Welcome Romania

Fascinating that I had 662 hits from Romania yesterday – was that because the post about Seton-Watson mentioned his work from 1910 supporting the downtrodden ethnic groups in the Austro-Hungarian Empire – particularly the Romanians, Serbs, Czechs and Slovaks??

Or was it simply the mention that he had, a century ago, been made an Honorary citizen of Cluj?

Or something to do with the EU Summit this week in Sibiu?

It would be nice to have some feedback…Sometimes I feel a bit lonely….

And assiduous readers of the blog should know that last month’s post on Salad Days was updated today with an important little reading list about depression – which includes at least two full book downloads…..

Scotus Viator

Robert Seton-Watson was a Scot who, in the early part of the 20th century, helped shape central Europe – in the very literal sense that his active journalism contributed to the boundary changes which took place as the Ottoman Empire fell apart. Serbia, Czechoslovakia and Romania were the countries whose struggles for removal of the Hungarian yoke received his warm support.

His articles were penned under the pseudonym Scotus Viator – “the travelling Scot”. I remember coming across an old book (with his writings about Romania) in the British Council library here in Bucharest in the early 90s and would love to find it again

As a Scot who has been living for the past decade in this part of the world, I think he really does deserve to be better remembered. In these days of faceless bureaucrats, he was a wonderful example of what individual effort could achieve. His life would make a fascinating film. I am indebted to Wikipedia for the following info.

Seton-Watson was born in London in 1879 to well-off Scottish parents. His father had been a tea-merchant in Calcutta, and his mother, Elizabeth Lindsay Seton, was the daughter of a genealogist and historian who had been the son of George Seton of the East India Company. His inherited wealth, of Indian origin, later assisted his activities on behalf of Europe's subject peoples.
Robert was educated at Winchester public school and New College, Oxford, where he read modern history, graduating with a first-class degree in 1901 and then studied at the Universities of Berlin, Sorbonne and Vienna from where he wrote a number of articles on Hungary for The Spectator.

His research for these articles took him to Hungary in 1906, and his discoveries there turned his sympathies against Hungary and in favour of then subjected Slovaks, Romanians and southern Slavs. In 1908, he published his first major work - ”Racial Problems in Hungary”

Seton-Watson became friends with the Vienna correspondent of The Times, Henry Wickham Steed and the Czech philosopher and politician Tomáš Masaryk. He argued in books and articles for a federal solution to the problems of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, then riven by the tensions between its ancient dynastic model and the forces of ethnic nationalism. 
After the outbreak of the First WW, Seton-Watson took practical steps to support the causes that he had formerly supported merely in print.
He served as honorary secretary of the Serbian Relief Fund from 1914 and supported and found employment for his friend Masaryk after the latter fled to England to escape arrest.
Both founded and published “The New Europe” (1916), a weekly periodical to promote the cause of the Czechs and other subject peoples. Seton-Watson financed this periodical himself.

Seton-Watson's private political activity was not appreciated in all quarters, and his critics within the British government finally succeeded in temporarily silencing him in 1917 by drafting him into the Royal Army Medical Corps, where he was given the job of scrubbing hospital floors.
Others, however, rescued him, and from 1917 to 1918 he served on the Intelligence Bureau of the War Cabinet in the Enemy Propaganda Department, where he was responsible for British propaganda to the peoples of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He assisted in the preparations for the Rome Congress of subject Habsburg peoples, held in April 1918.

Following the end of the War, Seton-Watson attended the Paris Peace Conference, 1919 in a private capacity, advising the representatives there of formerly subject peoples. Although on bad terms with the governments of the major powers, whom he famously referred to as "the pygmies of Paris", he contributed to discussions of where the new frontiers of Europe should be and was especially influential in setting the postwar frontiers between Italy and the new state of Yugoslavia.
Although the British Government was unenthusiastic about Seton-Watson, other governments were not, showing their gratitude after the conference. Masaryk became the first president of the new state of Czechoslovakia and welcomed him there. His friendship with Edvard Beneš, now Czechoslovakia's foreign minister, was consolidated. Seton-Watson was made an honorary citizen of Cluj in Transylvania, which had been incorporated into Romania despite the claims of Hungary and, in 1920, it was formally acclaimed by the Romanian parliament. Yugoslavia rewarded him with an honorary degree from the University of Zagreb.

