A tour of the principal socioeconomic, intellectual, and political events and trends of the 20th century through the 1980s. Key observations: political violence is infectious and degenerative in nature; it is highly important for leaders to be seen as moral and ethical. In the last century, the left was responsible for the bulk of the disastrous experiments with social engineering in Russia, China, and various socialist outposts, but the right also participated as in Germany, Italy, and Spain. The author convincingly points to the enduring role of individual agency as well as the law of unintended effects. Because he is not a professional academic and is conservative, he is considered idiosyncratic but his conclusions have never been refuted.
Europe
16. Judt, Postwar (25 Nov 2006)
A work of great erudition and bien pensant orthodoxy that treats the sociopolitical history of Europe from 1945 to 2005, from the Cold War to the near-term aftermath. The author’s best work is in describing the damage wrought by World War II, the brutality of the Communist takeover of Eastern Europe, and the cultural consequences of Western Europe’s economic growth. Micro studies of nation states like Spain also are valuable. But Judt does not grasp the central conflict between democracy and totalitarianism and so presents the Soviet collapse as compelled by economics and driven by Gorbachev, rather than fueled by the thirst for liberty. So too is the dynamic of Thatcherism dismissed as ‘little more than state selloffs’. (Still more remarkable is the omission of Reagan’s ‘Tear down this wall’ speech.) Judt concludes not with the European leadership’s failure to prevent Balkan war and genocide but yet another review of Nazism’s Final Solution and its historical uniqueness; the Soviets get a pass. Ultimately an unoriginal book.
3. Downing, Military Revolution and Political Change (18 Jan 2015)
The endurance of medieval forms of constitutional government and the revolution of early modern warfare, which required state centralization of resources, accounted for the democratic trajectory of western and central European countries. After reviewing forms of late medieval government and warfare, the author uses a comparative framework to evaluate Prussia and France as absolutist cases and England, Sweden, and the Netherlands as republican exemplars. The work is a useful riposte to class and economic determinism, but lacks truly original expression, the text being heavily footnoted with citations of generally accepted historiography. It is also written as if for a graduate seminar: impossible not to learn, but better off with Fukuyama.
11. Barraclough, Crucible of Europe (7 Apr 2015)
An overview of politics, war, and state-building in western Europe from 768, the accession of Karl der Grosse, to 1056, the death of the Holy Roman Empire’s Henry III. The German-speaking Merovingian Franks began consolidating the lands of France, Germany, and Italy, a process completed in 800, whereupon Carolingian society immediately lost its conquest-fueled dynamism, for commerce continued to lag Roman times, learning was limited to déclassé clerics, and government lacked centralizing power (often erroneously attributed to the missi dominci). It could not withstand the 9th-century raids of the Vikings, Turks, and Magyars, which accentuated the political division of Karl’s successors. In France, power devolved to the counts; in Italy, to city-states ruled by dukes; only in Germany did power remain monarchical — and of course in all cases the writ ran short. After the invasions crested with Otto I’s defeat of the Magyars at Lech in 955, the Saxons conquered Italy in 962 and so became the first Holy Roman Emperor, succeeding Karl and in contrast to the Byzantine monarchy. By the time of Henry’s passing a century later, however, a second medieval era arose. Present throughout both stages are rivalries among the crown, aristocratic classes, and church figures (both the papacy as well as the monasteries). Barraclough detours to contrast England’s contemporary development, prompted by Viking raids, in which the six rival kingdoms were consolidated and the country’s ‘ancient liberties’ ostensibly took root. Briskly synthesized and mostly readable, the work does contain whiff of progressivism to it: key elements are important for their contribution to the present day. Still, an excellent survey.
22. Haskins, Rise of Universities (4 Dec 2015)
A collection of 3 lectures sketching the foundation of European universities in 12th-century Europe, reviewing the schools of Bologna and Paris, the professor, and the student. Asserts the Renaissance really began with this new institution (which lacked many modern trappings — buildings). Otherwise seems antiquarian.
