Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker

This book’s full title is The Better Angels of Our Nature, Why Violence has Declined. Steven Pinker is an extremely engaging writer. He has written several books, I must admit that they are long, but highly readable.

One of the most interesting things Pinker says is about the “Moralizing Gap”. He says that people think that harm that they inflict to be justified and forgettable. However, they think that the harm they suffer to be unprovoked and grievous. This can explain some long standing disputes between peoples.

One of things he talks about is ideology. The really big body counts in history pile up when a large number of people have a motive than seems to transcend selfishness. With ideology, the end is idealistic. But its ideology that have driven many of the worse things that people have ever done to each other. Just think of the pile of deaths attributable to communists.

Another interesting thing is the rise in crime in the 1960’s. A number of people thought the rise in crime in the 1960’s was because of the 1960’s culture. The relaxation of self-control was glorified. Do your own thing. Let it all hang out. The crime rate started to come done in the 1990’s and it is almost back to where it was in the 1950’s.

You can find Steven Pinker on my favourite video site of www.ted.com. You can hear Steven Pinker give a 20 minute speech on the subject of the myth of violence at TED. This is well worthwhile listening to and does not take long.

Not everyone believes him. You can see this at in a column by Madeleine Bunting in the Guardian. She admits to not reading the book, thinking it is too long. She interviews him at Guardian Videos.

However, this is not the only book I have read on this subject. I have read and reviewed Azar Gat, an anthropologist’s book called War in Human Civilization on my site. Gat’s book is not as well known or as popular, but he also is an engaging writer and well worth reading.

On my website is how to find this book on Amazon if you care to purchase it. See Pinker. Also, this book review and other books I have reviewed are on my website at Book Reviews.

The Horse, the Wheel and Language by David Anthony

I love the way this book starts. David Anthony says we should look into a mirror and see not only you but your ancestors. We see not only our own face, but a museum. Although you see your face, it is composed of a collage of features you have inherited from your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and so on.

David Anthony identifies the prehistoric peoples of central Eurasia's steppe grasslands as the original speakers of Proto-Indo-European. This is the Steppes north of the Black and Caspian Seas. This is important because roughly half the world's population speaks languages derived from a shared linguistic source known as Proto-Indo-European.

The Steppes of Eurasia go from Eastern Europe to China. These steppes were changed forever by the horse and the covered wagon. Apparently, there was a Secondary Products Revolution that swept Europe in between 3500 and 3000BCE. This revolution included the plow, wool sheep, dairying and the beginning of horse transportation. The secondary products of this this revolution included items like wool, milk and muscular power than be harvested continuously from an animal without killing it.

This SPR is an economic explanation for widespread changes in settlement patterns, economy, rituals and crafts. Much of this has been ascribed by an older generation of archaeologists to Indo-European migrations.

If you like history and anthropology, this is a great book. It also tells us where our language might have originated from and how we got it.

For a preview of this book, see Princeton University Press. Amazon does have surprisingly good book reviews, but you have to scroll almost to the page bottom to find them. For such a review, see Amazon. Another good review is at Dreamflesh. Plus another one at Thinking Out Aloud.

On my website is how to find this book on Amazon if you care to purchase it. See Anthony. Also, this book review and other books I have reviewed are on my website at Book Reviews.

Freedom in the Ancient World by Herbert Muller

I was attracted to this book by the title. I have read a lot of history, but I never thought of the ancient world having any freedom. However, I guess all movements must start somewhere.

He talks about the Axial Period from 800 to 200 BC. It was in this era, outside of Greece, that there emerged all the basic religious ideas on which man has lived ever since, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism and Judaism.

He talks about a revolutionary change in mentality in about 6BC, when we start to hear of individuals who were not kings or gods. Such people were Zoroaster, Buddha, Confucius, Leo-Tse Amos, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Home Thales, Salon, Aeschylus, Socrates and Plato.

If you like to read about the ancient world, this is a great book to read to get a different perspective on what was occurring then.

There is a Wikipedia entry for Herbert J. Muller at Muller. For a review of this book, see Professor Carroll Quigley site. Professor Quigley’s main criticism of this book is “Prof. Muller's inability in this work to carry out his special task, the history of human freedom, seems to me to rest on his failure to distinguish between "freedom" (the existence of alternative personal choices in a society) and "liberties" (the existence of a social pattern which permits a man to develop his potentialities).”

This book won a Ralph Waldo Emerson award in 1962. See Wikipedia.

On my website is how to find this book on Amazon if you care to purchase it. See Muller. Also, this book review and other books I have reviewed are on my website at Book Reviews.

After the Reich by Giles MacDonogh

This book is about what happened after the Armistice of 1945. It is not a pretty story.

Women, of course, suffered tremendously. The German women were basically raped by everyone. The Russians and French were atrocious. The Americans tried to stop their soldier from raping. The British were somewhat better where they basically tried to use chocolate to get sex.

There was ethnic cleansing of the German peoples by Czech nationalists, and by the people in Poland, Silesia, and East Prussia. There are no Germans today in what was East Prussia. Russia moved eastward their border with Poland and told Poland to move their western border to include previously German lands, which they did. And, they did so with great cruelty to the German peoples in the area they took over.

We sort of know about the harsh treatment of German soldiers by the Russians, but the British and Americans were no far behind them in the appalling treatment of German soldiers after the Armistice. Of course, it is not only German soldiers that died. A lot of women, children and old people died too.

