Very disappointing experience. I wanted to know more about North Korea but found out that the author tries to paint a more 'nuanced' picture of that cVery disappointing experience. I wanted to know more about North Korea but found out that the author tries to paint a more 'nuanced' picture of that country. She does this but making statements which bear no closer scrutiny, such as "Kim Jong Un is introducing laissez-faire to the country". This language is closer to Orwells newspeak than anything else. She also tries to put North Korea on equal footing with South Korea even though North Korea is and has always been a much more bloody dictatorship. Because of this as well as other factual inaccuracies I only read half the book. It is impossible to know if some facts are true given that the authors character has been shown to be so untrustworthy. ...more
Fantastic. Amazing summery of previous work on Ancient Greece while providing new data on how median incomes of Greek citizens. Ober does a great job Fantastic. Amazing summery of previous work on Ancient Greece while providing new data on how median incomes of Greek citizens. Ober does a great job of explaining the rise of classical Greece by emphasizing its geopolitical position as well as the development of key institutions which low transaction costs of trade thereby enabling rational agents to specialize in certain trades. An average Athenian citizen during the heyday of democracy had the same median income as a citizen in 1600's Holland. Imagine that! The data provide details which allow one to better understand the period. I didn't know that there were so many Greek poleis (over 1000) and that there were even more democracies after the fall of Athens during the postclassical period (3rd to 1st Century BC).
Did Athens really exert tyranny over other poleis through the Delian league? According to Ober the tax paid to Athens for mainting their navy (and thereby peace) was roughly 2-3% of the GDP of the that poleis. This league was also started in a join venture with Sparta in order to ensure that Persia wouldn't attack individual city-states. Athens also standardized currency which also lowered the transaction cost of doing trade. Athens had however no way of monitoring each poleis which meant that trade was also done outside of the mediteranean, with Egypt and Persia. Compare that to the type of force with which Sparta controlled its subjects!
The only drawback is that the tone is somewhat academic and therefore the author tends - on occasion - get into a lot of data from the period. I was more interested in the outline of what this new data says about the Greeks and the inferences the author was able to draw from them. Other than that it's a great read.
Imagine fighting a war in 30 to 40 minus degrees celsius, changing your clothes every other week and challenged with bouts of diarrhea. The author manImagine fighting a war in 30 to 40 minus degrees celsius, changing your clothes every other week and challenged with bouts of diarrhea. The author managed to capture the true horror of this war as well as the impact of war on the lives of soldiers. This is the biography of a psychopath during the Finnish winter war. ...more
There is an endless discussion going on between my father and me regarding the value of history. Is it just 'one damned thing after the other'? What iThere is an endless discussion going on between my father and me regarding the value of history. Is it just 'one damned thing after the other'? What is the point of studying it? And how can we be sure that we really understand historial epochs?
In Kissingers latest book he discusses 6 different world leaders in order to get at the essence of what good leadership is. I didn't find the different leaders to be especially interesting seeing as how I've already read much about them and it is hard not to laugh when he writes about Nixon showing "courage" and "character". Its also slightly infuriating how Kissinger ingratiates himself with these leaders (having met them all). ((What Kissinger means with it is something closer to good judgement when it comes to foreign politics i.e. the capacity to act in the best interest of ones own nation.))
What was interesting however was Kissinger cultural analysis. Kissinger makes a compelling case that today's educational system doesn't produce enough good citizens and instead produces egotists who want to have a successful career in multi-national corporations. Merit today is defined as intellect compounded by effort whereas leaders need more than that. They need courage, character and sharp analytical faculties. For these 6 leaders education was "not merely a credential to be obtained in one's youth and set aside: it was an unending effort with both intellectual and moral dimensions" (p.400) This is one of the reasons for the decline which people have in leaders today and therefore also the decline of confidence in the political system as a whole.
The shift of emphasis from the written word to image has also skewed leaders and favored those who are perhaps are less thoughtful. Leadership becomes more about packagin and advertising, rather than actually having any actual value to people. In social media there are no 'leaders', only influencers and followers. At times I think that Kissinger is being too critical of today's technology and sees only its downsides. But I too find it deeply problematic that solitude and deep thinking are becoming all the more rare.
To get back to my question at the start of this review: reading up on history can provide one with analogies that are needed as a statesman and 'readership also creates a 'skein of intergenerational conversation', encouraging learning with a sense of perspective" [...] When combined with reflection and the training of memory, it also provides a storehouse of detailed and granular knowledge from which leaders can reason analogically" (p. 406) And not only that but also: "deep literacy supplies the quality Max Weber called 'proportion' or 'the ability to allow realities to impinge on you while maintaining an inner calm and composure'" (p. 405)
I will end on this note: "Leadership is most essential during periods of transition, when values and institutions are losing their relevance, and the outlines of a worthy future are in controversy." (p. xvi) Which of our current leaders have the capacity for abstract thought, vision and erudition to really handle the challenges of today?...more
I deeply regret buying this book. I am especially disappointed as I believe that the Charles Hill as a professor at Yale has a lot to teach us. But heI deeply regret buying this book. I am especially disappointed as I believe that the Charles Hill as a professor at Yale has a lot to teach us. But he is not especially interesting as a person. This book tends toward hero worship instead of focusing on what grand strategy can teach us about the world we live in. ...more
"It was the rise of Athens and the fear this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable." - Thucidides, History of the Peloponnesian war
This is in e"It was the rise of Athens and the fear this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable." - Thucidides, History of the Peloponnesian war
This is in essence Thucydide's trap which great powers face when confronted with a rising power. Harvard professor Graham Allison doesn't think war is predetermined but sees it as a very possible outcome in the case of US versus China. One must take the historical cases into account and therefore ponder the risks involved. Allison essentially categorizes the conflict between US and China as one between different civilizations (quoting Samuel Huntingtons famous paper).
