In Praise of the Bibliographical Essay

Readers are aware of the rather eccentric stress this blog puts on the importance of books having annotated bibliographies. Penguin have just published Why Politics Fails – the 5 traps of the modern world and how to escape them Ben Ansell (2023) which ends with a rare essay which covers, for each chapter, the key books the author has found essential as themes for the lens through which he examines democracy, equality, solidarity, security and prosperity. 

The only other book I’ve come across with such an essay is Peter Gay’s 680 

page magnum opus Modernism – the lure of heresy (2007) which has a stunning 

32 page  bibliographical essay which, he warned, was “highly selective”! 

Peter Gay was born in Germany in 1923 but his family came to the States via 

Havana in 1941 where he became a prolific US historian – as is evident from 

this Wikupedia entry. One of his books is My German Question: Growing Up in 

Nazi Berlin (1998), a powerful and insightful account of his teenage years in 

Berlin. Another which also has an extensive bib essay is Freud – a Life for our 

Times (1988) whose bib essay extends to 76 pages. The book does, after all, have 

1350 pages! For me, such bibliographical essays are rare gems which offer an opportunity 

to understand an author’s preferences.

  
Why Politics Fails reviews

• https://czechpolsci.eu/article/download/37409/31968/61942 

• https://www.persuasion.community/p/ansell podcast

• https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/17/reith-lectures-miss-point-politics-

• fails-when-avoids-issue-of-class

In Praise of the Essay/Book Review

I have always been a fan of tables and matrices – reducing ideas to the simple format of a 2x2 or 6x3 (or whatever) table. They not only relieve the text but force you to whittle text down to the bare essentials. Perhaps that’s why I love these Central Asian and Russian miniatures so much. And it might also explain my preference for ESSAYS as against books - for which I’m developing increasing distaste. London, of course, from the 16^th to the 19^th centuries, was home to the great Englosh essayists - Francis Bacon. (1561-1626); Joseph Addison (1672-1719) William Hazlitt (1778-1830) and Charles Lamb (1775- 1834)

But, these days, I am more interested în the political essayists – two of 

whom I would like to draw to me readers’ attention, a Brit and a German
William Davies is one of my favourite political scientists with several books 

to his credit. He’s just penned a review of two important books about the 

apparent decline of the left and some of his other essays can be found here
This is not normal – the collapse of Liberal Britain is a collection of his 

essays which appeared in 2020.
Wolfgang Streeck is a German sociologist whose writing has been celebrated 

several times on this blog. But I have failed to mention the essays he gave us 

in  Critical Encounters – capitalism, democracy, ideas (2020) which reviews 

books by the likes of Mark Blyth, Perry Anderson, Quinn Slobodian, Yanis 

Varoufakis, Jurgen Habermas and Peter Mair. It’s

... a collection of essays on political economy, stimulated by reading books for review. It is also a celebration of the book as a medium of communication among scholars and with a wider public....

Different book reviews by the same author, as collected in this volume, are only loosely connected: by accident of personal acquaintance, of time believed to be free, or of the reviewer’s sense of adventure.

How to review a book that is worthy of being reviewed? For me it requires deep reading, beginning usually with the last chapter, then the introduction, then several expeditions into the interior. This takes time. During reading sessions, I highlight what I find remarkable and sketch my own emerging views in the margins, or on the last pages where the publisher advertises other, often related, books. When I am finished with a book, it looks a little deranged. Having let it sit for a while in this condition, I return to it and read my notes. Where they yield a pattern, for example by repeating themselves, is where the reading has left an impact. Then I begin writing. Writing book reviews means taking the book seriously as a vehicle of scholarly communication; or, as in my case, even extolling it. In the social sciences, journal articles have come to predominate, which I find deplorable.

On the logic of minimalism, I should be a fan of poetry but draw the line at Brecht, Burns, Eliot and Mitchell (Adrian)

Ivan Illich - why the attraction?

I am still trying to puzzle over the power Illich’s writing had for me in the 1970s.

1968 had been, of course, the year of rebellion against the forces of power and tradition. My first thought was to go back to ask who else had been competing for attention in those days? C Wright Mills had been a dominant figure with his “The Power Elite” of 1956 an attack on established power.

