The Black Death: A Global History Of Humanity's Most Devastating Pandemic, Asbridge - B+

          The world of the mid-fourteenth century, devastated by the Black Death, was in the midst of massive change. People and goods were traded from Asia to Europe to the Middle East at an accelerating pace, at a higher volume, and on larger ships than ever before. The globalizing world was shrinking.

         It is believed the plague entered Genoa in 1347 from a ship that arrived from a trading outpost in Crimea. Russian and Muslim chroniclers recorded that the plague had struck the Golden Horde the year before. That summer, it reached Constantinople, Sicily, and Alexandria. The next year, the plague spread throughout the Mediterranean world. The meticulous Venetians maintained excellent records. To give some indication of how the disease struck, nine wills were prepared in the city in January, and 662 in May. The city lost two-thirds of its residents. The "merciless scourge" inflicted severe psychological and physical pain on those who lived to see a vastly diminished world. The records maintained in the Middle East were not as detailed as the Europeans', but many estimate that the death toll in the Muslim world was higher, likely because of the "Islamic prohibition on flight." Cairo, with 500,000 residents, was significantly larger than any city in Europe, and it "suffered the most devastating mass mortality of any population center during the Black Death." As the plague spread north into Europe, the story of death and destruction continued unrelentingly. The afflicted developed buboes in the groin area, neck, and armpits, vomited blood, and died in three days. The more populated an area, the faster it spread. Usually, the affliction of one in a family meant death to the entire household. Paris lost 80,000 of a population of 150,000. The British Isles followed the same path, as did Scandinavia, Germany, Eastern Europe, and Russia.

          "Over the course of six horrifying years, the Black Death spread across the face of the known world. The astonishing scope and scale of this pandemic were unprecedented. Never before in human history had a disease wrought such terrible suffering among so many tens of millions and across so vast an expanse of territory. By the end of 1353, the plague was subsiding, but the appalling era of sudden mass mortality and the abject horror that it engendered caused a seismic convulsion in society that brought much of the medieval world to the brink of collapse."

         The Black Death killed approximately 100 million people, scything through communities in 6–9 months and taking away half of the population. No one knew its cause or possible duration. Society abandoned the traditional rituals of mourning and funerals and simply dumped the dead in pits. Everywhere, people abandoned relatives and even children. Urban governments stopped functioning, and agricultural activities were suspended. A Tunisian observer wrote, "Civilization itself approached the point of annihilation and dissolution." Both Venice and England had such capable civil structures that they were able to recover quickly.

          Many thought "they were witnessing a world-ending catastrophe." Muslims and Catholics believed they were being punished by God, but throughout, almost all retained their faith, and Muslims continued their annual Haij. Pope Clement VI was a particularly skilled leader who modified many of the rules about confession, the last rites, and funerals in order to fit within the new paradigm. He told all Catholics who attended a special Mass that they would receive a papal indulgence reducing their time in Purgatory. Religious institutions accumulated significant funds as the dying left assets to churches, monastic orders, and hospitals. In the Muslim world, all three faiths survived peaceably. The Catholic world "did not promote the same sentiments, and the persecution of religious minorities was commonplace in the West." In Cyprus, they rounded up their Muslim slaves and butchered them all in a single afternoon. In Europe, the Jews were the wealthy people "responsible for the death of Christ." The first pogroms were in 1096 during the First Crusade. Every few generations, Europe would unleash a "frenzied barbarity" on their neighbors. Throughout the plague years and across the entirety of Europe, Jews were blamed, often on the pretense of poisoning the water, and indiscriminately murdered. Frequently, they were executed only after confessing and naming others after they had been tortured on the rack. Conveniently, their credit books showing who owed them money disappeared, along with their movable assets. Pope Clement failed in a serious effort undertaken to stop the slaughter. When the plague abated, many Jews migrated to the east. "The Black Death left the medieval world deeply scarred but not broken."

         The Tunisian historian, Ibn Khaldun, wrote twenty-five years later: "In both the East and the West humanity was visited by a destructive plague that swallowed up many of the good things and wiped them out... Civilization decreased with the decrease of mankind and the entire inhabited world changed." The world would continue to face regular plague resurgences for centuries. Nonetheless, Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia made remarkable comebacks in the 1350s. The return to some sense of normalcy was also challenged by the Little Ice Age, a century and a half of unremitting war, and the failure of the population to materially increase for over a century.

