May 23, 2013

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Best Non-fiction Reads of 2012

January 4, 2013 by 5 Comments

Last year was a great year for good books.  I tend to prefer history over other topics, but this year’s non-fiction picks included sociology, economics, and literature…but all, still, with a link to history.

In no particular order, then, my favorite non-fiction reads of 2012 are…

 

Civilization: The West and the Rest

Civilization: The West and the Rest

Where many histories today focus on specific “modules” of history, drilling down to look closely at specific persons or events (think Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals” on Abraham Lincoln’s political management or Horowitz’s “Midnight Rising” on the John Brown raid at Harper’s Ferry), Ferguson looks at the broad strokes of history to find grand “narratives” of history.

It was just one of several books I read this year that sifted through world history from a certain perspective, and it was one of the best.

 

 

1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created

1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created

1493 tells the story of the world changing after and as a result of Columbus’ discovery of the America’s, what Mann calls the “Columbian exchange.” Tomatoes and peppers hit the world markets, while potatoes ended endemic famine in Europe.  Tobacco and sugar cane together brought plantation slavery to the Americas.

It’s a fascinating book, and a valuable companion to Mann’s 1491.

 

 

 

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs

There are a lot of ways to look at Steve Jobs. However you view him, though, it’s hard to dispute his success in technology, design, and animation.  Issacson writes Steve Jobs’ story well, and his research feels thorough. I recommend the read.

 

 

 

 

 

Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010

Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010

Displaying a dizzying array of statistics, studies, and research, Charles Murray shows an America that is watching the rise of a new ruling class, a group of elites. Their self-segregation is not malicious, but, largely a result of people being attracted to others like them.

It’s a fascinating read, and relevant, and I think it should be on your reading list if you haven’t read it, yet.

 

 

 

 

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

Michael Lewis can tell a story like no other.  In fact, even before I finished reading his “The Big Short,” I wanted to work the book into every conversation I had. The story was that interesting and compelling.  Anyone who can take the financial crisis of the last few years, find a story in it that centers around subprime mortgages and shorting the market, and then make it interesting to the lay reader deserves to be read.

 

 

 

 

Grand Strategies: Literature, Statecraft, and World Order

In Hill’s eye, fiction is more than just a story. In literature, we see the great ideas and forces that move history worked out, argued, and recorded. The “international world of states and their modern system is a literary realm,” he argues. “[I]t is where the greatest issues of the human condition are played out.”

Thought provoking, insightful, Hill’s “Grand Strategies” is a worthy addition to your bed-stand stack. Just make sure you put it on top.

 

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Book Review: “Civilization: the West and the Rest” by Niall Ferguson

May 23, 2012 by 1 Comment

The elevator pitch for Niall Ferguson‘s “Civilization: The West and the Rest” is simple: Western civilization has risen to dominate world affairs over the last five hundred years, a record unmatched in world history and at odds with its population and geography relative to other countries and civilizations, due to six “killer apps” that have provided an advantage on the international stage. Further, it may be the West’s loss of those same “apps” that is leading to decline now.

Ferguson pegs the rise of the West to dominance at about the same time as the discovery of the Americas, and so, having just finished a look at that chapter of history in “1491” and “1493“, I decided to take a closer look at Ferguson’s argument. What was the secret of the West? And could we really be headed towards decline or collapse?

Where many histories today focus on the specific “modules” of history, drilling down to look closely at specific persons or events (think Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals” on Abraham Lincoln’s political management or Horowitz’s “Midnight Rising” on the John Brown raid at Harper’s Ferry), Ferguson takes another tact by looking at the broad strokes of history to find themes, the grand “narratives” of history, as he calls them. Where other historians dig into the details, Ferguson wants to look at the big picture. As he explains in the preface:

Watching my three children grow up, I had the uneasy feeling that they were learning less history than I had learned at their age, not because they had bad teachers but because they had bad history books and even worse examinations. Watching the financial crisis [of the late 2000s] unfold, I realized that they were far from alone, for it seemed as if only a handful of people in the banks and treasuries of the Western world had more than the sketchiest information about the last Depression. For roughly thirty years, young people at Western schools and universities have been given the idea of a liberal education, without the substance of historical knowledge. They have been taught isolated ‘modules’, not narratives, much less chronologies. They have been trained in the formulaic analysis of document excerpts, not in the key skill of reading widely and fast. They have been encouraged to feel empathy with imagined Roman centurions or Holocaust victims, not to write essays about why and how their predicaments arose.

