One is in at least two minds in listening to “The Old Man and the Boy”. On the one hand, a listener is fascinated and learns a great deal about hunting and fishing. On the other, one sees how a young intelligent boy is influenced in good and bad ways by people he knows and the environment in which he lives.
“The Old Man and the Boy” is serialized for “Field and Stream” in 1953.
The author, Robert Ruark, is a North Carolinian. “The Old Man and the Boy” is a memoir of his youth. As an adult, he is characterized on the internet as a hard drinking outdoorsman who travels the world, writes books, and publishes articles in magazines like “Field and Stream” and “Playboy”.
Scenes and experiences recall the author’s life in rural North Carolina before the depression. This is a time when the word Negro is used to describe Black Americans.
Ruark’s brief notes about Black families reflect a paternalism and assumed inferiority of the “colored race”.
The “Old Man…” in Ruark’s story is his grandfather. The author shows how impactful grandparents can be in a young person’s life.
The grandfather teaches the boy about the ethics of hunting.
Along the way, he introduces the boy to life by teaching him the fundamentals of hunting and education provided by books and experience. Some lessons are farsighted, some shortsighted.
Preservation of the ecosystem is explained to the boy in different ways.
The grandfather explains why it is important limit one’s catch of fish or animals killed. Hunting should be for no more than what can be eaten or needed for species maintenance.
Ruark tells a funny story of an untrainable goat that suggests some animals cannot be domestically trained. Dogs are eminently trainable; horses and some goats are not, in the grandfather’s opinion.
The grandfather characterizes women as homemakers with little understanding of what constitutes education and work versus idleness. The grandfather offers a dim view of women with poor justification for male idleness.
The boy is introduced to liquor by his mentor. His insightful grandfather takes a nip or two or three after, never before, a day’s hunting or fishing.
The boy makes friends with a local coast guard captain. The boy tags along on Coast Guard’ rum runner captures and is introduced to both the danger and occasional imbibing by Coast Guard’ shipmates of gains from rum-runner’ interdictions. Coincidentally, Ruark dies from cirrhosis of the liver at age 49, mostly attributed to alcoholism.
This is an entertaining, period piece story. It offers insights to hunting and fishing to anyone who has done or wishes to truly experience the great outdoors. It is a book of its time that reflects a reality of what it was like to live in rural North Carolina in the 1920s.
Notes on a Foreign Country (An American Abroad in a Post-American World)
By: Suzy Hansen
Narrated by Kirsten Potter
Suzy Hansen (Author, journalist.)
In her thirties, Suzy Hansen chooses to relocate to Turkey, in part because of a writing assignment but also as a life changing experience.
Hansen’s view of the world is disappointing in that it represents a population cohort positioned to inherit America’s future. Hansen reports facts with a journalist’s interpretation of other’s perception of American foreign policy without history’s context.
To an older generation, Hansen’s facts denigrate the realpolitik of life in the presence of its time.
In many respects, Hansen’s view of America’s moral failure is spot on, but no country is without sin. Without intending to deny the ugly consequence of President Truman’s decision to drop the bomb, or America’s intent to widen its sphere of influence, Hansen ignores some important facts.
America’s experience in WWII left little doubt to most Americans that the Japanese would fight to the end, even in defeat. Over 41,000 Americans were killed and 145,000 injured in Pacific conflicts. Japanese culture demanded fealty to an emperor to the point of suicide in the face of defeat.
As horrendous as the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were, it ended war with Japan in less than a week. How many more would have died in a continuing battle? This does not diminish the horror of nuclear war, but its reality defied 20th century’s imagination.
After the war, Japan, Greece, and Turkey, let alone Europe, were in dire straits. The Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plans were created to rebuild much of what was destroyed in the war. There is no question American capitalism profited by its investment in these countries. However, no other country had the untapped wealth that capitalism created in America. What nation could take on reconstruction without American capitalist success?
America did take advantage of its wealth by imposing democratic ideals on foreign countries. However, mistakes Hansen notes in her book are more a function of cultural ignorance and capitalist fervor than evil intent.
Hansen fails to mention the power grab by Stalinist Russia as a major factor in creating an American counter force to Stalinist acquisitiveness. The Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan created a shield against Stalinism.
America continues to make mistakes in other countries for many of the same capitalist reasons they did after the war. America supports some of the most immoral autocrats of the world because they control their countries. American support of despots is based on America’s perceived self-interest. As with any foreign country’s foreign policy decisions, self-interest can be a mistake recognized only in history. One must acknowledge “self-interest” pervades all human beings, let alone independent nations.
Only with more investment in understanding other cultures, in the way that George Kennan understood the U.S.S.R., can good foreign policies be formulated.
The reality is–many mistakes are based on cultural ignorance.
Hansen presumes America is in decline. America is not in decline, but other countries are advancing, and America is becoming an equal, not a hegemon. The lesson America must re-learn is the importance of sovereignty and culture difference. There should be no more Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan invasions. This is not to argue isolationism which seems implied by Hansen’s stories. America must use its financial strength to influence other nations to become better stewards of their citizens, whether through democratic ideals or their chosen form of governance.
Hansen ignores many facts to make her case for America’s failures. It is difficult to listen to “Notes on a Foreign Country” because it only reports on mistakes, not America’s example as a free Republic.
David Kyle Johnson (Lecturer, Associate Professor of Philosophy at King’s College in Pennsylvania)
David Johnson’s first thirty lectures revolve around proof of God, the definition of reason, knowledge, truth, and the existence of free will. Those lectures, though logically consistent, are a slog and may cause listeners to stop listening. However, the last six chapters of Johnson’s lectures are rewarding summaries of government philosophy and the meaning of life.
