I have never been an American Civil War buff. I’ve never been able to keep Vicksburg and Fredericksburg and Gettysburg straight in my mind, and I’ve only had a passing interest in rectifying the situation. I knew that the Union won, the Confederacy lost, the war both was and wasn’t fought over the issue of slavery, and Sherman burned Atlanta. Seemed like enough.

But then a family member recommended Michael Shaara’s Pulitzer Prize winning historical novel, The Killer Angels, and it presented a good opportunity for me to begin to satisfy that passing interest. I will be forever grateful for that recommendation. The Killer Angels is one of the most rewarding reads I’ve had in a long time.

The story takes place from June 29^th to July 3^rd, 1863, in and around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Those days witnessed the leadup to and execution of the decisive battle of the Civil War, the battle of Gettysburg. Primarily through the eyes of Confederate General Longstreet and Union Colonel Chamberlain, but also from the perspectives of Robert E Lee and a few others, the reader witnesses this monumental battle. Witnesses it with stunning clarity and an uncanny sense of presence both on the scene and in the thoughts and emotions of the commanders who made it all happen. I felt as though transported to that fateful place and time, sharing the frustrations and doubts in the planning, the fear and exhilaration of the fight, the abysmal sadness or triumphant joy of the finish.

And the death. Although Shaara doesn’t dwell on it or glorify it, neither does he ignore that the story of Gettysburg is a story of death. Often death anticipated, sometimes death avoided, but mostly just death in obscene numbers and horrific ways.

Perhaps even more striking, though, is that death was faced so nobly, so honourably. One of the noteworthy achievements of this book is that it conveys effectively the martial honour of those soldiers, where it came from and how it shaped the individuals and the groups. In one scene a general who was leading his brigade’s advance came upon a soldier from another brigade who was crouched in fear, unable to face the enemy’s onslaught. The general appealed to honour: ‘Come on boy. What will you think of yourself tomorrow?’ While the pragmatist would rather think himself a coward than lose the ability to think, the man of honour would rather die than think himself a coward. Shaara brings this aspect of the Civil War mind to life with great authenticity. If you are put off by the notion of martial honour, thinking of it as eye-rolling machismo or romantic nonsense, The Killer Angels will make you think again. You’ll be put face to face with simple, beautiful, tragic honour. Without it the Civil War itself is almost unimaginable.

Related to honour is the depth of love and admiration the colonels and generals had for their men. A regiment was like a family and its leader was like a father. Together they faced extreme physical hardship, the killing of good soldiers on the other side (perhaps even a friend or a brother), and death itself. At the end of a particular day’s battle one regiment was moved to another part of the battlefield, but the colonel ensured that his C.O. knew they would have to return to the place, for they would bury their own dead. War was indeed a very personal, very intimate, thing.

The book also succeeds in bringing the reader into the intellectual aspects of the battle. The planning, the roles and expectations placed on different groups, the ways in which mental lapses led to setbacks, and desperation tactics led to decisive victories. The Battle of Gettysburg was won on the field, but lost in the mind. The other intellectual aspect that is of great interest is how different participants expressed for what it was they were fighting. Both sides thought of themselves as fighting for freedom, but each had a very different notion of freedom. Shaara reveals the Civil War mind, in all its variety, sympathetically, but not defensively or apologetically.

At times I had to remind myself that The Killer Angels is a novel. Everything about it rings true, as it should given Shaara’s extensive research into the battle and the minds of those who fought it. Of course, the book conveys Shaara’s own interpretation of the evidence for what went on and why, and there are other interpretations out there. But Shaara’s version is likely to hold sway in the minds of most of his readers, for his story is at once believable and highly engaging.

There are, as always, some quibbles. The editing of the book seems distinctly weak considering the calibre of both author and publisher. At one point a soldier squints into the western sun, but a few paragraphs later we discover it isn’t yet noon. At another point an individual slept either well or poorly the night before, depending on which page one is reading. And there are several typographical problems, one of which was the particularly distracting omission of the word ‘not’ from a key point in a pontification by Robert E Lee. The flow was interrupted and the impact lost. A second quibble is that the author admits he altered some of the language used because the original was too ‘windy’ and because ‘it was a naïve and sentimental time’ and the reader might think the religiosity too quaint. Undoubtedly it was Shaara who found it quaint, and for an author who so obviously valued conveying the minds of the characters, it is a remarkable choice to downplay the religious aspects of those minds.

