What an amazing read. You owe it to yourself to take the time to read this book written about the dawn of the freedom of the ordinary human in the early 1800's. I tend to be hard on the French but after reading this I have a better feel for the spirit of the French people.
Victor Hugo outlines what was going on from the revolution in 1789 through the Napoleonic wars and finally through the restoration of the French Royalty. He tells the story through a man sent to the galleys as a teenager for stealing a loaf of bread for his siblings. The character - Jean Valjean - spends twenty years in the galleys until he is finally paroled. He leaves hardened but crosses paths with a Bishop that shows him unconditional love. Jean Valjean then moves on with a "less of me, more of others" life. The story is peppered with characters that reflect the tragedy of life in a world with limited opportunities. Hugo goes into the detail of each of the characters lives and the events that surround their situation. The reader is staggered as you realize just how horrible the living conditions were for ordinary citizens. The reader also gets insight as to the life of the idealistic young bourgeois - and the failed efforts to make a difference for the common citizen.
This is a long book and there times when it benefits you to skim. However, the book reminds you of how rich the writing was from this period. Books would not make it through edit today that go into the detail of each event that Hugo goes through. This level of detail is what makes the book. The insight as to what it was like to be a prisoner chained to a wall, the details of the battle of Waterloo, the events that form the individuals that are key to the book. Some of the greatest literature was written during the 1800's. This was certainly a different time.
Jean Valjean pours the remaining portion of his life into a young girl. His selfless devotion to her to fulfill a promise sees the book to its end - don't miss it.
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Kissinger Sheds a Clear Light on China
On China - Henry Kissenger
Wow - this is a must read for anyone working in Asia or wanting to know more of the Chinese culture. I have tried multiple reads into the Chinese mindset/history and have not had a lot of success. My favorite prior to this book was Pearl Buck's - The Good Earth.
What can you get from this read? The book begins with a clear survey of China from the beginning of its recorded history. The biggest takeaway being the Chinese thought that they are the central (middle) kingdom and everything outside of China is the outer region. More importantly, China has not had a history of being expansionist - unique for a potential world power.
The history of China is a consolidation of smaller kingdoms to a point of a large peaceful kingdom ruled by the Yellow Emporer. The famous opening of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a fourteenth century epic novel treausured by centuries of Chinese (including Mao, who is said to have poured over it almost obsessively in his youth), evokes this coninuous rhythm: "The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been." Once the rythm of consolidation occurred then the manipulation of foriegn threat could be used to preserve the kingdom from outsiders. A common thread throughout China's history has been using foriegners (barbarians against barbarians) against each other to ward off interest in attacking China (keeping the barbarians weak).
This policy worked well until the reality of China's demise in military arms and tactics came home with the British coming into Peking and demanding terms. The result of their falling behind militarily was the release of Hong Kong and Macau and the allowance of trade into controlled zones in China to western powers (which would be very familiar to anyone doing business in China since the late 1980's).
China meandered along until the Revolution. The outcome of the revolution was the fracture of the country having the prior government (led by Chaiang Kai-shek) running to Formosa (Taiwan), and Mao controlling the mainland from Beijing. Mao focused on revamping China through two main thrusts, the "Great Leap Forward" and the "Cultural Revolution".
The Great Leap Forward represented China's first attempt at planned economies and collectivism. The attempt to pull the country out of an agrarian society to an industrialized society. Just as the Soviets experienced, this was a disaster and led to extreme shortages in grain and famines which claimed millions. As we will discuss later the Chinese learned from this experience.
The Cultural Revolution was an attempt by Mao to totally disrupt the heirachy of the party and he allowed the country to go into constant chaos. Many leaders were sent to re-education camps - if they were lucky. Gangs literally ran the streets of China disrupting everything. This was a reflection of Mao thinking that harmony (Confucionasim) led to a lack of development so constant disruption had to be introduced to allow China to be more productive. There were a lot of negatives to this policy and one key one was the outside world didn't know how to engage a country that allowed this internal policy.
The Korean and Vietnamese wars were discussed and primarily there was concern by China that the United States sought a policy of hegemony (an attempt to rule an area with subordinate states). A divide began to occur between China and the Soviets and this allowed an opening to begin discussions with China. China was able to see that the U.S. saw Korea and Vietnam as expansionist activity by the Soviets - and China subsequently had their own issues with Vietnam and the neighboring states. President Nixon was ready to close the Vietnam war and the opening of China to the West began. Of course, true to China's nature, China saw a way to take advantage of two barbarians (the U.S. and Soviets) and focus inwards againg on their economic issues.
