“Story of Civilization. Volume 8: The Age of Louis XIV”, by Will and Ariel Durant

 

802 pages, Simon & Schuster, ISBN-13: 978-0207942273

The Story of Civilization is an 11-volume set of books by the American writers, historians and philosophers Will and Ariel Durant that focuses on a philosophical understanding of Western history that was intended for the general reader. Written over a period of more than fifty years, Volume 8: The Age of Louis XIV was originally published in 1963, and covers the era of Louis XIV (well, yeah) of France in Europe and the Near East. To pin an entire era on only one person is, perhaps, not the best way to write history, but seeing as France was the behemoth of Europe at this time – culturally, economically, militarily – it would be hard not to place le Roi Soleil at the center of this particular solar system and build a narrative around his life and achievements. Of course, The Age of Louis XIV is broader in reach than just its Gallic inhabitants and their gloriously bewigged and leggy monarch, beginning as it does with the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 (which brought the Thirty Years’ War mercifully to an end) and detailing the history of Europe during a period of nearly seventy years, give or take. The intellectual history of this period is covered very well; in particular, we find easily understood overviews of the philosophy of Nicolas Malebranche and his attempts to bridge the gap between St. Augustine and Descartes (yeah, right) and Baruch Spinoza as he…well, read this:

We may conclude that in Spinoza substance means the essential reality underlying all things. This reality is perceived by us in two forms: as extension or matter, and as thought or mind. These two are “attributes” of substance; not as qualities residing in it, but as the same reality perceived externally by our senses as matter, and internally by our consciousness as thought. Spinoza is a complete monist: these two aspects of reality – matter and thought – are not distinct and separate entities, they are two sides, the outside and the inside, of one reality; so are body and mind, so is physiological action and the corresponding mental state.

We also encounter John Milton singing blindly about heaven and hell, Blaise Pascal inventing projective geometry (look it up), Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz postulating monads in the best of all possible worlds (I know; me neither), Thomas Hobbes painting his nasty and brutish portrait of the state of nature, John Locke telling us how comes the mind to be furnished with ideas and George Berkeley explaining that the world is just a perception in the mind of God (in spite of the evidence of Samuel Johnson’s stubbed toe). And we must not – cannot – forget Isaac Newton as he measures light and calculates gravity:

When [Newton] passed a small ray of sunlight through a transparent prism he found that the apparently monochrome light divided into all these colors of the rainbow; that each component color emerged from the prism at its own specific angle or degree of refraction; and that the colors arranged themselves in a row of bands, forming a continuous spectrum, with red at the one end and violet at the other. Later investigators showed that various substances, when made luminous by burning, give different spectra; by comparing these spectra with the one made by a given star, it became possible to analyze in some degree the star’s chemical constituents. Still more delicate observations of a star’s spectrum indicated its approximate motion toward or from earth; and from these calculations the distance of the star was theoretically deduced. Newton’s revelation of the composition of light, and its refraction in the spectrum, has therefore had almost cosmic consequences in astronomy.

This whole epoch is one of my favorite of all times, with the fading of the Medieval Age at last done with and the birth of the modern just around the corner, and with all of this intellectual firepower just lying about. But it is France that is the star of this tale as it emerges as Europe’s cultural leader. While the bloody wars of religion are not exactly over, religion is still quite relevant to the European mind but, happily, its desperately violent attempts to hold onto power continue to ruin its credibility among the peoples of the continent. The Durants as authors are generally kind to religion, seeing it as an essential part of the fabric that holds societies together, but here the philosophy of the hour is concerned not with theology, but of humanity, for as the power of the church declines, those of the state rise, and no autocrat epitomizes this more than the Sun King, who built Versailles as a monument to the State and himself, and whose example was an inspiration to every other king in the continent, for good and for ill. Our modern world is the heir to this development, for the secular state has without question won over the Church in terms of secular power – and this, too, is for good and for ill, for as God has been replaced by Man in the hearts and minds of some, Man finds that worshipping himself has unleashed more Hells on Earth than any Pope of prelate could ever have imagined.

