Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilizaton - Pau Kriwaczek

A well-written overview of the rise of Mesopotamia and its permutations as Babylon and Assyria.

Lots of interesting bits of information jump out:
- how early we developed many of our current staples of diet: bread, cheese, beer, wine
- how early the basic structures of commerce and finance emerged
- the transformation from religious, egalitarian society to kings/dictators when conflict first arises between the various cities in the Mesopotamian basin
- that the Assyrians were the first to develop segregation of women, veiling, and the notion of inferior status, cultural trends that were later adopted by Judaism, Islam and the Byzantines/Greeks
- Babylonians were the first to develop the notion of one godhead; the concept of transcendent god as opposed to immanent god, or god in forces of nature - also the idea of god being above nature and, by extension, man being above nature as he is made in the image of god (again, especially influential on the Old Testament)

For further reading in this area, a great source for Bibliography, links etc.

In particular:
Early Mesopotamia:  Society and Economy at the Dawn of History - J. N. Postgate

A History of the Ancient Near East - Marc van de Mieroop

The Might that was Assyria - Henry W. F. Sagg

Geopolitics of Emotion - Dominique Moisi

Kind of in the same category as "Revenge of Geography".  Too many gross generalizations, stereotypes and platitudes at the base of his discussions.  Once you wince at these, the whole development of ideas seems to go nowhere.  He may think he is writing from a fairly objective point of view but his western biases in relation to progress, the desirable future, the point of society etc. are very apparent as the assumed givens at the base of his points.
I read the beginning and the chapter on Islam and Arabs.  He is right about humiliation and its role in this situation, but he could have said what he has to say is far fewer pages - it would have been clearer and more to the point.

Some references though:

Edward Said

The Reluctant Fundamentalist - Mohsin Hamid (novel - Pakistan)

Samir Kassir - Being Arab (assassinated lebanese newspaper columnist)

The Revenge of Geography - Robert Kaplan

A very disappointing book. Endless pages discussing the ideas of authors from the period of the Great Game in Central Asia, and whose relevance is somewhat doubtful these days.
Gross over generalizations and platitudes on countries and international relations without any attempt to justify or support the ideas.  Too much of the "as everyone knows" kind of thing, to which you think "Oh really?"

I gave up when his vague generalizations began to contradict each other to the point where you felt he was saying nothing.

He needs a better editor...

Barbarians to Angels - Peter S. Wells

Subtitle:  The Dark Ages Reconsidered

The subtitle says it all.  A new perpective on what is known as the Dark Ages which, as the author points out, can only be called "dark" if you take the Roman Empire as the peak of "light".
An interesting overview of some of the factors at work which contributed to creating the art and architecture styles that eventually become the Carolingian culture.
He uses archaeological evidence to back up the assertion that there was no great abandonment of cities and towns or of long distance trade.  Instead what you have with the fall of the Roman Empire is the disappearance, or maybe the transformation or melding, of the culture of the elite with the culture of the local inhabitants.  The book inadvertently draws attention to the fact that the Roman Empire was essentially a colonial enterprise.

The one thing I find missing in the book, particularly in the discussion of the development of the new animal motif, semiabstract style of art, is the link to the Steppe cultures that were moving into Europe at that time.  If you look at the art reproductions in the book you can't help but think of the earlier Scythian jewelry from the Black Sea step area.

Stardust Revolution - Jacob Berkowitz

This is a fascinating book.  It presents the story of how everything in the universe is basically the product of stardust.  It seems all the elements are created during the various stages of a stars lifecycle.   They are the source of all the elements that make everything in the universe, including us.  He discusses why carbon and oxygen are both building blocks of life chemistry and at the same time among the most common elements in the universe.
There is also a fascinating discussion of the fact that both water and organic molecules such as amino acids are found in what was once considered empty space.
The vision is of one giant continuum from the stars to living beings with no hard, fast line between the living and the nonliving.  These are also deep religious concepts or visions...  This book reminds me of something I read long ago - I think it is a passage in the Bhagavad Gita when the god figure reveals to Arjuna a mind boggling vision of his true nature - it is a cosmic vision.  This is a passage I want to find and reread.

Sometimes the writing style is a bit annoying; the author seems to drag out explanations at times.  But the ideas are so fascinating that you just keep plowing through.

Definitely a reread.


To find:
work of Carl Sagan

- the book itself has an excellent list of sources at the back too long to transcribe here.

