In Praise of the Short Book/extended essay

15 years of serious blogging has created almost 2000 posts here – some of which are extended essays to be grouped together, with some editing and an introduction, to become mini-books. This is the process in which I am currently engaged around the topic of populism – sparked by a reading of The Populist Moment – the Left after the great Recession by Arthur Borriello and Anton Jaeger (2023).

This post, however, is more by way of a tribute to the format of the extended essay or short book for which I’m beginning to notice an admirable growing trend. ”The Populist Moment”, for example, is only 147 pages long and another Verso book (this time about the Italian right) - First They Took Rome - is just 174 pages. For several years, I’ve been urging authors and publishers to exercise more self-discipline – so this is indeed a welcome trend.

But the unannointed king of the contemporary extended essay is Perry Anderson whose extended essays in the London Review of Books have become the stuff of legend. ”Highly readable but serious” is the best way to describe the writing of this Marxist historian who has been based variously in the UK and the US and is the subject of a very inadequate Wikipedia entry. This Jacobin article does him more justice. I tried to google for other prominent extended essayists but all I got were guidelines for writing extended essays for the Internațional Baccalauriat!

George Orwell and Arthur Koestler wrote extended essays but the only contemporary exponent of the art I’ve come across is Aurelien

Some recommended reading

Contesting the Global Order – the radical political economy of Perry Anderson and Immanuel Wallerstein by Gregory Williams (2020)

The H Word – the peripeteia of Hegemony Perry Anderson (2017) is 156 pages

Pessimism of the Intellect – history of the New Left Review Duncan Thompson (2007)

Are Literary Magazines up to the Task?

Although I’m not a fan of newspapers, I did succumb recently to an offer from Le Monde – even if I miss the smell of the newsprint and its footnotes. But it is to journals I turn for serious reading - some two years ago I shared quite a long list of journals worth reading which is probably due an update. Here in Romania I often buy “Lettre Internationale”…..whose woodcuts are a great attraction. “Le Nouveau Magazine Litteraire” is also a regular purchase – sadly, German literary journals are not easily available so I have to make do with the German version of Lettre Internationale.

At the moment I actually have internet subscriptions to no fewer than 3 journals the New York Review of Books; the London Review of Books; and Political Quarterly

A venerable journal acquires a new editor

But the spark which ignites this particular post was my purchase recently of a couple of copies of the Times Literary Supplement (or TLS) – which have started to appear in Bucharest’s great little English bookshop “Carturesti and Friends”.

TLS is a venerable English institution – if not quite as old (est 1902) as its parent The Times which began in 1788 and was, until the late 1970s, very much the paper of the British elite whose seriousness was immediately evident by the closeness of the script and the lack of photographs. Indeed, until 1966 the front page was devoted to small advertisements of interest to the monied classes. All of this changed in 1981 when Rupert Murdoch acquired the newspaper after which its reputation may have declined but by 2005 its circulation had more than doubled (to 600k). Presently its circulation is only 300k

The Times Literary Supplement (TLS) I knew of old had repellent elitist tones but was then the only regular journal (weekly) devoted to books but, in the 1970s and 1980s, it was “New Society, “The Listener” and “Encounter” which attracted – and whose passing (some 30 years ago) I deeply regret. Each, in their distinctive ways, had a breadth and sensitivity which few other cultural mags seem capable of these days. I daresay that says more about me than the mags…..You can still taste the delights of “Encounter” in its archives which can be accessed here

But a strange happened in 1978 – a newspaper strike put The Times and TLS off the streets for almost a year. And into the empty space jumped a new title – initially as a pull out in the New York of Books. It was called the “London Review of Books” (or LRB) – a bi-monthly which now has a circulation of almost double that of TLS. The precise details of all this are set out in this nice little story in The Financial Times. What I had forgotten was that another title also jumped into the gap – and one which is also going strongly, the monthly Literary Review. But it is the LRB which has engaged my affections – confirmed whenever I buy the odd copy of TLS.

However the TLS acquired a new editor a couple of years ago – Stig Abell, a 39 year-old who had….wait for it….been the editor of the most offensive british tabloid newspaper – the Sun - for a couple of years…as well as a presenter on London Radio.

If the 2 copies I'v e read recently are typical, then he seems already to have made a difference to the staid journal I remember.....and I am tempted to write to him to make some points along the following lines.......   