Johnson questions several arguments about God’s existence by revealing their logic and evidentiary failings. Johnson defines reason, truth, knowledge, and testimony as falsifiable evidence for God’s existence. He challenges arguments about the existence of soul, and what it means to be free. He explains the significance of mind and body, good and evil, and personal identity. Along the way, he defines good and evil with various side trips showing how we “ought” rather than “how” we really live. Johnson’s attacks many, if not all, substantive philosophical arguments for the existence of God. His noted weaknesses of many philosophical beliefs about God, truth, and knowledge are mind numbing.
The first two thirds of Johnson’s philosophical analysis conclude God’s existence is an unverifiable truth, solely dependent on the chimera of faith.
In contrast, Johnson’s summary of government philosophy and the meaning of life are both entertaining, and informative.
There is a good deal of bias in this review because of personal interest. The first thirty chapters may be of more interest to some, but his analysis of the history of economic and political theory remind one of how great it is to be steeped in western culture.
Lecture 31 one asks—Should Government Exist? Johnson suggests the alternative for government is anarchy. He offers three categories of anarchy, i.e., theoretical, serious, and violent. All three question governments’ moral authority.
From an American perspective, the only substantive concern is with the category of serious anarchy. Serious anarchy is Johnson’s category of what is known as Libertarianism in the United States.
Rand Paul, US Senator from Kentucky
The most famous American Libertarians are Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Thomas Sowell, the Koch brothers, Steve Forbes, and Peter Thiel. Essentially, they believe government should be restricted to defense of the country with citizens responsible for their own actions. The only law should be moral law because government-imposed law restricts personal autonomy. There should be no government regulation that infringes on personal autonomy in social, or economic policy.
Lecture 32 asks—What Justifies a Government? Johnson recalls luminaries like Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
John LockeJean Jaques Rousseau
Hobbes viewed citizens as naturally power hungry and that government is necessary to protect citizens from being harmed by acquisitive neighbors. Locke suggests citizens enter a social contract with a government when they choose to become members of a nation-state and by contract will not be allowed to infringe on a neighbor’s freedom of choce, liberty, or pursuit of happiness. In the case of Locke, laws are passed to protect citizens by a government Republic that represents the will of the people who vote for them. Rousseau agrees with Locke but insists on direct democracy to establish any laws meant to protect citizens. Each of these men influence the founding fathers in writing an American constitution.
Lecture 33 asks—How Big Should Government Be? Johnson summarizes the economic philosophies of Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and John Maynard Keynes who shape much of what American government has become.
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES (1883-1946)
The economy of America is largely based on Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations”. Though many know of Adam Smith, few seem to have closely read “Wealth of Nations” to clearly understand what he said about economic growth. There have been many interpretations of “the invisible hand” that range from an extreme that suggests self-interest is all that matters in an economy to price-controlling when competition is driving businesses into bankruptcy. Neither extreme represents Smith’s belief in “the invisible hand”. Neither self-interest nor competition is all that matters for an economy to grow. Smith tempers self-interest by arguing it cannot be adhered to at the expense of the common good. Smith endorses competition when it lowers prices for the public. However, Smith notes monopolies created from aggressive acquisition of competitors restricts competition and infringes on the common good.
Karl Marx addresses the threat of capitalism making slaves of workers who are undercompensated for their labor that only benefits entrepreneurs who own businesses without fairly compensating their employees.
History has shown the weakness of Marx’s argument. Labor organizes to increase compensation for labor. More than labor costs determine value. There is the willing buyer and seller that determine the cost of any business’s survival. Marx ignores too many other variables when valuing labor without addressing risk to entrepreneurs, the cost of doing business, and the inherent inventiveness of capitalist self-interest.
John Maynard Keynes is a preeminent economic theorist who recognizes the weaknesses of capitalism. Capitalism engenders economic crashes, panics, recessions, and depressions.
Johnson notes Keynesian economic theory ameliorates those threats by deficit spending when “the invisible hand” fails the common good. Johnson suggests Keynes offers a middle ground between Smith and Marx. The inevitable problem is knowing where the line is to be drawn between government overreach and an “invisible hand” which benefits the common good.
The next two lectures address the limits of liberty and societal fairness. America is among the richest countries in the world, but homelessness seems to grow with each passing year. Having traveled some, it appears America is doing a poorer job of dealing with poverty and homelessness than more autocratic countries like China. One picks China as a contrast because it has a population of 1.4 billion versus 320 million in America. The wealth of American citizens far outweighs the wealth of Chinese citizens. U.S. per-capita income is estimated to be 5.78 times higher than China’s.
One sees no homeless people sleeping in parks or on the sidewalks of major cities like Beijing, Hong Kong, or Guangzhou in China. America is not doing a very good job of drawing the line between government outreach and the impact of capitalist self-interest when it comes to homelessness. This is not to argue limits to liberty in China are either better or worse than America’s ineptitude. However, managing homelessness is a distinct societal unfairness in America. This is a national problem that needs to be addressed by American government policy based on the welfare of its citizens.
At the end of Johnson’s lectures, one is reminded of Plato’s fictional writing about the Oracle of Delphi identifying Socrates as the wisest of Greeks.
Socrates (Greek Philosopher, 470 BC to 399 BC.)
Plato writes that Socrates disbelieves the Oracle. He questions scholars of his time to find they know no more than him. However, he concludes “xero katie pou den xero tipota” or “I know something that I know nothing”.
The final chapter of Johnson’s lectures is “What is the Meaning of Life”.
There is no definitive answer. Maybe, it is the number 42, the nonsensical conclusion of the Bible noting “The Duration of Suffering”. (It is also Douglas Adams ironic answer in “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”.)
Barrett suggests experiment confirms the brain is a singular organ, functioning as a network that controls human thought and action based on experience and memory.
Barrett argues the brain is not for thinking but for survival.