          Strategically, both the Mongol Horde and the Byzantine Empire were hastened to their ends by the plague, and the Ottomans replaced the Mamluks in the Middle East. Many European historians believe that the Church's hierarchy was so unable to respond to the crisis that it propelled the Reformation. The Black Death destroyed a world, and slowly ushered in a changing one with Europe precluded from Asia after the fall of Constantinople, and required Europe to sail into the Atlantic. This is a far-ranging, very interesting read.

Native Tongue, Hiaasen - B+

          This hysterical, laugh-out-loud novel is from the early 90s and the second in the 'Skink' series. Francis X. Kingsbury owns the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills and is in the process of further damaging the environment of North Largo Island by building a golf course. Lined up in opposition are the Mothers of the Wilderness, a very savvy PR man recently fired by Kingsbury, Skink, the FBI, and the NY mob tipped off that Kingsbury is in the Witness Protection Program, but really is the guy who testified against John Gotti. Pretty much all Francis X. has on his side is a security guy mainlining steroids through an IV and an incompetent, preppy aide. Every book of the author has me laughing every ten pages. Highlights here are kidnapped blue-tongued voles, a scientist swallowed by a killer whale, a dead killer whale, a phony snake invasion of the kingdom, a cement truck destroyed by an RPG, Robbie Racoon on TV with Willard Scott, insights into the hijinks of the staff of a major amusement park, but the star is Nina, the PR fella's girl. She works nights talking dirty on the phone. She's constantly trying out new lines, gets so good that the other girls start paying her to write for them. She succeeds and is syndicated around the country, and some of her poetry makes the 'New Yorker.' Gotta love it.

A Murder In Springtime, Walker - B+

        This is the 19th installment in the Bruno, Chief of Police series by the now-retired journalist and historian Martin Walker. Bruno remains one of the most charming, sophisticated, erudite, and philosophical policemen—if not men—in southern France.  A woman in her sixties, a nurse at a nearby nursing home, is brutally murdered.  The victim appears to have completely erased her past. There is nothing to reveal who she really was, and the vicious, deeply personal nature of the crime suggests the motive is buried in the past. As Bruno and his team dig deeper, clues begin to emerge, gradually uncovering the victim's hidden history. Along the way,  exquisite food is served, love is in the air, and modern technology solves the investigation. Justice is served in one of the best in the series.

Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and The Making of Modern Asia, Dalrymple - B++

       A century ago, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, Bhutan, Yemen, Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait were bound together under a single imperial banner, officially known as the Indian Empire, or more simply, the Raj. It ultimately shattered into multiple partitions. Many of these lands were protectorates, some internationally recognized and others not. Some were princely states within India that had surrendered defense and foreign policy to the empire. This is the story of how those partitions created twelve separate nations.

          In 1928, a British commission went to India to draft a new constitution. They encountered a region divided between Mahatma Gandhi’s Hindu-led movement and Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s Muslim political leadership. Further east, Burma—the largest and richest province of the Raj—felt routinely excluded from Indian politics, and a movement emerged calling for its separation. The commission ultimately recommended this separation. A few years later, London approved the separation of Burma, and also Arab Oman, from India. These changes took effect on April 1, 1937.

         In the late 1930s, India was allowed limited elections, in which Jawaharlal Nehru’s Congress Party won significant support. Plans to merge British India and the princely states into a federation were halted when World War II broke out. It would become the largest war in Asia since the Mongol invasions of China. The British Indian Army grew to 2.5 million men, but enthusiasm for Britain’s war effort was limited, as many struggled to distinguish between Nazism and imperial rule. India wanted freedom, not war.

         Jinnah increasingly argued for a separate Muslim state in northwest India. In early 1942, Japanese forces attacked Burma, causing around 600,000 Indians to flee westward. Japan conquered Burma, and most Indians were forced to leave. Religious and ethnic tensions intensified as Japanese-backed Burmese forces fought in the border regions. That same year, Britain imprisoned the Congress leaders after Gandhi demanded immediate independence, while Jinnah urged the British to remain to protect Muslim minorities from Hindu-majority rule.