I am an unashamed bibliophile – but of non-fiction - who has, however, become so concerned with the combination of scale and quality that I suggested recently (only half jokingly) that non-fiction books needed to be rationed. I now look very carefully at the introductions (and “Further Reading”) of books I pick up - to see what awareness the author (and indeed the publisher) reveals of the cynicism with which many of us readers approach this latest addition to our burden of reading. Ideally I would now like to see a typology – a short review of the relevant literature - to give me the confidence that the author is master of the field and has a mind open to the points at both ends of the relevant spectrum…..I certainly need to read a few pages of the text to give me a sense of the clarity and sensitivity of the writing 

And this is where we need the help of the literary journals…whose reviewers should be more obviously be asking these questions on our behalf – and exerting some pressure for answers on publishers and editors (with the exception of Simon Winder do editors exist these days?)

 But it is the European dimension which, not surprisingly, I find missing in the British journals….with the exception of the towering figure of Perry Anderson to whom I refer fairly regularly here.… Perry Anderson deserves much more credit for being one of the very few English-speaking writers whose articles (mainly in LRB) pay serious attention to contemporary debates on the European continent – whether France, Germany, Italy or even Turkey. They are collected in a version The New Old World which can be downloaded simply by clicking on the title. 

A UK outside the EU is in particular need of such writing – but has enough bilingual journalists (eg Olterman) and translators of the quality of Michael Hoffman – let alone polymaths such as Clive James of blessed “Cultural Amnesia - to make it possible. They just need a bit more encouragement from the editors of literary journals…

In the meantime I am just grateful to the EC for its continued support of the Eurozine venture which brings together the best of some 70 European cultural journals. And point to Courrier International as an example of a good selection into the French language of quality global journalism. Pity no one thought of making a bid some years ago for European funding for a journal giving us a sense of how different European countries were dealing with the big issues in their societies…..

Making sense of the structure of power

I had enjoyed my reread of “The Triumph of the Political Class” (2007) to such an extent that I started to google the other titles I remembered dealing with the same issue…to discover that what I imagined to be a dozen books on the contemporary structure of power (in the English language) turned out to be more than 20….And I can claim to have read only 8 of them – just over a third…..So some fast skimming is in order.  
A recent academic article I unearthed What do we mean when we talk about Political class? (Allen and Cairney 2017) turned out to be  a very pedantic analysis. But, as a background read to help make sense of the three thousand or so pages in this collection, I would highly recommend this (20 page) article on The Past, Present and Future of the British political science discipline

It’s on occasions like this that I would like to have some European counterparts to share analyses with……what, for example, are the key French and German books in the literature?? And how, if at all, do their studies differ from these?

Twenty years ago, the British system was universally admired. Now - and not only due to Brexit - it's seen a “basket case”. And sadly, with devolution now almost 20 years old, the Scottish Assembly and governance system does not seem to have lived up to its early promise.
The French have been highly critical of their centralised and elitist systems for some decades – and don’t seem any happier these days…

Only the German system had more balance – although it too is now suffering.

 Despite the explosion in the number of European political scientists these days (the European Consortium for Political Research alone claims 20,000 members), there doesn’t seem all that much in depth comparative analysis – at least not that’s easily accessible. Perry Anderson is about the only character with the linguistic ability to supply us Brits with extensive analyses of post-war and contemporary debates in France, Germany and Italy. His stunning study The New Old World (2009) can be read in its entirety here (all 560 pages).

Obviously my selection is arbitrary but I think it does catch most of the key writing…..The table starts with the most recent material - and the cutoff point is at the start of the new millennium since this was the point at which the New Labour style began to make itself felt....