Barrett’s interpretation of Darwinian evolution suggests brains evolve based on random events. A human brain evolves into a network of axons and dendrites that are not segregated but coordinated to preserve human existence.
However, Barrett notes that non-use or lack of firing by a neuron will render it dormant. Key to maintenance of neuronal activity is repetitive firing. (Parenthetically, Barrett notes solitary confinement is cruel and unusual punishment for that reason.) Firing multiplies the bushy ends of the neuron (the dendrites) which can become lifelong connections for thought and action. Barrett suggests the early years of childhood should be filled with opportunities to learn through different experiences. She believes exposure to different languages at an early age makes later life language-learning easier.
Barrett explains–through environmental influences human brains wire themselves to the world. Each wired connection comes from repeated events that substantiate the principle of neurons firing together to become wired together. If neurons are not stimulated, they become dormant. Barrett argues brain plasticity is based on neuronal activity which suggests different areas of a brain can be retrained to repair some functions of a damaged brain.
Barrett explains human brain’ function evolves over much longer periods of time than other mammals.
Barrett notes neuronal activity evolves in humans over the first twenty or more years of their lives. This longer period of evolution allows more flexibility in neuronal activity than is inherent for other species of the animal kingdom.
The mixed benefit of a longer period of neuronal evolution is evidenced by a calf, giraffe, or deer that can walk soon after birth while a human takes two to three years.
The benefit of longer neuronal evolution is a human child’s time to increase and improve neuronal connections based on wider experience. Though humans may not learn to walk as quickly as a baby Giraffe, they learn more from the changing environment in which they live.
Barrett goes on to argue that words spoken by one person to another modify brain function based on one’s experience and memory. This reinforces realization that words do matter. When one is constantly criticized or ridiculed, the impact of words on human behavior is highly consequential. Barrett explains occasional criticism has little effect on neuronal activity, but repetitive criticism can significantly impact the way a brain’s neurons wire together with permanent effects on human behavior.
This gives credence to psychotherapeutic treatment to discover why humans act as they do. Psychotherapy offers a mechanism for changing one’s behavior. This harks back to Barrett’s notes about brain plasticity.
Barrett believes every human being has a “body budget”. That budget is added to or subtracted from by neuronal activity that is grounded in human relationship. Barrett argues humans are social creatures. Barrett infers relationships have great consequence on how humankind views and lives in the world. She argues human relations can either add or subtract from one’s body budget.
The question becomes–what relational qualities add or subtract to one’s body budget? Barrett infers love and empathy add while hate and apathy subtract from the body budget. Becoming the best of who we are seems up to us.
The Club (Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age)
By: Leo Damrosch
Narrated by Simon Vance
Leo Damrosch (American author and professor of Literature at Harvard)
“The Club” is more of a biography of James Boswell than “…the Friends Who Shaped an Age”.
James Boswell (1740-1795, died at 54, Lawyer, diarist, biographer.).
Though many pages reflect on Samuel Johnson (best known for the “Dictionary of The English Language”), the primary source of information on Johnson, as well as “…the Friends…”, appears to come from Boswell’s diary and notes.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784, died at age 75, Author, poet, playwright, moralist, editor, and lexicographer.)
An irony of Damrosch’s story is that Boswell neither has the intellectual depth nor historical significance of Johnson or many of the “…Friends who shaped an Age”. What Leo Damrosch explains is Boswell is a great mime for the opinions and voices of Johnson and Friends. Damrosch suggests Boswell is the first biographer to capture natural dialog with detailed features of friends and acquaintances.
In some ways, Boswell is like a court jester, eliciting laughter and opinion in a court of higher-ranking superiors.
Damrosch is not denigrating Boswell’s contribution to historical information but shows Boswell as a bon vivant, rather than an intellectual. “The Club” is an association of writers, artists, and thinkers formed in a London tavern in the 1760s. Damrosch notes that the club is formed by Joshua Reynolds, a noted portrait artist. In addition to Reynolds, the original members are Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund Burke, John Hawkins, Topham Beauclerk, Anthony Chamier, Bennet Langton, and Christopher Nugent. To become a member of the club, one is elected by existing members.
Sir Joshua Reynold’s Club
Boswell, Edward Gibbon, and Adam Smith become members in the 1770s. From an American perspective, the names of Reynolds, Johnson, Burke, Gibbon, and Smith are the best known. Many will recognize Reynolds for portrait paintings of famous people of that time. Reynold’s portraits are in galleries today. Damrosch notes the portraits represent the best of what a person looks like with creative enhancements of the subject’s best features. Burke is famous for vilification of the French Revolution and his conservative views of government. Gibbon is famous for his “…History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, and Johnson for his dictionary.
Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792, died age 68, Portrait Artist.)Samuel Johnson (1709-1784, died at age 75, Author, poet, playwright, moralist, editor, and lexicographer.)Edmund Burke (1729-1797, Irish statesman)Edward Gibbon (1737-1794, died age 56, Author.).Adam Smith (1723-1790, died age 67, Economist, Author.)
Contrary to what Damrosch notes, it does not appear David Garrick, a famous Shakespearean actor and producer, was in that club but had his own tavern club called the Garrick Club. Garrick had been a pupil of Samuel Johnson. Damrosch may have identified Garrick as a member of “The Club” because of his association with Johnson.
David Garrick (1717-1779, died age 62, English actor, playwright, theater manager, and producer.)
Boswell is characterized by Damrosch as an excellent conversationalist because of an ability to listen and ask questions that have interest for those whom he questions. However, at times, Damrosch notes Johnson becomes irritated with Boswell’s questions because of their vacuous value. The example given is Boswell’s question to Johnson about why Apples are round while Pears grow with narrow shoulders and wide hips.