He died at the age of 72 in Nov 1951 on the island of Skye. His 2 sons also became well-known historians - Hugh and Christopher – and wrote, in tribute to their father’s memory, “The Making of a new Europe – RSW and the last years of Austro Hungary” (1981)

A Seton Watson resource

Seton-Watson and Nation-Building – clashes in late Habsburg space;

British radicals and Hungary in late 19th century;

Hungarian responses to RWS;

Beyond Balkanism – the scholarly politics of region-making Diana Mishkova (2018)

RW Seton-Watson and the Romanians 1906-1920; Cornelia Bodea and Hugh Seton-Watson (Editura Sciintifica and Encycilopeca 1988)

https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/86/5/1118/121726?redirectedFrom=fulltext

British liberals and the Balkans;

articles and books written by Seton-Watson

This site actually contains quite a few examples of his original journalism

The Southern Slav Question; RWS (1911)

The Rise of nationality in the Balkans; RWS (1918)

A History of the Roumanians (1934)

Notes on a Western Crisis

I have known for a long time about the importance of taking a critical approach to one’s own writing - of reading it back as if I was a reader. This helps me not only to find easier ways to say what I mean but also to identify imprecisions and ambiguities…

And whenever I notice that the argument in a text of mine has moved on, whether to another aspect of the same theme or to a new theme, I will tend to mark that change by starting a new paragraph (at the very least) or by inserting a heading – no matter how small. This makes the text easier to read….

But it is the tables I started to use in the blog a year or so ago which are now proving to a powerful tool in the editing the book which I have been trying to finish for the past 20 years…To the extent that I now realise that the focus of the book is not quite what I thought it was.

Initially the book carried the title “Ways of Seeing…the global Crisis” but, some years ago, that changed to “Dispatches to the Future Generation” to convey first the fact that it was structured from blogposts (like “letters”); and, second, the sense that it was the giving of one generation’s account of its “stewardship” of the world (or lack of it) to the next generation (my daughters’)

But, as far as I was concerned, the core of the book was its commentary on the various books written about the global economic crisis…

In the past week, however, I have been adding various posts from the archives which, intuitively, seemed appropriate eg the recent series on the UK power structure, old ones about political roles (which had identified four very distinctive group loyalties or “constituencies” between whom politicians generally have to choose); thinking institutionally; and a conservative philosopher’s musings on the New Left. These, patently, had nothing to do with economics and yet my unconscious clearly saw them as significant. They joined some other commentaries already in the draft which had more to do with social values; and also a significant one about intellectual timelines….And means that the draft has broken through the 200 page barrier..

I was already aware that my draft said very little about the ecological crisis (surely, I argued, it’s all been said?) but that, equally, it focused very much on the reactions of the privileged world. So I am now experimenting with the title “Notes on a Western Crisis”

Six Questions about the new draft

The book has now expanded to 140 pages – each of which seems to have half a dozen hyperlinks. That makes almost 1000 of them. The book still needs a proper conclusion – but can be accessed in its current state here. It's been constructed from the notes I have made over the years  as I tried to make sense of what “experts” were saying in the hundreds (indeed thousands) of books which have deluged us about “the crisis”. Your eyes may glaze over when you come across some of the lists which appear from time to time - so let me anticipate some of your questions….

1.   Why should we read it? After all, you’re the guy who said we needed to ration non-fiction books!

And that’s precisely why I have taken so long to write this damned thing…..at least 10 years. When I wrote that post, I offered the reader some tests to apply to any new non-fiction book. These included explaining what was distinctive about it; annotated reading lists; typologies showing the variety of perspectives the field offers; and visuals and other material to make the text less boring

2.   If you’re so critical of economists, who do you mention so many Economics books?

The majority of well-written books about the global crisis are actually not written by economists! There’s a table in this section (page 46 or thereabouts) which gives examples of the key books about the global crisis in 9 other disciplines apart from economics

3.   OK but why inflict so many titles on us?

Three reasons – First, anyone who wants to be taken seriously in discussions needs to be aware of some of the key names and titles in “the literature” – even if you only flick a few pages to get a sense of their style

People, secondly, differ in their tastes – and I’ve tried to structure the lists by various categories to allow you to find what suits you…For example, p43 gives you access to 8 introductory books which are great reads in themselves….

