Portfolios of the Poor - Collins et al.

 A masterful scholarly work - though accessible to non-experts - examining how the world's poor live on $2 or less per day. Using in-depth 'financial diaries' the authors reveal the world's poor (focusing on Pakistan, India, and South Africa) to have much more dynamic and fluid financial lives than the uninitiated might think. The book provides important insights into how to combat poverty, emphasizing that the poor suffer from the 'triple-whammy' of low and irregular incomes, and a lack of available financial instruments. Recommendations for microfinance and addressing systemic poverty are included. A must-read for anyone interested in leveling the economic playing field on any scale.

The Burning Shore - Wilbur Smith

A fine page-turner about a young woman's adventures in war-torn Europe and then becoming stranded on the Skeleton Coast. The most enjoyable part was her journey with the Khoe-San people she meets. Some questionable biology.
 

1984 - George Orwell

 It had been a long time since I read this - maybe even since middle school. What struck me was that the threat from Big Brother and The Party actually only seemed to affect party members, while the proles (proletariat) seem somewhat outside of the system entirely. I was struck by the insistence on the mental violence being perpetrated, which crosses over into physical violence in the later parts. I was unconvinced that power for powers sake was so encompassing. The question which struck me was: what is the purpose of ruling over people like those Winston becomes? I do not think Orwell provides a suitable answer.

Kaffir Boy - Mark Mathabane

 The memoir of a Black man growing up in the township of Soweto outside of Johannesburg in the 1960s. When read in conjunction with Giliomee's Afrikaners it reveals the shortcomings in the latter. For all of Giliomee's protestations that the governance which took place during apartheid had benefits for White and Black South Africans, he does not adequately address the human cost, in terms of the lives of individuals. Mathabane discusses the effects, not on a structural, but personal level, in terms of hunger, depression, anxiety, lack of opportunity and so forth. He does so with wit and thoughtfully.

The Road - Cormac McCarthy

A spare tale of father and son traveling through a post-apocalyptical wasteland. McCarthy seems to be inviting the reader to ask how different certain aspects really are to the world we inhabit. What do we hold closest? What will we sacrifice for? What does tolerable and intolerable loss look like? What does it mean to each of us to carry the fire?
 

The Caine Mutiny - Herman Wouk

 

A naval adventure primarily concerned with issues of duty and honor, in which there are no easy answers. The version I read referred to Queeg as perhaps the greatest ship's captain in American literature. Well, Ahab still stands head and shoulders above the rest. A quick and enjoyable read, Wouk's book is nevertheless freighted with complexity. Because we see Quueg's actions from the crew's perspective we enter the court martial trail on their side. By the end it is unclear whose side we are 'supposed' to be on. Perhaps there is no right answer.

The Afrikaners - Hermann Giliomee

Re-read, re-post (some changes): Survival. Hermann Giliomee looks at the history of a people who dominated twentieth century South Africa and sees how a heritage of marginalization and struggle led to an ever-present concern that their people and their way of life requires defending. By the last decades of the twentieth century the ruling National Party of South Africa was holding on by the only means it knew: doubling-down on separation, exacerbating formal inequality. Any other approach, any compromise, was seen as a threat to the volk. Giliomee contends that ceding power was seen as analogous to authorizing a cultural death.

Telling the story of the Dutch settlers who became Boers and then emerged as Afrikaners Giliomee recounts a people occupying an uncertain middle ground. Never Company people, nor fully accepted as part of imperial British society, nor willing to 'lower' themselves to the status of black Africans, the Boers initially defined themselves by what they were not. As their cultural identity became forged through a shared 19th century mythology the Afrikaner began to emerge as emblematic of a people and a way of life. Slagtersnek, the Great Trek, Dingaan's Day, and the Anglo-Boer War all were the foundation of a fiercely independent people who saw themselves besieged. Once the Union of South Africa was inaugurated the volk sought to ensure that they maintained control over their small corner of the world.

