Just Finished Reading: The Race to the Future – An Adventure that Accelerated the Twentieth Century by Kassia St Clair (FP: 2023) [289pp] 

France, 1907. It all started as an idea to increase a newspapers circulation. The Parisian Le Martin would issue a challenge to any motor vehicle which could travel from Pekin (now Beijing) to Paris – the prize, world fame (and a trophy). After some initial problems, a little indifference and some well-placed scoffing at the possibility of such a thing, a total of 5 vehicles and crews signed up. Two, the favourites naturally, were a pair of French De Dion-Bouton motors with 10hp engines one of which was piloted by a famous French racing driver, another was a 15hp Spyker driven by an unknown who had managed to scam his way into the competition and one, a much more powerful 45hp Italia, was driven (and indeed financed) by an Italian prince – Prince Scipione Borghese. The outsider, although its driver firmly believed the opposite, was a tiny 3-wheel Contal Mototri producing an equally tiny 6hp. It was going to quite a trip running for 8,000 miles across mountains, desert, steppe with the hazards of flood, fire, bandits, an overly officious border guards. It was a test of both man and machine, of power, integrity, honour and technology. Advertised as a challenge as well as proof of a brighter future for the internal combustion engine it soon turned into a race for national pride and the triumph of western civilisation. 

To be honest I picked this up because of its colourful cover and bought it because I thought it, at least in part, would cover the Italian ‘Futurists’ and their obsession with motor cars and speed – it didn't. However, this was FAR from disappointing, indeed it was a delight from beginning to end. Although primarily focused on the ‘race’ itself (and some of the odd-ball competitors) it also looked at the social and political conditions in China, Russia and Europe that the competitors travelled through on their way to Paris. Although there were many funny moments, I remember one in particular when they crossed the German/Russia border which (on BOTH sides) had “suspiciously well-maintained roads”. Honestly, this had me crying laughing especially knowing what was going to happen just 7 years later! Another feature I really liked was the interspersion of chapters on the development of the early car industry, the early processing of recently discovered oil in various places, the early focus on female drivers (apparently early cars for women were fitted with electric starters considered ‘too feminine’ for men who had to use crank handles), and the often-forgotten fact that internal combustion was only one of (and not always the most popular) choice for motor engines – the others being steam and electric. 

Despite not being (nor ever being) a ‘petrol head’, I really enjoyed this. Not only was it a detailed look at a long-forgotten event but it was FULL of fascinating details of the beginnings of a recognisable modern age. Definitely recommended, especially if you have any interest in early motoring, technology or racing. More to come...  

Just Finished Reading: Foreign Devils on the Silk Road – The Search for the Lost Treasures of Central Asia by Peter Hopkirk (FP: 1980) [241pp] 

It was arguably one of the most important trade routes in history. It connected the great Empires of the West to those of the East and allowed goods, ideas and disease to travel the globe in relative ease. They were the Silk Roads (plural). But all things pass and trade routes are no exception. First, they pass into disuse, then history and finally into legend itself. But around the turn of the 20th century rumours of lost cities, ancient sites lost in the desert and uncounted treasure began circling the European capitals. Strange exotic objects began appearing in markets and, finally, expeditions were planned and funded in institutions from Britain, Germany, Russia, Japan and the USA.  

Knowledge of the exact route of the various strands that made up the Silk Routes was approximate at best. The only way to find them at that time was travel overland with the knowledge available and ask the locals what they knew – which, all too often, was very little. Rumours, legends, warnings, stories of ghosts in the desert and the curses placed on treasure by jealous spirits wasn’t exactly a road map. But hints of sunken cities and a handful of ancient objects in the homes of the headmen was enough to start with. The first tentative diggings yielded little but then, finally, paydirt. In the disputed areas bordering China a host of documents emerged from the sand. The burgeoning world of archaeology was aflame. Museums and galleries across the world demanded their own examples of artifacts, paintings, documents and anything small enough to transport across the vast (and often uncharted) distances safely to London, Berlin, Paris or New York.  

The men who responded to the call were a varied bunch. Some, indeed most, were experts in their respective fields. Others were there for the glory of being first, of making their names and reputations and, of course, for sheer the adventure of it all. What almost no one cared about was the rights of the locals to their own history. Naturally some serious rationalisation went on. The locals were all too often ignorant of what lay beneath the sand or high in the mountains. There was also the very real danger that time and the environment would destroy much of cultural or historic significance – so why not remove it and place it in a museum thousands of miles away for ‘safe-keeping’. Of course, later Chinese authorities couldn’t help but mention the number of irreplaceable artifacts destroyed by the Allied bombing of Germany in WW2 held in its city museums. 

This was honestly a fascinating read. If you’ve ever enjoyed an Indiana Jones movie (well the first decent one) you’ll enjoy the reality even more. Although there’s no Nazi archaeologists looking for supernatural wonder weapons there are plenty of Chinese warlords, mysterious priests, Japanese spies, British agents and competing dig teams almost coming to outright conflict over who had a right to dig where. Added into the mix, if that wasn’t enough, was extreme weather events, the very real possibility of death from cold, heat, disease, wild animals, local treasure hunters, and thirst. Coming out of the region alive, even empty handed, was an achievement in itself! This is definitely recommended for all adventure fans and those interested in the real-life origins of one of our own cultural icons – Indie! More to come from this author.

Just Finished Reading: Prisoners of Geography – Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics by Tim Marshall (FP: 2015/2019) [300pp] 

I’m sure that I’m not alone in wondering what exactly is going on with the world right now. It seems, at least if you watch the news or spend any time on-line (and especially if you spend any time swimming in the increasingly toxic depths of ‘Social Media’) that things are definitely ‘off’ to say the least. I’d even go so far as to say that it seems, on a good day, that a significant percentage of the humans on this planet have gone (or maybe just have gone public about being) crazy. So, what’s up? I thought reading up on Geopolitics might help – and it did! 

Personally, I’m one of ‘those people’ who just enjoy looking at maps, hunting out strange place names, and wondering what a place is actually like. Studying Geography at school (MANY years ago) I was completely intrigued by the idea that you could understand much about a place by looking at things like navigable rivers (or otherwise), locations and heights of mountains, placement of natural resources, the type of border (natural of the ominous straight-line) and so on. Looking closely the location of major cities, battles, migration paths, agricultural land and much more become ‘obvious’ once you take the physical geography into account. Things like cities are not scattered randomly on a landscape. They exist where they do for practical reasons. So, you can tell, almost at a glance, why some countries are prosperous and others poor. You can see why some countries are often invaded by their neighbours and others seems ‘designed’ for defence. 

Looking across the world, from Russia to the Artic, the author takes 10 locations and shows how their geography shaped their individual histories and how their geography shapes both their present and their futures. But as biology is not destiny neither is geography. A mountain range or a river will often constrain options for any country, but we are rather inventive beings who can literally move mountains, or at least blast holes through them. We can also redirect rivers, build bridges over them, or dam them – sometimes annoying or frightening the governments of countries downstream which could, under the wrong circumstances lead to conflict. 