“The Confederate Nation: 1861-1865”, by Emory M. Thomas

 

416 pages, Harper Perennial, ISBN-13: 978-0062061027

How you say something is often as important as what you say. Case in point: in The Confederate Nation: 1861-1865, Emory M. Thomas claims that the American Civil War was seen by the Confederates not as a rebellion against a hostile foreign government, but as a continuation of the American Revolution and its ideals. Furthermore, as the War continued, the character of the Southern People and their Government profoundly changed as “Southern” gradually became “Confederate” and the antifederalist foundation of the movement was forever changed and, indeed, subjugated in favor of an ever-more centralized government that trampled on, what were only a few years previous, sacred rights. The self-righteous slaveocracy that had pushed and pulled for secession had done so using the language of the Founders, but the realities of fighting what became an ever-more desperate war of survival turned the decentralized agrarian economy they fought for into a centralized state, the very antithesis of their ideal Jeffersonian democracy dominated by themselves (naturally).

Thomas’ revelations about the workings of the Confederate Nation were a much-needed cure for my ignorance of how the Confederacy really tried to become a people apart. To try to tell the entire four-year experiment in Southern independence in a slim, single volume was an ambitious desire for Thomas to take on in 1979 (although my edition is a reprint from 2011), and so, naturally, compromises were made as what to include and what to leave out. While he does discuss certain battles, campaigns and generals North and South, the war is not really his focus, except where he points out those times when military victory influenced foreign affairs or domestic policies. One interesting point that he makes – one that, I think, is too easily lost – is that while the fire-breathing secessionists led the way in seceding from the Union and in founding the Confederate States of America, it was the moderates who in fact came to the fore and held all the power in the new nation-to-be, even as the ideals that led originally to secession and the founding of the Confederacy were mostly lost as the war progressed.

“Liberty’s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World”, by Maya Jasanoff

 

480 pages, Alfred A. Knopf, ISBN-13: 978-1400041688

Maya Jasanoff’s Liberty’s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World is well-written and thoroughly researched but, when it comes to providing any new or revelatory information…eh, not so much. Oh, she deals fairly enough with those who opposed the American Revolution and their tales of woe as exiles in Canada, the British Isles, Nova Scotia and elsewhere across the length and breadth of the British Empire, but I found it all to be rather tired. One can feel sorry for these non-revolutionaries alright, principally because of the many unkept promises made by His Majesty’s government but, frankly, they never generated sympathy from me as I did not believe in their (un)cause. I will say, however, that Jasanoff has provided, perhaps, the first synthetic overview of the history of these poor, poor loyalists, for while there really is nothing new in her scholarship, she has managed to compile in a single sours some 80 years’ worth of scholarship on these Never-Wanted-To-Be-Americans.

But perhaps they should not be too pitied, as these Not-Yankees raised a pretty serious stink in their new homes around the empire upon which the sun never set, especially in the Bahamas, where their schemes to transplant their cotton empires floundered and their racism made everyone’s lives hell, while Canada was never the same when these similar but still-different colonials showed up with their familiar but still-strange attitudes. And they never stopped planning to overthrow the newly independent US of A or plotting any number of outlandish schemes, like independent Indian nations and whatnot (which wasn’t a priority when they were still colonists, funnily enough). So anyway, Liberty’s Exiles retells an oft-told tale well without really adding anything new to the mix, while also bringing these tales together in one single source. Sooooo…okay.

“Yiddish Civilisation: The Rise and Fall of a Forgotten Nation”, by Paul Kriwaczek

 

384 pages, Alfred A. Knopf, ISBN-13: 978-1400040872

Okay, bear with me for a moment: back in 2012 or so I was reading The Napoleonic Wars: The Rise and Fall of an Empire by Gregory Fremont-Barnes and Todd Fisher (reviewed on May 2^nd, 2014) and, well, grew increasingly bored with it. Not because it was badly written or poorly executed – it is, after all, an Osprey Book – but I realized that, as I was reading yet another book on the Napoleonic Wars and was familiar with all that I was reading, I was no longer being challenged, nor discovering anything new. I was just walking over well-trod ground. Which is when I decided to expand my horizons a tad and start buying books outside of my comfort zone about subjects I had, hitherto, little or no knowledge of.

