1493 - Uncovering the New World Columbus Created (Charles C. Mann, 2011)

This book is a follow-on to the author's highly successful book from a couple years - titled "1491" (discussed here).  "1491" had a bunch of interesting ideas, many admittedly speculative, about life in North America prior to the arrival of Columbus.

"1493" is about what is loosely defined as the "Columbian Exchange" - the massive exchange of plants, animals, diseases, humans, culture, ideas between the eastern and western hemispheres that followed in Columbus's wake.   The book isn't as good as "1491" - scattershot - there are so many aspects to the Exchange that it's impossible for an author to try to cover it so broadly.  But I still think this is worth reading (quickly). 

Some things I was interested in:

1.  The power of tobacco.  Widespread use, addiction.  Interesting how governments wanted to ban it but couldn't as a practical matter, plus it was useful to tax it heavily.  Sounds familiar.

2.  I like the stories about how the transfer of potatoes out of the Andes led to much change in Europe and elsewhere.  Turns out that people can live just fine on no food other than potatoes and milk.  Potatoes stored well.  They grew underground - safer.  They were ready for harvest earlier than traditional grains (starving time for Europeans typically was the weeks/months before harvest - now you could eat potatoes during this gap).  They dramatically out-produced traditional grains (wheat, barley, oats) - by at least a factor of four.  This supported population increase, and pretty much ended famine in Europe.  Countries like Ireland became heavily dependent on potatoes; Ireland had a massive population boom before the famous 19th-century blight episode.  Ireland still is the only country in Europe with a lower population now than in 19th century.

3.  Maize.  Tomatoes.  Peppers.  Made in Americas, associated with cuisine from other parts of the world. 

4.  China traded silk and porcelain for Spanish silver.  Took in Western hemisphere plants.  Big changes.

5.  Interesting discussion of how the races intermingled in the early days pretty freely; then as the years went by, things became stricter.  In the early days, the native Americans were considered innocent and redeemable - unlike Jews and Muslims, their religious beliefs were excused as a product of ignorance rather than knowing rejection of the true faith.  As time passed and acceptance of the true faith was increasingly sketchy, the somewhat-tolerant view changed.  Gotta preserve status somehow.  Unlike the English in North America - the Spanish and Portuguese seldom brought along women - so mixing with the locals was widespread.  Mulatto (Afro-European); mestizo (Indo-European); zambo (Afro-Indian); Castizo (Spaniard-mestizo); morisco (Spanish-mulatto); etc.  Bizarre "casta" paintings that provide instruction about cultural mixes. 

6.  Barbers in Mexico City complaining about cheap Chinese immigrant competition.  A common complaint in those days.

7.  That the numbers of blacks and Asians coming into the Americas was massively higher than the number of whites.  Many escaped or otherwise established a way of life independent of the white power structure.  But pretty much out of sight.  Massive European immigration in 19th century increased the number of whites to the level we're familiar with now.

God's Crucible - Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215 (David Levering Lewis, 2008)

For some reason I found this book incredibly helpful in lining up various threads running through this historical period.  It's probably been helpful to go through books like this, this, this, this, this, etc. - perhaps that gave enough background where, via this one, some pieces finally start to fit together and make some sense.

I don't know that the author had a defining theme here, notwithstanding the title.  Mostly, it's a highly readable, highly useful guide to major currents between 570 and 1215 in Rome, Persia, Arabia, (what became) Europe, with a particular focus on Spain.

Thoughts:

1.  Something like the focus on the Western Front in the two world wars - I tend to think that the Roman Empire primarily was taken down via pressure coming from Western Europe - those fierce Germanic tribes, etc.  This author points out that the real manpower was burned in the East - a long series of struggles between Rome and Persia - leaving both exhausted and weak just when Islam began.

2.  Useful discussion of the beginnings of Islam.  Seems reasonable to conclude that it thrived via conquest in a generally hostile environment and that, as with most religions, its tenets evolved as needed in the circumstances.  Violent conquest led to taxes and wealth to keep the machine going.  The territorial achievements were simply amazing.  I don't know why apologists pull quotes out of Koran and say Islam is purely a "religion of peace" - all religions, not to mention 20th-century communist country constitutions, include those kinds of quotes.  The history for all these institutions is what it is.

