completely corrupt, but they are not necessarily corrupt in the same way. Some electoral systems are fairly successful in keeping governments honest, but I don't think anybody in a country with free election thinks the system works amazingly well. (If you know any Americans, name five who think the system is just hunky-dory.) Maybe they are ignorant of how bad things are elsewhere, but I don't think that's the most important thing. I think there's lots of room for improvement, and honest well-run elections are part of it. But assuring high quality elections isn't simple, and might not mean the same thing everywhere. And honest elections may well be only a part of the puzzle.

Let me quote Evgeny Feldman, just to give you an idea of what he sounds like:

FP: Based on how your readers react to your journalism, can you tell what they have the most trouble understanding about our system?


Feldman: I quite often encounter the opinion that it’s all а show. But in large measure this comes from the position, which at least in Iowa is quite popular, that Washington is lying to everyone, that the liberal media is lying, and so on. All the top candidates in this election are saying this, in one way or another. So [my readers] kind of have a garbled, misunderstood version of this.


But I don’t think it’s so much a mistrust of the people who are in the [American] establishment — I think it’s more mistrust of the system of elections, as such. Because in Russia, there’s a syndrome of “learned helplessness.” For decade after decade, our society has seen that its opinions don’t affect anything. Since 1996, for sure. People don’t believe that one can really choose.


[Here in Iowa City], I spent a lot of time with this elderly couple. We’ve done a lot of talking. They went to see a Cruz rally in a neighboring town, and they came back having made a decision to vote for him. And their explanation really shocked me. They said: “We want to vote for him because he’s proposing term limits [in Congress].”


The fact that this was the deciding factor — Cruz’s position on how the political system should be set up in principle — is really a huge difference [from Russia]. It’s very cool — a completely different level of political thinking than what we have.


With us, it’s heavily weighed in the other direction — no one discusses tax rates, or whether we should have legal abortion. They talk about whether Russia should look towards the West or towards Asia, and about the overall makeup of the system, but not about term limits. It’s more about whether we should have competitive elections at all.


FP: So, in Russia, political discussions are on a much more general level?


Feldman: Not even general, more like illusory. The issues are discussed among major parties that are all controlled from the center. Those that are independent are barely allowed to participate in elections.


FP: Are there any similarities between Americans and Russians that have surprised you?


Feldman: I think that, both here and there, there’s a part of the public that’s inclined to various conspiracy theories. But here it’s a little more grounded, for example, people say the only reason Hillary isn’t in jail is because she’s part of the establishment. I haven’t heard anything about the Masons, whereas we have that [in Russia].


At the beginning, I had a strong impression of similarity between the campaigns here and what [opposition leader Alexei] Navalny did in Moscow [when he ran for mayor]. I knew that he was orienting his campaign on techniques that were developed in the United States, but still, the similarity seriously surprised me, at least at the beginning.

There are differences, too. As far as I understand, here the rallies are done mainly for the benefit of the media. They all take place in a closed building God knows where. No one who’s just walking by can get in, because there won’t be enough tickets anyway, at least if it’s a top candidate. The rallies are done to show the media an image: that we have many supporters. Isn’t that right?


FP: I think so.


Feldman: In Russia, of course, it’s quite different. In Russia, opposition candidates absolutely cannot get into any building.In Russia, opposition candidates absolutely cannot get into any building. Not in winter and not in summer. Because either it’s a government building, or it’s private, but then there’s a “burst pipe” or some kind of inspection, if they try to schedule a rally. Also, Navalny can’t get on TV, so he does rallies outside. At least this way he can have some access to the voters.


FP: Has your opinion about American democracy changed while you’ve been here?

 Feldman: I’ve always thought that the general elections are the most important stage. But now I understand that these primaries are even more important, because they allow more nuanced policy views to be spotlighted for the voters. So I’m really glad that I got to be here for this.


FP: So for you, this is a very serious exercise of democracy. It doesn’t seem like some kind of absurd circus?


Feldman: Of course there’s a certain element of “show.” But I can see that the absolute majority of people here take it very seriously. And I understand — this is probably mostly about Trump and his attempts to make the campaign about himself — that there’s an element of a talk show, and that’s probably bad.