The Black Sea: A History - Charles King

A basic history of the region.  Bit of an uninspiring read but some good background information.  While King covers the basics, he doesn't necessarily do a great job of putting things in the wider context - I am currently reading another book on the same subject which is much better in that way. (Black Sea by Neal Ascherson)  The most interesting part was the section about the Kalmouks and their reverse migration during the time of Catherine the Great.

Some interesting characters to look up:
Pero Tafur - Travels and Adventures - travelling in the area in the 1430s
Bratianu - La mer noire - Hungarian monks travelling the area in the same period

To find:
The Western Question in Greece and Turkey - Arnold Toynbee

Adventure Cycle-Touring Handbook - Stephen Lord

- latest edition from 2010
Includes some discussion of bikes, gear, how-to, etc.
Most of the book looks at touring in specific regions and includes some helpful information without going into too much detail.
Might be worth buying depending on what else is out there.

Bike Touring: The Sierra Club Guide

Detailed but understandable discussion of many technical aspects of choosing bikes, components and gear.  Also includes well-explained sections on packing, shipping bikes, planning trips, etc.  Does not discuss specific areas or tours.
Probably worth buying?

The Coming Anarchy - Robert D. Kaplan

Originally published in 1994.  It seems like a collection of shorter pieces probably written for magazines.  Focuses on the future of the political international landscape after the fall of the USSR.  Makes predictions about developments in various parts of the world in the coming decade.  He predicts increased strife, more tribal or ethnic politics  and political divisions.  It would be interesting if I had the time to take some of his specific predictions and examine how events and politics have unfolded in that area since 1994 - now almost 20 years ago.

The most interesting piece is entitled, "Was Democracy Just a Moment".  It looks at various forces which Kaplan claims will make it unlikely that functional democracy will take hold in many areas of the developing world:  poverty, economic stagnation, powerful elites, conflicting racial or ethnic identities, regionalism, the rise of international corporate power and the shrinking power domain of governments.   He also traces some of these same factors eating away at democratic institutions in the U.S.  He also mentions some noteworthy failures of democratic government (Hitler, Mussolini, Rwanda) and points to some authoritarian leaders who have on the whole had a beneficial effect of their country's social well-beoing.  Worth a reread.


To find:  Balkan Ghosts, Robert D. Kaplan

Silk Road - A New History Valerie Hansen

An interesting approach to the topic; different point of view.  Well organized into chapters focusing on specific key locations or sections of the trading routes, examining archaeological evidence.  Also an interesting chapter devoted to the Sogdians, who seem to really be the only people who actually moved along the whole eastern end of the route, from Khorasan to China, and even further afield.

Some very interesting suggestions regarding the nature of this trading route:
- mostly short, local trading
- silk moved along it chiefly as a way of paying the Chinese troops stationed on the route as far as wester Xinjiang
- troop payments and supplies were the chief driving engine of the route.


Well-written, generally a happy medium between scholarly and popular.  Good reference text.

To find:

The Silk Road, Sven Hedin 1936

Life of Hiuen-Tsiang, trans. Samuel Beal
A Biography of the Tripitaka Master, trans. Li Rongxi

Boomerang - Michael Lewis

An excellent read about the building and unfolding of the financial crisis of 2009.  Surprisingly, for a financial book it is quite humourous.  It looks at five key countries - Iceland, Ireland, Greece, Germany and the U.S. at the municipal level (far scarier than at the national level financially...)
Basically it is an account of the cultural colour of untrammelled greed.  As Lewis puts it, it's as if each country was shut up in a black room with an unlimited pile of money - the book looks at what each country's culture decides to do in this situation.  He sums up each reaction in a pithy image.  For example, the Greek reaction is described as turning the government into a giant, money filled piñata and everyone gets to whack it with a stick to see what they get...
Some absolutely mind-boggling details about contracts and retirement settlements worked out in the early 2000's at the municipal level - a grab-what-you-can-while-it-lasts free for all.

Reference to  an interesting sounding book, American Mania, by Peter Whybrow, who argues that we are biologically unsuited to live in a society as materially successful as american society, as we can't maintain our self-regualtion.

Some great quotes from the mayor of a bankrupt Californian city on pages 202, 203, as well as the story of how his city got there.