Boswell’s question to Johnson-why are Apples round while Pears grow with narrow shoulders and wide hips?
Damrosch shows Boswell comes from a wealthy, aristocratic family. He is the eldest son, in line to receive the wealth of his family when his father dies. Boswell moves to London to become an attorney but fails to learn his profession well enough to be financially or reputationally successful. He meets Johnson whom he admires, and through association, Boswell manages to meet the movers and shakers of his day. Boswell becomes a diarist that records his life and the lives of people he meets. His writing makes him famous, largely because of his association with Samuel Johnson and his remarkable ability to reproduce the natural conversation of “…Friends Who Shaped an Age”.
Boswell, from Damrosch’s description, is a hedonist. He lives for pleasure from conversation with luminaries, drinking to excess, and dalliance with women of the street and lovers whom he seduces.
Boswell is characterized as a pursuer of women who have an interest in sexual encounters for pay or pleasure. Boswell’s lifestyle leads to periodic treatment for crabs and other sexually transmitted diseases.
Damrosch notes that Boswell marries but continues his profligate behavior. Boswell professes love and remorse to his wife, who knows of his dalliances. She bares his behavior and accepts his remorse. His wife dies of consumption with seeming disregard by Boswell’s self-absorption.
Margaret Boswell (1738-1789. died at age 51.)
Boswell inherits his father’s wealth but squanders it and fails as a barrister. Nearing the end of his life, he produces the best biography of Samuel Johnson ever written. It becomes a best seller in his time and is still read by some today. Damrosch notes Boswell’s contribution to biography is in making his subjects human by including detailed descriptions of their appearance, and emotive qualities.
More detailed information about the lives of Edmund Burke, Edward Gibbon, and Adam Smith would have made “The Club” more interesting to this reviewer but any who have listened to other narratives by Simon Vance will be pleased by Damrosch’s story. At the least, a struggling writer may be encouraged to keep a diary of life’s events to become a better author.
William Taubman (Author, Political Science professor at Amherst College, received 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Biography of Krushchev.)
The length of William Taubman’s audiobook requires a Gorbachev II review. The first review addresses Gorbachev’s personal life. The second reflects on Gorbachev’s political life. Gorbachev’s life is suffused with great accomplishment and tragic failure.
Georgy Malenkov replaces Joseph Stalin after his death in 1953. Malenkov is believed to be a reformist who plans to reduce military spending and Stalinist suppression.
However, within weeks, Malenkov is pushed aside by Nikita Khrushchev who takes supreme power within two years of Stalin’s death. Surprisingly, Khrushchev becomes something of a reformist himself.
Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971, First Secy. of the Communist Party 1953-1964)
Stalin’s autocratic, paranoid leadership is semi-privately exposed by Khrushchev in a speech to the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Khruschev’s vilification of Stalinist suppression, imprisonment, and murder eventually become known to the world.
The overriding concern of Russian leaders is to maintain suzerainty over Baltic nations and satellite territories in the face of ethnic and economic diversity. Taubman notes older Russian leaders tend toward autocratic dictate to maintain political control. The younger and more politically astute lean toward confederation of adjacent soviet republics and East Berlin with the U.S.S.R. as an umbrella organization. Gorbachev is in the “politically astute” group.
Mikhail Gorbachev rises to chairman of the Communist Party and eventual President of the U.S.S.R., with the expressed intent of democratizing the Baltics, Russia, and East Berlin into a democratic socialist block. However, ethnic, and cultural differences, accompanied by general economic failure, defeat Gorbachev’s unionist objective.
There is no question of Gorbachev’s success in democratizing U.S.S.R.’ citizens.
However, in that democratization, the drive for independence becomes paramount to the satellite countries. German reunification, and the breakaway of Baltic nations from the U.S.S.R. is inevitable. Freedom, based on ethnic and cultural identity, surmount all efforts by Gorbachev to reinstate U.S.S.R. suzerainty. Only by force could the U.S.S.R. prevail over state and territorial independence. Taubman notes force is not within Gorbachev’s nature as a leader.
Once socialist democracy is dangled before the electorate, the die is cast. Gorbachev’s governance could not provide enough economic stability to justify confederation. That is his tragic failure.
Gorbachev’s immense success is liberating millions of former U.S.S.R. citizens. With liberation, former citizens of the U.S.S.R. return to govern as citizens of their own countries. This at a time of Reagan’s conservative government in the United States, and European distrust of U.S.S.R. militarization. Taubman shows Gorbachev becomes an international hero based on his personality and persuasive power. He is greeted as the great liberator of the twentieth century even though his primary objective is to retain those countries seeking freedom within the U.S.S.R.
Gorbachev raised the bar for nuclear disarmament by cultivating American and European participation in the reduction of nuclear weapons.
Taubman explains Gorbachev is a tragic hero because momentum-of-change is halted by a cult of personality, compounded by economic insecurity. Gorbachev is replaced by acting President, Alexander Rutskoy, after the 1993 constitutional crises. Rutskoy is replaced by a second acting President, Viktor Chernomyrdin. Boris Yeltsin succeeds Chernomyrdin as President in an overlapping term.
The Russian economy falters in its transition from communism to democratic socialism. Russian history of “rule-of-one” reasserts itself with the rise of an incompetent President (Boris Yeltsin) and an autocratic but effective leader, Vladimir Putin. However, Putin’s autocratic effectiveness is in question with the invasion of Ukraine.
Taubman suggests and infers Gorbachev’s success, and world history in general, are two steps forward with one step backward. Based on historical precedent of “one-man-rule” (dating back to czarist Russia) Taubman’s inference seems spot-on.
Boris Yeltsin (1931-2007, President of Russia 1990-1999.)Vladmir Putin (Becomes President of Russia after Yeltsin with possible lifetime tenure.