         By the end of 1942, the Japanese Empire had conquered much of Southeast Asia. India was in turmoil, flooded with refugees and fearing further invasion. Bengal experienced a devastating famine that killed over a million people, and Prime Minister Churchill was heavily criticized. In late 1944, Japanese forces advanced into India and besieged Kohima. The Battle of Kohima became one of the turning points of the war in Asia, with approximately 40,000 Japanese casualties.

        At the end of the war, the Congress leaders were released from prison and returned to a transformed country. Non-violent resistance had weakened, and there was growing demand for more assertive nationalism.

         Britain was financially exhausted and even indebted to the Government of India. The subcontinent was home to Sikhs, Nagas, Pashtuns, Bengalis, Hindus, and Muslims, many of whom now demanded separate states. In early 1946, around 50,000 Indian personnel in the Royal Air Force went on strike, followed by 20,000 Royal Navy mutineers. Violence broke out in Bengal, where many Muslims demanded a separate homeland, rather than joining Jinnah’s Pakistan.

        By spring 1947, Britain’s retreat from empire resembled a rapid collapse. The government announced withdrawal from Greece, Palestine, and India. Lord Mountbatten was appointed the last Viceroy of India. His plan to partition India and create Pakistan was accepted as the least violent option for separation.

         Some provinces were given choices over their future: Assam, Sindh, and Baluchistan had to decide which country to join; Bengal and Punjab were to determine whether they would be divided along religious lines. The independence date was moved up to August 15, the second anniversary of Japan’s surrender. A massive administrative task involving the borders of the new states was attempted in only ten weeks. Still unresolved was the fate of the 565 princely states, which made up about 40 percent of the subcontinent. Most ultimately acceded to India.

        Across the region, Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs became caught up in widespread communal violence. By early August, mass migration had begun. Armed militias and paramilitary groups moved through border regions. Independence came at midnight, even as borders remained unclear.

        The resulting violence was on an immense scale. Tens of millions were displaced along religious lines. Millions died, and many more suffered forced conversions and sexual violence. Hindus and Sikhs fled Pakistan, while Muslims in India often became targets of hostility. The Partition of British India remains one of the most significant events of the twentieth century in South Asia, shaping the identity and politics of nearly a quarter of the world’s population. By the end of the year, around 20 million people had been displaced.

        Relations between India and Pakistan were tense from the moment of their creation. Soon after independence, war broke out over the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. The territory had a Hindu ruler but a majority Muslim population. After its accession to India, both sides deployed regular armies, replacing earlier tribal militias. Fighting continued through 1948, with India gaining the advantage late in the year. A UN-brokered ceasefire took effect on January 1, later becoming permanent, leaving India in control of roughly two-thirds of the region, including the Kashmir Valley. The ceasefire line eventually became the Line of Control.

         Tensions also grew within Pakistan between East and West Pakistan, separated by a thousand miles and marked by a deep economic and political imbalance. The more populous East felt underrepresented in national institutions. Matters worsened after a devastating cyclone in 1970, which killed hundreds of thousands and was widely seen as poorly handled by the government.

        These tensions led to what is often called the fifth partition of the region. In March 1971, the government ignored the electoral victory of the Awami League in East Pakistan. Rising unrest led to a military crackdown, and the League declared independence. Bengali soldiers defected and formed the backbone of the resistance. India eventually intervened militarily, leading to war. Pakistan surrendered, and in exchange for 90,000 prisoners of war, recognized the independence of Bangladesh.

        Today, these countries often overlook their shared and intertwined histories. Questions of citizenship and belonging—of who is considered an outsider—continue to shape the region. India and Pakistan still maintain heavily restricted cross-border relations, limiting opportunities for many displaced families to visit ancestral homes. History, in many ways, remains very much alive.

        This account is very thorough history. The author is an Englishman who grew up in New Delhi and graduated from Oxford. His narrative links religious extremism, political fragmentation, and colonial legacy. The story also raises broader questions about whether Britain’s long imperial dominance—from Ireland to the Far East—has contributed to enduring perceptions of superiority and inequality.

Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World, Thomas - B

         "So it is with all nations, big or small. The landscape imprisons the leaders, giving them fewer choices and less room to maneuver. The rules of geography, which Hannibal, Sun Tzu, and Alexander the Great all knew, still apply to today's leaders."