9. Berlin, Crooked Timber of Humanity (11 Jun 2018)
A series of essays in the history of ideas which reveals Isaiah Berlin’s leading philosophical precepts. These include pluralism’s triumph over classical ‘monism’; historicism is the inevitable product of choice, which forms a malleable human nature; and the best humanity can hope for is a society which heads off moral ‘intolerables’. To further cluster some of Berlin’s writing:
• The Western intellectual tradition presumes a single answer which can be rationally discovered and what constitutes a coherent whole. Also, in the West, knowledge includes values. Machiavelli first pointed up the possibility that values and ideals may not be aligned. More concretely, Germans disgruntled with French Enlightenment culture promoted self-conscious localism, through prototypical Romanticism. Berlin concurs: men are not created but born into ‘streams of tradition’; ironically, these streams enable new creations, new traditions but nevertheless do not sustain singular ideals. The Romantics shattered European unity of thought: the 19th and 20th centuries evinced conflict of universal ideals versus Romantic will to power, particularly in nationalist corruption (i.e., the leader embodying ‘folkways’ and the highest-value will).
• Vico fathered cultural pluralism, the view that ideals can be incommensurable. He disputed the ideal of progress or even comparability. But he was not a relativist: what (choices) men have made, others can understand. Berlin assets two types of relativism. The first attacks all objectivity. The second lets empirical matters (i.e., science) off the hook. This is the notorious fact-value distinction. At any rate, 18th-century thinkers were not relativists. The construct began only with Hegel.
• English traditionalists (e.g., Burke) and German Romantics saw mankind benignly. Joseph de Maistre saw sin and malic, attacking Enlightenment rationality and returning to the ‘early’ logic of Saint Thomas. However, he effectively anticipated another outcome of Romanticism – the coalescence of the will around the (20th-century) nation-state and especially the dictator. De Maistre said evolutionary social science is trumped by the group which most fervently believes it’s right.
• The core value of the Romantic is making his own choices. When obsolete, community tradition should be disposed. Men ought not be sacrificed to abstract or objective ideals. The Existentialists succeed the Romantics. The glory of man is to choose: the act of choosing is in fact human nature. To repeat, this is not relativism but acknowledgement of incommensurability and skepticism of human progress. The Romantics shattered the unity of European telos, and also paved the way to rationalism and the Existentialists. Berlin says existentialism (and implicitly their successors, the Postmoderns) are in fact a return to natural law or at least ‘Kantian absolutism’ (wherein the moral worth of an act depends on its being freely chosen), on the grounds that to choose is the irreducible essence of human nature, albeit without the metaphysics of theology. Science cannot control the Romantic will. Therefore the best we can do is to steer clear of intolerable outcomes.
Berlin is more of an apologist than a relativist. His work led him to a dead end in the Western tradition. But he did not lose faith, unlike those who glory in the willful ‘subversion’ of postmodernism.
Visions of the Kantian world-state
European nation-states survived 19th- and 20th-century ideologies (e.g., Marxism, racism) competing with Hobbesian sovereignty for the loyalty of citizens. World War I marked the high watermark of their cohesion. Visions of the Kantian world-state predominate.
Today, even more than in Hobbes’s time, sovereignty is commonly rejected as an expression of selfish particular interests, and today’s aspirations for political salvation have been invested in the power of international organizations.