But I follow the Democrats a little more, because their values are more understandable to me. For example, I live in a country that made abortions legal in 1920. So for me, the “pro-life” position is a completely incomprehensible thing. I understand, intellectually, where it comes from, but emotionally I can’t understand how anyone can support this. From this point of view, for me the Democrats are easier to understand.


FP: Of our candidates, who do you think would be most popular in Russia?


Feldman: On the surface, Trump is, of course, terribly similar to Putin.Trump is, of course, terribly similar to Putin.


Because in Russia, the elections are more like a choice between different aesthetics. That is, you have no chance to have an effect on actual policy. You can vote for the Communists if you’re nostalgic, for the screaming [Vladimir] Zhirinovsky if you want to bang your fist on the table, for [the ruling party] United Russia if you want to show your loyalty, and for A Just Russia if you’re loyal, but not very.


So in Russia, elections look different. It’s a ritual, a cult. You vote and it doesn’t change anything. Here it’s not like that — but in that way, on the surface, Trump is, of course, very similar to Putin. He’s the closest to this kind of Russian politics.


FP: In that, by voting for him, you’re more showing who you are than voting.

Free books on the Internet – two rather oddball services

For some months now I have been subscribed to a couple of mailing lists that puzzle me even as I take advantage of them. One of them is Forgotten Books, which every day offers an old book that might well be of interest to readers today. Other books besides the daily selection are available at a price, or with advertising interpolated into the text. The selection of books is so odd though that I wonder about the selection sometimes. Is a book by Friedrich Hegel really a forgotten book? How about a book 100 years or so old on theories of melancholy? On the other hand a hundred-year-old book on techniques for building furniture might well be still valid for the people who want to know some of the basics of that skill.

Then there's BookBub. Every day the service sends you to three or four links to fiction, which links allow you to order the books as e-books for between five dollars and nothing. You might suspect that these are no hope books but sometimes you have a book by Isabella Allende, for instance. Using the service you can get a lot of books for absolutely nothing.

What are the limitations of this service? There are certainly days when you can despair of the taste of the Anglophone reading public based on what is offered to you here. How many detective series does one world need? How many fantasies about people growing up with magical powers, which they used to tame dragons or save the kingdom? How many imitations of the Hunger Games? The service is obviously meant to suck you in to buy the next book in the detective series or maybe the previous ones, or other books by the same author who wrote that Dragon fantasy you liked so much.

Still, as advertising for books goes, it does offer you something. Whether does much for the authors so advertised I have to wonder.

More Rumi

Someone who does not know the Tigris River exists

Brings the Caliph who lives near the river

A jar of fresh water. The Caliph accepts, thanks him,

And gives in return a jar filled with gold coins.

Since this man has come through the desert,

He should return by water. Taken out by another door,

The man steps into a waiting boat and sees

The wide freshwater of the Tigris. He bows his head,

What wonderful kindness that he took my gift.

Every object and being in the universe is a jar

Overfilled with wisdom and beauty, a drop of the Tigris

That cannot be contained by any skin. Every jarful

Spills and makes the earth more shining,

as though covered in satin. Rumi, translated Barks

A snippet of Rumi

Imagine a man selling his donkey to be with Jesus.

Now imagine selling Jesus to get a ride on a donkey. This does happen.

Jesus can transform drunk into gold.

If the drunk is already golden, he can be changed to pure diamond.

If already that, he can become the circling planets, Jupiter, Venus, the moon.

Never think that you are worthless.

God has paid an enormous amount for you, and the gifts keep arriving.

There is something in us that has nothing to do with night and day,

grapes that never saw a vineyard.

We are all returning

says the Qur'an. Enjoy Shams, or if you cannot do that, at least

consider what else people tell you.

Rumi (13th century), Translated by Coleman Barks

The Race for Paradise: An Islamic History of the Crusades, by Paul M. Cobb

Cobb, Paul M. The Race for Paradise: An Islamic History of the Crusades. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Pp. 335. $31.95. ISBN: 978-0-19-935811-3.

Reviewed by Steven Muhlberger

Nipissing University (retired)

steve.muhlberger@gmail.com

I approached reviewing this book not as a specialist in the Crusades (I am not) but as someone who has taught the Crusades numerous times in the last thirty years in medieval and world history surveys, in a survey of Islamic civilization, and in an undergraduate course on Crusade and Jihad. I have had some experience of hunting for appropriate books that would help me explain the this period from the Muslim point of view, but not much luck in finding ones that are suitable in content and availability (and, yes, price).

