Martin's Booklog

Waar Historie Huis Houdt – Jan Marijnissen

Published on January 2, 2008

Cover of Waar Historie Huis Houdt

Waar Historie Huis Houdt
Jan Marijnissen
95 pages including index
published in 2005

Jan Marijnissen is the political leader of the Dutch Socialist Party, currently the sole properly socialist party in Dutch parliament, as well as the third biggest party in the country. He has been the driving force behind his party’s rise, it owning much of its current succes to the years and decades of hard work Marijnissen and his comrades put into building the party. In recent years this hard work has translated into a certain amount of fame for him as not just a politician but also as what you might call a public intellectual.

It’s in this later capacity that Marijnissen has become involved in the great history debate. Amongst historians there has long been concern for the lack of interest the general public shows in their field as well as the ways in which history is taught in schools. Concerns which are perhaps universal. History is after all not a practical, moneymaking subject, so often seen as expendable in school and not directly applicable to real life later on. While interest in history is certainly present in the general public, there has been somewhat of a lack if official attention to it, something that is now slowly changing. Marijnissen has been one of the people who has argued the loudest for more attention to history as
an important, central field of education needed to provide us Dutch with a sense of who we are and where we came from. It’s this role which led to this book, Waar Historie Huis Houdt, a collection of short essays in which Marijnissen sets ups his personal reasons for finding
history important.

The Long Twilight – Keith Laumer

Published on December 26, 2007

Cover of The Long Twilight

The Long Twilight
Keith Laumer
222 pages
published in 1969

Keith Laumer is one of the authors I devoured dozens of books from in my personal golden age of science fiction, first in Dutch translation, later in English. That’s because he had a knack for writing gripping, fun adventure stories that pushed all my sf buttons. Time travel, parallel worlds, supersecret superhuman agents who don’t know who they are themselves, that’s the stuff science fiction is made off when you’re twelve (and still is when you’re (at least nominally) an adult). His is a type of science fiction no longer being written, as it no longer seems to be commercially viable. Short novels you can read in less than two hours are no longer a good buy when the average paperback barely gets you change back from a tenner. No matter how much fun they are.

But fun Laumer’s books are, with The Long Twilight no exception. Laumer is at the height of his powers in this book, making this story about two feuding alien warriors stranded on Earth much better than it needed to be. Published in 1969, it came out only two years before Laumer would suffer a near-fatal stroke from which he would eventually recover enough to write again, but never again with the same skills. Which is a bit sad, because if not for that stroke, who knows what Laumer could’ve achieved…

President’s Secret Wars – John Prados

Published on December 8, 2007

Cover of Presidents' Secret Wars

Presidents’ Secret Wars
John Prados
480 pages including index
published in 1986

One of the things I’ve been kicking my head against in my other blog is the idea that George Bush and the Republicans are the fount of all evil and if only the Democrats come into power, the United States will once again become a force for good. Anybody with any knowledge of post-WW2 American history knows how wrong that idea is, yet far too many intelligent people still are found of this myth, which manifests itself in things like the idea that John F. Kennedy would’ve stopped the War on Vietnam if he hadn’t been killed. All of this is why more people should read books like this, Presidents’ Secret Wars, which traces the history of America’s CIA initiated secret wars since 1945, up to the eve of the Iran-Contra Scandal. (An updated version has been published since, but the local library only had the original version.) It shows that liberal presidents have been just as guilty as conservative ones in unleashing dirty wars on other countries.

The CIA was created in 1947, as a succesor to the wartime OSS, with its main task being espionage. From the start however it also had a covert action function; not surprising as many of the early CIA officers came from the OSS, which had a long and largely succesful history of covert action against nazi Germany during WW2. 1947 was the year the Cold War officially got started, when it became clear that the enforced wartime alliance of Soviet Russia and the western powers was definately at an end.

Ghost Wars – Steve Coll

Published on December 8, 2007

Cover of Ghost Wars

Ghost Wars
Steve Coll
230 pages
published in 1974

When New York and Washington were under attack on September 11, 2001, it came as a bolt out of the blue, just like that other sneak attack permanently etched in the American psyche, the attack on Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941. The mythology surrounding both attacks would portray the US as innocent victim of cruel, remorseless enemies, but as anybody who paid any attention in the past six years should know by now, the September 11 attacks were in fact blowback, the end result of years, if not decades of bad choices made in America’s foreign policy. In Ghost Wars, Steve Coll describes this hidden history behind the attacks, starting with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 up until September 10, 2001. It makes for fascinating, if depressing reading.

Depressing, because Coll shows you how year after year it seems successive American governments made the wrong choices in Afghanistan. Sometimes these choices were made out of ignorance, sometimes out of indifference, sometimes because other policy concerns were more important. But all those choices helped create Al Quida and eventually would lead to the September 11 attacks. But it’s not just American policies that created the Taliban and Bin Laden; Steve Coll also pays attention to the role Saudi Arabia and Pakistan played in first financing the anti-Soviet Afghan resistance and later supporting various parties in the Afghan civil war that followed the Soviet departure.

Double Star – Robert A. Heinlein

Published on December 2, 2007

Double Star
Robert A. Heinlein
127 pages
published in 1956

There are times when you can no longer understand why Heinlein has such a good reputation in science fiction, considering his often pernicious influence on other writers and the vileness of his later books, when even the “good Heinleins” do not look so good anymore in retrospect. At such times, it’s good to reread a novel like Double Star and remember why you liked Heinlein in the first place. Double Star has long been one of my favourite Heinleins, but after this reread it may just very well be my alltime favourite. It has all of Heinlein’s strengths and few to none of his weaknesses.

If you’re familiar with Heinlein, especially late Heinlein, you’ll know these weaknesses: a tendency to preach and pontificate, a weakness for obnoxious blowhards as his heroes, an inordinate fondness for incestious relationships… None of these are present here. Instead you get Heinlein at his best, packing a rollicking adventure story, political intrigue and a fully realised future in less than 128 pages.