I would agree, finally, that academics are too good at throwing bibliographies at us. Indeed they overwhelm us with them – whether in footnotes, brackets or end-pages. It’s almost a virility test with them. I get very frustrated with this – since all these lists do is to flaunt their superiority – they don’t actually tell us anything interesting about each book. And that’s why I decided to try not just to list the more interesting of the books – but to add a few notes to give readers a sense of whether it was their sort of book..

4.   Surely neoliberalism has been discredited?

You would think that, as the deregulation which was its hallmark blew up in our faces, this would have led to a rethink but as Colin Crouch first showed in 2011 (and Philip Mirowski in 2013) the doctrine of commercialising anything that moves has actually strengthened. Most people are still scratching their heads to try to understand how this happened and why it seems so difficult to put an alternative agenda together…

5.   Why can’t progressives unite around an agreed agenda for change?

There are a lot of egos at stake! But also so many different perspectives. And it is a notorious fact of history that progressive forces tend to fight one another more than “the enemy”. Understand that, and we will be half way to achieving consensus

6.   Why should I trust anything you say?

If this is the first time you have come across my material, this is precisely the question you need to pose..The only answer I can give is that you will see from the blog I have had for 10 years that I try to keep an open mind on issues – painfully aware of the legitimacy of the different ways of seeing things

"A Pluralist “Reader’s Digest” Guide to the Global Crisis"??

One of the great features of British newspapers – apart from the cartoons – used to be the “Parliamentary Sketch”. 

Television cameras were allowed to show the proceedings of the British House of Commons only from Nov 1989 – prior to which a rather special sort of journalist attempted (from the early 19^th century) to put some flesh and bones on the rather dry reporting of political news.

You might have thought that the arrival of a dedicated television channel would have killed the parliamentary sketcher’s occupation but, instead, it gave it an enormous boost.

Simon Hoggart was The Guardian’s man in the place for 20 years until his sad, early death in 2014 – but his words live on in his collection House of Fun (2012) which I picked up recently in my second-hand bookshop in the Bucharest centre. Each entry is about 2 pages – and is a real gem as you can see from some of the excerpts given when you click the title…And John Crace has given the art of the parliamentary sketch a real edge in the past few years…..

I suddenly realized that my “Dispatches” book has the same structure – even if it’s missing a bit of the humour! A short entry – focusing on an idea or book rather than a politician – which can be dipped into almost at random…….although I have tried to give it a certain logic…..

And that led, in turn, to another of these dangerous, creative leaps….My book can perhaps be seen as a thoughtful “Reader’s Digest” Guide to the global crisis.

My generation is a bit sniffy about the Reader’s Digest – and its ideological purity is indeed questionable….But its original instinct is not all that different from that of Allen Lane who brought us the Penguins in the 1930s……

So what do you think? Should I stick with my “Dispatches……” title – or call the book “A (pluralist) Reader’s Digest Guide to the Global Crisis”?

Changing the World?

I have long known that the trick – for any daunting task - was to break it down into small, manageable parts. .But I hadn’t until now really tried to apply this technique to the various unfinished texts which haunt me on my laptop….But, a year or so ago, I started to use a simple matrix (or table) in my blog – and this seems to be supplying the discipline to identify what exactly is still missing from the Dispatches to the next generation draft……

As I have read through each of the book’s separate sections, I’ve been able to check that each post actually adds value – and is taking the narrative (such as it is) forward.

So, when I came to what was supposed to be the concluding section, it was so obvious that……..there was absolutely no conclusion.

And, indeed I noticed this morning that I had so far not even given the book a clear set of objectives – against which I could satisfy myself about the relevance of the text – let alone its satisfactory conclusion…

Rather hurriedly, therefore I offer these reasons for reading the book -

- It puts the crisis in its proper context – social, historical and moral

- It is clearly written

- Its guided hyperlinks allow you to select the further reading which seems appropriate eg this unique list of books worth reading

- It’s written by someone who understands your uncertainties and confusion

- It will allow you to hold your own in any conversation by referring knowledgably to the title of one (or two) of the almost 200 books referred to in the text….

But the result is that I have to announce a bit of a delay for the next part in this series about Dispatches to the next generation - as I try to work out what the book is about; and draft an appropriate conclusion!

I have another trick when I am facing a difficult challenge – I try to distract myself by reading something completely different. So I started to read Robert Quinn’s Building the Bridge as you walk on it – a guide for leading change – which is one of these curious books which can’t quite be classified. This one falls in the gap between “management literature” and “self-help guides” since it argues that leaders who want to change an organization have to change themselves first.