I did think throughout this very interesting book that there was more than a slight hint of Jared Diamond (not that such is a bad thing), with nods to the direction of river flow and, more importantly, their navigability which gave Europe a head start in development (along with abundant natural resources in the shape of coal. Other zones, notably South America and Africa struggled in this regard coupled with the problems of transporting anything long distances through inhospitable regions (deserts, mountains, jungles etc). The chapter on India/Pakistan was most illuminating especially how India broke apart after the British left and how different ethnic groups ended up where they did – complete (of course) with much suffering and death in the process. I think the chapter I learned most from was that on the Middle East. Despite remembering watching many of the conflicts in that region as well as reading an excellent book on Palestine just recently, I did enjoy discovering much of the background to the wars, displacements and massacres over the decades – caused, in no small part, by the fact that the countries boundaries and indeed the countries themselves are the highly artificial constructs of European Powers after WW1 (I’m looking at YOU Britain and France). We REALLY screwed that region LONG before the present messes play out on our TVs and phones. It’s pretty much a given that wherever you see a straight line on a map you KNOW there’s trouble there!  

As my first dip into Geopolitics for a while I was both impressed and educated by this understandably bestselling book. If, like me, you wonder why conflicts start and persist over time, often in the same place's generation after generation, or have wondered why some countries are rich why others remain poor (often despite being resource rich) this is definitely a source for some answers. Definitely recommended and more to come both on the subject and from the author.  

Just Finished Reading: For All the Tea in China – Espionage, Empire and the Secret Formula for the World’s Favourite Drink by Sarah Rose (FP: 2009) [275pp] 

In all my years of drinking the stuff (as I am right now) I’ve never really thought about where tea comes from or how it became THE drink of the English and much of the rest of the world. I knew of its association with China and, especially, India but had assumed that it simply grew in different areas – like other plants – and that was it. I had no idea that it was actively STOLEN from China in order to break China’s monopoly on the trade and, not incidentally, make the East India Company a great deal of money. At the centre of things was botanist Robert Fortune who was tasked to gain access to China’s interior (at that time out of bounds to Europeans), accumulate tea plants and seeds, discover the secrets of making tea – from plant to pot – and make it out alive to tell the tale. Needless to say, the attempt was not without considerable risk as China was largely terra incognita before its borders were forcibly opened, but the potential profit was likewise considerable. Nothing like it had been attempted before. It was going to be quite the adventure! 

Tea is so ubiquitous that its almost invisible here. A ‘cup of tea’ is, as often parodied (with a lot of truth) as the ‘answer to everything’. That’s not far wrong. I’m not exactly sure at what age I started drinking it (5 maybe?) but growing up it was a regular ritual throughout the day. I think we drank it at least 3 or 4 times (maybe more) each day at home. But, until very recently, I never even thought to ask what TYPE of tea it was – mostly ‘blended’ standard tea (AKA the cheap stuff) - or where it came from. On going to university in the early 80’s I ‘fell in with’ a group of HEAVY tea drinkers – probably 6-10 cups a day or more! – which was cool. Tea kept us up, focused and fun to be with. I’m sure that it helped with our studies too. 

After Uni and my move to London, I kept up the tea habit for a while, but it slowly seemed more of a drag making it for myself and I slowly lost the habit. Only after a break of years – if not decades – I started drinking it again (presently green tea with lemon & honey) and found that I really missed it. My daily cuppa – just the one – is something I look forward to with some anticipation. After reading this book I’ve decided to expand my range into other teas (I picked up a box of Assam today) and intend to try out as many as I can find. I think it’ll be fun experimenting with ‘real’ tea rather than the standard blends I’ve been used to my whole life. It might take me a while to move away from teabags though – but I DO have an unused pot that could be dusted off... and I’ve seen some really nice/cute diffusers...  

If you have any interest or curiosity about the world's favourite drink this will definitely fill in the gaps in your knowledge. A fascinating read of global industrial espionage that got me wondering about other food and drink we’ve stolen and transplanted around the world. More to come. Recommended. 

Just Finished Reading: Nomads – The Wanderers Who Shaped Our World by Anthony Sattin (FP: 2022) [310pp] 

Go back far enough in our collective human history and we were all nomads. The few of us who existed in that long gone pre-historic age wandered the Earth hunting, fishing and generally getting on with our lives. Gradually, for a number of reasons, a few and then a few more, moved less or less often then, gradually ceased moving around and settled. From that point on the tension between the mobile and the settled has only grown. Of course, as we know, history is written by the victors but in this case there’s an added twist. Nomads, as a rule, leave behind no monuments, few artifacts and even few documents. By their very nature they travel light and have a light impact on the world. The settled, by contrast, have the ability, the numbers and often the wealth to build monuments that outlast their civilisations, leave behind a plethora of objects wherever they live and leave behind contracts, bills of sale and letters to loved ones. It's not surprising therefore that our nomadic ancestors and more their modern descendants have received a poor press when they received the attention a press at all. The author of this intriguing book does what he can (and does it well) to address that issue. 

The problem, as alluded to already, is that much of what we know about ancient, and more recent, nomadic tribes comes from the settled who had direct or indirect contact with them. As you might imagine much of the ‘press’ has been negative – sometimes with good reason but often without. Nomad all too often is synonymous with barbarian – those that lack sophistication or the trappings of civilisation. Unsurprisingly they are looked down upon, exploited, harassed and feared. Yet, throughout our long history, they have produced some awesome artifacts and have ruled over vast lands, empires and trade routes that shaped our entire planets history. Ignoring or sidelining nomadic people is telling only half the story of mankind at best. Despite the fact that the settled ‘civilised’ have triumphed over the nomadic doesn’t mean that they have contributed little (or nothing) of note nor that they can be ‘disappeared’ from the history books without doing real damage to our knowledge or understanding of humanity. 

This was definitely an interesting read, looking as it does from the ‘other side’ of history and focusing on those who move rather than exclusively on those who stand still (geographically speaking). The interaction of the nomad and the city-dweller is an important one and I think this book makes a creditable contribution to understanding that process. I certainly learnt a lot and by the end could more appreciate the value of those who chose to remain with their herds and their horses whilst others moved inside walls. Definitely recommended for anyone interested in a very different way of life. 

Just Finished Reading: Divided – Why We’re Living in an Age of Walls by Tim Marshall (FP: 2018) [288pp] 

Walls, be they metaphorical, electronic or physical, seem to be THE topic presently. From the ‘Great Firewall of China’ to the ‘southern Border’ in the US, from the wall separating Israel from the Palestinians to the barriers between India and Pakistan, from the walls being erected on the borders of the European Union and calls for stricter interior controls and the rejection of the free movement of people by the UK in the Brexit vote, talk of walls – the need for more, bigger, wider, deeper – and protests against them has rarely been louder. But why? And why now? 