Hobbes juxtaposed the demands of freedom against the passion for justice, and he lost. The most powerful enthusiasm of all has turned out to be the supposedly critical belief that our loyalties must not be constrained by the merely accidental fact of being born into some specific society. We must make our own judgments of rationality, and we may appeal beyond the state, to rights, international values, and external bodies. Modern democracy tends to play down the importance of sovereignty. Remarkably, however, it is in these European states, with their Hobbesian echo of pure statehood, that legality and decency survive, and to which the refugees move, in flight from a world that often seems to echo the state of nature Hobbes so much dreaded.
https://newcriterion.com/issues/2013/3/swimming-with-leviathan
19. Howard, Lessons of History (1 Nov 2018)
The French Revolution spurred the rise of nationalism in 19th-century Europe, a phenomenon which proved the major impetus for statecraft and warfare over the succeeding two centuries. More than simply self-conscious culture, nationalism in the 1800s was ideological, entwining a loose worldview with a defined sense of universal (often cultural) mission. It complemented economic modernization while overshadowing Marxism, which in its early phase had no conception of statecraft. Nationalism complicated life for Eastern Europe’s Jews, but (in its imperial guise) looked in colonial lands like routine military conquest. For social Darwinians cum nationalists, war was the ultimate test of folk strength – a view which died out after the carnage of World War I. In the 19th century, the Prussian mindset conflicted with German nationalism; Treitschke’s view that the essence of the state was power (macht), which required an army, bridged the two; ultimately, Nazism replaced Preussentum. Little is said of the interwar era. Howard coopts Churchill to makes a case for postwar British nationalism – as way to consensually accommodate postwar British decline – while giving the Russians a pass because the victorious Soviet army was ‘popular’ in postwar Eastern Europe! They and the Americans were the century’s inheritors of the universal mission, and in the current (when published) century, nationalism rather than social justice or economic equality remained the driver of public spirit. It provides the state apparatus with legitimacy: if unmoored (for example by supranational elites), the structure becomes alienating and oppressive. Turning to warfare, in which the author specializes, Howard’s primary insights are that 1) pre-WWI army doctrines failed to grasp the impact of mechanization despite the evidence of late-19th-century warfare – maneuver was ignored, and 2) in the greatest military literature, the hero cannot win, as abundantly demonstrated in WWI. As to history, the field is meant to train laymen – not professionals – to understand precedents of the contemporary. Howard asserts all ages of are equal interest to the historian, although the book fairly omits the developing world, and is comfortable with historicism though not polemical. In a ranging essay on ‘structure and progress’, he surveys why history has been held valuable and himself settles on its role in tracing society’s movement from the realm of necessity to the realm of choice. Such progress looks a leftward ratchet. The volume is not representative of his professional achievement and perhaps understates his contribution to understanding the relationship of warfare, society, and politics; however, it evinces the postwar bien pensant, the elite who could not see through the Soviets and uphold the enduring value of the liberal society.
20. Dunn, Breaking Democracy’s Spell (4 Nov 2018)
Democracy has successfully established itself worldwide, but its record is poor. The author contends democracy is a formula for ‘direction of legitimate coercion’ over territory and population, for the citizen’s subjection to power without sacrificing dignity. Its good name owes to success of Western governments, particularly the USA, and its strengths are in the capacity to harness sociopolitical struggle; monarchy and aristocracy cannot allow for the possibility of conflict. However, democracy as commonly understood ‘equivocates’ between authoritative standard of right conduct and describing the political character of the regime. In an extended treatment of authoritarian China’s coming to terms with democracy, he shows that Chinese hierarchy includes an obligation to instruct the population. But his alternate example of good government rests on the country’s post-1980 economic growth (the real cost of which is not yet known to the West), and ignores that hierarchy has no tides to the commonweal. (Separately, he adds the true exemplar of democracy is India because of its size.) Dunn does not like democracy’s lack of alignment to egalitarian and leftist outcomes, which he dresses up as ‘reliable’ ties to justice and utility. He equates self-government with egalitarian outcomes, instead of opportunity. Ultimately, he seems to dislike Western (especially American) democracy because Americans don’t listen to their betters. He laments the failure of progressives to make the case for the folly of the Iraq invasion or the necessity of climate-change legislation, and proposes the university can steer the world out of its problems. He shows no concept of Thucydidean (or Lincolnian) persuasion (i.e., to know what to do and to be able to explain it), of knowing and representing the group. Dunn appears most concerned power that elites don’t hold power; it’s revealing that his critique lacks Fukuyama’s treatment of accountability and order (i.e., rule of law). The polemic scores a few points but abstruse language muddies the argument, which at any rate fails to really address the important questions of who should rule in the 21st century.