Which is where Yiddish Civilisation: The Rise and Fall of a Forgotten Nation by Paul Kriwaczek comes in (don’t be like Spellcheck; that’s how he spells “Civilization”). I got this off of the Barnes & Noble (I know, you’ve heard that one before) used book department for a mere $3.50. What Kriwaczek tries to do in his 384 pages is record the entire history of the Jewish people, but especially their time in Europe. This is a tall order as you can well imagine, but I’m pleased to say that Kriwaczek pulls it off. I mean, this is a broad-strokes kinda book, with several thousand years condensed into a few pages, but he managed to write an interesting if, at times, jarring book focusing on a Civilization – er, Civilisation – that has been around for a long time, but always on the periphery of other, larger and more dominate cultures.

But while this book filled in many gaps in my knowledge of Jewish culture, the author has a bad habit of overstating…everything. According to Kriwaczek, the fall of Yiddish Civilisation came about in 1764 after the dissolution of the Council of the Four Lands by the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. While Jewish political influence was, no doubt, affected by this political development, Kriwaczek is on weaker ground in arguing that this was matched by a cultural dilution. By whom was this civilization forgotten? Certainly not by the Jews themselves. And also according to Kriwaczek, Jewish settlers have been behind every drive to settle and civilize Europe and the world since…well, forever. While an anti-Semite will declare that “Da JOOZ are behind everything!” with a scowl, Kriwaczek says essentially the same thing, only with a smile.

While Kriwaczek’s book is an admirable attempt to record the history of the Ashkenazi Jews, from their early origins to their near destruction by the Nazis and continued growth in the New World – and while he certainly brings many hidden gems of culture and learning to light – there is still much left to be desired. He wants there to be this thing called Yiddish Civilisation that is self-governing and internally consistent AND divorced from the Jewish religion while simultaneously providing a string of counterexamples to his thesis. Thus, I can honestly say that this contradictory book both enlightened and confused me: I know more about the Jewish people now than I did when I began reading it, but feel that I am still ignorant of so much. Pity.

“The Story of the Irish Race”, by Seumas MacManus

 

736 pages, Chartwell Books, ISBN-13: 978-0785836414

The Story of the Irish Race was first written by über-Irishman Seumas MacManus back in 1922 and has been reprinted several times since then (my copy, which I circled for months at my local 2^nd & Charles before taking the literary plunge, is from 2018). James MacManus (Seumas is just so much more Irish, dontchaknow) was an Irish author, dramatist and poet who spent a great deal of his life reinterpreting Irish folktales for 20^th Century readers. In this way he became a modern-day seanchaí, a storyteller of the ancient oral tradition of the Irish and Celtic peoples and, so, most of the early part of this book – which constitutes some 29 of the 81 chapters of the whole – are a recording of the ancient myths and tales the Irish people have told one another around their peat fires for millennia – and NOT a proper history of Ireland (in this way, MacManus is kind of like Ireland’s answer to Thomas Bulfinch). Starting with chapter 30, we get a proper history book of Ireland as written by an Irish patriot and, thus, not at all nonpartisan and, so, not very accurate.

The tale MacManus invokes is one in which a thriving Irish nation is torn apart by internal conflicts exasperated by invading Englishmen who then subjugate this proud people and oppress them at every turn until they reemerge into the modern world, a Nation Once Again.  All very Irish. But for all of his praising of the Ireland of old – that is, Ireland as told in tales and myths and legends which may or may not have really existed but let’s pretend that it did as the reality sucks – it would appear that Ireland got up and running when the English missionary (Oops!) St. Patrick came along and converted all those heathen Irish to Christianity. He refers to the Romano-British Saint in almost worshipful terms and praises him for making Ireland what it is today (or, the today of 1922). Whether or not the Reader thinks that is a good thing, I leave it up to them. But worse, from an historical perspective, is his praise of St Bridget as a real flesh and blood person when there is, in fact, very little evidence that she existed at all; it is more likely that Bridget was an appropriated native goddess transformed into a Catholic Saint, a tried and true Christian way to convert the local pagans en masse to The Word.

The Story of the Irish Race then is a work of fiction, and while the early myths from the times of misty legends may be enjoyed for what they are, anything that touches on the modern-day history of Ireland should be taken with a grain of salt…scratch that, which a heaping steam-shovel load of salt.

“Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon”, by Craig Nelson

 

416 pages, Viking, ISBN-13: 978-0670021031

I, for one, have nothing against chain bookstores: I shop Barnes & Noble all the time, 2^nd & Charles is one of my go-to stops and I still shed a tear or two whenever I think of Borders, but I will forever have a soft spot for small time, independent bookstores, like Bring Your Old Books on Van Dyke Avenue in suburban Shelby Township, MI, which is where I found Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon by Craig Nelson for $1 – because this particular copy is beat all to hell, with the pages coming away from the spine and some even falling out of the same. But, hey, a book for a buck, even a beat-up book, is still a bargain where I come from, so what the hell.

So, anyway, what to make of Rocket Men? As a technical tour-de-force, this ain’t it, for the hows and whys of rocket science are little discussed by Nelson (for that, I would suggest A Man on the Moon: One Giant Leap/The Odyssey Continues/Lunar Explorers by Andrew Chaikin, reviewed on December 9^th, 2021). No, the author’s chief concerns are the Men behind the Rockets: the engineers, scientists, designers and, especially, the astronauts are what interests Nelson as he brings these sometimes forgotten and often misunderstood men to life. And in 1969 to boot, when our nation was painfully divided, the Apollo 11 mission was probably the one achievement that could unite Americans of all stripes in pride. Looking back at the past four decades, has America done anything else to warrant the same swell of love and gratification from all bands of the political spectrum? I think not.

At its worst, Rocket Men can descend into nothing more than a boring collection of quotes from the protagonists, famous and no (even a gas station attendant is quoted at one point). But, if you power through these sometimes deadening sections, Nelson shows us just how heroic these pioneers of space exploration truly were; before I read this book I had little inclination of the tremendous human dramas that underlay this epic (American) achievement, but Nelson tells the tales of both the scientists and the astronauts of Apollo 11 in realistic (yet romantic) detail that filled me with long overdue admiration and gratitude.

“Henry VIII”, by J. J. Scarisbrick

 

561 pages, University of California Press, ISBN-13: 978-1125174913

John K. King Used & Rare Books is an independent bookseller located in the abandoned Advance Glove factory at 901 West Lafayette Boulevard in Detroit, Michigan – and from whom I have purchased scads of books in the past (me and my Dad making our semiannual, bi-yearly trek to King’s Books was an event we looked forward to, year after year; damn shame we stopped for some reason I don’t remember).

So, anyway, it is from King’s Books that I acquired Henry VIII by J. J. Scarisbrick (that would be Professor John Joseph Scarisbrick, a British historian who taught at the University of Warwick and who, as of this writing, is still alive. Well Done, J.J.), and glad I did, too. As a professional historian, Scarisbrick evaluated the source material used by him for its context, customs, bias and motives, more so than most historians did back in 1968, when his biography of Great Harry was originally published. He offers his unvarnished thoughts on the work of other Tudor scholars before stating his own (not, it must be said, always with tact). For an academic history, his biography is actually a pleasant read overall and his writing is often quite engaging (although the minutiae on canon law might be a good soporific for insomniacs).

But perhaps J.J.’s greatest contribution to the canon on Hal the 8^th is his moderate discussions on this most complicated and vexing of monarchs. He takes note, without qualification, of Henry’s positive and even enlightened qualities and achievements without ignoring his (many) faults and failings; in short, this is a balanced portrait of a man whose decisions changed the course of European history and, by extension, world history. In J.J.’s words, “maybe he [Henry] was no more unaware and irresponsible than many kings have been; but rarely if ever have the unawareness and irresponsibility of a king proved more costly of material benefit to his people”.

The good Professor sees Henry for the human being that he was, warts and all, and does not consign him to the ash-heap of history as a mere tyrant. Granted, Henry VIII was, I believe, the most powerful monarch England has ever known, seeing as he was master not only of the secular, but of the ecclesiastical realms; and he did not hesitate to use that secular and ecclesiastical power to the full when it suited him and his needs. But with J.J., we at least get a description of the man’s thinking behind his actions, a discussion of the man’s motives for his policies, and not mere condemnations of the same.

Henry VIII covers in depth the man and his time, offering detailed explorations of foreign ventures, the divorce case, the anticlericalism that motivated the Reformation and other issues that arose throughout the reign. The wealth of information and analysis is formidable for a 50+ year old book (even if, sometimes, a little tedious), but the reader comes away with a solid understanding of the significant matters of Great Harry’s reign.