Illich’s work was some 15 years later and went deeper – with no obvious target to blame. But I do remember some New Statesman cartoons of “Pillars of the Establishment” (as in Grosz’s painting) tearing off their masks to reveal evil and savage faces. Illich’s books were short and an essay in The Challenges of Ivan Illich – a collective reflection; by L Hainacki (2002) suggested he used epigrammatic assertions rather than persuasive arguments – which would probably have impressed me in the 1970s.

What do I now make of his legacy? It was his critical message which made the impact on me but this seems, however, to have been taken up and morphed into a widespread cynicism about anyone exercising any sort of power. This has been a deeply dangerous development which simply serves the interests of those with the real power

update; https://www.bollier.org/blog/why-ivan-illich-still-matters-today

https://www.bollier.org/blog/why-ivan-illich-still-matters-today

BOOKS WHICH FORM A WORLD VIEW

One of the most thoughful and well-read bloggers is Aurelien whose latest post is an annotated list of the books which have helped him develop his particular world view which, sadly, he makes no attempt to describe. But it’s clear that he’s a bit of a contrarian – rubbishing mainstream literature and clearly enjoying, as I do, the writings of people such as Richard Evans and EP Thompson whose 1978 “The Poverty of Theory and other Essays” I downloaded as a result of the mention. I would strongly recommend reading Aurelien’s post in full - its book references reflect a life of reading and are quite fascinating.

I recently posted about my response to a challenge thrown down by the Cultural Tutor to identify the book which everyone should read. That, of course, is not quite the same as listing the books which helped form your world view. But for what it’s worth, these are the books I mentioned for the challenge -

It’s not surprising that the books I remember are from the early 1960s – for example EH Carr was a favourite, not just his “Twenty Years’ Crisis” (1946) which introduced me to Realism but What is History? EH Carr (1961) which I vividly remember for its story of how you caught fish (facts) depended on the type of reel you used and the spot you chose to fish at.

Peter Berger was another writer who made an impact – first for his prescient postmodern analysis in The Socal construction of Reality P Berger and T Luckman (1966) and then Pyramids of Sacrifice – political ethics and social change (1975)

More recently, writers such as Francis Fukuyama, David Graeber, Michael Greer, Roman Krznaric, Kate Rawarth, Wolfgang Streeck and Yanis Varoufakis have also impressed . One book, however, stands out for the variety of explanations it offers for the difficulties we have in agreeing and acting on global warming – viz Why We Disagree about Climate Change by Mike Hulme (2009). But, at the end of the day, I tend to fall back on Bertrand Russell whose Sceptical essays still delight although published in 1925

Aurelien’s post has spurred me to do three things

• to try to describe my own world view

• to identify the books which helped form that

• to see whether I could list some books which challenged that world view 

My World View (WV)
My WV is not static – I have become more radical in my old age. In my youth, 

I was powerfully influenced by the likes of Karl Popper and Tony Crosland. 

My initial experience of municipal government made the tactics of Saul Alinsky 

attractive but then I became more of a liberal technocrat. The new millennium 

saw the scales drop from my eyes and this is how I described the situation in 

2014.

Political parties are a bust flush - All mainstream political parties in Europe have been affected by the neo-liberal virus and can no longer represent the concerns of ordinary people. And those “alternative parties” which survive the various hurdles placed in their way by the electoral process rarely survive.
The German Greens were an inspiration until they too eventually fell prey to the weaknesses of political parties identified a hundred years ago by Robert Michels.
More recently, “Pirate” parties in Scandinavia and Bepe Grillo’s Italian Five Star Movement have managed, briefly, to capture public attention, occupy parliamentary benches but then sink to oblivion or fringe if not freak interest.
What the media call “populist” parties of various sorts attract bursts of electoral support in most countries but are led by labile individuals preying on public fears and prejudices and incapable of the sort of cooperative effort which serious change requires.

NGOs are no match for corporate power - The annual World Social Forum has had more staying power than the various “Occupy movements” but its very diversity means that nothing coherent emerges to challenge the power elite whose “scriptures” are delivered from the pulpits of The World Bank and the OECD There doesn’t even seem a common word to describe our condition and a vision for a better future – “social change”? What’s that when it’s at home?

Academics are careerists – although the groves of academia are still sanctuary 

for a few brave voices who speak out against the careless transfer by governments 
of hundreds of billions of dollars to corporate interests …

• Noam Chomsky and David Harvey are prominent examples. 