Walls have a LONG and chequered history. Normally they are built to keep people out, to restrict access to an area or country, to control who comes in. Sometimes they are the opposite – the Berlin Wall being the poster child for this sort of thing – and are designed to keep a population IN. All have failed to one degree or another – although the Berlin Wall was amongst the most successful certainly in modern times. Despite the catalogue of failure, the wall builders rarely give up and instead look for better walls full of gadgets, drones, cameras, and if you’re really serious of keeping people out, men with guns, mines and dogs trained to kill. Yet, people still come, people still get through – or escape. The problem with walls is that there’s often a wall around or through them – be it a ladder, a tunnel, a balloon or simply a bribe at the gate. Most rational wall builders know this. Walls will slow the movement of people, not stop it. Walls are an additional cost – monetary, psychological, emotional – to people looking to relocate. Often the additional cost is worth paying and the cost to be builders to prevent this can be eye-wateringly large. Is it even worth it? 

The issue here, as the author points out, is less practical than emotional. Walls might not make us safe, but they make us feel safer. Or at least that’s the idea. But living inside a wall also makes people feel besieged and under (at least potential) attack. They may feel (at least temporarily) safer but at the cost of increased anxiety. In many ways its completely understandable. We seem to be living in a particularly uncertain time. Ironically, it might have been the falling of one wall – in Berlin – that eventually led to so many of us either cowering behind our new walls or calling for them to be built. The Cold War – however potentially existential it was – provided at least the illusion of stability. Generally speaking, people knew what to expect from their own side and that of the ‘other’. The future, bleak though it might be, was a known quantity. Today we live in a much more complex multi-polar world where the future can be barely imagined (bleak though it is expected to be) much less planned for. The entirely natural instinct is to burrow in, hunker down and protect what you have – in other words, to start building walls or build existing walls all the higher. 

Taking a world tour of wall building – both existing and planned – the author shows (to a surprising extent I thought) the extent to wall building in regional hotspots and along contended and contentious border areas. Most of these walls I’d barely heard of as most talk, at least in the western media is about America’s southern border with Mexico. That is, sadly, not the only one, not the biggest or most expensive or most complex one. With global migration increasing due to conflict, climate pressure and other factors the numbers of people pressing up against walls across the world can only increase. The question for everyone, not just our politicians, is what we can, should, and will do about it. Bigger walls or a more managed and rational process. One way or another we’re going to find out. Definitely recommended, although it might depress you more than a little bit. Much more to come from this author. 

Just Finished Reading: In the Shadows of the American Century – The Rise and Decline of US Global Power by Alfred W McCoy (FP: 2017) [256pp] 

An interesting way to look at modern US history (post-Civil War) is to see it as an Empire in the mould of the British or ancient Athenian empires – not one simply of conquest and domination but almost accidental (in the sense of not entirely deliberate).  Built through the provocation of wars and interventions from the Spanish-American war to the First and especially Second World Wars, America found itself torn from its preferred isolationist comfort zone and thrust onto the world stage as a player par excellence. It was World War 2 that made the US into a global powerhouse and the ‘arsenal of democracy’ (to say nothing of the world's richest nation by far and – briefly – the world’s only Super-power) but it was the subsequent Cold War that made the United States into an Empire in all but name. With the need to contain and, where required, combat the proxies of the ideological opposing force of Communism wherever they were found across the entire planet's surface (or beyond) the build-up of a truly staggering military force, the construction of numerous military bases around hot spots and the building of alliances for mutual defence developed into an Empire almost by default and, it seemed, almost as an afterthought. But built it was and the post-1945 world was named, without irony, the American Century. 

The previous empire (the world spanning British) that the Americans had now overshadowed had its own century running from 1815 to 1914 – going into slow and then accelerating decline after the exhausting Great War – and it was, at least initially, thought that the pax Americana would both outlast and outshine its predecessor. But the going has been far from easy. The Soviet Union developed nuclear weapons far faster than had been anticipated and the US no longer held the monopoly on world destruction. Other countries followed and the nuclear ‘club’ has been slowly expanding ever since. Although the military might of American forces was certainly not to be trifled with – as seen in Korea – the defeat in Vietnam tarnished their reputation for decades until the lightening victory in the first Gulf War. But, as we know, subsequent conflicts in Afghanistan and Gulf War 2 televised as they were for all the world to see showed beyond doubt the America’s predominance on the field of battle was no longer a given. The American Empire must now co-exist with other rising powers, most especially China, and come to terms with being more of a first amongst equals in a multi-polar world. The question is, naturally, just how long can the US retain its present position. Even with recent setbacks, the Chinese economy is due to overtake the US sooner rather than later. Likewise, the Chinese military strength grows by the day. If those two nations ever came to blows the outcome and the winner is up for debate, and it is far from certain that the US would prevail. We are indeed living through interesting times. 

This was, to be honest, a definite highlight of the year for me. The author most certainly ‘knows his stuff’ and manages to bring together almost a century of geopolitical history into a coherent narrative that is both persuasive and a little frightening. It also throws into perspective, at least for me, the present political turmoil that the US is going through. Looking at it through the lens of an Empire in decline it makes perfect sense. Indeed, its exactly what you might have expected to see as the Roman Empire crumbled long before the barbarians arrived at their gates. A fascinating read and highly recommended for anyone wanting to both understand the history of the US and, just possibly, its future. 

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Just Finished Reading: The Viral Storm – The Dawn of the New Pandemic Age by Nathan Wolfe (FP: 2011) [255pp] 

Pandemics are, thankfully, rare events but as we are only too well aware they are not something confined to the past. With all of the media and political attention paid to the Covid-19 global pandemic we have all become much more familiar with historic events such as the ‘Spanish’ flu outbreak towards the end of WW1 as well as previous esoteric epidemiological concepts as the R(0) number – the rate at which infection spreads in a population, which means that pandemics are no longer as mysterious to the general population as they once were. Today, thanks in part to the work of the author of this fascinating short volume, we have a much greater understanding of what viruses are, how they are transmitted both between species and between humans, how they spread so quickly across the globe and, ultimately, where they come from and, by implication, where the next pandemics will emerge. 

Interestingly, it appears that all flu strains originate in birds. This virus then hops across the species barrier to a mammal – often pigs – and then to us. Generally, most viruses die at that point in the human host and go no further. Sometimes, although only rarely, they are either already compatible enough with humans to both make the host sick (or even kill them) and jump to others or they swap genes with an existing flu infection already in the host and produce something more akin to SARS or MERS. Very occasionally things go a step or two further with a world-wide pandemic like Covid-19. Although relatively mild, in the overall grand scheme of things, Covid proved to be highly infectious and spread across the world before we really knew what hit us. But flu isn’t the only pandemic we are either already dealing with or coming at us in the future. The classic example of HIV/AIDS that we are only now getting to grips with jumped the species barrier from ape virus SIV. Somewhat ironically it appears to have begun spreading outside its home reach because of a combination of economic and health improvements in Africa enabling people to more easily travel long distances coupled with misuse of needles in local hospitals. Only in the 1980’s, many decades after it emerged in the human population was it ‘discovered’ in the US. One can only imagine the difference if it had been identified much earlier and stopped in its tracks. 