Gorbachev flipped a switch that released the power of democracy but failed to provide adequate economic infrastructure to assure U.S.S.R. survival. Taubman optimistically infers economic infrastructure of eastern bloc countries will improve overtime, even with autocratic leadership by people like Vladimir Putin.
The growth of democracy has always been messy, but it moves forward in the face of temporary setbacks. Spheres of influence will always be in play. It seems a matter of time for another Gorbachev to make two more steps forward with a repeat of the next leader’s “one-step-backward”. It appears in 2022, Putin makes that “one-step-backward” with the invasion of Ukraine. Taubman reminds readers of America’s trial in the civil war. Slavery is abolished but institutional racism remains a work in progress. The risk is that the world destroys itself before freedom and economic security become real for all.
William Taubman (Author, Political Science professor at Amherst College, received 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Biography of Krushchev.)
Having reviewed the first two books of the planned Stalin trilogy by Stephen Kotkin, it seems wise to review William Taubman’s “Gorbachev”. Kotkin’s analysis suggests Stalin was a pragmatic autocrat who systematically eliminated potential adversaries who might challenge his leadership. In contrast, Taubman’s Gorbachev is characterized as a democratic rather than autocratic leader. This is not to say Gorbachev is less strong willed than an autocrat, but Taubman suggests he chooses to listen to both equals and subordinates before deciding and acting. Kotkin shows Stalin keeps his own counsel before deciding and acts as his paranoid behavior demands. Gorbachev is a politician, not a dictator.
Mikhail Gorbachev (Pres. of the Soviet Union 1990-1991, General Secy. of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union 1985l-1991.)
Through force of intellect, ambition, and persuasion Gorbachev tries and fails to reify Leninist socialism. Gorbachev’s ambition is to turn an increasingly dysfunctional Russian autocracy to democratic socialism. Democratic socialism would theoretically provide Russian citizens a voice in control of their fate.
Taubman notes Gorbachev is a student of Lenin’s writing. Gorbachev argues for change in Russia to what Lenin called democratic socialism. Gorbachev’s belief is that the 1917 revolution is more than a rebellion against monarchy
Gorbachev is not alone in believing Stalin abandoned Leninist idealism by instituting a government of the one in control of the many. Many historians note Lenin did not want Stalin to succeed him as the leader of the revolution.
Kotkin suggests Lenin views Stalin as a soldier who enforces discipline but fails to understand the importance of creating a platform for power to the people.
The sad consequence of Stalinist history is that it reinforces kleptocracy, “a society or system ruled by people who use their power to steal their country’s resources”.
Taubman shows Gorbachev understood Stalinism from personal life experience. Taubman explains how Gorbachev comes from humble surroundings in a farming village in Russia. Gorbachev sees firsthand how the idea of collective farming decreases, rather than increases productivity. The bureaucratization of collective farming has the same impact in communist Russia as it did in communist China. Leaders in charge of collective farms distort production quotas to make themselves look good to superiors. The result is either lower productivity, or worse, the famines of 1920s and 30s in Russia and the 1950s in China. (This is not to say famines do not occur in democracies, but the cause of famine is not bureaucratic lying but nature, or something beyond human control.)
Gorbachev loved his father and adored his grandfather. Both parents were great influences on Gorbachev’s belief in hard work and education. Gorbachev’s mother is the disciplinarian in the family. She rules the young Gorbachev with a belt until he is old enough to say, “no more”. “Tough love” from Gorbachev’s mother, in Taubman’s telling, instills respect for women. Taubman suggests Gorbachev’s choice of a wife is based on belief in equal partnership to help him achieve life’s evolving goals.
Taubman suggests Raisa, Gorbachev’s wife, is an equal partner in his decisions in life and in governing the Soviet Union.
A reader/listener is only halfway through the book at this point. The last half of this 32-hour narration deals with Gorbachev’s failure as the eighth and final leader of the Soviet Union.
Jonathan Eig (Author, Former reporter for WSJ, Eig also wrote Luckiest Man, and Opening Day.).
Jonathan Eig’s research of Muhammed Ali’s life offers some surprises to listener/readers. One who grew up in the sixties will be reminded, entertained, and appalled by Eig’s biography of the greatest heavyweight fighter of all time. Muhammed Ali, aka Cassius Clay, The Greatest, The Champ, The Louisville Lip, and less flattering nicknames, shows Ali lives up to every name noted in Eig’s biography of Muhammed Ali.
A criticism one may have of Eig’s detailed biography is its length. The last chapters dwell on Ali’s deterioration as a boxer with more detail than necessary. It becomes too repetitive in its reification of a man’s life who is ultimately only human.
The defeat of Sonny Liston
One might think sports, particularly boxing, is no measure of intelligence. However, Eig notes Ali had an instinct for knowing when a punch is going to be thrown. Ali’s reflexes responded with such great speed punches often missed their target. That skill and Ali’s showmanship made him the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time. Ali’s voice and opinion during the early years of his fighting career show him to be a brilliant actor, comedic insulter, and revered representative of Black America. What hid the truth of Ali’s intelligence is standardized testing, and the social circumstance of the 1960s.
There are many forms of intelligence.
Ali is classified as 4f by the military when he flunks its reading and comprehension test for the draft. Eig suggests Ali is dyslexic which makes reading a laborious and unrewarding task. To reinforce the idea that Ali is dyslexic, Ali only receives a high school diploma because of his school principal’s intervention. The principal recognizes something in Ali that is missed by standardized tests. As most Americans know, Ali goes on to become the heavyweight champion of the world by beating Sonny Liston, a monster of a man who was a 7 to 1 favorite to beat Cassius Clay before the fight began. What is revealed by Eig’s research is the complexity, the joy, and sorrow of Muhammed Ali’s life and world renown.