Zhou was the (short-term) predessessor to Mao and introduced the "Four Modernizations" platform: agriculture; industry; national defense; and science and technology. Deng Xiaoping replaced Zhou in short order but he continued the focus of the Four Modernizations but with an interesting twist - instead of trying to achieve the goals with a planned economy - he allowed the people to invest.
Kissinger's quote/my emphasis "For the only time in my experience with Chinese leaders, philosphical and practical disagreements were made explicit. Hua described an economic program to spur production by traditional Soviet methods, emphasizing heavy industry, improvemetns in agricultural productions based on communes, increased mechanization, and use of fertilizers within the framework of a ubiquitous Five-Year Plan. Deng rejected all these orthodoxies. The people, he said, needed to be given a stake in what they produced. Consumer goods had to have priority over heavy industry, the ingenuity of Chinese farmers had to be liberated, the Communist Party needed to become less intrusive, and government would have to be decentralized." WOW.
I like to think of Deng Xiaoping as the George Washington of China. What we are seeing today is the direct result of his vision to disconnect the political China with the economic China. You can be assured he had his detractors - but he held to his concept and fought for it to his last days. When Gorbachev came to China and shared his vision to allow the Soviet Union to change the political framework before the economic framework of the country China saw him as "misguided" - and the outcome prooved that out as the Soviet states went into a virtual free fall.
As you can tell this book has impacted me greatly. There are a lot of other things that come out of the book that are interesting facts but the biggest read I get is I'm not certain our current political stance with China (tilting towards adversarial) is in our best interest. Out of all of the great powers, China may be the best to coexist. As in all industries the top two survive, so it shall always be with great powers. Maybe the U.S. and China should strive to be the two.
Wow - this is a must read for anyone working in Asia or wanting to know more of the Chinese culture. I have tried multiple reads into the Chinese mindset/history and have not had a lot of success. My favorite prior to this book was Pearl Buck's - The Good Earth.
What can you get from this read? The book begins with a clear survey of China from the beginning of its recorded history. The biggest takeaway being the Chinese thought that they are the central (middle) kingdom and everything outside of China is the outer region. More importantly, China has not had a history of being expansionist - unique for a potential world power.
The history of China is a consolidation of smaller kingdoms to a point of a large peaceful kingdom ruled by the Yellow Emporer. The famous opening of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a fourteenth century epic novel treausured by centuries of Chinese (including Mao, who is said to have poured over it almost obsessively in his youth), evokes this coninuous rhythm: "The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been." Once the rythm of consolidation occurred then the manipulation of foriegn threat could be used to preserve the kingdom from outsiders. A common thread throughout China's history has been using foriegners (barbarians against barbarians) against each other to ward off interest in attacking China (keeping the barbarians weak).
This policy worked well until the reality of China's demise in military arms and tactics came home with the British coming into Peking and demanding terms. The result of their falling behind militarily was the release of Hong Kong and Macau and the allowance of trade into controlled zones in China to western powers (which would be very familiar to anyone doing business in China since the late 1980's).
China meandered along until the Revolution. The outcome of the revolution was the fracture of the country having the prior government (led by Chaiang Kai-shek) running to Formosa (Taiwan), and Mao controlling the mainland from Beijing. Mao focused on revamping China through two main thrusts, the "Great Leap Forward" and the "Cultural Revolution".
The Great Leap Forward represented China's first attempt at planned economies and collectivism. The attempt to pull the country out of an agrarian society to an industrialized society. Just as the Soviets experienced, this was a disaster and led to extreme shortages in grain and famines which claimed millions. As we will discuss later the Chinese learned from this experience.
The Cultural Revolution was an attempt by Mao to totally disrupt the heirachy of the party and he allowed the country to go into constant chaos. Many leaders were sent to re-education camps - if they were lucky. Gangs literally ran the streets of China disrupting everything. This was a reflection of Mao thinking that harmony (Confucionasim) led to a lack of development so constant disruption had to be introduced to allow China to be more productive. There were a lot of negatives to this policy and one key one was the outside world didn't know how to engage a country that allowed this internal policy.