Quibbles, though, only quibbles. Do not hesitate to read The Killer Angels. An experience awaits you.

As well as new books, there is value in reviewing, and thus bringing to public attention, a few slightly older books which have wielded great influence and deserve to be read. King Leopold’s Ghost is one of these books.

There is a debate going on, generally split along left/right divides, about the responsibility the First world has for the state of Africa. Everyone acknowledges the impact of 18^th and 19^th century colonialism on the continent, and some feel the West still has a responsibility to help these countries into modernity and self-sustainability. The other camp tends to believe while helping African nations is nice, the responsibility lies upon the nations of Africa themselves to get their own houses in order, and deal with their internal problems rather than using the excuse of colonialism for their difficulties.

King Leopold’s Ghost is not about this debate, but the book is a must-read for anyone who takes a strong position on either side. First published in 1998, this book explores the history and legacy of the Belgian colonisation of the lands surrounding the Congo river, locally known as the Kingdom of Kongo. Under the personal control of Emperor Leopold II of Belgium after 1885, it was called the Congo Free State. It was eventually taken over by the Belgian government in 1908, largely due to the excesses described in this book, and renamed the Belgian Congo. Following Independence in 1960, it became the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

This is the tale of the Congo Free State, as administered personally by the Belgian Emperor, and the unimaginable slaughter he wrought all while maintaining his public face as a great humanitarian and a man who brought civilization to the darkest parts of Africa. Congo was one of the world’s foremost sources of rubber, a valuable commodity for export, and the people of the Congo were ruthlessly driven to harvest it from vines growing in the Jungles. Anyone resisting this directive was slaughtered; often entire villages were raped, and butchered as an example to others. There was no other economy except ivory, and everything and everyone was directed to produce rubber, resulting in massive starvation as few crops were grown. If a Congolese failed to meet his or her quota of rubber, they would have one of their hands severed. This became so frequent that contemporary writers spoke of many baskets of human hands shown to the administrators as evidence that the work force was being kept on their toes. This was done with some European troops, but mostly other natives, including natives kidnapped as children and indoctrinated to be soldiers of the Force Publique, the main arm of Leopold II’s enforcement policy. This use of tribe against tribe has caused internal strife which lingered long after the Belgians departed. Even at the time, in a world where the ‘plight’ of colonized people was still largely ignored, the excesses in the Congo garnered worldwide attention. Most famously, Joseph Conrad wrote Heart of Darkness after a trip down the Congo River at the turn of the century. King Leopold’s rule only lasted 23 years, but estimates of the indigenous death toll range between 8 and 10 million, which would roughly mean 50% of the pre-colonial population of the region.

Readers of this book should be aware going in; it is not a pleasant tale. Hochschild, while not dwelling on the horrors, does not pull and punches about what was going on, and some of the stories can be somewhat stomach-turning. The Congo Free State was essentially a national slave labour camp, in the worst imaginable form of the word. So appalling in fact, that Hitler himself used the example of the Belgian Congo as rationalization for some of his own actions.

The book was a best-seller when it was published, and was nominated for numerous awards. The writing style is approachable and fluid, and the author does not make the mistake of many authors writing about horrific stories: he does not feel the need to spend pages detailing the specifics of the atrocities. The book also points out how amazing it is that this most awful and surprisingly recent example of the horrors of colonialism has been so completely forgotten by the modern world.

To anyone who seeks to get involved in the debate on the legacy of the Colonial era, or who wishes to understand more about sub-Saharan Africa, this is a must-read.

King Leopold’s Ghost, by Adam Hochschild.

One doesn’t often think of the beach and the city of Oxford in the same sentence, unless it goes something like this: “I have got to get out of Oxford and go to a beach somewhere!” But those two things are brought together nicely in Guillermo Martínez’s book, The Oxford Murders. The book is short, tight, engagingly written, and fun to read. It is perfect for a day at the beach, in other words.