How many times have such a confrontation between powers led to war in the last 500 years? 12 out of 16 times. One case is the one between Britain and Germany in the early 1900's. I hadn't heard of the Crowe memorandum which was writted by an official in the foreign office whose german expertise allowed him to see risks involved with an expansionist Germany. Germany was at this point building a navy and effectively challenging Britains dominance. He therefore surmised that Germany's intentions did not matter; what mattered was their capabilities. "A vague policy of growth could at any time shift into a grand design for political and naval dominance"
Allison has a whole chapter devoted to TRs presidency and the ramifications this had on the world stage. I had previously read Kissingers somewhat positive account of his foreign policy (tending to realpolitik rather than some form of neoconservatism). Allison made me rethink Roosevelts this however and see how warlike TR war. He was the kind of person who would often threat other countries with war if they did not comply to his term and even went to war with Spain in order to gain new territorities (and actually participated in the war). TR often conflates his foreign policies goals (i.e. an expansion of American power and influence) with a moral which sounds a lot like neoconservative foreign policy. The key difference is perhaps that TRs language is often tilted toward power politics which show his true intentions. Make America Great.
Chinese foreign policy on the other hand is not missionary but expands by way of cultural osmosis. Chinese civilization is - according to Allison - as exclusive as the West is inclusive. It is ethno-centric. I enjoyed reading about Xis background and how tragic his early life was (his father was close to Mao until he was labeled a traitor). Allison goes into great detail to explain how Chinese take a longer view on things and how they see every policy as part of a holistic vision of what they want China to be (or rather: what Xi wants for China). I hadn't thought about foreign politics in terms of geoeconomics which indeed managed to change my perspective on things.
I just don't see how anyone can steer the market seeing as how it is essentially something decentralized. Obviously a great deal of the rise in GDP growth of China comes from urbanisation but how can they maintain a high level of innovation given their totalitarian system? I don't see how this is possible. But perhaps they don't need to innovate as much - they simply steal the latest tech from the US.
I recommend this for anyone interested in politics!...more
"[For] Kissinger history is more like one damned thing after another, unpredictable and uncontrollable: the basis of foreign policy has to be a pursui"[For] Kissinger history is more like one damned thing after another, unpredictable and uncontrollable: the basis of foreign policy has to be a pursuit of the national interest because, in an uncertain world, that is the anchor of stability" (xv). Realpolitik often gets a bad rep as it goes against a certain idealism but what this book explores is the consequences of pursuing ideology over realpolitik and how this effects world order.
Order is not something which is easily achieved and it is something which is constantly being challenged. Tragedy is the consequence of failure to grasp with this insight and therefore the inability to stop chaos or tyranny from erupting. Democracy is no safeguard against tyranny (Hitler was democratically elected). Neville Chamberlain thought he achieved "peace in our time" by appeasing Hitler and therefore failed to see the potential threat he had to national security and the world order.
Gewens provides the reader with a philosophical background of Kissingers thought (giving outlines of the thought of Arendt, Leo Strauss and Morgenthau) while the second part of the book provides the reader with something closer to a biography of the man. Kissingers thought can be traced to his early experience of having lost all freedom in Germany and his seeing the limitless possibility of tragedy everywhere. No order is fixed but rather politics is the art of evolutionary stability; great statesmen prevent revolutions by gradually implementing changes and often the choice is between two negative outcomes. It is safe to say that this is as far from the cheery and optimistic mindset most Americans have historically had. There's no problem which can't be fixed, right?
Kissingers key influence stems from Hans Morgenthau - a German Jew who is the father of realism in international relations. Morgenthaus experience from Nazi Germany as well as his reading of Nietzsche led him to believe that the main driving force for people is power. One needs an insane amount of will power and drive in order to reach the pinnacle of the political hierarchy and once there the politician continues to pursue powerful goals for his or her own country. Power is a part of human nature (according to Morgenthau) and to ignore this fact will lead to appeasement of tyrants or tragedy. ('If you want peace, prepare for war' as the protorealist Thucydides put it).
Foreign policy is however not only about balancing power through diplomacy and war but (according to Morgenthau) can be summed up in the the struggle for the mind of man. If one can convince people of an idea then that significantly changes the likelihood of long term influence. "Winning of hearts and minds" is a catch phrase which is these days looked upon with cynicism because of its overuse during the Vietnam war but it is nevertheless key to foreign policy. It is also important when it comes to 'public opinion'. In a democracy one needs to be able to convince the public of the necessity of a certain kind of cynical foreign agenda. Kissinger stresses the need for the statesman to be a an educator, otherwise the people might lose sight of the long term goal.