The Korean and Vietnamese wars were discussed and primarily there was concern by China that the United States sought a policy of hegemony (an attempt to rule an area with subordinate states). A divide began to occur between China and the Soviets and this allowed an opening to begin discussions with China. China was able to see that the U.S. saw Korea and Vietnam as expansionist activity by the Soviets - and China subsequently had their own issues with Vietnam and the neighboring states. President Nixon was ready to close the Vietnam war and the opening of China to the West began. Of course, true to China's nature, China saw a way to take advantage of two barbarians (the U.S. and Soviets) and focus inwards againg on their economic issues.
Zhou was the (short-term) predessessor to Mao and introduced the "Four Modernizations" platform: agriculture; industry; national defense; and science and technology. Deng Xiaoping replaced Zhou in short order but he continued the focus of the Four Modernizations but with an interesting twist - instead of trying to achieve the goals with a planned economy - he allowed the people to invest.
Kissinger's quote/my emphasis "For the only time in my experience with Chinese leaders, philosphical and practical disagreements were made explicit. Hua described an economic program to spur production by traditional Soviet methods, emphasizing heavy industry, improvemetns in agricultural productions based on communes, increased mechanization, and use of fertilizers within the framework of a ubiquitous Five-Year Plan. Deng rejected all these orthodoxies. The people, he said, needed to be given a stake in what they produced. Consumer goods had to have priority over heavy industry, the ingenuity of Chinese farmers had to be liberated, the Communist Party needed to become less intrusive, and government would have to be decentralized." WOW.
I like to think of Deng Xiaoping as the George Washington of China. What we are seeing today is the direct result of his vision to disconnect the political China with the economic China. You can be assured he had his detractors - but he held to his concept and fought for it to his last days. When Gorbachev came to China and shared his vision to allow the Soviet Union to change the political framework before the economic framework of the country China saw him as "misguided" - and the outcome prooved that out as the Soviet states went into a virtual free fall.
As you can tell this book has impacted me greatly. There are a lot of other things that come out of the book that are interesting facts but the biggest read I get is I'm not certain our current political stance with China (tilting towards adversarial) is in our best interest. Out of all of the great powers, China may be the best to coexist. As in all industries the top two survive, so it shall always be with great powers. Maybe the U.S. and China should strive to be the two.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Peter The Great - Robert K. Massie
I appreciate friends who prod me to blog. I have read a ton of books and need to catch up. A friend from New Jersey knew I am a history junkie so he told me I had to read Robert K. Massie's Peter the Great. This book is an easy read and a great add to anyone interested in Russian history.
So what did I get out of this book? Peter was a leader - a transformative leader. Unfortunately, leaders can't always be the boy next door. Peter was all in and willed Russia out of the fog of history. He had an amazing curiosity that drove him forward - always.
His signature is his attempt to build a naval force and bring Western knowledge to Russia. Most of his life's work evolves out of these primary focuses.
His first stop on this path was building a small fleet of barges to take an army down the Volga and over to the Don to raid the land of the Turks, fighting Tatars along the way. The reason Peter used the river route is because he had originally tried marching armies down the steppe only to have the Tatars burn the steppe depriving the horses of forage and driving the army back. The Tatars were regular raiders on Russian outer settlements taking peasants as slaves and selling them in the Crimea. The barge concept eventually lead to success. This was critical to gain the confidence of the Russian people - Peter then turned north.
Eventually Peter settled St. Petersburg which gave Russia an northern port. From here he had seaworthy ships built and used them to advance Russia's influence in western Europe and in Finland and Sweden. St. Petersburg is a city the Peter willed out of the marshes - literally almost built one log at a time. Only someone with his primal focus could have settled a town there. This is a city that I must see one day.
A funny story of Peter's disconnect with reality was when he tried to go on a fact finding trip to the West but didn't want anyone it was him. Peter was almost a giant in his time so everyone knew who he was and word spread fast that he was heading to the next town. He kept the sharade up through the entire trip even though he had crowds following him.
As brutish as Peter was - and he was very much so, you have to take away that great/transforming leadership requires this type of focus and drive. How else do you, as one man, influence not only your own backward country to great changes, but also strike fear in all of Europe?
So, an easy read and great insight into the Russian mindset. If you have further interest in Russia consider some of these other great books - Russka ( a history of Russia from the beginning of its history to the Revolution) and The Great Upheaval (A comparison of the US, French and potential Russian Revolutions - great insight into Catherine the Great).