The thing is that we should know our history. Hopefully, by knowing it, we can avoid the same mistakes in the future. This is one very good reason for reading history.

One very good review of this book is at Dialog International. The title of the Telegraph review tells a great deal of the story. Their title is how 3 million Germans died after VE Day. See The Telegraph. Another great article is at Rense.

On my website is how to find this book on Amazon if you care to purchase it. See MacDonogh. Also, this book review and other books I have reviewed are on my website at Book Reviews.

Civilization by Niall Ferguson

This book is very readable. However, this is what you can really say about all Niall Ferguson’s books. I know some talk about him as being very right wing. Personally, I do not think that he is so easily cataloged. What he certainly is, is opinionated.

What I liked about this book was him talking about the rise of the West because of 6 killer apps. The killer apps were competition, science, property rights, medicine, consumer society and the work ethic. For a quick review of these points, see the bottom of the Guardian article, linked to below.

Niall Ferguson also thinks that when civilizations fall, it is not a slow decline, but civilizations, basically fall off a cliff. Is the US going to going that way? It is hard to say, but they seem to ignoring parts of the 6 killer apps that made them so powerful in the past. He asks if the threat to Western Civilization is not from others, but the west’s lack of understanding or faith in our own cultural heritage.

With China, it is trying to use some of these killer apps without others. For example, to Niall Ferguson, democracy goes with property rights and China does not want to go that way. He thinks that nationalism might become a problem with China. (He says if religion is the opium of the masses, then nationalism is the cocaine of the middle classes.)

He thinks the problem with Islam is that it could not reconcile itself to scientific progress and that this has been disastrous for them. He also asks if the head scarf is freedom of expression or subjugation of women.

On the Russians, he notes that they could duplicate the atomic bomb, but not blue jeans. He quotes Regis Debray in that there is more power in rock music, videos, blue jeans, fast food, news networks and TV satellites than in the entire Red Army.

For a good review, that also explains the 6 killer apps, see the one in the Guardian. Also, Amazon has some excellent reviews, see Amazon. Look towards the bottom of the page.

On YouTube you can hear a lecture on this book by Niall Ferguson.

On my website is how to find this book on Amazon if you care to purchase it. See Ferguson. Also, this book review and other books I have reviewed are on my website at Book Reviews.

The Origins of Political Order, Francis Fukuyama

I remember reading a review of this book. One of the comments said why would anyone buy a book by Fukuyama? The commenter went on to say that Fukuyama was totally wrong with his book called The End of History. There is a very good reason for this. Fukuyama is a very interesting writer. I have never been dissatisfied with any book by him. Both the End of History and this book is discussed in a Globe and Mail article.

This particular book is from Pre-human Times to the French Revolution. Fukuyama expects to write a 2nd volume on this subject. I certainly look forward to it.

This book is not only about economics, it is also about history. Like his remark about the Ming Dynasty. He says that it failed to tax citizens adequately to support an army to defend the country against the Manchus.

He also talks about the needs of Democracy. He says it needs a state that is effective and powerful, the rule of law and a government that is accountable. He talks of Afghanistan, which has a weak state and it cannot uphold laws on its territories. He says that Russia has a strong state, it holds democratic elections, but their problem is the rulers are no bound by law. He also says that Singapore has a strong state, the rule of law, but only an attenuated form of democratic accountability.

He talks about why Europe is different. It was only in Europe that the state was not build on top of tribally organized institutions. Apparently Europe exited tribalism via the rule of the Catholic Church. This is very interesting.

Another great review of this book is at PLOS Blogs. To hear a John Hopkins lecture by Francis Fukuyama, go to YouTube.

On my website is how to find this book on Amazon if you care to purchase it. See Fukuyama. Also, this book review and other books I have reviewed are on my website at Book Reviews.

Forge of Empires, Michael Knox Beran

This book covers the years of 1861 and 1871 and the revolutions of Abraham Lincoln, Tsar Alexander II, and Otto von Bismarck. The subtitle is “Three Revolutionary Statesmen and The World They Made”. What did these men do? Lincoln freed 4 M slaves, Alexander freed 27M serfs and Bismarck swept away an archaic jumble of completing sovereign ties, so many duchies and grand bailiwicks, and secured the prosperity of a region.

Free states like England and US liberated their people’s energies and the institutions of freedom were poised to carry all before them. But there was a countervailing reaction that set in the privileged cases to defend their prerogatives. In Russia, Germany and America, grandees with their backs to the wall meet the challenge of liberty with a philosophy of coercion to protect their power. (Slavery is a system of coercion.)

A couple of methods came with this philosophy. One was paternalism in which the master is a father to the works and looks after them. This is designed to regulate the masses. Another idea was militant nationalism. This is the right of superior people to impose their will on inferior people.

The book also talks about the southern people being Cavaliers. Like the Cavaliers who, in the 17th Century, fought for Charles I in England. Kevin Phillips brings up this point in his book, The Cousins’ Wars. Read an interview with Kevin at PBS.

One thing I learned from this book that I did not know was they Tsar Alexander II send the Russian fleet to US in 1863. He sent the Atlantic fleet to New York and the Pacific fleet to San Francisco Bay. This ended hope of England and France to intervene to help the South.

There is not much online about this book or author, but there is one book review at foreign affairs.

Michael Knox Beran also writes for the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. See some of his writings at their site.

On my website is how to find this book on Amazon if you care to purchase it. See Beran. Also, this book review and other books I have reviewed are on my website at Book Reviews.