Recent Reading:
New Left Review #50 March/Apr 2008
Some excellent material in the latest issue. My old friend Tariq Ali looks at the stalemate in Afghanistan. That war has been rather overshadowed by events in Iraq recently, and the article is a timely recap of recent history, and an analysis of the current situation. There is also a fascinating piece on the history of Indonesia since the Second World War, and a piece by Robin Blackburn which a very clear explanation and analysis of the current financial crisis. Finally, there is a piece about the transformation of little known ex-Portuguese colony Macau into the Las Vegas of East Asia.
This is an issue stuffed with some real goodies for anyone interested in political history.
Rites of Peace by Adam Zamoyski; Harper Perennial
At a time when most history seems to consist of unconnected trivia suitable only for pub quizzes, it's a relief to find a book by an author who sees history as a process. The book is a study of the Congress of Vienna at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The Congress was one of the most important gatherings of the 19th century, and it set the tone for 'big power' politics for the next hundred years. The way in which it carved up Europe between the victors and losers without consideration for the wishes of the populations also set the parameters for the two World Wars in the 20th century.
But Zamoyski doesn't just deal with the 'dry' politics - he also deals with the social event that was also the Congress of Vienna. Judging from his description and the quotes from reports in the archives of the Austrian police, many of the main participants spent far more time with their assorted mistresses than trying to sort out the problems caused by the Napoleonic wars.
Even before I read this book I always thought that Talleyrand was the consummate politician of the 19th Century. Having read what he achieved in defending France's interests at the congress, I now appreciate just how brilliant he was. No wonder that when he eventually died, most of the people at his funeral were there to make sure he really was dead, with no chance of coming back!
An excellent read.
Open Source Game Development by Martin Heni and Andreas Beckermann, Charles River Media, Inc.
Note that Amazon got the name of this book wrong and called it 'Open Source Game Programming'!
First the bad news. I bought this because I particularly wanted information on using the Qt Canvas class for writing Qt based client user interfaces to my games. Unfortunately, the book concentrates on Qt3, and the whole system was re-vamped for Qt4 (which was already out when the book was published - naughty boys).
The good news, though is that the other sections of the book are one of the best introductions I've read introducing many of the key techniques used in writing games. The range covers Open GL, AI, pathfinding, particle effects, and maths and physics. It also covers networking, although this is very Qt specific.
I'd recommend this book for someone who wants an introduction to the techniques used in writing modern games, although much of the actual Qt material is now quite dated.
White Heat - A history of Britain in the Swinging Sixties by Dominic Sandbrook, Abacus.
There is something almost voyeuristic about reading the history of a period that you lived through! This is a fine book that is readable, comprehensive and covers not only the outward manifestations but also the underlying causes of events. That's something that is remarkably difficult to do when you are covering such a recent period, but the author manages it with an appearance of ease.
There are places where I disagree with the analysis - for instance the interplay of personalities, events and environment in the Northern Ireland. I don't agree that Ian Paisley happened to be in the right place at the right moment to inflame the protestant population against the mild reforms being undertaken. Paisley was a product of the history and environment of Northern Ireland - if he hadn't been there, someone else would have fulfilled the role.
Quibbles aside this is contemporary history at its best, and well worth a read.
Unreservedly recommended.
Redcoats and rebels: The War for America, 1770-1781 by Christopher Hibbert. Penguin
This is an interesting book. I know quite a lot about the American Civil War, but relatively little about the American revolution. This book rectified that deficit. It also made it clear that my preconceptions - outmoded Brit generals confounded by American sharpshooters - were somewhat inaccurate.
Yes, the British generals were not exactly top quality, but the real problem was the fact that Britain could not find enough troops to fight a war on a continental scale. Add to that the lack of coordination between the armies and you have a recipe for failure.
In real terms the British only lost two major battles - Saratoga and Yorktown - in eight years but that was enough to precipitate a crisis at home and bring conciliators to the fore in Britain.
Perhaps the war is best summed up by the US commander Nathanael Greene, "We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again." This is a useful book if you want to find out about the revolution and its social, economic and political setting, as well as the basic military information.
Buda's Wagon - A Brief History of the Car Bomb by Mike Davis, Verso
MacArthur fellow Mike Davis has written an absorbing book about the development of what has been called 'the poor man's air force'. Starting with anarchist Mario Buda's horse and cart bombing of J.P. Morgan's building in Wall Street in 1920, Davis leads the reader through the development of increasingly powerful and sophisticated weapons until we get to the use of car bombs in Baghdad today.
But the author is not just interested in the technical time-line of car bombs, he also looks at the sociology of car bombs, in particular the way in which car bombs have been increasing used to inflict deliberate civilian casualties, rather than to target specific 'enemy' infrastructure. Davis also charts the rise in suicide car bombings and sets the whole story in a political framework which some people will find uncomfortable.
Just one caveat. Don't take this book to read on a plane. Government security personal are notorious for their inability to understand that people might want to study activities of which they disapprove in order to understand motivation!
Recommended.
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