Martin's Booklog

The Dark Side of Democracy — Michael Mann

Published on May 13, 2008

Cover of The Dark Side of Democracy

The Dark Side of Democracy
Michael Mann
580 pages including index
published in 2005

To be honest I only got this out of the library because its cover and backflap copy make it look like one of those horrid rightwing books that explain in a calm, cultured manner how we should give up democracy for our own good and let our betters govern, because if we do it ourselves it will inexordinately lead to genocide. This however turned out not to be the case. Michael Mann does explain here why genocide and ethnic cleansing is something mostly practises by democracies rather than authoritarian or totalitarian states, but he makes clear it’s only a particular kind of democracy that’s dangerous, and only in certain circumstances. Mann also makes clear that he doesn’t think abandoning democracy is the way to avoid genocides. Instead The Dark Side of Democracy is a honest attempt at explaining how societies get themselves into the danger zone where ethnic based violence happens and how that can swing in full scale, violent ethnic cleansing with genocide as the final stage.

As you might imagine, this is not a very cheerful read, and in fact I became decidedly grumpy during the week I read this, according to my girlfriend. Despite this, I found The Dark Side of democracy to be weirdly exhilarating, in as far as a book on genocide can ever be exhilarating, even mildly optimistic. The most depressing thing about genocide and ethnic cleansing, as reinforced by our collective memory about the Holocaust and the recent histories of Ruanda and Yugoslavia, is the idea that it could happen in any society, in any of our own societies. Genocide isn’t done by faceless savages in places far away and long ago, but by people not that long ago, not that far away, people who looked a lot like you and I. What The Dark Side of Democracy postulates is that this isn’t true, that it only happens in certain circumstances in a certain type of society. Mann attempts to prove this by first defining eight general theses that together provide a generic explanation for why violent ethnic cleansing and genocide happens in a given society, then looks at the historical evidence to see how the theory fits it.

The Assassination of Julius Caesar – Michael Parenti

Published on May 12, 2008

Cover of The Assassination of Julius Caesar

The Assassination of Julius Caesar
Michael Parenti
276 pages including index
published in 2004

All history is interpretation. That simple truth is hammered home in this book, The Assassination of Julius Caesar, offering a radical new context for the events of the fifteenth of march 44 BCE. The facts remain the same, but the assumptions with which Michael Parenti looks at the murder of Julius Caesar differ so much from the classical interpretation that almost an entirely new history is revealed. It’s a powerful antidote against so much pop history presented as if free from any social and ideological context, usually because it’s written from the safe cocoon of the dominant ideological assumptions of the day.

I picked up The Assassination of Julius Caesar when I saw it in the local library because I recognised it from a review Resolute Reader did two years ago. He described it as an antidote to the much more common interpretation of Roman history as the tales of great men. What Parenti does instead is to place the murder of Julius Caesar in the context of the class struggle going on in the late Roman Republic.

Template — Matt Hughes

Published on May 5, 2008

Cover of Template

Template
Matt Hughes
400 pages (in manuscript)
published in 2008

It was James Nicoll who suggested to hold a Matt Hughes reviewathon of his latest novel Template, since Hughes was kind enough to offer an advance copy to any reviewer or blogger who was willing to do something with it. James wanted a reviewathon because he found it “tremendously annoying that Hughes is not better known than he is”. I figured it would be an easy way to sample a writer I knew of but had not yet read so this week I found myself reading my first Matt Hughes
novel.

Had it not been for James and his reviewathon I don’t think I would’ve read this novel, as the plot description didn’t sound that interesting. Conn Labro is an indentured duelist on Thrais, one of the Ten Thousand Worlds, happily fighting all kind of duels and games for his employer, making them lots of money while never quite paying off his indenture, though he is now one of the top ranked duelists in all the Ten Thousand Worlds. He was indentured as an infant you see, so has a lot of indenture to work off. But all this changes when Hallis Tharp died. Tharp’s an old man, the closest thing to a friend Conn has, who has been coming to Conn every week for most of his life to play a game of paduay. Conn sets
out to see what happened to Tharp when he doesn’t show up for his game, discovers he’s died and he has inherited what’s left of his meager possesions, only to see his employer’s game house blown up before his eyes when returning home. It then turns out he’s inherited a bearers deed to some offworld possesion and after he and Jenore Mordene, another friend of Tharp are attacked again, Conn sets off with her to find his destiny elsewhere in the Ten Thousand Worlds.

Sherman and Firefly – Terry J. Gander

Published on May 3, 2008

Cover of Tanks in Detail - Sherman & Firefly

Tanks in Detail – Sherman & Firefly
Terry J. Gander
96 pages
published in 2003

This is, like the book on the Panzer III an entry in the Tanks in Detail series. This series takes a tank or (part of) a tank family and aims to provide a reasonably indepth look at its development and characteristics, aiming for an audience of World War II enthusiasts and military modelers. They’re sort of inbetween those general overview volumes disposing of all WW2 tanks in less than 200 pages and the really hardcore 500 page tomes that detail each nut and bolt of a particular tank model. There’s only a limited audience for these books, especially books about lesser known tanks, so they tend to be pricey and short, often with a
greater emphasis on pictures than on text. Nevertheless when done well they’re a good introduction to a particular tank or tank model.

Unfortunately, I don’t think these volumes are particularly well done, as I also said in my Panzer III review. Much of the information found here could also be found by a trawl through Wikipedia, let alone some of the more dedicated World War II sites. The pictures on the other hand are copious, but mainly show various Sherman models in action or on display, more as illustration than as an augmentation of the main text, though there are some good interior shots and pictures of the various engines used. Unfortunately however, unlike the Panzer III volume, there are no colour side views to show off the camouflage schemes used on the Sherman, nor are there any technical drawings to scale.

Worlds of the Imperium – Keith Laumer

Published on April 28, 2008

Cover of Worlds of the Imperium

Worlds of the Imperium
Keith Laumer
124 pages
published in 1962

As I’ve said before, Keith Laumer was one of my favourites when I first started reading science fiction. I would never accuse him of being a particularly brilliant writer, but he has a knack for writing gripping, fast-paced adventure science fiction. Laumer writes in a sort of polished pulp style, with loner heros relying on their native brawn and brain to solve the predicaments their superscience weapons cannot help them with. There’s a hint of sex, though nothing beyond noticing the graceful curves of a passing female. The best mainstream author I could compare Laumer to would be John D. MacDonald.

Worlds of the Imperium is a good example of Laumer’s style. It’s the first in a series of three novels starring Brion Bayard, secret agent of an British-German-Swedish empire that spans several dozen parallel earths, a much more benign empire than that imagined by H. Beam Piper. The other two novels are The Other Side of Time and Assignment in Eternity and all three of them have been published in a omnibus edition by Baen Books. A fourth novel, Zone Yellow was written long after Laumer had had the stroke that robbed him of his writing abilities and by all reports is … not good.