• Henry Mintzberg, one of the great management gurus, has in the last decade broken 

ranks and now writes about the need for a profound “rebalancing” of the power structure 

- Rebalancing Society – radical renewal beyond left, right and centre. 

• Economists who challenge the conventional wisdom of that discipline are now able 

to use the Real-World Economics blog.

• Daniel Dorling is a geographer who focuses on inequalities eg his powerful 

Injustice – why social inequality persists.

Think Tanks play safe – and….think - although there are honourable exceptions such as -

• Susan George, a European activist and writer, who operates from the

 Trans National Institute(TNI)  and, amongst her many books, has produced two 

marvellous satires – Lugano I and Lugano II

• David Korton’s books and Yes Magazine keep up a steady critique.

• Joseph Stiglitz, once part of the World Bank elite, writes scathingly about 

economic conventional wisdom.

• The Pope has the resources of the Vatican behind him; and is proving a great 

example in the struggle for dignity and against privilege.

THE BOOK WHICH EVERYONE SHOULD READ??

The Cultural Tutor is am amazing blog with text and music which comes in every Friday. Its latest issue asked a simple question - which book should everyone read?. The obvious answer is The Bible or the Koran - ideally with Christians reading the second book and Muslims the first.

But its not just religion which separates people – it’s also AGE. My younger self had books whose importance I recognised (listed here) - a few of which I find on rereading don’t impress eg Social Science as Sorcery (1972). And my older self lacks the memory to do justice to some of the books from the new millennium, some of which are covered in the above list. I suspect many readers of the Cultural Tutor blog will as a result mention books they have recently read. But first I need to indicate how I make my judgement ie what criteria I use in measuring impact. That’s not actually all that easy to divulge – I suppose it’s some sort of combination of

- perennial wisdom

- causing us to look at the world in a different way

- good writing

- a sense of wry humour

- humility

It’s not surprising that the books I remember are from the early 1960s – for example EH Carr was a favourite, not just his “Twenty Years’ Crisis” (1946) which introduced me to Realism but What is History? EH Carr (1961) which I vividly remember for its story of how you caught fish (facts) depended on the type of reel you used and the spot you chose to fish at. Peter Berger was another writer who made an impact – first for his prescient postmodern analysis in The Socal construction of Reality P Berger and T Luckman (1966) and then Pyramids of Sacrifice – political ethics and social change (1975)

More recently, writers such as Francis Fukuyama, David Graeber, Michael Greer, Roman Krznaric, Kate Rawarth, Wolfgang Streeck and Yanis Varoufakis have also impressed . One book, however, stands out for the variety of explanations it offers for the difficulties we have in agreeing and acting on global warming – viz Why We Disagree about Climate Change by Mike Hulme (2009)

But, at the end of the day, I tend to fall back on Bertrand Russell whose Sceptical essays still delight although published in 1925

On Thinking for oneself

One of the faults of which I am constantly guilty is assuming that my reading will bring new insights. So I was delighted to read this morning the latest post from the marvellous Cultural Tutor

Arthur Schopenhauer is not the sort of person I usually write about in the Areopagus. 

He was a philosopher, after all, and I maintain that philosophers must be treated 

with caution! But, recently, somebody suggested that I read a few of his shorter 

essays. One of them, simply titled “On Thinking For Oneself”, caught my attention. 

Thinking and writing are in many ways synonymous: the better we think, the better 

we write, and vice versa.
So, how does one think for oneself? The thrust of Schopenhauer's advice is that 

we shouldn't rely too much on reading: “Reading is a mere makeshift for original 

thinking”.
That is not to say we shouldn't read, of course. Schopenhauer's point is that we 

mustn't confuse reading (which can be very useful) with thinking:

The difference between the effect produced on the mind by thinking for oneself 

and that produced by reading is incredibly great... reading forces on the mind ideas 

that are as foreign and heterogeneous to the tendency and mood it has at the moment, 

as is the seal to the wax whereon it impresses its stamp.

....the mind is deprived of all its elasticity by much reading as is a spring when a weight 

is continually applied to it; and the surest way not to have thoughts of our own is for 

us at once to take up a book when we have a moment to spare. This practice is the 

reason why erudition makes most men more stupid and simple than they are by 

nature and also deprives their literary careers of every success. As Pope says, they 

remain, "For ever reading, never to be read."