With that flippant, matter of fact, almost “devil-may-care” attitude then, Ferguson determines to take the reader through a grand narrative of the last five hundred years, identifying six “killer apps” that Western civilization adopted to rise to a dominance unmatched in breadth and duration in human history.  It is this broad overview, as told in Ferguson’s urgent and quick-witted voice, that makes the extended argument so interesting and in an age of multicultural relativism, refreshing. Welding his argument–not just about the cause of Western civilization’s success, but also that “the historian can commune with the dead by imaginatively reconstructing their experiences” to inform and predict the future–Ferguson spins together the documents, events, and personalities to form a narrative, a story, about why the West succeeded in the face of larger, richer, and, at the onset, more wealthy civilizations.

The “tools” to which he attributes the rise of the West are likened to “apps,” downloadable software that augment computers and mobile devices. By looking at the narrative, Ferguson finds the roots of the West’s success, as well as why, perhaps, the West as begun to decline while other civilizations advance.  Not specific to the West, but, like the real world apps in the metaphor, the values can be “downloaded” by any culture for similar results, and in the closing Ferguson addresses the adaptation by non-Western cultures that have done, and are doing,  just that with success.

The “apps” Ferguson finds, while not necessarily surprising, are informative: competition, science, property rights, medicine, consumption and the birth of the “consumer society” (“without which the Industrial Revolution would have been unsustainable”) and  Max Weber‘s Protestant “work ethic”. While the narrative is anything but chronological, Ferguson’s grasp of history and the sweeping strokes with which he paints the narrative provide fascinating reading. One cannot sense, however, that Ferguson, almost anything but apologetic, is on the verge of glorying in the success of the British Empire during its hey-day as a colonial power, noting with statistical explanation the improvements brought to the world through Western influence, whether it be in medicine, literacy, and education. Or blue jeans, for in the end, one side effect of rise of the West is not diversity, but conformity as cultures imitate and emulate Western styles, habits, and philosophy.

Ironically to this writer, who sees such deep and lasting value in the political institutions of the West, Ferguson notes that one area where the West has not been uniformly imitated is the political.

Only in the realm of political institutions does there remain significant global diversity, with a wide range of governments around the world resisting the idea of the rule of law, with its protection of individual rights, as the foundation for meaningful representative government.

In other words, we’ll take your blue jeans, your medicine, even your work ethic, but you can keep the Bill of Rights and representative government, they say.  Indeed, it is that  imitation of the West that has brought China from the depths of the Cultural Revolution to heights today when its economy can weather the financial crisis without more than a hiccup.

After Ferguson’s narrative through the six “apps”, then, we reach the essential question suggested by any study of the West’s rise: is the West now in decline? And if so, is it too late to reverse?

Perhaps not. Although China’s rise seems ominous, and indeed, Ferguson cites China’s relative nonchalance towards doing business with the dictators and warlords of the world business “it’s just business” as evidence that China is more concerned about rising than its popularity, China still faces problems that could arrest its progress, especially from social unrest, political pressure from its growing and unrepresented middle-class, or friction with its neighbors in Asia.

Noting that a “retreat from the mountains of the Hindu Kush” (Afghanistan) seems to proceed the fall of any empire–be it Alexander’s, British, Russian, or most recently American–Ferguson is unwilling to give up on the West, yet.  No, the things that set the West apart are no longer distinct, but nor has the entire package of “apps” been embraced.

