Monte Cassino - The Hardest-Fought Battle of World War II (Matthew, Parker, 2004)

I've read a fair amount about this battle (have been interested in it from Irvin Bormann perspective in addition to general interest in World War II).  At first I wasn't feeling that this book added a lot - and I still prefer the discussion about the battle (and Italian campaign in general) in this book.  But the author's technique - heavy reliance on survivor interviews - became progressively more interesting or captivating as the book proceeded, and I ended up liking it quite a bit.

It reinforces the message that the Italian campaign was messed up in so many ways, that so many lives were thrown away in the way the attacks were staged, that so little was accomplished in terms of diverting Nazi resources etc.  It's hard to be too critical of the political and military leadership in such a difficult overall situation, but it makes the thought of the losses even more depressing.

The Germans were excellent, well-trained soldiers.  The Gustav Line was amazing.  Even Hannibal was smart enough not to try to attack up the Italian peninsula from the south.  The weather was appalling.

Got a better feel for the multi-national coalition involved (which of course made everything more difficult in terms of coordination, which turns out to be pretty important in these settings).

The title here seems overblown, but some of the battle descriptions make you wonder if other battles were much worse than Monte Cassino - it certainly had elements of World War I static slaughter, as well as Stalingrad house-to-house fighting.

I keep thinking politicians should be required to read books like this, and then re-read them once or twice more, before they ever commit soldiers to battle.

The Botany of Desire (A Plant's-Eye View of the World) (Michael Pollan, 2001)

Everyone knows that humans breed plants in various ways.  The author's premise here was to try to look at the interaction from the perspective of the plants (example = the way flowers lure bees into spreading their pollen).  It was an interesting book, but not because that premise worked particularly well.  (Maybe there's a deeper game going on that I realize, but I don't think plants are manipulating humans.)

He focused on four plants:

1.  Apple (sweetness) - lots of discussion about the importance of apples on the American frontier, including lots of discussion about John Chapman.  He notes that ol' Johnny Appleseed was growing apples trees from seed - meaning that the crop would be inedible, usable only to make cider - meaning hard cider in those days - the primary hooch available on the frontier.  Author claims that the apple industry tried to reposition the Chapman story as Prohibition loomed (at which time it also invented (marketing) phrases like "an apple a day keeps the doctor away").

2.  Tulip (beauty) - lots of discussion about the tulip mania (1634-37).  Not very interesting.

3.  Marijuana (intoxication) - he discusses how marijuana seems to operate on the brain - an intensification of the senses, an ability to focus on one thing deeply (if for a limited period).  He compares this to Huxley's discussion of mescaline (peyote) - which Huxley thought aided perception by essentially turning off the perception filters we use (and need) to function efficiently. Not sure what to make of this.

4.  Potato (control) - I love reading about the potato (such as in this book).  A plant from the Americas that transformed Europe.  He went through the Ireland experience - British (anti-Catholic) laws preventing Irish from accumulating land so they are restricted to small plots; soil and climate not conducive to grains; potato (with a little milk) as a 100% complete diet for people and their few livestock; potato works beautifully on the small plots; requires so little work to plant, harvest, prepare (contributes to view of Irish as lazy); population rises from 3 million to 8 million; they all plant the same variety; blight; population back to 3 million.  So that's interesting, but the author was more focused on genetic engineering, how potatoes are grown in Idaho, the risks of monoculture.

The Heart of the Matter (Graham Greene, 1948)

I liked this a lot in the beginning stages of the book, then felt it broke down toward the end - partly because I didn't think the reliance on Catholic doctrine of the period to create tension in the lead character (Scobie) was particularly effective.

Now I learn that Time magazine has this book in the top 100 English-language novels since 1923; the Modern Library ranked it 40th.  That surprises me.

Short, and definitely a good read - always held my attention.  I like Greene's writing - he sees us.

Scobie is an inspector in a West African country during WWII; his wife is unhappy; he pities her; borrows money from a Syrian smuggler to pay her passage out of the colony; inspects a suicide at an inland station; inspects a Portuguese ship and uncharacteristically doesn't bust its captain for a Germany-bound letter; Wilson keeps an eye on him (and on his wife); Scobie meets a survivor of a shipwreck and falls in love; further adventures follow.  Wilson shares lodgings with a veteran of the colony who amused himself by going after cockroaches.

I have no idea what life is like in one of these colonies but trust that Greene (who worked in one) did a great job describing it.

The German Genius - Europe's Third Renaissance, The Second Scientific Revolution, and the Twentieth Century (Peter Watson, 2010)

I've had the good fortune to read quite a few truly excellent, helpful books in 2012 - but this one definitely is near or at the top of the list.

I keep trying to get a handle on Germany (see here, for example) - looking to catch up a bit after a reading list too heavily weighted toward U.S., England, France.  And when I think about what I've read about Germany - for the most part my list would confirm one of the points made by this author  - it's like we tend to think of Germany in terms of a 12-year slice (1933-1945) when the country was dominated by the Nazis.


The author notes this preoccupation without minimizing the Nazi era - after all, a 12-year run like this could not have occurred in a vacuum - big and complicated things led up to it.  So his approach is to put the Nazi era into the context of German intellectual history going back to the end of the J.S. Bach era (1750 or so), discuss how the ideas developed that - seasoned with (among so many other things) late unification as a country (1870) and World War I trauma - went wrong in the Nazi era, and suggest a fuller way of thinking about Germany going forward.

But still . . . I never do get tired of watching those movies from the 1930s and after that feature Nazi villains . . .

Anyway (and to repeat) - this book was extraordinarily useful, and I bought it immediately.  850 pages; I'll guesstimate I dog-eared 50-75 pages (a very high percentage.)

There's too much here to try to summarize . . . a few ideas:

-- The role of "Pietism" in the Germanic brand of Protestantism.

-- Emphasis on "Bildung"

-- Pietism and Bildung as key elements in inculcating a culture of self-improvement - the idea of a responsibility to use one's time wisely for the long-term good of the self and of society (I am happily afflicted by this notion)

-- Delayed unification as a country; Napoleon's intervention in early 19th century as permitting educational reforms to blossom in a way that would not have happened had the country been locked in structurally.

-- Widespread education was prized and effective at all levels - surprising charts showing the pervasiveness of education in Germany via schooling levels achieved by soldiers in various national armies.  This paid off, big time, in so many areas - a large reservoir of educated, motivated citizens from which to develop talent.

-- Conflicting strands:  state was tied up in education in a way that linked graduates to the state (compare France or Russia, where the students so often stood against the state).  But repression was strong . . . a tendency for scholars to look inward rather than take on the state critically ("internal exile" - a concept also heard in Russia and other repressive states)

-- Really incredible achievements in music, education, historical method, philosophers,all things scientific or technical; military successes post-unification.  Accomplishments way too numerous to start listing, Germany predominant in so many ways.

-- Late formation into a state made insecure and self-conscious; high achievements perhaps bred arrogance; belief in narrow national character when history really wouldn't support it - the Volk - this is twisted as demagogues see fit.  Some dangerous characters emerge, anti-Semitism; WWI defeat; emergence of the term "degenerate" and application to Jews.

-- Hitler running off highly talented but tainted (typically meaning Jewish) scientists . . . Allied quote to the effect that the Allies won WWII because "our (meaning those working for the Allies) German scientists were better than their German scientists"

-- Discussion of the denial of knowledge/complicity toward Nazi state that prevailed after the war - but how else could the country move forward?  Subsequent generations start to address, criticize.  A platform from which to move forward.