The next time I teach that material, however, I will know where to go for a good discussion of what the Crusades looked like from the point of view of "the crusaded," to use Paul Cobb's phrase. I do not think there is any book on the market today as good as this one for showing the effects of the Crusades on the Muslim-ruled Middle East. It is a good solid narrative history that looks outwards from Syria and cities of the Dar-al-Islam ("the Abode of Islam") rather than at Jerusalem from France and Rome.

Paul Cobb comes to this material very well prepared to discuss events from the Islamic point of view. He has written on Abbasid Syria and post-Umayyad Spain, and both translated and written a monograph on Usama ibn Munqidh, whose Book of Contemplation has long been valued for its autobiographical reflections on Crusade-era Syria. Cobb is very familiar with the work of Muslim scholars and litterateurs and the cultural environment in which they worked.

And it is our good fortune that he has the ability to convey his understanding to non-specialists. Cobb has a gift for explaining. I was very impressed early on in the book with his explanation of the difference between Sunni and Shiite traditions in the Middle Ages, and similarly how well he explained the decentralized structure of political life in the era of the Seljuks, the Fatimids, the Ayyubids and the Ottomans. His discussion of the use of the word jihad in the period in question is, as it must be, careful and clear. The ability to introduce such basic matters to the reader is the most important test that a writer addressing a general audience faces. Cobb passes this test with flying colors.

The book is organized chronologically around military and political events with occasional diversions into historiographic questions or descriptions of cultural change. Cobb sticks very closely to his announced focus on Islamic history. Events and personalities that did not directly affect the Muslim world are deemphasized. The Fourth Crusade gets one paragraph. The role of the papacy, neglected by most Muslim writers, is hardly noted in the Race for Paradise. Frederick II, an active crusader and King of Sicily and as such the ruler over the Muslim minority on that island, gets much more coverage than his rival Innocent III, even though the pope in question was perhaps the most important architect of the Christian theory of holy war and its implementation. For this reader, familiar with the usual general accounts of the Crusades, it was a salutary exercise to follow along in Cobb's wake.

Cobb's performance as a narrative historian is not perfect. The same details that help him build a full and convincing picture of Islamic history sometimes feel like items in an unending catalogue of campaigns' battles, and political intrigues. But he is a far better and livelier writer than many scholars. Cobb's language is up-to-date and relaxed. He does not hesitate to break the unwritten rule that forbids scholars to use slang unless it is nearly a century old. On the other hand he does not overdo it by committing himself to phraseology that might prove to be entirely ephemeral.

Cobb's narrative history from the Islamic point of view is a very valuable resource. Yet he goes beyond this to discuss historiographical questions that are very much alive in the scholarly community, and also of interest to general readers who might pick up the book. He rejects the idea that Muslim observers had no appreciation for crusading as a unified phenomenon. He does believe that Christian religious motivations were hardly appreciated by most Muslims who discussed the aggression of the Franks. However, he argues that the dominant Muslim line of reasoning for the origins of the crusade was the fact that Franks were by nature an aggressive people. A number of Middle Eastern observers saw the wars of the Franks as an intensification of that inherent aggression. The attacks on Sicily and Muslim Spain after 1060 were for them an important prelude to the Jerusalem campaign of the 1090s. All of this Frankish aggression on a variety of fronts was of a piece. The unifying factor for these writers was the failure of the Muslim community with its many internal divisions to deal with this Frankish threat. It should be pointed out that just as Cobb's Muslim sources give the Sicilian and Spanish wars an important place in their analysis, so does Cobb emphasize those wars. The way he integrates the "western front" with the conflicts in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean is one of the best parts of his treatment.

Similarly, readers will find a very good discussion of the term jihad. Cobb believes that modern scholars sometimes overemphasize the contrast between greater or spiritual jihad and lesser or military jihad. Cobb argues that it is certainly the case that most discussions of jihad in the Crusading era referenced military activity against the infidel. But he also rejects the idea that jihad simply meant militarism. Jihad sprang from the duty of Muslims to "command the good and forbid the wrong." Whether that duty required a military response on the part of the faithful in any given case was a complicated question; the complications are very nicely handled in the book.

There is no full bibliography, but the "bibliographic sketch" and the endnotes provide quite adequate guidance for non-specialist readers.

