Narrates the 1967 conflict which shaped succeeding geopolitics of the late 20th-century Middle East. Based on primary sources from most of the combatants (save Syria), the comprehensive work points up the Arab world’s explicit linking of Israel and the US over 40 years ago and the imperious role of defense minister Moshe Dayan, whose de Gaulle-like introduction to Levi Eshkel’s cabinet overshadowed the indecisive prime minister. Oren’s scholarship is somewhat tempered by choppy prose (i.e., howevers, buts, yets) that obscure the sweep of his direction. Though definitive, the work also seems to have been superseded (dated) by Islamofascism, which has positioned the Arab-Israeli problem as but one stumbling block in the feudalistic worldview’s inability to peacefully coexist with modernity and the West.
Month: June 2023
15. Morison, Strategy and Compromise (18 Nov 2007)
Limns the Allies’ key strategic decisions of World War II, dividing them geographically between the two major theaters and presenting them sequentially within each. Europe takes pride of place because America committed to defeating Hitler first. The author, an admiral turned Harvard professor, is frequently critical of the British predilection for nipping Europe’s edges (as well as its quibbles with American resources sent to the Pacific), but acknowledges Overlord would have been more difficult before 1944, once Torch was approved in 1942. Island hopping the way to Japan also was a synthetic solution (thus the title), but Morison speaks relatively little of the decision to use atomic weaponry. Admirable introduction, great Mill Valley library pickup.
***16. Cannadine, Mellon (15 Dec 2007)
An exhaustive (and sometimes exhausting) biography of an oligarchic, reticent banker who became an admired Treasury secretary, until the Great Depression turned the tables on the socioeconomic assumptions he had lived by. Mellon, whose father was an austere, Scotch-Irish magnate of western Pennsylvania, grew very wealthy by financing vertical businesses in heavy industries as well as banking. Mellon fils expanded into chemicals, electricity, and oil, extending the Judge’s model. He was, however, emotionally stunted and his marriage a disaster. In Washington, he should have left after the end of the Coolidge administration (his second); not only did the Hoover era end badly, but Roosevelt deliberately pressed trumped-up (and sensationally dismissed) tax fraud charges. Notwithstanding, Mellon saw fit to donate the whole of his grand art collection as well as build the National Gallery to his country (and adopted city). Fine scholarship.
11. Pfeffer, Leadership BS (20 June 2023)
The leadership-training industry is broadly disconnected from contemporary practice, which is Machiavellian in pursuit and use of power. Leaders should be true to the external situation, not ‘authentic’, which ideal epitomizes the cant of value-laden prescriptions often inapplicable to demanding roles. Trust is bound to constrain options; those who violate trust aren’t held accountable because power trumps penalties. In difficult times, administrators protect those closest to them, their sources of power. One should presume others (i.e., rivals) are acting of self interest.
More constructively, Pfeffer sees that ‘walking around’ management closes gaps among people, helps leaders understand the front lines. Promoting from within magnifies culture. Get over ambivalence – act on incomplete data with conviction.
Pfeffer’s ‘realism’ never takes him beyond the normative. Thus the ability to misrepresent is possibly the most critical skill of leadership! However much debunking is needed, pyscho-sociological study is no substitute for elaborating competencies (i.e., the Troop Leadership Development 11) in the context of events, objectives, problems. An apology for power yet falls short of principled management.
4. Klibansky and Paton, ed., Philosophy and History (27 Feb 2020)
A festschrift for Ernst Cassirer treating philosophy, history of philosophy and history of ideas, historiography, and related pursuits. Author names are given in underline:
- Alexander
: the permanent features of things appear at different times in different forms; it’s permissible to think of forever in terms of now so long as we consider essence not surface characteristics. Novelty is the essence of history, explanation is the work; determinism in history means asserting pre-arranged necessity instead of changes in form over time.
- Webb
: philosophy is different from history, science, etc. in declining to accept precepts; but it may settle on some and proceed from these. Consciousness, such as religious consciousness, is finite. Yet philosophy cannot ignore religious consciousness because of finitude: Athens cannot disprove Jerusalem.