The Chinese have got capitalism. The Iranians have got science. The Russians have got democracy. The Africans are (slowly) getting modern medicine. And the Turks have got the consumer society. But what this means is that Western modes of operation are not in decline but are flourishing nearly everywhere, with only a few remaining pockets of resistance. A growing number of Resterners [Ferguson's name for non-Westerners] are sleeping, showering, dressing, working, playing, eating, drinking and travelling like Westerners.  Moreover, as we have seen, Western civilization is more than just one thing; it is a package. It is about political pluralism (multiple states and multiple authorities) as well as capitalism; it is about the freedom of thought as well as the scientific method; it is about the rule of law and property rights as well as democracy. Even today, the West still has more of these institutional advantages than the Rest. The Chinese do not have political competition. The Iranians do not have freedom of conscience. They get to vote in Russia, but the rule of law there is a sham. In none of these countries is there a free press. These differences may explain why, for example, all three countries lag behind Western countries in qualitative indices that measure‘national innovative development’ and ‘national innovation capacity’.

True, the West is not without its faults, he says, but our downfall will come from within, not from external pressure. It’s the loss of the “killer apps” by our culture that will, in the long and short run, lead to our continued decline.  Don’t mistake the adoption, however, by others as the reason for the decline of the West. Rather, it is the West’s abandonment of the values that brought them prominence that is leading to the decline. Here, again, Ferguson picks up the theme in his preface–we must learn from history. If we are to maintain the great values that gave the West its rise, we must study and learn the great works–the documents–that teach those values.* Add up all the values, and, like any follower of Churchill, it adds up to courage and action.

Today, as then [1938 and the German Nazi threat to Western civilization], the biggest threat to Western civilization is posed not by other civilizations, but by our own pusillanimity – and by the historical ignorance that feeds it.

__________________________

If you’re interested in a brief version of Ferguson’s views on the six “apps” that he discusses in the book, check out his speech at TED.

__________________________

* Ferguson’s recommended “standard works” for Western civilization are:

  • The King James Bible
  • Isaac Newton’s Principa
  • John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government
  • Adam Smith’s Moral Sentiments and Wealth of Nations
  • Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France
  • Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species
  • William Shakespeare’s plays
  • Selected speeches of Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill
  • Also, if he could select only one of the above, it would be Shakespeare’s collected works.
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Much ado about immigration in Utah

July 14, 2010 by 2 Comments
Map of USA with Utah highlighted
Image via Wikipedia

There’s a scandal brewing in Utah over a list of alleged illegal immigrants that was sent to a number of government leaders with a demand for action.  A conservative bastion in the west, even the lone Democrat in Utah’s congressional delegation, Jim Matheson, votes with his Republican colleagues almost as often as he does with Nancy Pelosi.  As the immigration debate across the country has heated, Utah has kept pace and proposals have been floated to introduce legislation that would mirror Arizona’s.  (To be honest, the legislator, Stephen Sandstrom, and his proposals have been both pilloried–here, here, and here,  and praised–by the  ”Patrick Henry Caucus”–though not necessarily in that order).

Suffice to say, between Arizona’s new law, the federal lawsuit regarding the law, a very hotly contested Utah Senate race, the ambient energy of angry Tea Party-ists, and the proposed legislation to match Arizona’s have all combined to create a sometimes heated atmosphere around the current immigration debate.  Then someone compiled and sent a letter containing 1,300 names of alleged illegal immigrants.  Reported by the Salt Lake Tribune:

The list includes their birth dates, telephone numbers and addresses. In a few cases, the list also included Social Security numbers and employers. Almost every surname is Latino.

Also inside was an unsigned letter, dated April 4, from a group calling itself “Concerned Citizens of the United States” and addressed to “Customs and Immigration.”

The group said they “strongly believe” people on the list are undocumented immigrants who should be deported. The names were compiled, according to the letter, by observing the individuals.

“We then spend the time and effort needed to gather information along with legal Mexican nationals who infiltrate their social networks and help us obtain the necessary information we need to add them to our list,” the letter explains.

The accuracy of the list is unclear. Some phone numbers were disconnected or answered by a different person.

Apparently the list was sent to a number of individuals in state government, as well as the media. It contained, in addition to their personal information, a demand for action.

The mysterious list — almost entirely including Latino surnames — came with a cover letter demanding people on the list be “deported immediately” with a call to “DO YOUR JOB AND STOP MAKING EXCUSES! WE DEMAND ACTION.”