21. Kennedy, Rise and Fall of Great Powers (13 Dec 2018)
The rise and fall of leading nation-states is determined by the interplay of economics, technology, and military prowess. Expanding nations more easily support ever-rising costs of warfare; declining countries have to make fateful strategic choices. In the author’s multipolar framework, changes in trade patterns presage the outcomes of strategic conflicts, and so foreshadow the next political order. Individual leadership is less important because imperatives and choices are made in the context of Bismarck’s ‘stream of time’: strengths are relative. The outcome of warfare over 1450-1950 confirmed long-term economic shifts, often borne of new technology. Revised territorial order reflected redistribution, but peace did not freeze socioeconomic conditions.
Global powers tend to overspend on defense and underinvest in growth. Japan became a financial power (i.e., leading creditor nation) following its industrial rise: evidence – or the author – suggests the Asian country is most likely to supplant the ‘overstretched’ USA. The challenge to American longevity lies in defense commitments to overseas position obtained when it had a higher share of global GDP, a better balance of payments, and less debt. The most serious threat hegemons face is failure to adjust to change.
In the 15th century, European states trailed the Asian dynasties. War shaped its rising powers; distributed economic growth made it impossible to suppress all of them; the key economic development was the long-range ship. Within Europe itself, states were always spending to overpower another. Spain lacked manpower, grew slowly (aside from New World bullion), and suffered precarious finances. It was overstretched. French aspirations were checked by the balance of power, most importantly by result of the War of Spanish Succession, and backward finance. Following the Diplomatic Revolution of 1753, which crystallized England’s balance of power strategy, British mercantile prowess and ability to borrow fueled its win in the Seven Years War (one of seven with France over 1689-1815), and thus hegemony to 1945.
In the Victorian era, Britain’s industrial might was less oriented to the military than any era since the Stuarts. Further, it had no appetite for Continental interventions. Its power owed to its navy and colonies – productive investments – as well as the City of London. Despite the rise of late 19th-century US and Germany industry as well as Prussian military reform, the UK’s position circa 1914 was not so weak as often portrayed. Alliance diplomacy encouraged the drift to World War I, and prevented a quick resolution. The series of UK diplomatic concessions to the US (e.g., fisheries, the Panama Canal, Alaska) overturned conventional expectations of ‘natural’ Anglo-American hostility, and so won the UK a vital ally.
Kennedy observes the Versailles and peacetime politics were reshaped by ideology (Wilson and Lenin), one of the few nods to political ideas. The League didn’t deter aggressors but confused the democracies. Now comprising 27 countries, European consensus on colonies collapsed. Russia is seen as reactive instead of acquisitive in search of a ‘near abroad’ buffer. In the postwar era, the US rise was fueled by commanding share of world GDP, substantial tech innovation, a military proven in Europe and Asia, plus the atomic bomb. But Russia quickly erased the nuclear gap and America’s relative lead shrank after the 1960s: Vietnam, Iran, etc. indicate overstretch. The author applauds Kissinger for recognizing limits of American foreign policy; Nixon’s China overture changed the correlation of forces. Deng wisely recognized peace is necessary for the ‘four modernizations’: agriculture, industry, science, military. Kennedy sees less hope for Soviet Russia but suggests it will be hard to displace its Communist political system. Japanese central planning plus its lack of military commitments makes it the natural successor to the USA.
More like deterministic political science than long-view history, Kennedy’s work overlooks that power is a wasting asset, itself to be used as if an investment; that ideas have consequences, as fuel for socioeconomic events; and relative status is not a straight line – opportunities can be missed. Of course, he failed to anticipate two decades of Japanese stagnation due to real estate collapse, the fall of Soviet