Democracy itself can cause problems when elected officials say what the people want to hear and not what the republic needs to survive. Hitler again is an example of this. The appeal of Nazism was based on the fact that the charismatic demagogue said what the people wanted to hear and thereby managed to draw crowds his rallies (people actually had to pay to hear Hitler speak!). One of the reasons that these German Jews were sometimes labeled as undemocratic was for this specific reason. Statistical models of how rational agents behave cannot save the world from the possibility of tragedy (nor from our own human nature). Luckily the US has a constitution which provides a limit to what a politician can do.
Unlike Foucault, they believe that power and authority are not the same thing. Authority stems from the consensual acceptance of an order. Morgenthau is not against international guidelines for nations provided that one realizes that sovereign states should still have national interest as their main goal in foreign policy. Disbelief in authority of traditional institution (such as the supreme court) paves the way for demagogues to take hold of the public imagination (something which Arendt is particular worried about). When man is deprived of reason, all that is left is the fuel of the passions.
I found myself very much in agreement with the argument Leo Strauss laid out for the necessity of common sense. To the liberal rationalist, common sense is extremely malleable term which therefore doesn't bear close scrutiny. Strauss, however, stressed the importance of a common derived interpretation of reality which no rationality can provide (something more akin to a starting point for rationality). The rationalist attempt to eradicate the passions ultimately leads to tragedy - that is why the emergence and reemergence of nationalism, religious fanaticism and general belief in the meaning of life continues. To use modern terminology: societies that are WEIRD (western educated industrialized rich and democratic) seem to have a hard time understanding any other perspective than the 'enlightened rationalist' one. When we lose our common interest then all we have left is special interest and fraction (which again is great source of disorder). I found strong similarities between this view and the strain of thought within the Austrian school of economics (von mises, Hayek) which emphasizes the fact that rationality is a mere method, not a goal in itself. Rationality is used to achieve goals made by the individuals subjective preferences.
Perhaps what all these thinkers stress is the need for a certain autonomy. There is a tendency for society to streamline thought and get people to conform with a certain way of operating in the world. What is viewed as science and enlightened values provide ready-made ideologies for people to follow. Strauss, Arendt, Morgenthau and Kissinger all viewed thinking as something the individual does (a contributing reason why Kissinger fears AI so much). Thinking is a subversive act (according to Arendt) and can therefore be seen as dangerous by the majority. It is nonetheless important in order to be able to distill clarity amid such fleeting times as our own.
This is the most interesting book I've read this year as it managed to articulate thoughts which until now have been hunches och instinctual reactions to foreign policy....more
Jacob Rees-Mogg is a Member of Parliament for North East Somerset whose witty comebacks first drew my attention to him. This book has a somewhat nostaJacob Rees-Mogg is a Member of Parliament for North East Somerset whose witty comebacks first drew my attention to him. This book has a somewhat nostalgic and elegiac tone as mr. Rees-Mogg paints a vivid pictures of 12 famous Victorians (among these are Palmerston, Queen Victoria, Gladstone, Disraeli and sir Robert Peel).
The book is obviously meant for a more general reader and therefore often describes the individuals accomplishments in broad strokes. His intention is to write a plaidoyer so that our picture of this period stops stemming from Lytton Stratcheys 1918 book "Eminent Victorians" (which paints a largely negative portrait of the period). What I found to be most interesting was how British society handled the coming of modernity. How do you ensure stability given the implications of the industrial and the french revolution? You do it by gradually implementing political change and therefore giving society a chance to adapt slowly.
Mr. Rees-Mogg also presents the reader with a few not quite as remembered Victorians such as W. G. Grace, William Sleeman, Albert Dicey, and Augustus Pugin. I found the biograpy of Pugin interesting as it shed some light on how Victorians attempted to retain their religiosity and sense of meaning in the wake of the scientific revolution. Pugin was an architet who redesigned the interior of the palace in Westminister after it burnt down. His work was an attempt to articulate and show the power of God through Gothic architecture. He was a Catholic who seemed to have a deep longing for a simpler time and his churches were his attempt at imbibing his contemporaries with this same longing.
One gets a sense when reading this book of the Victorian values, that is mainly duty, as well as the sense of progress which seemed imbued in these individuals from an early age. There is no problem which cannot be fixed (which the author shows through the story of an bureaucrat (William Sleeman) who brought a gang of vicious criminals (Thugee) working all over India to justice). But duty is in here very closely aligned to personal responsibility and that one should deliver on what one promises.
I would recommend it to anyone interested in knowing more about the period provided one is aware of the downsides of the work - that is to say his generalizations and the panegyric quality of the writing. Other than that I would agree with the historian Andrew Roberts that the book is a "a full-throated, clear-sighted, well-researched and extremely well-written exposition of the Victorians and their values".[7] Well... except for the "extremely well-written" part....more
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