Needless to say, the letter raises a number of issues, not the least of which is how was the information obtained and compiled, and, because of concern that state government data bases were used to find the information, Utah Governor Herbert, as well as several state agencies, is looking into it.

Herbert on Tuesday ordered several state agencies to determine whether computer records were accessed inappropriately to create the detailed list, which arrived by mail Monday at media outlets, law enforcement agencies, and the state House and Senate.

“If it reveals any kind of evidence of wrongdoing or release of private information we will turn it over to the Attorney General’s Office,” said Angie Welling, Herbert’s spokeswoman.

Utah law makes it a misdemeanor to disclose government data not meant for public dissemination, though there are protections for whistle blowers. The list included names, addresses, birth dates, phone numbers, and 31 social security numbers. Also included: the names and dates of birth of 201 children, and the due dates of six pregnant women. Almost every surname is Latino.

According to a privacy attorney quoted in the Salt Lake Tribune, even gathering the information may be illegal.

Compiling and distributing the list itself could be illegal. If the compilers took data from state or local databases not available to the public, they could be charged with a misdemeanor under state law, said Jeff Hunt, a Utah media attorney. If the group lied to obtain the data, that could be fraud.

Asked whether he was aware of similar efforts, Hunt said, “I’ve never heard of anything close.”

And, of course, immigration advocacy groups are furious over the disclosure of the privacy information contained in the letters, as well as what sending the letters does for the debate in Utah over immigration.

Frank Cordova, president of the group Central Civico Mexicano, said the release of the information is destructive to efforts to bring people together to reform immigration policy, “rather than trying to cut so many people’s throats and hurt them in the manner this is coming down.”

“I can’t even imagine being a brown person and being undocumented, and to find yourself on a list or on the other side [wondering] when someone is going to put you on a list if your name’s not there right now,” he said.

So, I ask you, as was asked by KVNU’s Jason Williams: “Vigilante wing-nuttery, or just “concerned citizens” demanding action?”

Predictably, the “usual suspects” are scrambling to disavow and condemn the letter.

Ron Mortensen, a spokesman for the Utah Coalition on Illegal Immigration, objected to the methods behind the list and the tactic of making people’s private information public. Mortensen also told KTVX Channel 4, “Nobody should be acting on this information. If this gets out into the public I’d say disregard it. It is not a proven source. It is not proven information so just disregard it.” His objections are prudent, since media investigation has already uncovered erroneous information on the list. Another activist, Eli Cawley of the Utah Minuteman Project, said he also disapproves of the list because he doubts its accuracy and it could disparage American citizens. But Cawley also said the effort reflects the compilers’ frustration with illegal immigration.

And yet, the “usual suspects” are not that angry about the letter.  After all, while it’s completely unacceptable to break the law to enter the country, breaking the law to deport illegal immigrants is probably ok by their rationale.  KSL reported:

“If you had a legitimate list that didn’t unnecessarily or negligently point out citizens and legal residents, then I think that would serve the greater interest,” [Utah Minuteman Project co-chair Eli] Cawley told KSL Newsradio Tuesday.

Cawley says the interest of protecting the people of Utah outweighs the privacy of illegal immigrants.

“It’s probably against some privacy laws,” Cawley said. “But I think in the interest of preserving our civilization, preserving our society and protecting the people of the state of Utah, I think that’s a greater interest than protecting the privacy of some individuals.”

Besides, Cawley says he believes intrusions into privacy happen all the time.

“I think my phone calls are monitored, and I believe my information is gone through by any number of different groups, so yeah, our privacy is definitely compromised,” Cawley said.

Cawley says he should have been the one putting the list together, if he had the information.

[emphasis added]

Hmmm…so it’s ok to break the law as long as it’s in the interest of preserving our civilization.  And what exactly about illegal immigration is destroying our civilization?

Also predictably, the letter has set off a storm of response.  As reported by the blog Voice of Deseret, the comments on the stories have been rolling in fast and furious:

[...] KSL’s initial July 12th story attracted 832 public comments, and their July 13th follow-up has attracted 867 comments so far.