3.  Islamic conquerors let folks in the conquered territories practice their religions, somewhat.  But they (unlike Muslims) had to pay lots of taxes.  Which encouraged conversions.  Still, it was a more effective practice than feudalism - which didn't really involve a money economy - the king gave land grants to supportive nobles, but this was a finite supply and tended to set up the noble for future conflict.

4.   Some key dates are set forth in this review.  Reiterates early capital at Damascus, then the move to Baghdad around 762.   

5.  Spain was unique.  Visigoth Arians convert to orthodox Christianity; small part of the population, but controlling - and fired with the zeal of converts.  Mistreat Jewish population.  When the Islamic wave finally gets through the Berbers and is ready to approach the Iberian peninsula - in 711 - Jews are helpful to them. Arabs needed Berbers to take Spain; they made fast progress through a divided country. 

6.  Good discussion of Clovis (511) and Merovingians; the palace mayors that became the Carolingians.  This actually was pretty amazing - no other coherent order elsewhere in what later became Europe.  Defeat of the Arabs/Berbers at Tours in 732 (by Charles Martel, his family not yet royal); not seen as definitive halt of Islamic territorial advance at the time, but divisions among the Arabs/Berbers prevented the next invasions until after Charlemagne et al got their act together and were able to hold the line.

7.  How the western papacy - and Rome itself - hung by a thread.  All the power of old Rome had shifted east to Constantinople.  Rome sacked, population tiny.  Pope powerless other than a mostly-ignored bully pulpit.  Subordinate to Constantinople.  This could easily have turned out very differently than it did.  Carolingians weren't legitimate successors to Merovingians and decided to support the pope in exchange for the pope legitimatizing them.  Turned into a highly significant partnership.  Charlemagne gave the popes the Papal States that were a key dividing factor in Italy for the next thousand years.

8.  Islamic rulers of Spain generally tolerant - but in significant part because they didn't have the numbers to do anything else in the early going when the patterns were set.  Always a tiny minority.

9.  Sophistication in Spain compared to backwardness in Europe.  Charlemagne a truly remarkable figure - both in battle and in imposing Christianity, promoting education etc.  (Even if it barely survived him.)

10.  Charlemagne and Pope - set the pattern for mutual reinforcement of Church and State - forced conversions - orthodoxy - two wealthy power players.  But ambiguity:  which had ultimate authority?  Three-part society - those who fought, those who prayed, those who labored. 

11.   Charlemagne invades Spain to attack Muslims, but has to leave to deal with Saxon uprising.  Rearguard with loot is defeated somewhere near Pyrenees.   Year 775.  Some couple hundred or so years later, this episode becomes The Song of Roland - a hero tale that paints the Muslim as evil, supports wiping them out of Spain (and/or the overall Crusades), etc.  This becomes the template.

12.  Islamic rule in Spain for centuries, varying strength and weakness.  Cultural, architectural, agricultural, economic, educational wonders.  Kingdoms/states in northern Iberian peninsula eventually become powerful, leading to final expulsion in 1492.

13.  After Charlemagne - pretty quick breakup of the "Holy Roman Empire", Viking raids, a mess.

14.  The Islamic state in Spain (al Andalus) - different than the Baghdad branch.

War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy, 1869) (2007 translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky)

I last read this book during either my sophomore or junior year at Notre Dame (somewhere between 1975 and 1977).  I'm surprised about how little of the plot that I remembered - which made the re-reading all the more delightful.  (I do recall that Prince Andrei was musing about various deep issues and looking at the sky, but I probably recall that only because it was the subject of a paper I wrote.  I now can't find the paper, just the professor's comments (below).  Don't know which professor, but he or she apparently wasn't that thrilled with my efforts.) 

This is a new (2007) translation that I was anxious to read.  Birthday gift from PJr and Nedda.