And I quickly realized that it perhaps supplies the peg on which I could hang my book’s conclusion…It was, you should know, written for an American audience which, for some reason, seems to need high-falutin’ phrases to describe what for me are straightforward processes

Some 20 years ago I developed an “opportunistic” or “windows of opportunity” theory of change for the struggle against what I started to call “impervious regimes” – those which are so confident of the lack of challenge to their rule that they become impervious to their citizens –

“Most of the time our systems seem impervious to change – but always (and suddenly) an opportunity arises. Those who care about the future of their society, take the time and trouble to prepare for these “windows of opportunity. And the preparation”, I went on “ is about analysis, mobilisation and trust.

- It is about us caring enough about our organisation and society to be willing to speak out about the need for change.

- It is about taking the trouble to think and read about ways to improve things – and helping create and run networks of change-agents.

- And it is about establishing a personal reputation for probity and good judgement such that people will trust you and follow your lead when that window of opportunity arises”.

I think this is what Robert Quinn ,means when he talks, in his “Building the Bridge” book, about “Entering the fundamental state of leadership”. I spent 2 decades between 1968 and 1990 going from initial community action work to developing and managing for a huge Region what was the country’s first Deprivation strategy – compare for example the typology and references in this 1977 paper on Community development – its political and administrative challenge with the experience described, 20 years later, in Organisational Development and Political Amnesia

Invitation to a lucky Dip

Being part III of the marketing for Dispatches to the next generation

I generally write for myself – to help me make sense of things.

I am not one of these natural story-tellers….who weave tales which seduce listeners. That’s why so many of my texts lie around in an unfinished state – it’s not that I lack the discipline or patience to complete them….I simply don’t have the skill…..

But this is a different sort of book – more like a collection of essays you can dip into at any point whenever the mood takes you….not having to bother about the story line or the history of – or connections between – the various characters who figure in the story….

So, take heart, this is not a book to daunt you – but rather….to get you moving…

Part III – sketches for a future world

Title	Takeaway
Economic aspects of social change	In which I make an early attempt to distinguish books according to their place on the political spectrum
Sketches of a broken world	A list of what I consider the most interesting books since 2010 – 50 of them!
Fightback	Some individuals to inspire us to action
A Neglected Classic	I’m generally disappointed by the books on how we might change things, but this is one person who makes sense
Thinking beyond capitalism	presentation of a useful typology – with examples
Small is still Beautiful	How a 1970s idea has grown
The Commons	A concept which has become fashionable in recent years
There is another Way	A reminder of the importance of workers’ cooperatives
Cooperation	And of the importance of this ethic
Beacons of Hope	Change requires both perspiration – and inspiration. And these are inspiring examples….
In Praise of Political Economy	The comeback of an old Scottish discipline
Post Capitalism is here?	How people reacted to a book which caused quite a stir in 2016
The solidarity economy	Few authors appreciate – or do justice to – the scale of the “social economy”

Salad days??

It is approaching Easter in Romania – Friday 26^th to be precise will be Good Friday here….

As a lapsed Christian, this has no particular meaning for me and I have never been able to agree with TS Eliot’s statement that April is “the cruellest month”. That, for me in the mid 1980s in Scotland, was rather November when I was afflicted for 3 consecutive winters by what the scientists then had started to call the S.A.D syndrome (better known to Churchill as his “black dog”).

This was a simple reflection of the career quandary which had trapped me as I tried for more than a decade to straddle both an academic and political career – killing my chances, in the process, of success in either…..Students drove me out of academia and I was soon jobless – still with my prominent political position but the time to reflect on what had gone wrong and how I might avoid future bouts of depression.

I had the beginnings of a European network - which I cultivated further – but it was the fall of the Berlin Wall which presented me with the opportunity – seized with both hands - to be the "consultant" I  then became for the next 25 years….(see my Just Words for a definition of that term!)

But nowadays this time of the year tends to be marked by 2 rather different but significant and linked events.

The bad one is the onset of pollen allergy…..with all that entails with sneezing and stuffed nose

The good one is the arrival of nettles, lettuce, spring garlic and onion, radish, red pepper et al in the markets here – particularly the Obor one a few tramstops away. Allowing the concocting of nettle stew with mamaliga; and of wonderful salads with the freshly-picked greens with grated carrots, bread crumbs, olives, walnuts, apple vinegar, goat cheese and olive oil….