Studies of the system of Power – mostly UK

Title	Summary
The UK’s Changing Democracy – the 2018 Democratic Audit; Dunleavy, Park and Taylor	“Democratic Audit” publishes an annual analysis – described here. This is its latest 500 page study – carried out by academics but who write well!
The Political Class – why it matters who our politicians are; Peter Allen (2018)	Focuses on the way the homogeneity of the political class damages the quality of decisions – written by a political scientist
Reckless Opportunists – elites at the end of the establishment; Aeron Davis (2018)	Rather one-sided critique
Prosperity and Justice – a plan for the new economy (IPPR 2018) Final report on economic justice	Most books focus on political power. Although this is a book about prescriptions – produced by a commission of the great and the good - it starts with an implicit critique which goes wider than mere politics
New Power – how it’s changing the 21st Century; Helmans and Timms (2018)	A typical, breathless, American “take” on how the internet is apparently challenging “old power”. Lacks any historical sense…..
State of Power 2018 (TNI)	An annual look at global capitalism by a left-wing Netherlands-based Foundation
State of Power 2017 (TNI)	Ditto
The Establishment  - and how they get away with it; Owen Jones (2014)	No pretence at objectivity in this hard-hitting analysis by a left-wing journalist of what’s wrong with Britain. So not limited to constitutional issues..Well written and strong on recommendations….
Ruling the Void – the hollowing of Western Democracy; Peter Mair (2013)	Rated as the most significant analysis of the issues of the past 25 years…by a political scientist
The New Few – power and inequality in Britain Now; Frederic Mount (2012)	A surprising critique from a Margaret Thatcher adviser!
Who Runs Britain? Robert Peston (2008)	Less an analysis dealing with the question than a critique of the political economic strategy of New Labour
Democracy Inc – managed democracy and the spectre of inverted totalitarianism; SM Wolin (2008)	Written by one of America’s greatest political scientists
https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/	A great website by an academic whose book on the subject is in to its 7th edition
Triumph of the political class; Peter Oborne (2007)	A provocative analysis a journalist of how the traditional British Establishment has morphed into a much more powerful and homogeneous political class
Power to the People – an independent inquiry into Britain’s democracy (Rowntree Trust 2006)	Unfortunately, this investigation limited itself to political and constitutional aspects
British Politics – a critical introduction; Stuart McAnulla (2006) see also the google version	This is a textbook – but a rare critical one which nicely sets out what’s wrong with both the traditional textbooks but also the newer ones which emphasise networks and negotiation
Thatcher and Sons; Simon Jenkins (2006)	Very much in the style of the Oborne book, this “rightist” Guardian journalist gives a strong critique of the destruction of the last vestiges of pluralism
Who Runs this place? The Anatomy of Britain in the 21st Century; Anthony Sampson  (2004)	The last of a series produced over 40 years by this famous journalist
The Power Inquiry (2004)	Like the 2006 study, limits the analysis to the political aspects. Produced by a commission
Democratic Audit of the United Kingdom; (Democratic Audit 2003)	Incorporating the negative effects of New labour
The Captive State – the corporate takeover of Britain; George Monbiot (2001)	The most explosive critique – from one of the best leftist journalists
Political Power and democratic control – the democratic audit of the United Kingdom; S Weir and D Beetham (Rowntree 1999)	One of the early audits

French Letters

The last post suggested it was not easy to find well-written books which gave a true sense of the intellectual styles and trajectories of individual European countries – at least not in the English-language. Perry Anderson is one these rare characters – to whose extensive analyses of contemporary France, Germany and Italy I duly supplied appropriate links – taken from his stunning study The New Old World (2009) which occupies a prominent place in my library. I have just discovered that the book can be read in its entirety HERE (all 560 pages).

I would rate the book easily the best I have ever read on what it is to be European – about a third being a survey of the literature on the “European Project”; another third being insightful and acerbic analyses of the political and intellectual currents of the “Core” European countries (with the noticeable and dismissive exclusion of the UK); and the final section (“The Eastern Question”) devoted largely to Turkey.

 

I reread Anderson’s chapter on France after the last post – and have to say that it gave me a better feel for the contemporary French scene (excluding the last decade) than the book my post was focusing on viz “How the French Think”

And there are other well-written books on France which explore the intellectual as much as the political – with the outstanding La Vie en Bleu – France and the French since 1990; Rod Kedward (2005) due surely for an update?

I bought it quite recently and was immediately gripped by its opening style. But, full confessions, I soon put the book aside – basically because it’s too daunting a read at 700 pages…One review (just double-click the hyperlink in the title) puts it nicely - 

In recent decades, historians have increasingly attempted to uncover the unique combination of attributes that precisely defines France.  They variously study the national “passions”, realms of memory, or socio-political characteristics in order to define that most elusive of elixirs: Frenchness. Some authors champion a specific set of characteristics, arguing that the key can be found in immigration, diverse social traditions, or cultural identity.

All share a common quest to determine what makes France tick, and how its unique path formed the national consciousness and institutions.  This is not merely an antiquarian exercise.  In an age of urban rioting by the children of excluded immigrants, ongoing debates about the legacy of Vichy and Algeria, and strident anti-Americanism, these studies have a striking contemporary relevance. The latest such effort is Rod Kedward’s “France and the French: La Vie en Bleu since 1900”, and it ranks among the most ambitious of its kind.

Already acclaimed for his now-standard studies of collaboration and resistance during the Vichy years, Kedward here offers an examination of “French political cultures and their chequered narratives, in which the meanings of the past reverberate through every action of the present” (p. xiii).  Simply put, he wishes to eliminate the traditional boundaries between modes of historical inquiry, arguing that political history cannot be adequately addressed without the inclusion of society, culture, memory, and even behavioural studies. 