- Gilson (one of the better essayists)
: there is no great scientific discovery dating to the Middle Ages. Science rose in opposition to medieval philosophy and theology. Save the Aristotelian Leibniz, all chose between science or scholasticism. But they are not irreconcilable: scholastic philosophy has only to become true to itself to reconcile with science.
Descartes converted ideas to mathematical models, bereft of discourse, representing reality itself. Scholastic ideals could not be reduced to expressible content; they are something other. His successor was Hobbes: the effects of Cartesian metaphysics spread to proto-sociology. And thence to political philosophy – servitude to all powerful state derived from liberties!
The antinomy of philosophy consists of 1) the irrationality of building the collective (the state) from irreducible individuals versus 2) man is nothing, humanity is everything. Aquinas and Duns Scotus held they are reconciled in the real: the antinomy is manmade. In the other words, the error is Cartesian reduction to science (mathematics), which decrees a priori thee real is the sum of the real.
Aristotle’s mistake was to biologize the inorganic; Descartes’ to mathematize physics, chemistry, biology, metaphysics, and moral theory. Every ‘nature’ requires a formal principle, but not every form is living. Then metaphysics is the science above natural sciences, and its problem of defining existence is superior. For this reason, Christianity cannot allow metaphysics to expire
- Groethuysen
: reflection on the self occurs in different forms: religion, art, philosophy.
- Gentile
: historical fact is not presupposed by history. ‘Ideas without facts are empty; philosophy which is not history is the value’s abstraction’. The truth of the past lies not in facts but in imaginative use of what happened (or was happening). Does this trend toward existentialism?
- Stebbing
: without time there is no causation; without causation there is no time. The possibility of causal order is the sole condition for a time sequence in nature
- Medicus
: the final problem of the Kantian system is the unity of object and subject, of nature and freedom, which is treated in
- Critique of Judgment
. How does it assert itself? ‘Intransferable uniqueness’ is one’s calling, according to Cassirer; an era has it too – but neither are usually well defined – more usually they are in a form of questions. The historian is the servant of a culture’s self-awareness, not in obsequious search of power but truth. ‘The longest view is always from the heights’. For Cassirer, the object of history is the fulfillment of humanity.
- Brehier
: the history of philosophy commenced in the 17th century from Cartesian thought, and circa 1930 needs reworking. Documentary evidence, standing in for tradition, stands in the way of understanding what happened. Historical truth does not involve truth of the thought in question
- Hoffman
: The Platonic idea is behind Augustine’s philosophy of History
- Levy-Bruhl
: Descartes attacked the authority of tradition because it could not be demonstrated by scientific method. History was lumped together with religion
- Saxl
: veritas filia temporis – truth reveals itself over time. Art struggles with abstract concepts such as truth. The scientific age settled the war between the ancients and moderns on the side of the moderns, which admitted no abstract truth.
- Wind
: there are several commonalities at the intersection of history and science. The information which a document reveals requires presupposition of understanding the contents themselves in the first place. The observer of events is an intruder, and the dividing line between observer and participant is difficult to fix. Until recently historians and scientist were cloistered; now their discoveries could be world-changing
- Pos
: Philosophy is never deductive like math. Knowledge is relative in the sense that it’s open to interpretation and permeated by ‘alien’ (unproven) concepts
- Gundolf
: the two predominant objectives of historiography are to preserve the past as it actually was (Ranke) and whether to interpret the past in light of a) providence or b) universal laws.The pattern recurs in German historiography: German practice springs from the philosophically minded Herder, and thence to Ranke
- Ortega y Gasset (another standout)
: the most decisive changes in humanity are those of belief.
Historical reason is more demanding than scientific reason, which does not understand what it’s saying, only that it can be proven true. Science’s loss of the ability to express truths is mortal to civilization. Reason, in modern times degraded to mean the play of ideas, was in Greece and the 16th century understood as being in contact with the order of the cosmos / providence. It was itself a faith.
German idealism represents the attempt to place man before nature, like positivism. Hegel in particular demonstrates the lack of intellectual responsibility, evidencing a bankrupt moral climate.