Scholars are those who have read in books, but thinkers... are those who have read 

directly in the book of the world. Schopenhauer uses a rather neat analogy for 

the difference between reading and thinking:

Those who have spent their lives in reading, and have drawn their wisdom from books,

 resemble men who have acquired precise information about a country from many descriptions 

of travel. They are able to give much information about things, but at bottom they 

have really no coherent, clear, and thorough knowledge of the nature of the country. 

On the other hand, those who have spent their lives in thinking are like men who 

have themselves been in that country. They alone really know what they are talking 

about; they have a consistent and coherent knowledge of things there and are truly 

at home in them.

I’m not sure if I totally agree with the thrust of his argument. Our own opinions,

 after all, are generally a reflection of the prevailing social consensus or, as 

JK Galbraith famously called it, the “conventional wisdom”  Christian Lupsa is a 

Romanian journalist who was for the past decade the editor of an interesting 

journal DoR  and now writes a weekly blog (in English) which this week challenges 

the ease with which we sink into these bubbles  

Schopenhauer goes on to argue that we must begin with our own opinions rather than 

those of other people:

Thus the man who thinks for himself only subsequently becomes acquainted with the 

authorities for his opinions when they serve merely to confirm him therein and to 

encourage him. The book-philosopher, on the other hand, starts from those authorities 

in that he constructs for himself an entire system from the opinions of others which 

he has collected in the course of his reading. Such a system is then like an automaton 

composed of foreign material, whereas that of the original thinker resembles a living 

human being.

It isn't easy to find our own opinions, of course, but Schopenhauer argues that 

effort in doing so is entirely worthwhile. These days, of course, we are besieged 

by books offering to help us to think more critically  

Even if occasionally we had been able very easily and conveniently to find in a book a 

truth or view which we very laboriously and slowly discovered through our own thinking 

and combining, it is nevertheless a hundred times more valuable if we have arrived at 

it through our own original thinking. Only then does it enter into the whole system 

of our ideas as an integral part and living member; only then is it completely and firmly 

connected therewith, is understood in all its grounds and consequents, bears the 

colour, tone, and stamp of our whole mode of thought, has come at the very time 

when the need for it was keen, is therefore firmly established and cannot again 

pass away

I shall leave it there for now. Schopenhauer, though he has been accused of many 

things, is rarely accused of not being an original thinker. In an age when the internet 

makes it all too easy to pass our time consuming the words (and, therefore, the thoughts 

and opinions) of others, he offers a timely reminder to step back and put in the work 

ourselves. As always, I recommend reading the essay in full. 

The Importance of Context

The outbreak of Israel-Hamas violence last weekend is one of these moments which compels a response – but not a knee-jerk one. A more contextual one is called for such as offered by an Australian journalist (who happens to be Jewish) whose Twitter analysis has just gone viral. Richard Loewenstein has written several books the most relevant of which is My Israel Question  But the most objective book is probably Enemies and Neighbours – jews and arabs 1917-2017 by Ian Black (2017)

What is striking is the number of prominent Israelis who are supportive of the defenceless Palestinians who have operated for several years in what even the United Nations calls an “open prison”. And it’s not just Yuval Harari who protests against the Israel government - I’m just reading Ten Myths about Israel (2017) by the famous Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe, who is part of a group of local historians hostile to the Zionism which has increased the grip it has on the country in the past half-century. Indeed Pappe co-authored in 2015 On Palestine with no less a figure than Noem Chomsky. Avi Shlaim is another historian critical of Israel

It was good to see the US journal Boston Review put the violence properly in context with a piece which has just appeared

Hamas differs from the other major Palestinian party, Fatah, led by Mahmoud Abbas and based in the West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six-Day War. (Gaza was formally occupied then as well; it was not until 2005 that Israel withdrew soldiers and Jewish settlements.) Though initially committed to armed resistance, Fatah was eventually prepared to recognize Israel and negotiate with it in hopes of establishing a Palestinian state—the so-called two-state solution, which was pursued, though unsuccessfully, during the Oslo negotiations of the 1990s. Hamas and Fatah have had a contentious relationship, which has at times turned violent.