To return to the Race for Paradise as a teaching resource. Will it be useful for students? This will depend on the exact goals of the course and how prominently the internal dynamics of the Muslim Middle East will be in it. Cobb's clear language and the book's very reasonable price make student use a real possibility. But Cobb's book certainly belongs on the bookshelf of anyone who teaches the Crusade, and on the shelves of every university library where the Crusades are taken seriously as part of the history curriculum.

Reading list for next year?

Much more substantial than my own collection of good posts for the past year is Phil Paine's annotated list of books that inspired him this year. There is no point in duplicating his post; instead I will just include one fairly long excerpt and hope that you will look for the rest at his website. 

… what does this have to do with rebel­lions in Canada? Well, the failed rebel­lions had a trans­form­ing impact on two young men who were both ardent demo­c­ra­tic reform­ers, Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine in Lower Canada, and Robert Bald­win in Upper Canada. Both men had come to the con­clu­sion that the rebel­lions led by fire­brands like Louis-Joseph Pap­ineau and William Lyon Macken­zie, which they had ini­tially sup­ported, had been more destruc­tive than pro­duc­tive of reform, and that a more ratio­nal strat­egy was required. Lafontaine still had faith in the demands made by the Patri­otes in the rebel­lion: demo­c­ra­tic gov­ern­ment by uni­ver­sal male suf­frage, with prop­erty qual­i­fi­ca­tions abol­ished; equal­ity of Eng­lish and French as legal and gov­ern­ing lan­guages; trial by jury in all crim­i­nal and most civil cases; abo­li­tion of the death penalty for all crimes except first degree mur­der; equal rights for all abo­rig­i­nal peo­ples “the same as any other cit­i­zen”; guar­an­tees of free­dom of speech and the press; free­dom of reli­gion and total sep­a­ra­tion of Church and State; abo­li­tion of seigneural tenure and rem­nant “feu­dal” prac­tices; a free mar­ket in land; pub­lic edu­ca­tion. It should be noted that these demands, made in 1837, went much fur­ther in the direc­tion of mod­ern democ­racy than any­thing con­tem­plated else­where. But the rebel­lions had only brought about a tri­umphant Con­ser­v­a­tive reac­tion, with mas­sive abuses of civil rights.

In 1841, the two colonies were con­sol­i­dated, after this was urged by the inves­ti­gat­ing emis­sary from Britain, Lord Durham. There would be an elected assem­bly for the new “United Canada”, but the inten­tion was to dilute the power of the French-speaking major­ity in Lower Canada, with a long-term goal of “assim­i­lat­ing” French Cana­di­ans into obliv­ion. While there were some con­sti­tional gains, the assem­bly hav­ing more power on money bills than before, there were obvi­ous losses. Lower Canada had actu­ally rejoiced in a degree of women’s suf­frage: women who met the prop­erty qual­i­fi­ca­tions had the vote, and these qual­i­fi­ca­tions were low enough that they applied to a sub­stan­tial num­ber of women. There was, in fact, noth­ing like it in any other place in the world. In one con­tem­po­rary doc­u­ment I ran across, it is casu­ally men­tioned to a vis­i­tor that “in our coun­try, women are the polit­i­cal equals of men.” This female suf­frage would be abol­ished by the new United Canada. In Upper Canada, the auto­cratic power of the Fam­ily Com­pact was strength­ened, and reform stymied. Lafontaine and Bald­win, both ardent democ­rats, looked upon the ash-heap left by the rebel­lions and tried to think out a strat­egy to bring the reform move­ment back to life.

 At this point, Lafontaine gave a speech in his home rid­ing of Ter­re­bonne, where he was run­ning for the new par­lia­ment. He told the crowd that the best strat­egy was not to boy­cott the new regime, as many advo­cated, but to embrace it, use all the polit­i­cal power they could muster, and win reforms step by step. Foil the plans to assim­i­late French Canada by becom­ing the colony’s most adept par­lia­men­tar­i­ans. Win through grit and deter­mi­na­tion what the rebels had failed to win with arms. Lafontaine would eas­ily have been elected to his rid­ing, but Con­ser­v­a­tive hooli­gans, beat­ing and intim­i­dat­ing vot­ers, kept him out of office.