Philosophy since Kant has been a ‘second apprenticeship’, pursuit of discovering authentic reality. Thought has its own form and projects these onto the real: man cannot escape. We must de-intellectualize the real to be faithful to it. But: nature is a transitory interpretation of what man finds around him. He has no nature; but he has history. Only under the pressure of events (history) do we differentiate between what we are and what we imagine ourselves to be: we become compact, solid.
- Klibansky
: history can be described as a science inasmuch as philosophic precepts (e.g., Kantian regulative principle or Platonic sense of normative pattern from ideas) order its proceedings
18. Ferguson, Empire (31 Dec 2008)
Portrays the trajectory of Britain’s international role from 1650-1950, concentrating on the empire’s leading territories (Caribbean, America, India, southern Africa). Its primary themes are that England imitated its European rivals in acquiring by piracy; resulting migrations were large and sometimes explosive; missionary zeal set the social tone and liberty the political ideal; and the empire’s resolve to defeat Nazi totalitarianism. Though it can be read as an indictment, the book appears to conclude missteps and excesses do not superceed the many benefits of cultural transfer including land tenure, banking norms, common law, team sports as a principle of community, representative and limited government, and the idea of liberty itself. Ultimately a curious cross between history and political science. Its claims to pertain to 21st-century America aren’t clear. An enlightening introduction and conclusion.
1. Beevor, The Battle for Spain (10 Jan 2008)
Chronicles the Spanish Civil War, a rich and hotly contested field that is a rare example of history dominated by the loser’s point of view. Pre-1930s Spain was so splintered and polarized that the combination of inept government, labor agitation in straightened economic circumstances, and conspiring generals (aided by the Church) led to rapid mobilization and then open warfare. Republican forces began with Madrid and Barcelona as well as the strategic edge; but primes inter pares Franco consolidated rightist forces and made fewer mistakes — particularly as the right was not beholden to propaganda. Both sides treated the opposition and civilians wantonly, and the fighting was both a microcosm and a proving ground for Europe (including Soviet Russia). Though focused on personal leadership and ideological conflict (particularly among Barcelonan leftists), Beevor skillfully depicts daily fighting. A worthy followup to
- Stalingrad
.
2. Najarian, How I Trade Options (29 Jun 2008)
A breezy, loosely organized introduction to options trading combined with Jon’s worldview and snatches of personal biography. Many anecdotes are dated. Jon’s voice is authentic, but in the online era the format is longish and might have been more compelling as webinars.
3. Bernstein, Against the Gods (24 Jul 2008)
Surveys mathematical and epistemological understanding of risk in the Western era, focusing on it’s roles in modern investing. Initially the problem concerned Renaissance-era advances in quantitative certainty, while gradually the understanding that past results cannot determine (but only suggest) future events introduced a moral / emotional context. Two poles in the latter 20th-century understanding are diversification (reduced likelihood of losing it all at once) and chaos theory (nonlinerarity tells us that ends are not proportionate to events). Whichever may become predominant according to events, risk has become a scientific approach to increasing opportunity for sustained gains (or, reduced exposure to unwanted outcomes). Well synthesized if occasionally blocky prose. Worth re-reading; next step, the au courant Black Swans.
4. Koesterich, ETF Strategies (22 Sep 2008)
Shows that ETFs are more likely to be effective for retail investors, and surveys popular equity and fixed income products. Harry Markowitz’s Capital Asset Pricing Model asserts investors should be compensated for market risk but not idiosyncratic risk. Equity returns were abnormally high from 1990-2007, and pro money managers enjoy increasing advantages — but winning managers themselves are hard to find. Thus retailers should avoid beta masquerading as alpha and utilize low-cost, diversified financial products (investments). Equity funds are categorized by sector, size (tradeable creation units), and style (value of growth); international funds are crossovers that provide additional diversification. Fixed income funds, mostly bonds but also commodities, are categorized by duration and credit risk. Other maxims: what is the risk-adjusted return? how is the fund correlated to the portfolio? what is the cost in fees and transaction costs? ETFs should make self-directed investors more efficient. Well organized and timely (for me) in sketching the size and role of the bond market around the time of the Global Financial Crisis.