It bears noting, however, that the UN partition is regarded as an injustice even by Palestinians who have nothing to do with Hamas. The signal event that followed from the partition and that has been seared into Palestinians’ memory is the forced expulsion or flight of 700,000 of their forbears from the territory the UN assigned to Israel, the killing of another 15,000, and the destruction of at least 400 villages—what Palestinians call the Nakba (Arabic for “catastrophe”). Many of those displaced in these years ended up in Gaza.

Increased Israeli settlements

There has been a dramatic increase in settlement since the 2022 election. According to the Israeli NGO Peace Now, the government “promoted 12,855 housing units” in the West Bank in the first six months of 2023 alone, almost twice as many as it did in the preceding two years combined. In addition, the demolition or seizure of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, and attacks by settlers on Palestinians, continues. The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that 752 “Palestinian-owned structures” in the West Bank have been destroyed between January and October of this year, displacing 1,182 people, whereas the corresponding figures for all of 2022 were 954 and 1,032. Violence by West Bank settlers against Palestinians has likewise increased sharply since 2021.

In short, Hamas and the ultra-religious parties that are now part of Israel’s government are defined by irreconcilable historical, religious, and political narratives. These beliefs are hardly new, nor are they sole source of the enmity between Israel and Hamas, or the only explanation for the October 7 attack. Still, it cannot be understood fully without taking them into account. Furthermore, the diminished stature of Fatah in the West Bank, Hamas’s dominance in Gaza, and the powerful role of ultranationalist parties in Israeli politics have together increased the probability of violent confrontations between the IDF and the Al-Qassem Brigades.

As for the future

the plight of Gza’s more than 2 million people will doubtless polarize the Middle East to an extent not seen in many years, especially if the war continues for weeks or months. The calling up of 300,000 IDF reservists and the massing of 100,000 in southern Israel, confirmed by Israel’s chief military spokesman, suggest that Netanyahu’s government has, at the very least, not ruled out that option.

The model of two states living by side—Palestinian having full control over the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as the capital—was roughly the goal of the 1990s Oslo negotiations, but it has become much more complicated to accomplish because of what has occurred in the West Bank. Since 1967, 279 Jewish settlements have been established there, and they are now home to 700,000 Israeli Jews. For a territorially continuous and substantial Palestinian state to emerge the settlements would have to dismantled, and Israel would have to yield East Jerusalem. No Israeli government would want to embark on that politically explosive mission, and so long as religious parties play a role in governing, it won’t be entertained even as an idea. More fundamentally, just as Hamas denies the legitimacy of Israel and rejects a two-state solution, ultra-religious Israeli parties reject the very notion of a Palestinian state, no matter its configuration. Furthermore, the scale and surprise of Hamas’s attack could well embolden and strengthen Israelis who warn that any kind of Palestinian state would pose a mortal threat to their country.

We are, then, left with the dismal and dangerous future featuring intermittent cycles of violence between Israel and Hamas. As always no one will suffer more than civilians—Israelis, but particularly Palestinians living in Gaza. And while this particular confrontation may pass without other states joining the fray, we cannot count on that happening forever.

Still, we have witnessed momentous and unexpected changes in the last twenty-five years—including the end of apartheid in South Africa, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and before that the end of communist rule in Eastern Europe. Changes within Israel and in the world that make for a more hopeful turn of events cannot be ruled out, especially as voices for dialogue and reconciliation exist within Israel and among Palestinians. That, at least, must be our hope.

Other useful links

https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/impending-genocide

https://bylinetimes.com/2023/10/16/gazas-last-stand-the-dangers-of-a-second-nakba/

https://www.declassifieduk.org/lawless-in-gaza-why-britain-and-the-west-back-israels-crimes/

https://indi.ca/the-west-is-showing-its-whole-genocidal-ass/

good analysis of the background to the conflict 

https://indi.ca/why-should-i-hate-hamas/

https://www.conter.scot/2023/10/11/defend-gaza-oppose-green-lighting-war-crimes/

https://www.councilestatemedia.uk/p/we-are-being-fed-misinformation-to?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2

https://consortiumnews.com/2023/10/11/craig-murray-condemnation/

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2023/october/get-out-of-there-now

https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii96/articles/perry-anderson-the-house-of-zion.pdf2015

Rethinking the politics of Israel-Palestine Bruno Kreisky Forum 2014

https://issuu.com/oxfordpoliticalreview/docs/opr_issue_9_pr_ml_issuu/s/23567523