Ali beats Sonny Liston and becomes the heavyweight champion of the world. After his ascension to champion, Ali does not want to be drafted. He does not see how he could be ineligible for the draft when he was evaluated by the service and found to be 4f but now is considered draftable. He enjoys his life as it is and notes that he has no desire to go to war against Vietcong for whom he has no understanding or hate. Ali refuses the draft without arguing his newly found Muslim faith could make him a conscientious objector. The government sentences him to 5 years in prison. Ali is stripped of his title and banned from boxing for 3 years. He is 25 years old and in the prime of his boxing career.
Those who grew up in the sixties knew of Ali whether they were sports fans or not. Vietnam is raging in the sixties. Many young, and some older Americans rebel against government overreach with anti-war protests, and human rights demonstrations.
While many enlist or are drafted into the service, a few burn their draft cards and escape to Canada. Some draft dodgers stay in America and publicly fight the draft because they view Vietnam as an unjust war. Ali chooses to stay in America and fight the draft based on his early 4f classification. Though that argument does not stand up, Ali refuses to be drafted.
With the help of growing public unrest, Ali is eventually released from a lower court’s charge of draft dodging by the Supreme Court of the United States. His ban from boxing is removed but only after the suspension removed Ali from the healthiest years of his boxing life.
What makes Eig’s biography so interesting is there is no singular motive for Ali’s choices in life. Ali is a human puzzle. He chooses to become a Muslim and devotes his life to the Nation of Islam (NOI). Ali appreciates NOI’s teaching because it directly challenges white America for unfair treatment of Black Americans. However, Ali is not a religious zealot. He is shown to be a human with many of the same failings of all human beings. He prays to Allah but violates many preachments of NOI. He pursues conjugal pleasures of other women while married.
Ali is suspended from NOI for a year by the order of NOI’s leader, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. The suspension is not because of philandering but because of Ali’s public pronouncements about boxing as the source of his fame and fortune.
Elijah Muhammed, the leader of NOI, considers sports and entertainment as frivolous and unworthy of anyone who believes in the Muslim faith. Ali accepts the punishment and is never officially released from his banishment, though he remains a Muslim.
Ali does not abandon his religion, but he says his greatest regret in life is having abandoned his friend, Malcolm X (aka Malcolm Little) who criticized Elijah Muhammad’s flaunting of marriage vows because of sexual relationships with women other than the leader’s wife.
Malcolm X is murdered. Some say he was murdered at the direction of NOI. One wonders if Ali is fearful of the power of Elijah Muhammed or just aware of NOI’s potential for harming followers if they differ with the leader’s pronouncement. Eig’s biography implies Ali’s intelligence and hedonism are likely motives for Ali’s actions, not fear of NOI’s punishment. After all, Ali is a prolific violator of his own marriage vows and cash income from fighting remain his most important goal. However, it is a puzzle that Ali said his biggest regret is abandoning his friendship with Malcom X who vilified Elijah Muhammad’s morality and rejected belief in a separate, exclusively Black, NOI nation.
Eig’s biography implies Ali is inadvertently, rather than deliberatively, on the right side of history. One wonders if it is inadvertent. Vietnam is a tragedy, badly managed by America. Resistance to the war, Malcolm X’s recognition of the equality of all human beings, and Ali’s regrets about their friendship being broken suggests something more about what Ali really believed. Hedonism is one of many faults of humanity. Eig clearly shows Ali is no Saint, but Eig implies Ali has a moral center beyond his ill treatment of women.
Boxer Muhammad Ali stands over boxer Sonny Liston after knocking him down during the first round of their match. Clay won the May 25, 1965 fight and retained his title as heavyweight champion.Ali and FrazierAmerican boxer and world heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali throws a long right to British challenger Henry Cooper’s injured left eye in the sixth round of their world heavyweight championship fight.
The last half of Eig’s book recalls Ali’s boxing matches, his relationships, and the terrible impact of boxing on the human brain and body. Ali is shown to be an inveterate user of prostitutes when training for fights regardless of its consequence to four marriages. (It’s interesting to note that the Muslim faith accepts the right of men to have four wives at the same time. This is forbidden in America but violated by more than one religion. Is it a coincidence that Ali marries four women?)
Sonji RoiBelinda and their 4 childrenVeronicaYolanda and their son
It is difficult to believe a fighter could fight for 15 rounds when 3 rounds for an amateur are exhausting. Ali’s stamina throughout his boxing life is seemingly supernatural. He loses and wins the Heavyweight Championship’ title 3 times in his boxing career.
Eig’s detailing of Ali’s fights is particularly interesting to anyone who has boxed as an amateur or professional. Eig points out Ali’s change in the way he fought left-handed boxers without understanding that leading with one’s right is what a trainer tells a right-handed fighter to do when fighting a lefty.
Ali, and opponents like Frazier, show energy and determination that seem other-worldly. One wonders how much of that energy and determination is based on subliminal punishment for a profligate or hedonistic life. That may be personal psychobabble more than objective interpretation of Eig’s biography of Ali. One may ask oneself; what avenues were open to Black Americans in the 1960s to become rich and famous in order to be hedonistic?
Ali obviously fought for money and fame, but Eig shows Ali and other boxing champions pay a very high price. Ali died at 74 years of age but suffered from diagnosed Parkinson’s for 32 of those years. Though there is no proven direct correlation for Parkinsons’ diagnosis, it has been shown that boxers are more suspectable than the general public to speech impediment, Alzheimer’s, and erratic body movement from blows to the head. Frazier died at the age of 67. (Ali was 33 and Frazier was 31 in the “Thrilla in Manilla”, the fight of the century–it is won by Ali in this third fight between the two, but that fight sent both to the hospital after its conclusion.)