Drifting Cities

A book about Alexandria, Jerusalem and Athens shortly after WW2.  Very focused on the minutae of politics of the time.  A novel of ideas mostly.  I didn't have the narrow interest or the background knowledge to enjoy it or get into it.

The Lion and the Throne 31761069705192 Rob

A beautiful retell of some of the early stories in the Shahname.  Prose retell.  Reproductions of old miniatures from old editions of the book.

To find again.
Source for storytelling.

A Thousand and One Arabian Nights - Geraldine McCaughrean

- from TPL
Well-written.  A good source for a variety of arabic stories.

Princess Peacok - Tales from the Other Peoples of China

- from TPL

Some interesting folk tales from several islamic peoples of China, some Turkic speakers, mostly in the Xinjiang area.
Good resource.

Rispondimi - Tamaro Susana

Un libro un po' noioso per me.  Tipica storia di malinconia e tristezza.  Una protagonista nevrotica chi mena una vita piena di problemi - problemi fatti dagli altri ve anche da se stessa.

Birds of Amber - Ibrahim Abdel Meguid 2005

A "Balzacien" look at Alexandrian society during and immediately following the Suez Crisis in 1956.  There is some direct exploration of the current social and ethnic issues but I mostly enjoyed the rich collection of characters which is developed in the course of the novel.  These characters all cross paths in a particular arab neighbourhood but occupy a variety of economic and social niches - some also move in different ethnic, political and social circles outside the arabic neighbourhood.  As you read you get a sense of the different points of view and ways of conceiving the world within arabic egyptian society of the time.  It is not a political novel - as the european, greek and jewish communities leave, it is interesting to see the emotional reaction of the various characters in the book.  One particular thread crosses into the world of classical arabic music performance, and also looks a bit at the police state element of Nasser's early years.

A bit disjointed, as one critic mentioned, but for me that is part of the charm.

To find:
No One Sleeps in Alexandria
The Other Place

There is also a long list of arabic authors published by the same company in the back of the book.

Left in Dark Times - Bernard-Henry Levy 2008

I got a few leads on classic 20th c authors and texts to follow up on, but otherwise this book rambles a bit too much.  It is a bit inbred, I think, in that he assumes an interest in, and a familiarity with, the history of the ideas of the left in the course of the 20th century (especially in France).
He does bring up the point  of the death of big ideologies as a result of the horrendous revolutions we've seen through the 20th c. - particularly the discrediting of the very concept of revolution and designed human society.  I'm not so sure though that the right has moved away from big ideologies - and he doesn't seem to address this.  How can the left stand as an alternative to the right if they don't have a vision, a narrative, a story that can stand up to the ideologies of the right?  (Thinking of american politics here...)
Levy does raise some interesting points regarding human rights, cosmopolitanism, and tolerance vs respect (tolerance accepts from a distance without wanting to engage; respect implies willingness to engage, incorporate a presence into your society.  Levy also addresses the issue of cultural relativity vs. human rights, coming down strongly on the human rights side.  (If tradition and culture are worth more than human rights, it is a double standard in relation to our own western society, where rights over tradition has come to be the norm - and lead to positive social change.)
Levy also looks at the Israel/Palestine conflict, but from a very shallow, historically narrow point of view.  He raises some interesting points about links to Nazism and fascism in arab political organizations, but this could be seen as similar to the Finnish link with Germany as an ally against Russia in WWII.  (Part of his overall assumption in the book that ideas lead society - whereas my view is that ideas are often made to fit one's own personal advantage - like his interpretation of Israel/Palestinian history.)

To find:
The Gulag Archipelago
- Cambodian revolution
Arthur Koestler - Darkness At Noon
Panait Istrati - The Confessions of a Loser/The Other Flame
Karl Popper
Star of Redemption - Rosenzweig
Philippe Sollers
Marcel Pleynet (Tel Quel magazine)
Origins of Totalitarianism - Hannah Arendt
Are We Rome? Cullen Murphy
Wretched of the Earth - Frantz Fanon

Gabriel Dumont - George Woodcock (1975)

A book with some points of interest, but for a view of the Métis rebellion the biographies of Louis Riel give a better overview.  If you have already read a Riel biography, most of the historical information in the Dumont book is very much a repeat.  In the early part of the book there is a bit of a picture of the life of Dumont and the Métis before the railroad, but it is a limited picture.  I'm not sure if it is because of a lack of historical sources (this was an illiterate culture) or simply it is not Woodcock's focus.  It would be interesting to have more of a picture or a flavour of that life.
Gabriel was obviously a forceful and very intelligent man - naturally so - both in politics and in his world of hunting and living in the land.  It would also be interesting to see more of this side of him, but again he and most of his circle were illiterate, so I suppose there are  no sources.