We are, in some cases at least, creating a perfect storm for future pandemics. We crowd into cities that are ever more dense, more people than ever before move across the globe at subsonic speeds allowing viruses with ever shorter infection to symptom times to make it to other continents before people become visibly sick, we herd our increasingly homogenous food animals into closer and tighter groups allowing any infection to spread through them quickly, we are increasingly destroying natural habitats and encountering new diseases there and the growing ‘diseases of affluence’ increasingly compromises our immune systems and impacts our healthcare systems. It’s quite a toxic brew and it should come as no surprise that people like this author are sounding the alarm bells (well in advance of Covid-19). 

Of course, one of the positive outcomes of Covid is that not only have we had a pretty loud wake-up call but we’ve also put a lot of time and money into producing drugs and vaccines that can cope with, or at the very least mitigate, future outbreaks. Taken together with a global virus surveillance effort this could be the difference between ‘business as usual’ and, well, use your imagination. If you’re in the ‘headspace’ to read about pandemics yet or, like me, never left it, this is an interesting, somewhat reassuring if somewhat sobering read. The bad news is that Covid-19 isn’t going to be our last pandemic. The good news is that we’re not helpless in the face of such things if we take the problem seriously. Definitely recommended. 

Just Finished Reading: Empire Made Me – An Englishman Adrift in Shanghai by Robert Bickers (FP: 2003) [342pp]

It was all by accident really, prompted by an intriguing throw-away line: Here, you might find this interesting. In the box the archivist handed him was a collection of letters and a few bits of random information. Not having time to go down that particular rabbit hole just yet he made some notes and went back to his original project. But he didn’t forget that box or its contents. When time allowed he took up the challenge of putting together an ordinary person’s life – a life lived in extraordinary times and in an extraordinary place.

Richard Maurice Tinkler was a child of Empire. Born and raised in the North of England (actually not too far from where I went to University) his journey into the wider world started with an argument with his father and the desire to prove himself. He did so with a lie about his age, a complicit recruiter and a ticket to the Western Front in the First World War. Survival in those years meant growing up – fast. On his return to England Tinkler found that the promises of a ‘Land fit for Heroes’ were as empty for the reason for the war in the first place. In exasperation a family member pointed out a job advert in the local paper for police officers in Shanghai. Impulsively he applied and was accepted. But for a single trip back home he stayed the rest of his life in that oriental city.

At first things went really well despite his loathing for the ‘system’ that kept him and his working class mates at the bottom of the Imperial totem pole (or at least at the bottom of the white pole – Tinkler and his colleagues were in the strange position of essentially being servants who had their own non-white servants to look after them). He learnt the local Chinese dialect quickly and earned promotions until his underlying anger-management issues and his inability to suffer what he regarded as fools (which to be honest encompassed most of humanity) got him into trouble. Losing rank only fuelled his resentment but may have also enabled him to climb the ladder again until it all finally blew up in his face. In the final analysis he really had no one to blame but himself. Tinkler was not a very nice man. He was a racist – and not just regarding the local Chinese and Indian police units he had to work with – he had deep unresolved anger issues, used violence or the threat of violence too often to get his own way, drank far too much to be healthy (or competent on duty) and was more than a little misogynistic. He was, truth be told, a rather nasty piece of work.

But telling his tale, warts and all, (and impressively too) gives a unique window into the British Empire in China. All too often we see Imperial history told from the viewpoints of Governors of vast Imperial lands or military leaders enforcing civilisation at the point of a Maxim machine gun. Here we see what the Empire looked like and how it functioned from street level where the blood, sweat and tears of the real Imperial endeavour existed day by day. This was the Empire that people rarely saw, rarely heard about and rarely read about except in newspaper headlines. This was the Empire of drug raids, of riot control or systemic racism and oppression – even in a country that was not under Imperial control. It was, page after page, a real eye-opener to what Empire felt like on the ground through the eyes and experiences of one average, run-of-the-mill, police officer on his ‘beat’ in a faraway place. Told by an author who really shows his expertise in both China and story-telling this is a fantastic window on the 1920’s British enclave in Shanghai. If you have even a passing interest in British Imperial or Chinese history this is a must read. Highly recommended.         

Just Finished Reading: The Boxer Rebellion by Richard O’Connor (FP: 1973) [348pp]

It’s sad to say but before reading this excellent history my knowledge (such as it was) of the Boxer Rebellion consisted mostly of snippets from other works and the 1963 movie 55 Days at Peking starring Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner and David Niven. Needless to say most of the movie was almost dead wrong historically.

The Boxer Rebellion was, it seemed, a long time coming. China had been attacked, occupied and essentially bullied into economic ‘co-operation’ since the early 1800’s and was getting more than a little sick of it. A big complaint was the activities of Christian missionaries who continued to convert thousands of Chinese subjects to their cause and belief. But really most of it was about power – and money. The Chinese authorities – especially the Empress – knew full well that they could not confront the European Powers directly so when the Boxer Uprising took place they saw their opportunity. The Boxers took great offense to foreign intervention in Chinese affairs and began attacking Europeans and those who worked for them with ever greater vigour. Naturally complaints were raised (and acknowledged) but secretly the authorities either turned a blind eye to Boxer activity or even actively encouraged it – handing over weapons and offering training where appropriate. The ‘foreign’ settlement in the capital Peking saw which way things were going and asked their respective governments for military guards – which duly arrived. These consisted mainly of marine units from the ships in harbour over a hundred miles away plus military band units so hardly the best of the best (back in those days – 1900 – the marines where not yet a countries elite fighting force).

It was not long before ‘blind eyes’ and tacit approval turned into full government support and a concerted attack on European settlements in several locations (not just in Peking) took place and involved Chinese imperial troops as well as Boxer irregulars. The Legation in Peking was very heavily outnumbered and was not expected to last very long. If it had been overrun and the diplomats killed the resultant revenge from all of the Powers would have been devastating to China despite the weak excuse of ‘The Boxers did it’. How the Empress thought she would get away with such a thing is beyond me. If things had gone ahead as planned and the Powers reacted as I fully expect they would it wouldn’t have surprised me if China as a sovereign nation had simply ceased to exist after being carved up and apportioned out to the countries involved. However, as actually hinted at in the ‘63 movie (so kudos there for that at least), the Chinese military commander refused to give over use of heavier artillery to the Boxers knowing full well that the Powers couldn’t withstand that and the number of casualties that would follow. What did surprise me (although maybe it shouldn’t have) was the fact that, unlike the movie portrayal, the Powers not only did not have any kind of unified command structure – so communications were often delayed – but that several countries contingents simply refused to co-operate with others which naturally meant extra work to ensure that certain Powers where not required (or asked to) assist certain others. For example the French refused to help the Germans (ditto) and the Russians and Japanese could barely stand each other. Interesting the film shows the US Marine commander (Heston) and the Japanese commander having good relations (I did wonder if this was in order to back up the anti-communist ‘pact between the two in the 1960’s). What the book relates is that the Japanese commander was not only the most experienced and most able of those available but (I think) also senior in rank so, technically at least, should have been in overall command of the defences. Unfortunately it was decided that it would be unthinkable for white men to be commanded by a Japanese officer – no matter how capable. Despite the brief reference to Ava Gardner playing at nursing (I think as I skipped through most of the ‘love interest’ bit between her and Heston) women played almost no part in the movie. In reality (again quite different) not only did they provide nursing services, cooking and cleaning (again just being the turn of the 20^th century) but also produced most of the sandbags used in the barricades. One women (who I think was either French or American) joined the men on the barricades with rifle in hand. She was asked to leave as she provided too much of a distraction to the men. The other thing that the movie completely edits out – understandably as it adds a whole other level of possible confusion – was the fact that a lot of Chinese Christians helped with barricade construction, and much of the more mundane activities of any prolonged siege. The film also failed to show the blatant disregard for the Chinese suffering in a near-by compound despite the fact that the European Powers had offered them protection – at least initially.