Eig pulls no punches in his biography of Ali. Ali was a flawed human being that treated women as property. Ali entertained the world in his rise to fame. Ali made the most of what he could in the time he lived. Ali was the greatest in some ways and the least in others. He exemplified much of what many want to achieve but at a price few are willing to pay.
Destined for War (Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?
By: Graham Allison
Narrated by Richard Ferrone
Graham Allison (Author, American political scientist, Professor of Government at Harvard.)
Allison briefly reviews the history of war to reinforce an argument about its causes. He suggests wars come from the rise of competing hegemonic powers. A quibble one may have with Allison’s argument is that it diminishes reasons beyond power that led to WWII. The rise of Hitler may not have occurred if reparations for WWI had not been excessive. However, his main point is that cultural differences are seeds from which power and conflict grows. Allison suggests, when nation-state’ cultures are different, countries competing for political and economic power incline toward war. He gives many relevant and convincing examples.
Graham Allison suggests the cause of war is defined by Thucydides (Greek Historian of the Pelopnnnesian War, Born 460-455 B.C., Died 400 B.C.) in the fifth century BC.
The “Thucydides’s trap” is when one country achieves a competitive level of political power it challenges existing hegemonic powers, leading to conflict and probable war.
Allison argues that war is not inevitable but that to avoid it requires acceptance of spheres of influence. This is not a new concept. The terms “sphere of influence” became legally significant in the 1880s when Africa was being colonized by European countries. It was meant to explain a colonizer’s political claim for exclusive control of a particular area of the world.
Vladimir Putin argues Ukraine is Russian territory because it was a part of the U.S.S.R. under the repressive hand of Joseph Stalin. Putin like all colonizers believes his regime has a political claim for exclusive control of another country. He makes the same mistake of ignoring Ukrainian cultural identity, i.e., the same mistake of all interventionist countries of the world.
Allison notes that China’s Chairman Xi is the same as America’s Ex-President, Donald Trump. That “sameness” is Xi’s goal of making China “Great Again”.
Putin joins the ludicrous “Great Again” club with the invasion of Ukraine.
Allison explains China is culturally unique based on its history, reaching back to 1600 B.C. Like Ancient Egypt (3400-3200 B.C.), China is as culturally different as any nation-state in the world. Allison offers a highly intelligent and informative analysis of how different Chinese culture is from American culture.
To avoid war, Allison argues America, the alleged current hegemon of the world, must couch its political behavior and power in ways that acknowledge cultural difference between itself and rising presumed hegemons of the world.
Allison recalls the history of England’s dealings with America after the 1776 revolution. England reluctantly accepted America’s eventual rise to hegemon of the world. (Some would argue, England’s decision to remove itself from the European Union accelerates that decline.)
The United Kingdom’s economic, military, and political power (its sphere of influence) diminishes as America’s flourishes. England remains a power in the world, but its sphere of influence steadily declines.
Russia struggles with their sphere of influence because of the collapse of the U.S.S.R. In 2022 Russia invades Ukraine, just as they did Crimea in 2014, to re-expand its sphere of influence. Russia maneuvers to politically enlist China as an ally to accomplish that end. Putin undoubtedly cultivates China’s objection to America’s attempt to expand its sphere of influence in the far east.
The issues of Ukraine and Georgia are more precarious for Russia than the rest of the world. Putin’s demand to expand Russia’s sphere of influence renews a cold war that will inevitably become hot. The only question is where the heat will lie.
Robert Kagan reveals the fundamental mistake made by Putin in a May-June 2022 “Foreign Affairs” article. History reveals mistakes of great nations like France, Great Britain, Germany and Japan in thinking they could remain or become world hegemons by force. All ignore the cultural identities of their respective victims.
Kagan’s point is Great Britain adjusted to its changed role from hegemon to a nation among nations. England prospered and maintained its integrity as an independent nation, capable of improving the lives of its people without falling on the sword of its hegemonic past.
Ukraine will become Putin’s American’ Vietnam. It is a war that can only be resolved at the expense of many Russian’, and Ukrainian’ soldiers’ lives. The most other countries can do is support Ukrainian resistance while pursuing a diplomatic solution that respects sovereign independence.
The inference one draws from Allison’s book is that America must recognize the cultural difference between itself China, and Russia to avoid another world war. Like Rome, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, the former U.S.S.R., and other hegemons of world history, America must adjust its behavior to be a nation among nations, not a hegemon, but a singular influence on other nations. America effectively operates within a sphere of influence. America’s sphere of influence is indirectly challenged in the Far East by China and directly by Russia’s errant invasion of Ukraine.
Allison’s view of the world gives weight to Putin’s great concern about Ukraine’s independence and implied wish to join NATO. The fear Putin has is a reminder of even Gorbachev’s opposition to western encroachment on eastern bloc independence.
The sense one draws from Allison’s insight about culture is that no country in history has ever treated its citizens equitably. In America, the stain of slavery and native Indian displacement remain festering wounds. When and if those wounds heal, America’s sphere of influence will either grow or diminish. In China, it may be the wounds of Uighur discrimination and Han superiority that wounds its future as a hegemon. In Afghanistan, the unfair treatment of women may doom its sphere of influence. In Russia, it will be the mistakes Putin makes in violating the sovereignty of Ukraine.
Every nation’s sphere of influence is affected by internal cultural errors and external cultural influences. Only a state that adjusts to the demands of its culture will survive. Culture is not exportable, but it has weight. Foreign cultures can only be an influencer to other countries. A culture imposed by force will fail as both America and France proved in Vietnam. Cultural change must come from its own citizens as it did with the U.S.S.R. in 1991.
Spheres of influence evolve. They are not static.