Yet, the prospects of survival change. As the world pressed in upon South Africa, as liberals at home and abroad, and as black South Africans increasingly found their political voice, survival of the government and survival of the volk were once again separated. The government could not stand; the volk had to find a new means of defining themselves in a composite society. The next chapter of the Afrikaners has only begun.

On a re-reading one cannot help but think that Giliomee somewhat talks around the problem. He notes that in the latter-half of the twentieth century, South Africa enjoyed unprecedented economic growth and relatively low rates of unemployment. But he does not examine what this might have looked like if the majority of population had been able to be any more than drawers of water, hewers of wood, and diggers in mines. Though he makes gestures towards the unsavory human costs of apartheid, his history makes it sound as though the end of minority rule was a concession and compromise made primarily within South Africa's white community. He emphasizes that other countries ensure minority rights in a way South Africa's post-1994 political system does not. In so doing, he risks returning to a vision of South Africa society that is primarily racial in character. There is a human cost to majority rule, as there was to apartheid. Reading Mark Mathabane's Kaffir Boy gives one a certain picture of which was worse.

Life is Like a Kudu Horn - Margaret Jacobsohn

 A memoir of dedication and adventure in northwest Namibia. Jacobsohn and a small number of what she dubs the "lunatic fringe" forged a new path for community conservation in this post-apartheid country.

See the full review here.

Cities of the Plain - Cormac McCarthy

Third of the Border Trilogy and the end of the story of John Grady Cole and Billy Parnham. Back and forth across the border of Mexico as a way of life is disappearing. Great scenes chasing dogs along canyon rims, horses in the barn at night, and the lingering of Billy.

Nixonland - Rick Perlstein

 Perlstein convincingly argues that the 1960s, so often treated as the period when the counter-culture exploded and America was transformed, is better understood as a period of backlash and division. How, Perlstein asks, did American go from electing Democrat Lyndon Johnson by an overwhelming margin in 1964 to giving Richard Nixon a reelection landslide in 1972? The answer he provides is that during this period America was riven by generational, political, economic, security, and class conflicts that created political divisions that persist. Into this period of uncertainty and insecurity stepped the master political manipulator - Richard Nixon.

Perlstein's argument is really that conservative backlash, more than liberal or progressive transformation, is the more complete and accurate way to account for American politics in the latter-half of the twentieth century. Given that the divides he examines feel entirely relevant and contemporary (even though the book was written more than 15 years ago) is testament to his argument. I was thoroughly convinced. This, in combination with Perlstein's highly-readable prose makes this a great work of social and political history.

Frontiers - Noel Mostert

 Mostert interprets South African history as pivoting on the events collectively known as the Frontier Wars along the eastern boundary of the Cape Colony in the early to mid-nineteenth century. As a contribution to the historiography of (de)colonialism, Mostert's detail reveals that the subjugation of South Africa by the British empire was not a fait accompli. Along the frontier at the Kei River and Zuurveld, the Xhosa people were caught between the hammer of the British and anvil of the Zulu. Within this tenuous zone were also Boers, missionaries, traders, settlers, and fluctuating political alliances among and between all players that did not remain static.

Invasion may at least partially describe what the Xhosa experienced. While they, as well as the Khoe-San and Zulu, had long inhabited the region, when Europeans arrived they enforced their rules and norms. Yet, one of the chief political difficulties was that powerful Europeans, such as military men and governors, frequently did not stick around for very long. This, in combination with the dynamic political winds back in London, meant that colonial policies seemingly changed from year to year. Cattle raiding could be tolerated and then punished, with little forewarning. One of the interesting aspects is Mostert's implicit contention that by the time of the millenaria predictions in the 1850s, the Xhosa world had already been transformed beyond recognition.

This is a useful reference for understanding the forge of South African hitory and the ways in which the Cape encapsulated much of mid-nineteenth century globalization. It pulses with interesting characters and is a careful work of compelling scholarship. 

Ishmael - Daniel Quinn

Hard to believe that it has been more than ten years since I last read this. Within certain circles Ishmael and other works by Quinn have taken on almost mythic status. Its about a gorilla, who tells one man that there have been other ways for people to live on this planet; ways that may not hasten human and ecological demise. The main insight, that different ways of seeing and being are important, feels particularly relevant. A book to return to, again and again.