As I perhaps too often write - the experience of reading a book like this is enhanced to an incredible degree by other reading.  Sure, a book like this also would stand on its own.  But incomparably better with some background.  A simple example - Tolstoy started writing this as a different novel, focusing on the Decembrists.  I wouldn't have had a decent idea where to place that concept until just a few years ago (good discussion here).  Meaning Pierre's activities in the Epilogue would have meant nothing to me during my first reading (not that those activities are central to the book, but still).  Also:  this book about the invasion of Russia was very helpful.  And this on Napoleon's early years.  And this on Tolstoy himself.  Etc. 

The story line moves among a large group of characters, primarily focused on three families:  Rostov, Bolkonsky, Bezukov.  (Also, to a lesser extent, the Kuragin family, annoying as each of its members was.)  Napoleonic war provides background.  It's a novel, it's history, it's also philosophy, extensive musings about the relative importance of the collective will and the individual in history, etc.  Famously long, which permits the story to develop, strong identification with characters, etc.  I was really worried about Natasha and Kuragin, and about what would happen with Prince Andrei.  Among other things.

I think Tolstoy got carried away with the idea of history as a collection of individual wills, little influenced by the actions of individuals.  I think that's wrong.  It was a constant theme in the book.  Tolstoy must have felt pretty strongly about it, had to know it cluttered the story line.  Napoleon clearly inspired so many writers and historians to focus on the role of the "great man" in history.  (For example, this is a great exploration of the topic.) 

Something wonderful about Tolstoy - after I read him for awhile, I feel like I can "see myself" better.  All good novelists achieve this, but I find the effect strongest with with Tolstoy and Proust.  Tolstoy has a wonderfully effective way of casting light on the multiple motivations that affect all of us pretty much all of the time - some mixture of vanity, self-interest, kindness, undue concern about others' opinions, etc.  The effect of "seeing myself" better is strong during and immediately after reading these books, then it starts to wear off.

Example:  how about this description of listening - focused on Natasha vis-à-vis Pierre but more broadly applicable - "Now, as he told it all to Natasha, he experienced that rare pleasure which is granted by women when they listen to a man - not intelligent women, who, when they listen, try either to memorize what they are told in order to enrich their minds and on occasion retell the same thing, or else to adjust what is being told to themselves and quickly say something intelligent of their own . . . "  If one doesn't permit oneself to be distracted by what would nowadays instantly be jumped on as "sexist" in this passage - who doesn't too often listen in precisely this fashion?

Karataev's little sayings while Pierre was a prisoner (and on the march away from Moscow) were great.

Austerlitz, Borodin, occupation of Moscow, Kutuzov.  Pierre trying to find himself; Masons.  Echoes of The Death of Ivan Ilych.  Russian upper classes speaking French, of all things - more fluently than Russian in many cases.  (I can understand how the courtiers in the various countries needed a lingua franca, but the effect here is ironic to say the least.)  Intrigues among courtiers and military staffers.  Tsar Alexander.

Simply wonderful.

[Update 6/24/12:  by coincidence, it is almost exactly the 200th anniversary of Napoleon crossing into Russia, see summary here.]  

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Here are my professor's comments - apparently he or she was hoping for some critical thinking . . .  w&p

Dracula (Bram Stoker, 1897)

PJr recommended.  Very much out of the norm for my reading list.  Notwithstanding:  very compelling, I was carried along by the story.  It made me very nervous at certain spots, especially when it was so obvious what was going on with female victim #2 and the male would-be protectors remained oblivious.  Victorian feel.

The introduction had interesting history on vampires - which were not new in literature in 1897 - but this book popularized them.  The genre is stronger than ever as of 2012.    The introduction recounted the story of Lord Byron and friends in Swiss Alps killing time by writing ghost stories - resulting in Frankenstein and The Vampyre:  A Tale.   I saw the silent film Nosferatu several years ago - creepy, very well done - and now I know the term. 

Very effective method of story-telling - Stoker used the device of a series of entries from diaries, journals, letters, legal documents, newspaper clippings - resulting in different voices, different perspectives, sometimes we as readers knew more than the writer of the document would have.  This really worked well.

Romania and environs - tough, wild.

As always:  this book is much more interesting for having read other stuff, such as this (overview and history of the general area) and this (discussing Ottoman incursions through the area). 

There's even a character named Van Helsing!  I had no idea it all started here.