America’s goal should be to understand other cultures. In that understanding, there must be acceptance of a competitor’s sphere of influence. Allison is not suggesting America withdraw from the world stage, but that engagement be along the lines of a containment strategy like that proposed by the former ambassador to Russia, George Kennan, in the 1950s. Kennan’s long memorandum is born of an intimate understanding of Russian culture.
Allison argues America should pursue a policy of minimizing conflict while promoting democracy to citizens who seek freedom and equality.
Allison recommends engagement with rising hegemonic powers with an eye on their respective cultures. Allison argues, only with understanding of cultural difference is there a way to avoid Thucydides’ trap.
One cannot deny the economic success of China. At the same time, anyone who has visited China in recent years knows of dissidents who object to communist monitoring and control of citizen freedom. Tiananmen Square remains a rallying point for mainland China resistors. Hong Kong continues to demonstrate against Xi’s influence on the lives of local business owners. Taiwan objects to Xi’s intent to repatriate their island country. Tibetans are denied their rights as followers of Buddhist belief.
Allison’s enlightening history of spheres of influence discounts many conflicts occurring within nations that have little to do with national interests or international conflicts. Of particular concern are tribal and religious conflicts occurring in Africa, Latin America, and parts of the Middle East. Warlord and gang-like leaders have little nationalist interest beyond self-preservation. The consequence is displacement and impoverishment of millions who have no future.
The author, Jaroslav Kalfar offers a perception of communist Czechoslovakian history. Kalfar became a resident of Brooklyn, New York at the age of 15.
“Spaceman of Bohemia” is partly a “stream of consciousness” tale. Just as a reader/listener thinks the story is complete, a new story begins with a similar thematic destination. In an implausible space journey to a galactic dust cloud and a miraculous rescue, a Bohemian astronaut is saved by a Russian spaceship. The spaceman of Bohemia’s spaceship is compromised by dust from the cosmic cloud he is inspecting.
The Russian spaceship comes out of nowhere and is part of a top-secret program that explores the universe without knowledge of the rest of the world. The spaceman’s story begins with a young boy in communist Czechoslovakia just before the 1968 Prague Spring and Czechoslovakia’s democratization in 1989.
Jakub is the teller of this tale. In recounting his life, Jakub offers a history of what life is like for families that supported a repressive communist regime before the Prague spring movement.
Jakub’s father is employed by the secret police who torture dissidents at the direction of the communist party. One of those dissidents is tortured by Jakub’s father. After the communist party is rejected by the Czechs, this particular tortured dissident returns to seek revenge on Jakub’s family.
As a real-life example of dissident torture in Czechoslovakia, a Slovak priest dies from torture and radiation poisoning from forced labor during the communist era. He is beatified by the church after his death.
After Jakub’s father dies, he is raised by his grandparents. However, they are evicted from their home that Jakub’s grandfather had built. The eviction occurs because of political influence used by the dissident who had been tortured by Jakub’s deceased father.
Jakub becomes a Czech astrophysicist. As a scientist, he discovers a new life form in cosmic dust. Because of that discovery, he is called upon by his government to become an astronaut to make a trip to analyze a distant cosmic dust cloud. The true reason the Czech government calls for Jakub to become an astronaut is revealed at the end of the story. It is the influence of the tortured dissident.
Jakub’s ego, patriotism, and the added weight of the Czech republic’s storied history of science (referring to the likes of Bolzano, Purkinje, Wichterle, Heyrosky, etc. and oddly, Nikola Tesla who was a Serbian) entice Jakub to take the risky space journey.
Cosmic dust cloud.
The journey to the cosmic cloud takes several months. As the journey toward the cloud continues, Jakub meets, at least metaphorically, an alien that has the general form of an arachnid, but with 13 eyes.
The arachnid has lived for centuries and is able to communicate directly with Jakub. The arachnid calls Jakub “skinny human”. The arachnid can read Jakub’s mind which suggests it is a figment of Jacob’s imagination. That idea takes a listener into a state of suspended disbelief that becomes more surrealistic as the story progresses.
As the spaceship reaches the cosmic cloud, it becomes disabled by dust particles that penetrate the life support system of Jacob’s vessel.
As the “Spaceman…” nears death, a Russian spaceship rescues Jakub. The approaching spaceship is a part of a secret Russian science program that has explored the universe for many years.
Everyone in Czechoslovakia presumes Jakub is dead. The Russian’s plan is to keep their rescue of Jakub secret. As they near earth, Jacob impresses one of the cosmonauts (who incidentally has lost his mind) and helps him take over the Russian spaceship. It crashes into the ocean. Jacob escapes and returns to his home country.
Those are the general details of the story, but its appeal is in the author’s skillful use of words and his characterization of human relationship and fragility. As the author explores human relationships, he exploits beliefs in authoritarian, democratic, communist, and capitalist government’ deficiencies.
Jakub marries a free-spirted artist, a woman whom he loves. She also loves him but resents his self-centeredness.
Jakub chooses to take this dangerous journey without considering his wife’s opinion. He treats her as a non-person; not worthy of consideration when deciding something that deeply affects both their lives. She decides to leave Jacob just as he left her, without explanation. Jakub is only part way through his journey to the cosmic cloud when she leaves. She chooses not to explain anything to Jakub in their weekly contacts while he is in space. She just leaves.
Jakub’s wife works with a psychiatrist that helps her understand the decision she makes to leave her husband.
The meetings are transcribed, and Jakub is given a copy of the transcript when he returns to earth. He realizes the mistake he has made and hopes to reenter the relationship he has lost. When he sees his wife, he realizes there is no chance for reconciliation because of the past. He recognizes his failure as an equal partner to a woman of substance.
Personal relationship is the beginning and end of all that matters in life. Kalfar tells a story of human fragility. Life is not government. Life is not politics. Life is not economics.
REVIEWS AND VIEWS OF LIFE 