The Overstory - Richard Powers

Intersecting and interwoven rings of a story, much like the lives of trees, and the ecosystems they form a part of and support, feedback upon and form one another. Power's novel is a beautiful evocation of how people begin to see the world in another way - and the effects of this different type of vision. Barbara Kingsolver called it a 'fable' and she is right. It could serve as a fable for people moving into a different type of relationship with a world that is older than our own. It is not perfect. But it is an important voice for thinking about the world and our affect on it. Something to return to again and again. A motivating story for another way of being.

The Descent - Jeff Long

What if a subterranean, parallel world existed, and has always existed below our feet? What if we had glimpsed this world periodically, and passed word of it through time - alternately rediscovering and forgetting it? As communication and technology grows apace we might rediscover this world and even explore it. What might we find there and about ourselves in the process?

Long's novel begins with a simple premise: Hell exists. Not the spooky realm of pain and suffering, but a specific, geological, geographic, and biologically-rich place. It is inhabited by humanoids simultaneously similar and dissimilar from our own world. An adventure story, Long sends a group of scientists and explorers deep into the Earth in search of Hell and even Satan. A fun and sometimes terrifying exploration in the world that we imagine exists below us. Re-read after a long time.

The Great Influenza - John Barry

Given the global pandemic we are currently undergoing, it seemed entirely appropriate to read about the last global pandemic: how it was experienced, understood, and its effects. Barry primarily examines the effect of the Influenza within the United States and the (American-centered) attempts to combat virus. Barry grounds his history in the men and women who worked in labs across the eastern States to uncover how the virus was transmitted, its epidemiology, and possible approaches to stopping, or at least slowing, it.

What struck me most was how dissimilar the symptoms, spread, and toll between the Influenza and Covid-19 are. The Influenza spread like a whirlwind and took down people at an astonishing and terrifying pace. Given the US response to Covid-19, not noted for being either aggressive or proactive, it is somewhat terrifying to imagine the effect of the Influenza in our modern context. There are lessons to learn from each.

The Fate of Africa - Martin Meredith

An overview of the post-independence history of many African nations. Meredith accounts for the difficult hangovers of colonialism, such as an under-capacitated civil service and economies that were often geared towards enriching a small segment of the population, but emphasizes the failure of African leaders. Written in the mid-2000s, Meredith lays the ongoing troubles of the continent primarily at the feet of 'Big Men' rulers, who have swindled, stolen, destroyed, and defrauded their countries. Though he recognizes the near-impossible task of governing many countries whose boundaries were drawn with little regard to culture or history, Meredith also details how political leaders and military rulers have pursued power by pitting different cultural groups against one another, often with disastrous results. Much of Africa, he writes, is in a worse economic place in the twenty-first century than at independence. Captures the over-arching themes of recent African history without delving too deeply into any country or region. One wonders how the countries which are overlooked here would complicate these stories?

Dark Money - Jane Mayer

Mayer lifts the veil on a small group of extraordinarily wealthy American iconoclasts who have achieved no less than the transformation of American politics. Focusing on the Koch brothers and their extended network of like-minded political activists, Mayer shows how many politically-conservative outcomes, from the Citizen's United Supreme Court case, to the rise of the Tea Party, have been driven by the goals of a select few. Much of the country's political changes have been largely treated as a series of semi-independent, grassroots driven, reactions by white Americans in response to the changing face and politics of the country. Mayer convincingly argues that many of these newly ascendant political currents are not nearly as bottom-up as the uninitiated might imagine. It is an achievement that Dark Money does not read as conspiracy theory; Mayer puts in the work to show how slowly these changes have come about, including the set-backs along the way and the intricacies of how new legal designations for foundations and non-profits shelter the identities of those who are broadly influencing discourse. Tying together climate change denial, lowered corporate and individual tax rates, and the rise of free market economics, Mayer accounts for not only the occurrence, but timeliness of changing discourse. Her closing evocation that this network of donors has functionally come to overshadow the Republican Party ties the threads of the story together. I started the book incredulous but it has added a new dimension to how I consider American politics.