So what did I get out of this book? Peter was a leader - a transformative leader. Unfortunately, leaders can't always be the boy next door. Peter was all in and willed Russia out of the fog of history. He had an amazing curiosity that drove him forward - always.
His signature is his attempt to build a naval force and bring Western knowledge to Russia. Most of his life's work evolves out of these primary focuses.
His first stop on this path was building a small fleet of barges to take an army down the Volga and over to the Don to raid the land of the Turks, fighting Tatars along the way. The reason Peter used the river route is because he had originally tried marching armies down the steppe only to have the Tatars burn the steppe depriving the horses of forage and driving the army back. The Tatars were regular raiders on Russian outer settlements taking peasants as slaves and selling them in the Crimea. The barge concept eventually lead to success. This was critical to gain the confidence of the Russian people - Peter then turned north.
Eventually Peter settled St. Petersburg which gave Russia an northern port. From here he had seaworthy ships built and used them to advance Russia's influence in western Europe and in Finland and Sweden. St. Petersburg is a city the Peter willed out of the marshes - literally almost built one log at a time. Only someone with his primal focus could have settled a town there. This is a city that I must see one day.
A funny story of Peter's disconnect with reality was when he tried to go on a fact finding trip to the West but didn't want anyone it was him. Peter was almost a giant in his time so everyone knew who he was and word spread fast that he was heading to the next town. He kept the sharade up through the entire trip even though he had crowds following him.
As brutish as Peter was - and he was very much so, you have to take away that great/transforming leadership requires this type of focus and drive. How else do you, as one man, influence not only your own backward country to great changes, but also strike fear in all of Europe?
So, an easy read and great insight into the Russian mindset. If you have further interest in Russia consider some of these other great books - Russka ( a history of Russia from the beginning of its history to the Revolution) and The Great Upheaval (A comparison of the US, French and potential Russian Revolutions - great insight into Catherine the Great).
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Life and Fate - Vasily Grossman
Life and Fate - Vasily Grossman
Vasily Grossman was a reporter embedded with he Russian Army during WWII. He spent a significant amount of his time in Stalingrad. He uses this experience to write an epic saga similar to the style of War and Peace following several families through the war.
This book gives great insight as to the Russian mind - how collectivism and the purges of 1937 influenced how Russians thought. Stalin was fully in control and had the ability to influence the masses through a trip to a work camp in Siberia or a chance phone call.
If you enjoy Russian history or have an interest in this period then this book is a great read. For anyone that doesn't have an interest in Russia the book might be dry.
You walk away feeling for the Russian citizen. For the most part they are a victim of a situation out of their control.
From Stalingrad... "The Germans were simply unable to believe that all their attacks were being borne by a handful of men. They thought the Soviet reserves were being brought up in order to reinforce the defence. The true strategists of the Soviet offensive were the soldiers with their backs to the Volga (who would have been shot if they ran) who fought off Paulus's divisions. The remorseless cunning of History, however, lay still more deeply hidden. Freedom engendered the Russian victory. Freedom was the apparent aim of the war. But the sly fingers of History changed this: freedom became simply a way of waging the war, a means to an end."
Vasily Grossman was a reporter embedded with he Russian Army during WWII. He spent a significant amount of his time in Stalingrad. He uses this experience to write an epic saga similar to the style of War and Peace following several families through the war.
This book gives great insight as to the Russian mind - how collectivism and the purges of 1937 influenced how Russians thought. Stalin was fully in control and had the ability to influence the masses through a trip to a work camp in Siberia or a chance phone call.
If you enjoy Russian history or have an interest in this period then this book is a great read. For anyone that doesn't have an interest in Russia the book might be dry.
You walk away feeling for the Russian citizen. For the most part they are a victim of a situation out of their control.
From Stalingrad... "The Germans were simply unable to believe that all their attacks were being borne by a handful of men. They thought the Soviet reserves were being brought up in order to reinforce the defence. The true strategists of the Soviet offensive were the soldiers with their backs to the Volga (who would have been shot if they ran) who fought off Paulus's divisions. The remorseless cunning of History, however, lay still more deeply hidden. Freedom engendered the Russian victory. Freedom was the apparent aim of the war. But the sly fingers of History changed this: freedom became simply a way of waging the war, a means to an end."
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