         Russia is a "land where power is hard to defend, and so for centuries its leaders have compensated by pushing outward. It is the land without mountains to its west." It has been attacked from the west by Poland (1605), Sweden (1708), France (1812), and Germany (1914 and 1941). "By 2004, fifteen years after 1989, every single Warsaw Pact country bar Russia was in NATO or the EU." For half a millennium, Russia has defended its flat plains by attacking outward. Thus, the policies of Vladimir Putin derive from those of Stalin, Alexander II, Catherine the Great, and Peter the Great.

         The Chinese "heartland is the political, cultural, demographic, and agricultural center of gravity" of the nation. With vast open plains to the north, the Chinese too adopted the attack-to-defend philosophy. After the humiliation of European and Japanese occupations, China today is a unified and secure country. To the north and east, sparsely populated Manchuria and Siberia pose no threats. To the south, only Vietnam has a border without natural obstructions, and the west is mountainous. Secure on land, China is building its navy to protect its sea lanes and eventually recover Taiwan, 140 miles off its coast. Access to Russian oil and gas, along with a pipeline to the Arabian Sea, may help China overcome its most significant geostrategic risk—the 500-mile-long Strait of Malacca.

         "Geography has determined that if a political entity could get to and then control the land from sea to shining sea, it would be a great power, the greatest history has ever known." The US has been truly fortunate. Otto von Bismarck once said, "God has a special providence for fools, drunks, and the United States."

          Western Europe also has been blessed with an excellent climate, fertile soil, navigable rivers, superb harbors, and a lack of natural disasters. However, with mountains, rivers that act as boundaries, and a long history, Europe has many languages and countries. The south is not as fortunate, with more mountains, fewer arable plains, and shorter rivers. Europe's only strategic threat remains Russia, one enhanced by the flat northern plains of the continent. (Note: this book was published in 2015, long before the war in Ukraine.)

        Africa is cursed by a lack of natural harbors and rivers filled with waterfalls. The Sahara cuts it off from the Eurasian landmass, where ideas and technology were exchanged.

        The Middle East (a purely European characterization) is a thousand miles wide and two thousand miles from north to south. It is filled with mountains, deserts, rivers, fertile plains, and cities. Its center is the Arabian Desert, which is the size of France. For centuries, it was part of the Ottoman Empire, in which there were no borders or lines in the sand. After WWI, Britain and France "arbitrarily created nation-states out of people unused to living together in one region, which has not been a recipe for justice, equality, or stability." Of all the nations created, Iraq was "an unholy mess," consisting of Christians, Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. To the various Arab tribes, Zionism, supported by the US and some Europeans, added the state of Israel. The states surrounding Israel—Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria—have not welcomed or granted rights to the Palestinians who fled Israel decades ago. The failure of pan-Arab nationalism has led to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. It is an unholy mess that continues. Equally problematic is the ancient, populous, wealthy, and nuclear-armed successor to the Persian Empire, the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is very mountainous, which has defended it from intruders for thousands of years, but has also impeded the spread of its oil wealth throughout the country. Its aggressive desire to push its Shiite religion into Arabia and to destroy the state of Israel further adds tinder to the always-volatile region.

         The Arctic brings us back again to Russia. The Arctic Ocean is small, but it is almost the size of Russia and one-and-a-half times the size of the US. The continental shelves "occupy more space proportionately than in any other ocean." The melting ice allows use of the Northwest Passage for a few months per year, and the Northern Sea Route along the Siberian coast is open twice as long. International law gives each nation 200 miles of sovereignty, called the exclusive economic zone, over mineral rights from its shore. Russia is aggressively claiming more, building bases in the north, and moving armed forces to Murmansk. Putin has said the Arctic oilfields will be "our strategic reserve for the twenty-first century." Whether or not this becomes another Great Game remains to be seen.

         Interesting, but not compelling. I skipped the chapters on India and Pakistan, Korea and Japan, and Latin America.

Clown Town, Herron - B

         In the ninth, and apparently penultimate, novel, Taverner seeks out Lamb's help. Someone has filed an anonymous complaint against her with HR, and she wants Roddy Ho to figure out who it is. Simultaneously, River goes to Oxford to meet with the academics curating his grandfather's library. He has been given a heads-up that something is missing. It turns out the two matters are related. The blackmail attempt against the Park is being carried out by the same person who stole a box disguised as a book, one that contained detailed information about a long-ago but major MI5 cock-up. Filled with the usual plots, subplots, counterplots, bureaucratic infighting, and endless manipulation, this one closes with Lamb doing what he always does—taking care of his Joes.