Only a proper examination of these “multiple narratives” offers a genuine aperçu into French history and its contemporary resonances…… Kedward argues that the history of France since 1900 has been dominated by three central themes – the Republic; Ideology; and Identity.  From the turn of the century onwards, the population and government were obsessed with the idea of the Republic, a neo-Jacobin conceptual framework perceived to be universal in its application. 

Kedward contends that this uniformity dissipated after 1930, inaugurating an era of ideological conflict, in which the nation evolved from elitist party politics towards multiple strands that encompassed “the margins, the outsiders, the subjugated and the minorities” (p. 3).  The period culminated in the événements of 1968,pitting Gaullism against a variety of left-wing alternatives.  Yet the experience of that year both confirmed the existence of ideological pluralism and simultaneously denied it, yielding to a third duration in 1970, the age of identity, when notions of gender, race, sexual orientation, region, and even ecological commitment all trumped allegiances to political parties and doctrines.

 Although various tropes re-emerge in each section--the fight between economic modernization and tradition, the proponents and detractors of dirigisme, struggles for gender equality--Kedward deftly demonstrates the evolution of the various arguments, shifting through the paradigms of unity, diversity, and difference that characterize each historical period.

Inspired by Hazareesingh and Anderson, I now want to go back to Kedward and try to do its 700 pages full justice. I know it deserves it – but it’s so much easier to read smaller books!!!

On that subject, let me remind my readers about my ten tricks of fast reading and comprehension. They are very simply expressed -

General

- Read a lot (from an early age!)

- Read widely (outside your discipline)

- Read quickly (skim)

- If the author doesn’t write in clear and simple language, move on to another book asap. Life’s too short……Bad writing is a good indicator of a confused mind

For each book

- Mark extensively (with a pencil) – with question-marks, ticks, underlines, comments and expletives

- Read the reviews (surf)

- Identify questions from these to ensure you’re reading critically

- Write brief notes to remind you of the main themes and arguments

- Identify the main schools of thought about the subject

- Check the bibliography/index at the end – to see what obvious names are missing

And what did I discover when I applied the last test to “How the French Think”?? That it doesn’t have a bibliography or “further reading” list and that Kedward is not even in the index!! Bad blood somewhere???

Other books on French thinking

Melancholy Politics – loss, mourning and memory in late modern France ; Jean Philippe Mathy (2011)
The End of the French Exception?: Decline and Revival of the 'French Model'; edited by T. Chafer, E. Godin (2009)

After the Deluge – new perspectives on the intellectual and cultural history of post-war France ed J Bourg (2004)

The Anthropological turn in French Thought – the 1970s to the present – an academic thesis  Lignes – thesis on a cultural mag; Perry Anderson’s studies are always good for an analysis of journals – here’s an entire thesis devoted to one French mag!!

Styles of Thinking.....and writing

I’ve been quiet these past few weeks largely because of the arrival here in the mountains of a (rare) Amazon package containing a fascinating and diverse collection of titles covering art criticism, capitalism, the European Union, populism, Denmark, the Soviet Union, France, political memoirs and…. reflections on death!! I’ve been going through them – flicking and casting the memoirs aside; and keeping a very interesting The Passage to Europe for later close study 

The pick of the bunch was ” How the French Think – an affectionate portrait of an intellectual people” (the link accesses a great summary of the various issues by the author) and a book which has encouraged me to explore further the issue of “national mentalities” or ”cultural thought patterns” which had been the main focus of some recent posts.

The book resists the temptation of just tracking “cultural traits” (eg that the French are “disputatious”) and chooses instead to focus on the arguments of some of the key French figures (starting with Descartes) and on the wider context of their work. Indeed, if I have a criticism, it is that the author probably resists that temptation too well – I would actually like to have seen more treatment of these supposed cultural traits……

The notion that rationality is the defining quality of humankind was first celebrated by the 17th-century thinker René Descartes, the father of modern French philosophy. His skeptical method of reasoning led him to conclude that the only certainty was the existence of his own mind: hence his ‘cogito ergo sum’ (‘I think, therefore I am’).

This French rationalism was also expressed in a fondness for abstract notions and a preference for deductive reasoning, which starts with a general claim or thesis and eventually works its way towards a specific conclusion – thus the consistent French penchant for grand theories. As the essayist Emile Montégut put it in 1858: ‘There is no people among whom abstract ideas have played such a great role, and whose history is rife with such formidable philosophical tendencies.’ The French way of thinking is a matter of substance, but also style. …….

