Welcome to the March edition of our reading list series! For this round, I’ve focused mostly on non-fiction (with one alt-history exception). I’ve included everything from Roman history to contemporary politics. Enjoy!
Eduard Bernstein – The Preconditions of Socialism
Once the head of Friedrich Engels‘s estate, Bernstein made an infamous heel turn and became one of the biggest enemies of the Marxist left. Among other things, he helped lead the German Social Democratic Party from socialism to social democracy. Given my status as a Marxist blogger, readers might think I share in the perception of Bernstein as a villain.
Eh, not exactly. I mean, there’s plenty to dislike about this book. Bernstein held an optimistic attitude toward bourgeois democracy in Germany at the turn of the 20th century – an attitude that, shall we way, didn’t turn out well. His treatment of revolution and the far-right looks especially dated in light of how Germany turned out in the 20th century.
But, in reading this book, one can retrace his thoughts and see what bothered him about Marxism and its German manifestations. At the time, the economy wasn’t developing in the ways Marx and Engels predicted. And the revolution wasn’t around the corner as they claimed. Combined with the opening of the German political system, one sees what attracted Bernstein about social democracy. Was he wrong? Yes. Did it make sense? Also yes.
Albert Einstein – Relativity
A long time ago, I bought this little book from Einstein explaining general and special relativity to a popular audience. It sounds like a bad idea. Some scientists – Richard Feynman, Carl Sagan, et al. – built successful careers explaining science to the public. But it’s a tough job, and it seems like Einstein would be bad at it.
I guess that’s half-right. Einstein does…more or less fine here. I followed along with the text, even when his examples turned out repetitive or tedious. He also writes in the stiff, formal way one might expect from someone who grew up speaking German rather than English and, in fact, never became totally fluent in English. It’s also possible this work is a translation from German, though admittedly I didn’t check.
Raymond Khoury – Empire of Lies
This book worried me when I first saw it. The whole clash-of-civilizations/Islamic Europe theme could’ve come off as Islamophobic. My worry was overblown. That’s not what’s happening here.
Khoury tells an alternate history of the last few centuries where the Ottoman Empire conquers Europe and Islam becomes the continent’s dominant religion. An Iraqi man aligned with al-Qaeda travels back in time to 1683 and changes the outcome of the Ottoman invasion of Vienna. After the battle, they conquer the rest of Europe in short order. By the 2010s – the time of the story’s main characters – an authoritarian, technologically advanced Ottoman civilization includes Europe.
The history is interesting and compelling, but the book really rides on main characters in an Islamic Paris and how they deliberate on democracy and freedom. Do they prefer an Islamophobia-free society where their religion dominates, or would they prefer a much less authoritarian – but much more bigoted – world?
Michael Lewis – The Fifth Risk
Lewis charges the Trump Administration again and again with being unprepared to conduct the everyday operations of government when it took change in 2017. Many people know this – Lewis defends the thesis in detail, though most of us already accept it – but few consider the implications thereof.
Trump didn’t just put a bunch of grifters and hacks in charge of federal offices and programs. He also botched hundreds of lower level appointments, grinding the everyday operations of government to a halt and leaving agencies unable to function or complete their missions. And some of these missions are important. The federal government educates Americans, protects the country from environmental hazards, and so on. Many people – even rural conservatives – would prefer the government keep doing these things.
It’s hardly a perfect book. Lewis is a shameless defender of the centrist, establishment status quo. Furthermore, the book often reads more like a travelogue and advertisement for government services than the kind of political analysis it purports to be. But the main themes are informative. And readers learn a lot about obscure government agencies and the good things they do.
Giusto Traina – 428 AD
Traina adds another title to the long list of books on the history of late antiquity and the later Roman Empire. But he adds a bit of a twist. Rather than a broad history – or even a narrow history of some topic or group – Traina tours the Empire during a single year.
That year, which may surprise no one, is 428AD. Why 428? The Roman Empire split its Western and Eastern halves, but the Western half hadn’t yet completely collapse. Looking around the Empire, each region stood at the precipice between resurgence and disaster.
The Romans had just lost Armenia to the Persians. The Goths and various other German groups were making trouble in the West and in northern Africa. Christians had mostly suppressed traditional Roman religion and philosophy, but hadn’t yet finished the job. The emperors mostly maintained control, often through the prestige, wealth, and influence of the Empire and its resources.
For anyone interested in the cultural and political transition from late antiquity to the Middle Ages, this is a great look at its earlier steps.
David Vine – The United States of War
This nifty little book argues for the thesis that the U.S. has been engaged in permanent conflict and war since its founding, and that the use of forts and forward bases form one of the major forces pushing the country to continue its long history of war.
It’s a fairly straightforward thesis, and it’s largely correct. The book stands out as valuable because it’s so comprehensive. Vine lays out clearly just how common war and conflict are in the U.S. And how central they stand to the U.S.’s political project.