The siege at Peking and elsewhere lasted almost 2 months largely due to the incompetence of and arguing between the respective Powers. An initial relief attempt had to be rescued and withdrawn because it was too small, put together too quickly and had grossly underestimated the resolve of Chinese units ranged against them. Only when a properly constituted force was ready – which took an inordinate amount of time – was progress made and the siege of the foreign legation lifted. Again in the movie this was shown as a just in time relief complete with marching bands. The reality was not so neat however. There the movie ended complete with cheering. What it didn’t show was what happened next. As Chinese forces left Peking the victorious (mostly European) armies did what they always do – looted the city, for about a month. Each Power looted in its own way and despite being ordered not to the American’s joined it. Some people made LOTS of money and museums and art galleries, to say nothing of heads of state, acquired choice Chinese artefacts which are still held today. As with previous conflicts the defeat of Chinese forces led to great penetration by the victorious Powers and even more trouble stored up for later.

This was a really fascinating book that had been sitting, unread and unloved, for far too long on one of my shelves. I wish I had read it sooner. I actually re-watched ’55 Days’ the day I finished this (YouTube for the win!) to see just how different the movie version was to the actual reality. I shouldn’t have been shocked but I was. This was an extremely informative and interesting look at a piece of Imperial history and an important part of the history of Western-Chinese relations that still echoes today. Definitely worth reading if you can find a copy. Highly recommended.               

Just Finished Reading: The Opium War by Julia Lovell (FP: 2011) [360pp]

It wasn’t just a profitable trade – it was a VERY profitable trade. Opium produced in India and transported to China raised a significant percentage of India’s running costs to the British Empire. Any restriction of that, admittedly illicit, trade not only threatened Indian revenue but arguably threated the Imperial project itself. At least that was what some of the actors in this drama told themselves and others back home. The Chinese had a long history of restricting access and trade opportunities to outsiders and after many decades of grumbling and smuggling the Europeans and especially the British had had enough. Whilst trade in opium was illegal the profits from its sale – initially to the wealthy and well placed – were enormous even with the middle men and bribes to everyone in the distribution chain. If the trade was made legal then profits would sky rocket. The opportunity arose during a periodic Chinese crackdown on the trade when a large consignment of opium was confiscated and burnt. Complaints from British traders fell on deaf ears and the local English language press had a field day in decrying how the European ‘race’ had been humiliated. The demand that ‘something be done’ was growing. Tired of the constant complaints the British government sent a representative to ‘sort things’. Siding with the traders he attempted to meet with officials, claim compensation and regularise the trade on a firmer foundation. This is when the misunderstandings and very different cultural world views came into deadly conflict.

The Chinese, often with very good reason, regarded the rest of the world as barbarians – no matter their technological prowess. The British, naturally to them, regarded the Chinese as a failed, backward and corrupt empire on the verge of collapse. Along with the slightly distasteful trade in opium they were bringing all of the benefits of European civilisation and, for some inexplicable reason, they were meeting resistance. A lesson, it seemed, needed to be taught. So they awaited an inevitable incident to arise that they could use as a wedge to finally breach Chinese trade restrictions once and for all. They didn’t have long to wait. Made into something far worse than it actually was the British envoy accused Chinese forces of an unprovoked attack on a British ship going about its lawful business (neither of which was strictly true) and demanded reparations. When none were forthcoming the British did what the British did back then – they called for military support. Back in those days (the late 1830’s) before widespread use of the telegraph it took weeks for messages to go back and forth from the edge of the Empire’s reach back to London and weeks more for a reply to be received on agreed action. None of this was in any way practical for efficient administration so envoys had a great deal of latitude to act on their own. Even with a latitude as wide as he no doubt had the British envoy overstepped his remit – and then some. Almost before they had begun to understand the situation the British government found themselves embroiled in what turned out to be the First Opium War.

Yet again (which seems to be a constant refrain here) the Opium War(s) was something I knew of but knew very little about (at least in detail). I know the fact that the British essentially used Royal Naval power to ENFORCE an illegal drug trade on another country but I wasn’t fully aware at how we first bumbled our way into it and then bumbled our way through it. Naturally with our technological superiority the war, if you can really call it that, didn’t last long or cost many European lives – though it cost a great number of Chinese ones. The subsequent treaty was flawed (mostly because of cultural misunderstandings and a Chinese ‘understanding’ that its provisions could be gradually ‘forgotten’) which led to the Second Opium War in 1856-60 which both opened up the Chinese mainland to a lot more trade – not just in opium – as well as full access for Christian missionaries. This, again naturally, became a casus belli for the subsequent Boxer Rebellion (more later!). From all of this you can see why the Chinese distrust and (arguably) hate Europeans almost as much as they despise the Japanese (more later!). In the last section of this fascinating book the author goes into the echoes of these conflicts – mostly long forgotten in the West but still fairly fresh in Chinese memory – both with the recurrent idea of a ‘Yellow Peril’ so often portrayed in popular culture since the mid-19^th century to the present day and the deep-seated mistrust of any Western attempt to restrict or limit the Chinese taking what they see as their rightful place in the world. Not just a history of a war long ago in a place far away, this is I think an important contribution to understanding the Chinese world view and our place in creating it. With China rising in world power and the West arguably in relative decline misunderstandings of the kind that led to the Opium Wars will have much larger consequences for all involved. Hopefully works like this can reduce the changes of that happening. Most definitely recommended to anyone who wishes to understand China.

Just Finished Reading: Wars of National Liberation by Daniel Moran (FP: 2001) [237pp]

The First World War started it, or at least the END of the War started it – that and President Wilson’s 14 Points and the universal political acid of ‘Self-Determination’. When the major European empires fell (or at the very least shuddered) the colonised around the world looked forward with hope to their independence. For many only disappointment lay ahead as the colonies of the vanquished were, by and large, handed over to the victors to run – most with the fiction of ‘Mandate’ status and the ‘eventual’ move to independence when they had achieved the requisite level of ‘maturity’ – judged by the Empire running things naturally. But what the First World War started the Second finished – by 1945 the Age of Empires was, effectively, over. Unfortunately that realisation wasn’t shared by everyone.