The River - Peter Heller

Two young men on a canoeing trip in the remote Canadian wilderness. The story moves along as they encounter unexpected people and challenges along the way. Reminds even the most intrepid outdoor enthusiast that the enjoyment and excitement of the natural world is tied to its power and unpredictability. Heller vividly imagines a world come alive in mesmerizing and even terrible ways. Recommended as a good adventure story and cause for reflection on how one would fare when the unexpected occurs. The two young men at the center of the story demonstrate a competence which belies their age. But the challenges are great.

Summer of '49 - David Halberstam

In a time when there is no baseball to be had, its nice to go back to a time (long before I was born) when the game, and life, perhaps seemed simpler. The cast of characters from the 1949 Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees jump off the page. Unfortunately, even after so many years, the Red Sox still lose. It is clear that Halberstam favors the Yankees. A fun and quick read to prepare for (a baseball-less?) summer.

Saint Mudd - Steve Thayer

An old-fashioned novel of gangsters, newspapermen, whores, cops, and children. The story takes place in St. Paul, Minnesota during the Great Depression as prohibition is coming to an end. The city is overrun with lawlessness and crooked police. Part mystery, it is also a remembrance of the city's by-gone time. The details pop and invoke the streets, the hills, and the river.

Titus Groan - Mervyn Peake

A strange and difficult to categorize, sometimes fantastic work of a world unlike our own. Titus Groan takes places in the land of Gormenghast, a land that Peake has conjured whole-cloth. It feels at once alien and familiar. The work is populated with characters simultaneously medieval and modern. It reads like a fable and study of palace intrigue. Accessible on the first reading, I anticipate revisiting Flay and Rottcodd, Swelter and Lord Sepulchrave.

No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy

"He could think of no reason for the transponder sending unit to be in the hotel. He ruled out Moss because he thought Moss was almost certainly dead. That left the police. Or some agent of the Matacumbe Petroleum Group. Who must think that he thought that they thought that he thought they were very dumb. He thought about that."

This time through I was struck by the subtlety of Chigurh's mind and the falling-away of Bell. One of the terrifying things about Chigurh is the clarity of thought, and subsequent action, he seems to demonstrate. Rarely is he tripped-up or caught off-guard. This gives him an apparent single purpose to his actions. Bell, as he admits time and again, feels overmatched by what is coming. Ellis tells him that cannot be stopped, that you cannot get back what was lost. Bell's self-described story is one of failure. As narrator he may hold that the country has changed. Ellis suggests it has not. Its always been hard on people. We are left wondering if Bell, who seemed to model himself after his grandfather, would not have been better off paying closer heed to his father's example - who we hear little about. Perhaps. There are no clear answers.

"I knew he was goin on ahead and that he was fixin to make a fire somewhere out there is all that dark and all that cold and I knew that whenever I got there he would be there. And then I woke up."

Suttree - Cormac McCarthy

Continuing my march through McCarthy's works. Suttree is surely the funniest of those I have yet read. In particular Harrogate's antics stand out - he bears similarities to Jimmy Blevins from All the Pretty Horses. Whether he is cadging change from payphones, dynamiting his way into a bank vault, or causing a small-scale prison riot, Harrogate brings a lightness and foolishness to Suttree's life which may be a tad self-important. McCarthy captures the mood of the river and the people who inhabit the margins of Knoxville. The characters come fully-formed, at once real and absurd. In this earlier work it feels like McCarthy is piloting techniques that are honed and refined in, for example, Blood Meridian and The Crossing. The book reads as episodic and its a bit unclear how each event contributes to a changing Suttree. But maybe that is the point, as a raft drifts in the river, so does Suttree drift. One of McCarthy's most enjoyable.

The Godfather - Mario Puzo

Re-read Puzo's classic as a light holiday diversion. In particular the rise of both Vito and Michael reads as a parallel. I was unclear why there was such an emphasis on Johnny Fontane's story. Enjoyable.