The setting is richly evocative, especially for one familiar with Oxford. Martínez keeps it mostly very accurate, and those who know the city will find themselves picturing the exact locations in which the action is taking place. The main character lives on Cunliffe Close, a mere two blocks from where I used to live, and the description of the area is faithful. One well acquainted with the city will note a few discrepancies, but nothing to get oneself in a dither about.

The main character is a graduate student from Argentina, in Oxford for a year course in mathematics (or in Oxfordspeak: maths). As the title implies, he is inadvertently involved in a murder, and begins a quest to find the murderer. He is aided in this task by a man who becomes something of a mentor to him, someone in the same field, a famous Oxford don. The two of them share a passion for the academic pursuit of logic through maths, and they form a fast friendship.

The book moves quickly, as the main character moves through Oxford’s various landmarks and sites in pursuit of his quest. He goes to several of the important pubs, and even travels out to Blenheim Palace (an Oxford must-see) for a musical concert. Martínez sometimes treats us to literary lectures on mathematics, but these are short enough to avoid becoming cumbersome. The book has a nice pace and is written in an engaging style that demands little of the reader while providing a significant amount of reward. And the final plot twist is quite nice, though not totally unexpected. It is handled quite well.

The Oxford Murders differs from many crime novels in that it is not really a noir, nor is it a pulse-pounder. It is really just a quiet, pleasant read that would be especially enjoyed by those familiar with the city of Oxford. It is, in fact, exactly the kind of read that one would wish for on a sunny spring day while strolling down leafy Cunliffe Close.

In 1935 Tortilla Flat started it all for John Steinbeck. It wasn’t his first work, but it was his first commercially successful book. At about 200 pages, it’s a light read in the literal, physical sense. It’s also a light read in the figurative sense, with a simple prose style telling simple stories about simple people. Tortilla Flat is more like Cannery Row than it is like The Grapes of Wrath. It is more charming than profound. But simplicity and charm were Steinbeck’s hooks, and within them he hid great story-telling and character development. Steinbeck’s ironic wit and his sense of the beauty to be found in nature and in human relationships permeate the work.

The book is set in the Tortilla Flat area near Monterey, California. It follows a group of friends, paisanos, through a few years of their lives after World War I. All are impoverished and unemployed, most are petty criminals. But their greatest desires are not steady work or financial security or staying out of jail, but rather camaraderie with each other and a gallon of red wine. Or several gallons. Scrounging for food and for items they can barter for wine, the paisanos drink, fight, connive, find love (short-term, of course), and give of themselves to anyone who has less than the nothing they have.

I will admit that, having read four of Steinbeck’s other novels before this one, at times the ‘poor in Monterey’ theme felt a bit tired. If you have read Of Mice and Men and Cannery Row you probably don’t need to read Tortilla Flat. Unless, of course, those books left you wanting more, in which case by all means pick it up. If you’ve not read Cannery Row or Of Mice and Men, read Tortilla Flat first because Steinbeck wrote it first. It’s an enjoyable read and a welcome break from the ordinary.

The Vietnam war is a struggle which still raises controversy almost 4 decades later, and has significance to all Americans. The ‘spectre’ of Vietnam has recently been revived, as it has been summoned up as a parable for the current Iraq war by many commentators. They see frightening similarities between the endless struggle against an elusive enemy in the rice paddies of Vietnam, and the similar struggle taking place in the cities of Iraq.

Regardless of the validity of this comparison, it seems that recent books dealing with the Iraq war cannot help themselves from referencing Vietnam, and often in a superficial manner. Yet though many draw the comparison, there are many who say it is not apt, that the wars and the situations are too different.

This was all in mind when I picked up a copy of In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam by Robert McNamara. McNamara was, of course, the US Secretary of Defence from 1961 to 1968, during the beginning and escalation of the Vietnam War. I had encountered his work previously when I saw the exceptional film “Fog of War, lessons from the life of Robert McNamara”, a movie I would recommend to anyone.