Wildwood, Pease - B+

         A few months after the events in Northwoods (May 25th blog post), Eli and Marge begin investigating an apparent murder when the FBI and DEA show up. Once again, the FBI agent is Alyssa Mason. The missing woman was a DEA confidential informant. After a principal in the investigation is found dead, the FBI agent is pulled from the case by higher-ups, and the investigation is declared finished. Eli manages to bring Alyssa back in because the case is far from solved. The finale is twisty, surprising, and very satisfying. Alyssa is promoted to SAIC in Chicago, and she and Eli agree to remain friends. This is a different and interesting series, with a third installment scheduled for next year.

A Scandal In Konigsberg, Clark - C

         In the 1830s, the home of Immanuel Kant "bathed in the glow of the late Enlightenment." Wilhelm Ebel was a preacher at the Old City Church, and Heinrich Diestel at the Haberberg Church. Three hundred and fifty miles to the west, in Berlin, the Minister of Culture and Religion received an accusation concerning a clique engaged in sexual promiscuity gathered around Ebel. Diestel rallied to his friend's side. Ebel had achieved a modest notoriety by helping Ida von der Groeben overcome her anxieties after losing her husband in the Napoleonic Wars. Ebel's philosophical considerations of religious dogma attracted enemies among the clergy of Königsberg. He believed he had a unique relationship with God and acted as an intermediary. The accusations against Ebel were made by the brother of a woman in Ebel's circle who had offended him by insisting on her share of the family estate.

         The Church's brief inquiry, coupled with its bias against Ebel, led it to suspend him and join the civil prosecution. The case lacked evidence and eyewitness testimony and ultimately succumbed to hysteria. Similarly, the press created lurid accounts of widespread sexual improprieties. "The official mind of the Kingdom of Prussia had composed itself against the two beleaguered clergymen." Both men were convicted, permanently suspended, and financially penalized, while Ebel was sentenced to incarceration. An appeal overturned the harshest penalties but only partially restored their reputations.

         The author posits that the two men were too liberal for an era marked by the state's consolidation of power and suppression of new ideas. Furthermore, Ebel was different. He had long hair and an effeminate manner. Their prosecutors were relatively liberal and plainly uncomfortable with him. I do not know why an eminent historian took up this story. I believe a reviewer said that he had come across it and had wanted to write about it for decades.

          Sir Christopher Clark of Cambridge University is only 66 and presumably has one or two major works still ahead of him. I read this because I thoroughly enjoyed his book 'Sleepwalkers' (August 2013 blog post). Published on the eve of the centenary of the Great War, he posited that the Russians and Serbians were chiefly at fault in 1914. A year later, Sir Max Hastings, in 'Catastrophe,' vehemently argued for the traditional interpretation (January 2014 blog post). I twice saw Hastings speak at the Pritzker Military Museum in Chicago. He tells a story of being brought to the Dover coast as a young boy and having his grandfather point to the continent. He said to young Max, "There is where the Hun will come from for the third time."

Slough House, Herron - B+

                   Diane Taverner finds herself in a pickle when she sanctions an off-the-books hit in Russia using funds provided by a group of right-wing British businessmen. At the same time, she removes the Slow Horses from MI5's record books. Somehow, the GRU concludes that the Horses are an assassination team, and two former members are killed. Threaten the Horses, and they spring into action. Lamb brilliantly plays his hand, and with a valiant effort from River, they prevail. There are quite a few loose ends, but this is another great entry in the series.

Bad Actors, Herron - B+

                Six months later, a former First Desk is asked by 10 Downing Street to try to find a missing consultant to the PM's closest adviser, a despicable man named Anthony Sparrow. For reasons unknown, Taverner tells Downing Street that the last number the missing woman, Sophie de Greer, called was Lamb's. This bald-faced lie requires the horses to get involved, and they (not Regent's Park) figure out that de Greer is probably a Russian plant. Then Sparrow vindictively manages to get Taverner suspended. Another fabulous outing,  with the hideous but hysterical Jackson Lamb pulling the strings.