When my son entered the Peace Corps in 2010 and went to Africa - Swaziland - for 2.5 years, I read Africa: A Biography of the Continent by John Reader (1997). Reader's work begins "in the beginning" - what is Africa as a continent, and its weather, and human origins. It's a "big" book, as I say, ranging far and wide over this remarkable landmass and its diverse peoples, much of it with a tragic history.
Reader's book introduced me to the colonial world in Africa, beginning with the Portuguese in the 15th Century, and from there, we know the rest of the story, so to speak, with the Dutch, British, French and Germans quickly laying claim to huge territories.
It was then that I began to think: to understand today's world, one has to begin with Africa and the European nations that fought for its resources, and the most important colonial need: cheap labor.
What with my son in Swaziland (NE part of South Africa), I read Into the Silence: the Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest by Wade Davis. While Davis' book focuses on the English (and it was English, not British) to scale the mountain, Davis begins in South Africa and the Boer War, and then moves to Europe for WW1 - the men, and it was men, who were involved in the effort to climb Everest, were all veterans of the War in the Trenches, more horrible than I previously had understood - this experience, along with the English character shaped in boys' schools, sports, militarism, and Empire, made these men unbelievably tough, self-confident and often arrogant.
I then found in a used book store The Reason Why by Cecil Woodham-Smith (1953), an exploration of 19th English Aristocracy - their sense of place and power, ordained by God, and their right to rule the world - and their role in the Crimean War (1853-56) - mostly a series of bungled efforts led by men who loved to play military games at home, with commands purchased rather than won. From this war, Tennyson's Charge of the Light Brigade, his poem celebrating and questioning a tragedy of misunderstood commands and a willingness to send men and horses into the jaws of death for Britain's glory.
For me, the Crimean War is essential background to Russian's current interests in Syria (Russia, the defender of the Orthodox Church), World War 1 and the break up of the Ottoman Empire after WW1.
Then, Savage Peace: Hope and Fear in America, 1919 by Ann Hagedorn, one of the most profound and disturbing books I've ever read - America was a mess in 1919 - the fear of Red Agitators, unions (Communist inspired thought America's powerful people) and foreigners "determined to undermine America's democracy," the rise of Edgar J. Hoover, and racism (lynchings and burnings) - fueled in strange ways by President Wilson and his idealism in international relations and his conventional views at home. I learned about the Michigan Regiment left in Russia to "fight Communism" after the Great War ended and the troops were recalled. There were left there for nearly a year - often referred to as the "Polar Bear Expedition.
I have recently purchased:
The Destruction of Lord Raglan: A Tragedy of the Crimean War (1962) by Christopher Hibbert.
Empire by Mandate by Campbell L. Upthegrove (1954), exploring Great Britain and the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations which created the Middle East as we know it today.
Heaven's Command: An Imperial Progress (1992) by James Morris, vol. 1 - the Victorian Years, years of Empire. I am presently reading chapter 16: "Ain't the Pentateuch Queer?" - the role of religion, and specifically, Christianity, in Empire thinking and behavior - a very disturbing read.
I've come to believe:
1. To understand today's world, we have to understand the Colonial Experience in Africa.
2. To understand the pretentions of America's self-anointed "aristocracy," we have to undertand the English Aristocracy.
3. To understand WW1, we begin with Crimean, and then to WW2 - it was the Great Powers struggling for hegemony that racked the world with war and bathed it in blood, directed by men, often of limited education, but filthy rich and imbued with strong views of themselves, their position and privilege, handsome faces and strong bodies - and their love of horses and military hoohah.
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