 

Typically French…, is a questioning and adversarial tendency, also arising from Descartes’ skeptical method. The historian Jules Michelet summed up this French trait in the following way: ‘We gossip, we quarrel, we expend our energy in words; we use strong language, and fly into great rages over the smallest of subjects.’ A British Army manual issued before the Normandy landings in 1944 sounded this warning about the cultural habits of the natives: ‘By and large, Frenchmen enjoy intellectual argument more than we do. You will often think that two Frenchmen are having a violent quarrel when they are simply arguing about some abstract point.’ 

 

Yet even this disputatiousness comes in a very tidy form: the habit of dividing issues into two. It is not fortuitous that the division of political space between Left and Right is a French invention, nor that the distinction between presence and absence lies at the heart of Jacques Derrida’s philosophy of deconstruction. French public debate has been framed around enduring oppositions such as good and evil, opening and closure, unity and diversity, civilisation and barbarity, progress and decadence, and secularism and religion. 

Underlying this passion for ideas is a belief in the singularity of France’s mission. This is a feature of all exceptionalist nations, but it is rendered here in a particular trope: that France has a duty to think not just for herself, but for the whole world. In the lofty words of the author Jean d’Ormesson, writing in the magazine Le Point in 2011: ‘There is at the heart of Frenchness something which transcends it. France is not only a matter of contradiction and diversity. She also constantly looks over her shoulder, towards others, and towards the world which surrounds her. More than any nation, France is haunted by a yearning towards universality.’ 

The book is so good that I began to realize how few books there are which tell a compelling and reasonably comprehensive story about a country’s intellectual journey. Theodor Zeldin has written brilliantly about French Passions; Perry Anderson has been a fairly solitary English-speaking writer paying serious attention to contemporary debates on the European continent – whether France, Germany, Italy or even Turkey.

Peter Gay wrote amazing books about the Austro-Hungary legacy; Peter Watson’s “German Genius” has the scope but lacks the narrative …it’s just a bit too much of an Encylopaedia. But I am still racking my brains to identify a book which does justice to the UK’s intellectual and political traditions in the gripping style of Hazareesingh (the author of the book on the French). There is a guy called Stefan Collini who has covered some of this ground – but I’ve never read his stuff……        

The other question which Hazareesingh’s book raises for me is why so few other “knowledgeable people” seem able to write clearly….indeed seem to take positive pleasure in hiding their thoughts in impenetrable language…

In recent years I have been trying to gather my disparate thoughts on public sector reform which are currently mainly in the form of papers, blogposts and hyperlinks. Most writers on this subject are academics or consultants (with the latter being in a tiny minority) and I like to think that I have something distinctive to say by virtue of having straddled – at various times – the diverse roles of academic, political leader and consultant (and in 10 different countries). I recently developed a table which divides the huge academic literature on the subject into five schools  

I’m still a firm believer in the adage that if you want to know something about a subject, you write a book about it. It sounds paradoxical but the act of writing forces you to confront your ignorance and helps you to develop the questions to allow you to identify the most appropriate books for you to read.

I may have 200 pages in the present draft but I know they are essentially random notes – there is no “dominant narrative” of the sort you can feel in Hazareesingh’s book. I don’t particularly want to begin at the beginning again but the text needs the discipline of a clear structure and set of questions…..I decided to let my thoughts run free and look at some academic books on the subject

The Sage Handbook of Public Administration was produced in 2003 by Guy Peters and Jon Pierre and is actually quite well written for an edited book – as is The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions (2006) but the language of Ideas and Politics in Social Science Research; D Beland and Robert Henry Cox (2011) is quite incoherent despite containing articles by authors such as Mark Blyth, Colin Hay and Vivian Schmidt for whom I have a great deal of respect. 

I got so angry with the language being used that I went back to some points I had written a decade ago for a group of students in Bishkek - and tried to update and extend the argument in the light of what people like Stephen Pinker have been saying recently….

The sociologist C Wright Mills once famously took a turgid 400 page work of Talcott Parsons and reduced it to some 10 pages! And I notice that novelists (such as Benjamin Kunkel, John Lanchester and James Meek) have started to turn their hand to summarising political and economic texts and trends…..

We really do need a lot more writers helping us make sense of social science writing….. 

A Resource

A presentation of “How the French Think”  by the author - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLpHCT8GfYk

“the pessimistic turn in French thought” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izsO2AQ7qk8

Two reviews of the book -

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/french-thought/

http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/culture/books/book-review-how-the-french-think-an-affectionate-portrait-of-an-intellectual-people-1-3808527

https://focusderguini.wordpress.com/livres/la-pensee-tiede-interview-de-lauteur-perry-anderson/

the British scene

http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/555

http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=24209

https://acbookweek.com/the-20-academic-books-that-shaped-modern-britain/