Exhausted by a second global conflict in 30 years the British finally agreed to, slowly, let go of Empire. In a few places it needed a nudge or two but eventually they did get out of the Imperial business. France took a while longer to realise that the jig was definitely up and fought nasty conflicts in North Africa and South East Asia (leaving the Americans to messily finish things off in the 1970’s). Covering many of these conflicts – most of which we are all too familiar with – this surprisingly good if short book looks at wars across the world as local forces fought off their colonial masters and others to achieve the long hoped for state of independence. Naturally things were not often straight forward and the ultimate objectives both messy and bloody. The post-war world after 1945 was the world of superpowers in proxy conflicts and both sides used the wars of national liberation to kick the other side whenever possible or politically acceptable.

The list of wars is a fairly extensive one despite the 237 page size restraints. From the Chinese war against the Japanese occupation and the subsequent Civil War, to the Korean War, to the French in Indo-China, to the French (again) in Algeria, to several European powers in Africa, to Cuba and conflicts throughout South America, to Israeli independence in the war of 1948 and finally the debacle that was Vietnam. A lot of ground is covered quickly but both the text and the many photographs and maps are detailed enough to make sense of what was going on. Obviously this slim volume will not make you an expert on this most important of themes in the post-1945 age but it will give you an enhanced appreciation of what was going on in so many places across the globe and what many of them had in common. Recommended.    

Just Finished Reading: Getting Our Way – 500 Years of Adventure and Intrigue: The Inside Story of British Diplomacy by Christopher Meyer (FP: 2009)

Told in rather florid style by the former ambassador to the US based in Washington (as he often references throughout the test) this is actually a pretty fascinating insight into British diplomatic efforts throughout the world since Elizabethan times. Most of the focus, however, is after the Napoleonic Wars with the British influence over the Congress of Vienna that (largely) settled European affairs between the fall of Napoleon and the start of the First World War. Divided into three sections – Security, Prosperity and Values – this book looks at the three pillars of diplomacy in turn and picks out examples where the British ambassador on the ground attempted, not always successfully, to achieve each of them for his (and all the examples are male) masters back home in London.

Being a fan of European history (as you may have noticed) I was particularly interested in the section covering the political aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars which was, until then, something of a mystery to me. I knew *of* the Congress of Vienna but very little about it. I shall be digging into this more later. Naturally we were coming into this event from a great position of strength (which helped greatly) so our influence was correspondingly strong. It was interesting however how the congress was radically different from, and how far more effective in outcome, they were from the century later Versailles Treaty negotiations. It’s a shame that some of the format of the former was not transferred to the later. Imagine a world without World War Two!

My favourite section – warts and all – was on Prosperity which concentrated on our relations with China and covered the Opium Wars, gunboat diplomacy and the retreat from Hong Kong where we most definitely were negotiating from a severe position of weakness. The double dealing and outright bullying – never mind that it was all over the *forced* importation of opium! – of the British in the Opium Wars was astounding. How those people slept at night is beyond me. Much more on our relations with China to come (and fairly soon).

Lastly another section I enjoyed greatly was based around ‘The Great Game’ between the Russian and British Empire’s fought out – sometimes literally in the Ottoman Empire and especially Constantinople/Istanbul. Again it’s something I’m aware of happening without appreciating the details. Careers and reputations were both made and destroyed in those secretive and tumultuous times. Some of the events read like an early version of James Bond, they really do! Again much more of this fascinating history later.

Overall, apart from a few niggles and annoyances with the narrative, this was a pretty good introduction to what diplomats do and what some famous (and infamous) British diplomats have done over the preceding centuries. Interesting and recommended to anyone looking for insights to what happens behind closed doors in smoke filled rooms.     

Just Finished Reading: We Have Been Harmonised – Life in China’s Surveillance State by Kai Strittmatter (FP: 2019)

Imagine you’re walking home from a late night drinking session with friends. You’re still 10 minutes away from your apartment but you’re desperate for a pee. You look around. It’s 2am so the streets are empty and there’s a handy dark corner near some large bins. Seconds later you’re feeling much better and even begin to hum a tune to yourself. You phone beeps with an incoming text message. Maybe it’s from that girl you met tonight. You fish your phone out and look at your phone in horror. You’ve just been fined for your public urination and what’s more video of the act has been posted to screens located outside your apartment, the nearby bus stop you use to get to work and outside your office. As this puts you over the monthly limit your Internet connect has been throttled back to its minimum setting and your high-speed train ticket has been revoked so no visiting your parents this weekend. One getting home you discover a printed note taped to your door from the landlord. If you don’t get your Harmony Score up in the next 30 days you’ll be looking for somewhere else to live. Time to clean up your act.

Is this the future? No, it’s present day China – a society dedicated to bringing Harmony through Technology. The author who has lived in China on and off for decades outlines the lengths that the authorities will go to in order to make its citizens toe the line, and it’s a LONG way. Surveillance of the public space as well as online activities is ever present and growing every day. The technology, including the addition of increasingly powerful AI software, is becoming more accomplished as whole cities become testbeds and countries across the world are becoming interested in applying lessons in their countries too and China is more than happy to help. This pervasive and intrusive technology might help outsiders to understand how the Chinese authorities apparently controlled the recent outbreak of COVID-19 so quickly and so effectively. Contact tracing was easy as they already knew a great deal about people’s day to day contacts. Isolation was a breeze as the authorities arrived, immediately identified the people they had come for with facial recognition on their phones, and whisked them away into quarantine without so much as a murmur of protest. Clamping down on apartment blocks, streets or whole cities was as easy as pushing a button and watching a handful of monitor screens.

This was a scary enough read when you think about it happening in China but it gets scarier as you realise that not only are the Chinese exporting this technology freely across the globe but that our countries are looking at this way of ‘harmonising’ their citizens too – maybe not as forcefully, maybe not as openly – but you can see them salivating at the power it gives them. It’ll be sold, naturally, as a painless way of protecting you from crime, from terrorism, and protecting your children from predators and it will work. After all, if you’re doing nothing wrong you have nothing to fear, right? I’m sure that European Jews said the same thing to themselves in 1932….. Highly recommended if you can keep your paranoia in check. Much more on China to come.

Translated from the German by Ruth Martin     

Just Finished Reading: The Deluge – The Great War and the Remaking of Global Order (1916-1931) by Adam Tooze (FP: 2014)

No doubt it was offered with the very best of intentions however naïve. But all the same the idea was like political acid – self-determination. Never fully explained or even understood it meant many things to many people and that, at its heart, was the problem. Throughout Europe and the wider world the idea of the right to and expectation of self-determination worked its magic helping to break up old empires and create countries out of whole cloth. It encouraged people’s, previously disenfranchised, to rise up against their governments to be allowed their own homeland and equal rights in the eyes of the law, and it brought democracy where none had previously existed. The Genie was very much out of the bottle and no one, even at gun point, was going to put it back in – although some would try very hard indeed.

