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Tuesday 11 March 2014
This is a relatively brief book that looks at the causes of The First World War. It does not contain any new research and there is not much that is new in it.

The author's thesis is broadly that all of the world powers were preparing for war from the 1900s onwards. The military leaders of all the great powers were building plans for war, and that this lead to an environment in which was inevitable. Meanwhile many working class people were effected by nationalist, patriotism and social Darwinism which acted to encourage the belief that foreigners were an "other" to be feared or defeated.

The principle thesis is that leaders allowed the war to happen, or at least were too weak to stop it. There was little communication at the top and no attempt to defuse the situation, and the author argues this means that the leaders were guilty by omission of starting the war.

A key problem for me is this book feels to much like an essay rather than a book. It is very brief and contains little real insight. It is a nice primer, but I felt a bit disappointed. As we approach the 100 year anniversary there is going to be a lot of information around this period. Two key questions are whether the war was justified and who bears the blame for starting the war. The author clearly argues the leaders of all the Great Powers were responsible. But I don't think there is enough evidence presented to convince me.

I personally preferred The Pity of War by Niall Ferguson, which argues that Britain bears much of the responsibility for war The Forgotten Victory by  Gary Sheffield which lays the blame with German militarism. These books just feel more meaty to me.
Tuesday 25 February 2014

I Am The Secret Footballer supposedly lift the lid on the life of a premiership footballer. It is anonymous and so is supposed to offer better insight into the world than ghost written autobiographies.

The main character is not someone it is easy to sympathise with as he is a wealthy and rather arrogant figure. He seems to regard himself as on a different intellectual level from other footballers, managers, referees and everyone else connected with football. He is a bit depressive and seems rather ungrateful for the fact his talent has permitted him to earn fantastic wealth, to travel the world and live a life as an idol for many.

The book seems filled with references to birds, booze and money. It all seems a little bit shallow really. I found the book to be a fairly dull read to be honest. You could summarise it by saying footballers are largely drinkers and womanisers who are quite thick, but not as thick as some managers and journalists.

I am not sure there is much in the way of scandal to really make this all that salacious. I don't know it it really needs to be all that secretive. It is not up there with Roy Keane's explosive book from yesteryear. Perhaps part of the fun is trying to figure out who the author is.  Unfortunately a bit of googling reveals he is no-one really famous outside of football.
Sunday 9 February 2014
Slavery is topical at the moment with the release of 12 Years as a Slave.

 It was not an area I knew much about, and I assumed the end of the civil war marked the end of slavery. This book highlights that far from being an end to slavery the institutions of the Deep South merely changed to allow a white elite to continue their exploitation of blacks. The principle way this was done was to allow states to implement forced labour as a punishment for various crimes. The crimes were minor; vagrancy, etc and the punishments disproportionately were aimed at blacks.

The victis of these crimes were tried in kangeroo courts without much just of getting a fair trial. Once sentenced they were either forced to pay a fine or be submitted to forced labour. Once this had happened they were then rented out to private companies and individuals. If they tried to escape or got sick the cost of dealing with this was added to their term. The slave owners transformed into people who leased slaves from the state. However as the economy moved from cotton picking to mining the conditions actually grew worse over time. There was little to stop the workers being poorly treated.

The system also offered financial incentives to those who arrested blacks or tried them. The result was the legal system acted as a corrupt way of recruiting labour.

In addition there were various "Jim Crow" laws which segregated education and leisure, as well as disinfranchising black voters. These were became more onerous over time, to prevent black people from gaining political power.

This book analyses some of the failures of whites to address the issues of continued slavery. The Federal government was too weak and was unwilling to get involved in the issue. This was due in part to an unwillingness to get involved in states affairs, but also residual racism among the political classes.

The Civil Rights movement is not covered in this book, the book seems to concentrate mostly on the first generation after the Civil War(ie mostly before and around 1900). The book claims it deals with events up until the Second World War, but in practise this deals only with the second half briefly and it might have been better to have a second volume. There is little to explain why the Civil Right movement emerged beyond the fact the Second World War changed attitudes of blacks and whites. In practise I am sure it was more complex.

It is an interesting and horrific study of how people can treat each other in a country that was supposed to be the most advanced in the world and up until relatively recently. I found it hard to put down and I learnt something at the end of it. I think this is a book that deserved to be read.