Yet again, the church and organized religion look bad in this story, siding with the authorities in a situation where the Métis were so obviously being unjustly treated.  The same is true of politics and politicians, both during the rebellion and when Gabriel was travelling later in the States and in Quebec - no interest in the man, his people and his cause beyond the short term political usefulness he might have to them.
The end of the book is, for me, the most compelling part.  I would love to know what Dumont thought of his time with Buffalo Bill, his time in New York and the other big cities of the east coast - such a different world and not only physically, but socially and emotionally as well.  Dumont also mentions the Sioux that worked with Buffalo Bill - I can picture them there is New York with Dumont, who they would have known or at least heard of, talking of the vanished world they knew together, and maybe laughing incredulously and the world of New York and theatre.  There is also a beautiful image of his last years living in a small cabin on his nephew's farm, spending his days fishing, hunting, wandering in the prairies and hills, visiting friends and companions from his past.  He still owned his land, but he made no attempt to live the life of farming.  A stranger in this new world, it is as if he rejected it utterly and kept alive the last elements of the life, now lost, that he had loved so much.  "The years passed, and now they were uneventful, for Gabriel was no longer a man to whom his fellows called for leadership, though sometimes they asked his advice, nor did he wish to lead them.  He withdrew into the rhythms of the hunting years, doing a little trading, catching his own meat and fish, and always pleased when he had a few skins to sell at one of the stores in Batoche or Duck Lake... He thought of that past without guilt and without rancour, glorying in his own deeds as Homer's heroes must have done, yet sad always for that vanished primitive world to which he had been so superbly adapted. (p. 250 -251)
As an aside, I wonder if that is not the fate of all older people in our modern world.  Things change so much, the world you loved and knew so well disappears, leaving you marooned with your memories and your past...  Ties in with immigrants too, and with developing countries where people crowd into the big cities, leaving their life and culture behind for a completely unfamiliar universe.

Samarcande - Amin Malouf

Curieux petit livre (en français) qui a l'air un peu vieux genre, à moins que ce ton ne vienne de la voix du narrateur, homme du 19e siècle.
L'histoire se divise en deux parties:  une biographie imaginaire d'Omar Khayyam (1048-1131), suivie par une histoire qui se déroule en Iran à l'époque de la révolution constitutionnelle (1906).  Cette deuxième histoire est basée de près sur les vrais événements et personnages de la révolution iranienne - William Shuster et Howard Baskerville par exemple.
Malouf semble explorer la culture politique et les structures de pouvoir au Moyen Orient, et comment ils n'ont guère changé depuis le temps d'Omar Khayyam:  hiérarchiques, corrompus, contrôlés par les intérêts d'une élite politique et par l'établissement religieux.  Les rapports de soutien entre ces élites et la religion officielle ou organisée y sont évidents.
Comme il fait souvent Malouf miroite l'Occident du point de vue du Proche Orient.  Cette réflexion n'est pas très positive - exploitateurs prêts à sacrifier la liberté et la vie des peuples pour notre avantage économique.  Nous adorons déferler sur le monde le drapeau des droits et de la liberté jusqu'au moment où nos intérêts économiques entrent en jeu...  Il y a des parallèles modernes dans l'Iran de nos jours (théocratie et Gardes Révolutionnaires); en Israel (droits et liberté des Palestiniens et le rôle de E.U.); en Syrie (la lutte actuelle entre les élites Alawite et le reste du pays); Egypte (élites vs. le peuple; rôle douteux des E.U.)
Dans ces livre Malouf utilise le passé pour illuminer la vérité du présent au Proche Orient.

En vue de cette longue histoire de culture politique inchangée, on peut se demander comment les choses vont jamais changer....  Ce n'est pas seulement question de politique mais aussi de changement de culture, de rapports personnels, de société en général.

Why am I here?

I am an avid reader - on many subjects, in three languages.  This blog is an attempt to bring some order to the books I read, the tangents I go off on, and the tangents I don't want to lose track of.  I have lists of books I want to track down - sometimes I forget if I have tracked them down or not, and don't realize I've already read a particular book until I'm standing in front of it on the library shelf...