Of course principles are easy to state, safely between two oceans with little or nothing to lose by the statement. Living up to the same principles when they hit the hard reality of international politics was something else. The easy part was returning Alsace-Lorraine to France (despite the number of ethnic Germans living there). The harder part was countries like Poland which had to be carved out of the pre-existing territories of Germany, Russia and others. Most especially difficult was the provision of natural resources and, more importantly, access to the sea at Danzig. No self-determination there just hard economics, realpolitik and hard bargaining. Even those on the ground could see that the Polish solution was storing up problems for the future. But that was for the newly formed League of Nations to resolve or at least that was the idea before it was effectively emasculated by its Byzantine internal set of rules in an attempt to appear fairer than it in fact was as well the aspect that America never took up its place at the table to spare any future European entanglements.

As a forward looking people the Americans – in the public guise of President Wilson – had little interest in Europe’s Imperial past. They did have an interest in the world’s economic future, unrestricted access to new markets, an open seas policy enforced by a navy at least the equal of Britain’s and the speedy recovery of war debt accrued by the Entente powers. Almost as important in many eyes was the restriction of Japanese expansionism within China and throughout Asia. Not only did the US consider the Pacific to be within their sphere of influence but they thought of the Japanese themselves with a mixture of suspicion and contempt. The US policy towards China itself was hardly coherent and managed to send mixed signals to both the Japanese and Chinese authorities which did little to help stabilise that chaotic region.

At the centre of everything were two countries fighting in many ways for their very existence – Germany and Russia. Germany was the vanquished foe trying to recover from the heavy blow of defeat and the heavier blow of post-Versailles reparations. Stumbling from government to government, fighting elements from both the hard-left and the hard-right, it had an uncertain future. Russia meanwhile was trying to decide between being a failed state or a pariah state. After the 1917 revolution, the declaration of a separate peace with Germany and a descent into years of Civil War the newly formed Soviet Union, birthed in a sea of blood, began to take its place on the world stage. Contained for now by the western powers it still had the capacity, real or imagined, to infect the rest of the world with the ideas of universal Communism. It was in many ways a useful bogeyman.

In this truly formidably impressive work the global chaos caused by 5 years of war, the likes of which had never been seen before, is laid out for all to see and the echoes of this great conflict are followed through as they impacted countries as diverse as Japan and Ukraine. Despite its world spanning reach and its 15 year timeline the detail presented between these 500+ pages is awe inspiring. It is by no means an easy read but the effort is amply rewarded and then some. Not only does the author clearly explain exactly the damage – political, economic and in a real sense moral – caused by the war but he also (again very clearly) shows how this often unresolved and unaddressed damage significantly facilitated an even greater disaster a mere two decades later. The author rightly points out that although World War Two was not the inevitable result of its predecessor the fact that systemic problems in the world system after 1918 were not addressed – even when known about and warned about – meant that any realistic options for peace were increasingly closed off between then and 1939. This is an important work and a must read for anyone who wants to understand exactly how we got here. I can think of much worse places to start if you’re willing to put the time and brain effort into it. Highly recommended. 

Just Finished Reading: The New Silk Roads – The Present and Future of the World by Peter Frankopan (FP: 2018)

China is not a rising power. No, China has risen. That is the overall conclusion of this fascinating study of China’s global reach and China’s future power in the world. How are we responding in the West? - with division, in-fighting, denial and a delusional sense of self-importance. The West has been dominant across the globe for centuries so it’s understandable that we have come to accept this reality as somehow permanent. However, in the recent decades the centre of power in the world – political, financial and, growing in leaps and bounds, military is shifting to the East. The threat (if it’s characterised that way) is real. But the West seems to be incapable of challenging this truly seismic global shift. Even our response is too little, too late, misses the point entirely or simply does not exist. China in particular (along with the other BRIC countries Brazil, Russia and India) in spending billions of dollars across the world on the new Silk Roads which throughout history have wrapped the world in a web of trade in exotic spices, silk and ideas – plus a few nasty diseases. The new roads consist of port installations, actual roads, power stations, dams, oil refineries and much else besides. As it expands China acquires the vast natural resources it needs to grow at (until recently) a truly astonishing rate – lifting a billion people out of poverty – and acquiring the rights to future resources from Africa, Central Asia and South America. The Chinese are either buying or building port facilities in Europe, Malaysia and even the US. Being unburdened by the need to appeal to an electorate the Chinese can plan 10, 20, 50 or 100 years ahead and actually be able to stick to the plan through thick and thin. No democratic country could hope to do that tied as they are to the election cycle and the demands of big business with shareholders to please and short term profits to provide.

The question that all of this raises is how do we in the West respond? As our relative power with China and the other BRICs decline how do we cope in a multi-polar world were we no longer command the wind (or much else for that matter). If we can no longer throw our weight around with impunity how do we respond to Chinese moves in the Pacific or Indian probes on the Moon or Russian troops in Crimea. What do we do when the first man (or woman) on Mars is from Beijing and not Boston? What do we do when most of the world looks to developments in New Delhi rather than New York? What do we do when the most common second language ceases to be English and becomes Mandarin instead? How do we adapt to this new reality.

The most important thing is, naturally, to recognise that this is happening and to stop seeing ourselves as the natural masters of the universe and the inheritors of all we survey. The West, it seems, has had its time in the sun and now the sun sets and rises in the East. We should see it for what it is, accept it and then do our best to be part of the new narrative rather than a historical side note. This book is not a cry in the wilderness and is most certainly not a cry for help of any kind. It is, above all else, a wake-up call showing us what we have by and large ignored. We may, on many scales, still be a force to be reckoned with, we may still indeed be Number One but not for much longer. How we respond to our new place in the world will determine how happy or how miserable future generations of Westerners will be. Some think that war is inevitable – Thucydides Trap – between the rising power of China and the falling power of the US. I don’t believe this. I have never been a great believer in fate or destiny and I’m not going to start now. Working with the multi-polar nature of the future rather than against it would be in everyone’s interests and could usher in a new global age of prosperity. Or we could fight, waste our dwindling resources and, ultimately, lose and beggar our grandchildren who will curse our names. We need to recognise that the future is probably going to be bright. It’s just won’t be our future. This book will help you see that. Highly recommended for anyone interested in how the future is likely to pan out and who want to know what the BRICs are up to across the globe right now. (R)         

Just Finished Reading: Peacemakers – Six Months that Changed the World by Margaret Macmillan (FP: 2001)

If you are anything like me, and even think of such things, you probably think of the post-World War One peace conference culminating in the famous (or infamous) Treaty of Versailles. Essentially, before reading this excellent detailed history of the conference, that was pretty much my idea too. How wrong I was. The Versailles Treaty, signed by Germany in the Hall of Mirrors in 1919 was only the final act of a long drawn out, complex and often highly controversial series of treaties aimed at resolving a whole host of issues thrown up by the Great War so recently ended as well as the fallout from it. Not only was Germany to be ‘dealt’ with but the other Central Powers needed to be chastised likewise. Along with this rather thankless task was the management of the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire spinning out of control and tearing itself apart largely on ethnic grounds (with definite echoes of Yugoslavia following the collapse of the Soviet Union post-1989), the problem of the dying Ottoman Empire and the whole of the Middle East, the distribution of German colonies across the globe and what to do with them, the demands of Italy and Japan in particular who were both very vocal in getting what they felt they deserved and, of course, dealing with the political hand-grenade of Wilson’s 14 points and the corrosive (and rather ill-defined) idea of ‘national self-determination.