Far from being a cruel month, April was (in the late 1980s) when I emerged from what was almost like a hibernation. Ever since then, however, I have had great sympathy for those who suffer – the most prominent Brits being Stephen Fry and Alastair Campbell. At the time Philip Toynbee was about the only prominent person admitting to the condition (I remember reading his “Part of a Journey – autobiographical notes 1977-79”) although Dorothy Rowe’s Depression – the way out of your prison;(1983) became, deservedly, a best-seller.

Of course, as I have slowly slid into retirement, it is not surprising that the black dog sometimes barks. So Matt Haig’s recent book was a useful reminder for me – although I was disappointed with its self-indulgence and think that Hari’s Lost Connections (2018) is a more useful read – with

chapters on the suggested reconnections focus on: a) other people, b) ‘social prescribing’, c) meaningful work, d) meaningful values, e) sympathetic joy and overcoming an addiction to the self, f) acknowledging and overcoming childhood trauma, and g) restoring the future.

This is a good review – and this a video of the author making a presentation about the book which I found yesterday and which I simply cannot put down, it is such a gripping read as he traces his journey from a decade of popping pills, followed by several years of asking questions, reading research and tracking down what seemed to be the people and places to help him answer the questions....On the way he targets myths, medics and the pharma companies and comes up with deeply political answers about the power of collective action.....I hope to do a separate post on the issue soon....
 ..

Was it neurologist Oliver Sachs who started (in the mid 90s) what has become the genre of literary medical writing? I was aware of his “The Man who mistook his wife for a hat” but never read his works. It was Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal which alerted me a few years back to the new genre – well represented by Edinburgh GP Gavin Francis’s Shapeshifters (2018) which I picked up last week from “Carturesti and Friends”

And it’s appropriate that it should be Francis who reviews another book which came from Vlad’s place – The Novel Cure – an A-Z of Literary Remedies - a delightful compendium of reading recommendations for those suffering from various travails….The Guardian even has a book clinic in the same vein….The authors of “The Novel Cure” have a website https://thenovelcure.com which serves up new offerings but, sadly, my PC denies me access……

It gives me the thought that someone should do a non-fiction version.......using indices of social and economic malaise to suggest the most accessible non-fiction reads???????

Resource on Depression (starting with the oldest)

Depression – the way out of your prison; Dorothy Rowe (1983)

One of the few books which was around in those dark ages, Rowe was a journalist and “agony aunt” and has a very easy tone

Life – and how to survive it; John Cleese and Robin Skynner (1996)

definitely one of the most helpful books of the decade ! A therapist and leading British comic (!) have a Socratic dialogue about the principles of healthy (family) relationships and then use these to explore the preconditions for healthy organisations and societies: and for leadership viz -
- valuing and respecting others
 - ability to communicate
- willingness to wield authority firmly but always for the general welfare and with as much consultation as possible while handing power back when the crisis is over)
- capacity to face reality squarely
- flexiblity and willingness to change
- belief in values above and beyond the personal or considerations of party.

Malignant Sadness; the anatomy of depression; Lewis Wolpert (1999)
Looks quite excellent

The noonday demon – the atlas of depression; Andrew Solomon (2001)

A much praised book, I must confess that I found its discursive style off-putting. Solomon is an essayist – although fully one third of the (large) book consists of notes. But no attempt is to break the relentless text up into headed sections to give us a hint of where the text is going

The Compassionate Mind; Paul Gilbert (2009)

This is also a bit forbidding with almost 600 pages but us well structured

Reasons to stay alive; Matt Haig (2015)

A bit too self-indulgent – but read for yourself Its short

Rip it UP – the as if principle; Richard Wiseman (2016)

One of the quotes which adorn my blog is from William James - “I will act as if what I do makes a difference”. In this entertaining and original book, Wiseman sets out a philosophy that encourages us to discipline our minds

Lost Connections; Johann Hari (2018) I came to this book prepared (by Hari’s reputation for plagiarism) to dislike it but was completely won over……

https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/tips-for-the-depressed/ quite harrowing!

Poem of the week - https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2019/apr/08/poem-of-the-week-recipe-for-a-salad-by-sydney-smith 

Book of the Day - https://www.theguardian.com/books/series/book-of-the-day