Also of concern is the origins of the list and what it means for legal immigrants that have Hispanic names.  Calls by reporters found that the list was not entirely accurate as some of the individuals said they were here legally.  Others are afraid of having their families torn apart as legal immigrants are left behind when undocumented immigrants are deported.

“My mother-in-law was almost in tears when she heard about it.” Guadalupe is not concerned for herself. She says she has her documents. She is concerned for other members of her family. “Just for someone putting a name on here, we all can be torn apart,” she said.

One woman who asked to remain anonymous said she feared for her future, “Because I have a son and he is from here and I don’t want them to take him away.” She admitted that she and her family do not have the proper documents to be in this country, but she said in 9 years they have earned their own way, paid taxes, been a help to some and a burden to none. She wants to know why that wasn’t taken into consideration by the people who made the list. She pleaded, “They need to understand before acting.”

Who sent the list?

So beyond just the list, what else is in the letter?  Who are these anonymous individuals and why do they hide behind a cloak of anonymity? According to them, they are–

[...] simply citizens who continue to see the degradation of our country caused in part by the continuing presence of illegal aliens who are allowed to stay in our country.  Some of the women are pregnant and steps should be taken for immediate deportation.

Ok, so they probably aren’t very happy with the direction the country has taken recently, and they place the cause of that direction squarely at the feet of pregnant Mexicans.  Really.  They use the word Mexican in the letter.  They go on:

We welcome any person into our country who has come here legally and is totally self-sufficient.

The underline is their emphasis, not mine.  So we can learn that these people also are not welcoming of people who have come here legally BUT are not self-sufficient.  So does that mean everyone not self-sufficient has to go back to their country of origin?  And what does self-sufficient mean?  That you grow your own produce, raise your own beef, and sew your own clothes?  That you pay cash for your home or built it from materials that you produced yourself?  That you never took out a loan to pay for a car (made in Japan, or by a Japanese company), to pay for education (a loan subsidized by the US government in a Stafford Loan or Pell Grant), or to buy a home (also subsidized by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac)?  That you don’t put your money in an FDIC insured bank account?  That you don’t use public transit (also subsidized with federal and state money)?  That you don’t drive on the interstate (produced with federal money)?  Attended public schools (subsidized with state and federal money)?

Apparently, self-sufficiency is pretty important…so important that it was underlined instead of “legally.” Someone give me heads up if they know ANYONE that is totally self-sufficient.

But that’s just a part of the letter.  Read the whole thing, here.

The last thing that really sticks in my craw is the anonymity of the group.  Why anonymity?  If they are so confident that they are doing the right thing, and not breaking any laws, why hide their identities?  What’s wrong with standing behind their beliefs?  Are they cowards?  Are they criminals now that they’ve broken the law to stalk these individuals and out them to the world?

Stay tuned.  Immigration is a touchy topic, and it doesn’t cut down the usual party lines.  Sending letters like this to the public and to government agencies does little to help resolve a major public issue.  Rather, it divides and polarizes and makes it difficult to bring the appropriate parties to the table.  Hiding under the guise that they “love” their country and “love” the Constitution does not compensate that they are acting without love for how and why their country was founded and what the Constitution was intended to do.

Stock Photo of the Consitution of the United S...
Image by Rosie O’Beirne via Flickrpolicy

Nor does it show much love for their fellow-man, a slightly higher law than state or federal law.  Whether or not these undocumented or illegal immigrants are breaking the law, the manner in which this letter was propagates, and it’s very existence, as well as the extremely prejudicial language used within it displays a disregard for illegal immigrants as human beings, not to mention a superiority in status of those who drafted it.  It is one thing to actively advocate for immigration reform; it is another thing entirely to cast the debate into a fight over the future of civilization, “our” civilization, using racial and ethnic overtones.  I belong to that civilization, and I see nothing in it that does not leave room for others to participate in it.

(Thanks to the Salt Lake Tribune, KSL, Voice of Deseret, KVNU For the People, and ABC4.

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