For 6 months the victorious powers – The US, France, Britain and Italy – with a whole host of experts, negotiators, civil servants, hangers-on, and anyone who could shoe-horn themselves into the process – set out to decide the fate of the world, set things to right and ultimately prevent another ghastly war from ever happening again. Central to this was the idea of the League of Nations, a body dedicated to peace through collective security. This was President Woodrow Wilson’s baby and he demanded that it be the first item on the peace agenda. The French Premier, Clemenceau, had other ideas and wanted Germany and its many crimes against France to be front and centre. The British, under the brilliant but erratic David Lloyd George wanted to protect the Empire, prevent a single strong European power and to somehow establish a monopoly on the recent finding of oil in the Middle East, Italy just wanted more land and then some more land to protect it. Let the horse trading begin…. Luckily most people had at least the public image of wanting what was best for the world and everyone could agree that another war should be made unthinkable. Unfortunately those involved, despite both literally and figuratively looking forward to the future were stuck in the past. England wanted to secure her position and her Empire. France wanted security above all else and the humbling of her traditional enemy for all time. The US, in the figure of Wilson didn’t really know what it wanted. Deeply untrusting of European motives (with good reason) they hoped, in the rather naïve American way of the time, that everyone wanted the same thing and that reason would prevail over revenge or greed.

Of course as lines were drawn across maps and backroom deals meant that cities or whole regions changed hands for concessions elsewhere with little regard for the people on the ground – despite lip service to the self-determination principle – the seeds of future conflicts were being laid. Ethnic tensions irrupted immediately across central Europe and simmered throughout the 1920’s and into the next war. The emergence of a Jewish homeland in Palestine quickly moved out of British control and became a source of endless tension and hand-wringing long before the founding of the state of Israel. In the Far East the disgruntled Japanese decided to take the territory they had been promised and which had later been denied them. So many sparks awaiting the right conditions to feed a future conflagration.

Covering a mere 6 months in a hefty 500 pages meant a lot of detail and a lot of ground covered in this truly excellent history of the conference that shaped the world immediately after the Great War and for decades later down to today. Echoes of the conference decisions still appear on the nightly news 100 years later. Without the knowledge contained in this volume some of that news seems inexplicable. No longer. Highly recommended to anyone who wants to understand the modern world.

Just Finished Reading: Modern China – A Very Short Introduction by Rana Mitter (FP: 2008)

There are two things in the 21st century that cannot be ignored and will probably define the period – Global Warming and the rise of China as a global power. Despite its present slowdown (though still galloping ahead in global terms) in the next 50 years it will most likely have surpassed all other nations in economic and quite possibly military terms to be the top global superpower with everything that means to the rest of us. For many, many reasons China is the place to watch and the more we know about it the better. This short introduction (only 140 pages) is a great little place to start.

Running historically from the enforced opening of trade by the European powers in the 19th century, through the Boxer Rebellion, crisis, famine, civil war and the rise of Communism to the present economic ‘miracle’ the author tries (and in my opinion more than succeeds) to give an impression of what China has gone through in the last 150 years to get where it is today. The route has been far from easy and far indeed from a straight line from past to present (and into the future) but it goes a long way to explain the why of things as well as the how of things. There can be little argument that, especially with around 1/6 of the world’s population within its borders China is a behemoth to be reckoned with. It’s likely that, when the present focus on the Middle East fades into the background, China will be entrenched across most, if not all, of the Far East and, it would seem, a significant portion of Africa. China, unlike the worlds democracies, looks decades ahead and plans accordingly. When we finally shift our focus to the resource rich poor nations of the world we will find that the Chinese are already there and have been for years if not decades before us.

In the future multipolar world (who would’ve thought that the Cold War certainty could feel so cosy now) China will be a serious player in every corner of the world. It will demand respect and have the economic and military power to back up that demand. Personally I think that if you have children you should be encouraging them to learn what will probably be the second language of the 21st and maybe the dominant language of the 22nd century – Chinese. You could do a lot worse that start educating yourself with this book and following up with reading some examples from its short bibliography. More on China to come.

Just Finished Reading: The Mongols – A Very Short Introduction by Morris Rossabi (FP: 2012)

Seemingly appearing from nowhere in the 13th and 14th centuries the Mongols carved out the largest contiguous empire the world has ever seen covering the whole of China and stretching from Korea to Russia in the north and Syria in the south. For a time they washed up on the edges of Western Europe and even threatened Christendom itself. All the more surprising considering their humble beginnings and their ultimate demise.

In this fascinating and detailed short book (a mere 124 pages) the author unearths the Mongols origins as a wild, disconnected and unorganised disparate group of warring tribes eking out a subsistence existence on the wild open spaces of Asia. Reliant on their horses for almost everything they needed they supplied the rest by occasional raiding of the more settled farming areas and with trading any surpluses they had in times of plenty. This is likely to have been their entire (largely unrecorded) history if it wasn’t for the emergence of a leader of one small band of nomads who had much greater ambitions – Chinggis (or Ghenkis) Khan. Slowly accumulating power by defeating tribe after tribe in combat or absorbing them into his super-tribe through marriage or treaty the great Khan eventually became a regional power to be reckoned with. With increased wealth and the power that came with it even walled cities could not stand against him – initially safe behind their fortifications they failed to account for the Mongols hiring mercenaries adept in siege craft. As their power increased so did their wealth, as their wealth increased so did their power. Whole provinces fell before them or paid tribute. Local tax collectors made sure that the money kept rolling in and the Mongols themselves kept their empire expanding ever outward. Of course things couldn’t last. No empire expands forever and no statesman, no matter how gifted, lives forever. When Chinggis died the infighting began over a successor and the great empire descended in to a period of civil war.

When a strong leader finally appeared it was already too late. The empire had become a federation of tribes made up of traditional nomads, new city dwellers, Muslims, and much else besides. Periodic warfare between the various Khanate's became endemic and the Mongols disappeared from history.

One of the many interesting asides in this intriguing little book is the idea, floated by several European powers, that sections of the Mongol Horde could be persuaded to attack the largely Muslim Middle East either in co-ordination with the Western Crusade or on their own in the pay of the West thereby eliminating an enemy of both. Obviously the plans, possibly naïve, came to nothing as the Western Kingdoms squabbled amongst themselves and no real consensus appeared. It is however interesting to speculate what the world might have looked like after Islam had been destroyed by the Mongol invasion of the Middle East. I’m sure there’s an Alternate History novel/series in there somewhere! Detailed, with a wide scope and a decent bibliography this is definitely a good place to start if you want to find out more of this enigmatic, violent and surprisingly cultured group of peoples who have a huge influence on Eastern and Far Eastern cultures – and luckily not on Western Europe.