News of these events reached Robert Bald­win in Upper Canada. The young man, whose equally young wife had just died of ill­ness, had with­drawn into a twi­light of grief. His father, also a life-long reformer, told him he must find a new strat­egy for reform, and pur­sue it, or wal­low use­lessly in self-pity. He sug­gested that Lafontaine’s speech held the key. The elder Bald­win resigned from his seat in the Assem­bly, forc­ing a bi-election in the rid­ing of New­mar­ket. Robert Bald­win wrote to Lafontaine, invit­ing him to come to Upper Canada and run as a Reform can­di­date in New­mar­ket. This was the first step in what turned out to be a life-long col­lab­o­ra­tion and inti­mate friend­ship. Bald­win was even­tu­ally to learn French, and send his daugh­ters to be edu­cated in Lower Cana­dian schools. Lafontaine, unwill­ingly child­less, lived with the Bald­wins in New­mar­ket and came to think of them as fam­ily. …
 Bald­win and Lafontaine are far more impor­tant char­ac­ters than Cana­dian his­tory books would indi­cate. In their writ­ings and cor­re­spon­dence, you see the emer­gence of a set of ideas that were unprece­dented. Cana­dian his­to­ri­ans are mostly inter­ested in the fact that their activism even­tu­ally led to the cre­ation of the Cana­dian Con­fed­er­a­tion in 1867, but do not notice the pro­found orig­i­nal­ity of their polit­i­cal think­ing. At the time, most polit­i­cal reform and rad­i­cal­ism was built on the premises of roman­tic nation­al­ism. It was taken for granted that the nation was the nat­ural unit of pol­i­tics, and even where polit­i­cal move­ments envi­sioned demo­c­ra­tic gov­er­nance, this was seen as sec­ondary to the mys­ti­cism of the nation as a col­lec­tive agency. The “nation” embod­ied bio­log­i­cal descent, and required “unity” — con­for­mity of lan­guage, faith, and cus­tom. No Euro­pean intel­lec­tual of the period, that I can find, val­ued diver­sity or felt that it was a good thing to com­bine dif­fer­ent lan­guages, faiths, or eth­nic­i­ties into the same polity. It was seen as a defect that might have to be tol­er­ated, but not as some­thing of pos­i­tive value. Pro­mot­ers of empires con­sid­ered diver­sity the weak­ness of their realms. Pro­mot­ers of national inde­pen­dence envi­sioned their “lib­er­ated” states as cul­tur­ally uni­form units. Lafontaine and Bald­win had come to the oppo­site con­clu­sion, putting them into a dif­fer­ent cat­e­gory from other reform­ers of the era. They explic­itly advo­cated a multi-lingual, multi-ethnic, multi-religious state, held together by a com­mit­ment to share a polit­i­cal com­mu­nity with­out con­for­mity. In their view, democ­racy and the rule of law formed an abstact frame­work of val­ues that could allow free­dom to pros­per with­out need­ing any of the tra­di­tional defin­ing fea­tures of nation­hood. As they saw it, and stated explic­itly, this diver­sity con­sti­tuted a strength, not a weak­ness, just as they had found in their per­sonal friend­ship. But this was not some­thing that any sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of intel­lec­tu­als were advo­cat­ing. … 

Europe would go on to more extreme and dis­as­trous man­i­fes­ta­tions of Uni­for­mi­tar­i­an­ism. The colo­nial empires of Britain, France, Spain, Por­tu­gal and Ger­many left no doubt that there was to be noth­ing equal about the eth­nic­i­ties, lan­guages and cus­toms within them. The United States strug­gled with a schiz­o­phrenic her­itage, the implied val­ues of the Amer­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion in con­stant con­flict with the urge to cre­ate a uni­for­mi­tar­ian state, immi­grants under con­stant pres­sure to “melt” into con­for­mity. But in Canada, the ideas of Bald­win and Lafontaine became the main­stream shap­ing the country’s des­tiny. Con­fed­er­a­tion in 1867 was clearly founded on them. … When inter­viewed while wel­com­ing Syr­ian refugees to Canada, a few weeks ago, Prime Min­is­ter Justin Trudeau pretty much stated them as if they were obvi­ous. But they are by no means obvi­ous to most of the world, or there would be no refugees to wel­come. So read­ing Lafontaine and Bald­win, see­ing these ideas being born, was emo­tion­ally, as well as intel­lec­tu­ally satisfying.

Image: Lafontaine and Baldwin