The book was written in 1995, and in a sense the title is misleading: it is not a history of the Vietnam war as much as a history of the life of McNamara during the early years of the war. The details of the conflict themselves appear only where they were influenced by McNamara, or when they caused a change in policy or a new debate. If you are looking for a narrative or explanation of the events of Vietnam, this might not be the right book for you. Or at least, you should old off on reading this until after you have read another text to familiarize yourself with the basics of the struggle in South-east Asia.

The book starts with a brief biography of McNamara and his life leading up to his becoming president of Ford, and then leaving shortly after this appointment to take up the position of Secretary of Defence under President John F. Kennedy. It then begins a detailed, behind-the-scenes analysis of the decisions and personalities that created, or better to say could not avoid, the situation in Vietnam. According to McNamara, with the exception of a few hawks, everyone knew that escalation in Vietnam was an imperfect solution with potentially disastrous repercussions, but nobody could come up with a feasible alternative which would not be worse. The book is not self-exculpatory: McNamara defends himself against some accusations, while openly admitting fault in others. He is particularly recognisant of his inability to question some of the basic principles upon which decisions were being made, such as the assertion that is Vietnam fell, all of South-east Asia would fall as well: an argument often used by those in favour of escalation, but never properly explored. Certainly there was a threat of Communist movements, primarily backed by the Chinese, threatening other states in the area, but the extent of the threat, especially faced with significant international reverses to Chinese prestige in the early 1960s, was never determined. Thus decisions were taken based on this and several other commonly accepted ‘truths’, which later turned out to be partially or entirely false.

Mcnamara blames this partly on the confusion caused by a complicated international setting (There were crises in Berlin, Eastern Europe and the Middle East at the time) but also partly on an inexplicable lack of judgement faced with these supposed ‘truths’.

“Such ill-founded judgments were accepted without debate by the Kennedy administration, as they had been by its Democratic and Republican predecessors. We failed to analyze our assumptions critically, then or later. The foundations of our decision making were gravely flawed.” (McNamara, pg 33)

The other problem facing the US administration was near-complete helplessness facing an ineffective regime in Saigon, which was eventually toppled and replaced with a rapid succession of even less effective regimes. The US government new early on that final success in Vietnam would rest on the shoulders of the South Vietnamese Government and military, but when local success seemed impossible, the only answer seemed to be to bolster it with an ever increasing number of American trainers, equipment, bombers, and finally combat troops. Vietnam was one huge example of ‘mission creep’ where the initial objectives, supporting the South Vietnamese, eventually turned into persecuting the war on their behalf.

Finally, there was a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the North Vietnamese state, and the South Vietnamese Vietcong they supported. It was assumed that the VC were entirely a communist insurgency, when in fact they were largely nationalistic. It was also assumed that the North could be ‘discouraged’ from equipping, and later actively supporting the VC through bombing campaigns. This flawed assumption is particularly startling from McNamara, who was heavily involved in plotting the WW2 bombing campaigns against Japan, and saw first hand that even massive bombing failed to break the morale of the Japanese Empire. Again, a series of assumptions were made about Vietnam, about the South Vietnamese government, about the VC and about the NVA: and these assumptions were either never really challenged, or they were challenged too late. It seems the US administrations (for there were three that dealt with the war) were victims of their own public line, assuming that their public statements about the war had to be true, and little effort was spent actually confirming them. Worse still, as the book shows, when independent sources of government advisors DID challenge these assertions, and pointed out the reality of the situation, they were either ignored or dismissed as being biased or unrealistic.

The book gives a clear, well documented analysis of the interior debates and discussions that led to the tragedy of Vietnam. It is presented in a careful and very clear manner, identifying biases and pointing out the mistakes made, even if they were the fault of the author. My first conclusion is that this is an excellent book, and I would highly recommend it to any historian of the era, or any Political Scientist who wanted to understand how small assumptions could lead to great mistakes even with the best of intentions.

My second conclusion refers back to my introductory paragraph. At the end of the book, McNamara lays out in a list the errors which led to the tragedy of Vietnam: the miscalculations and steps that were not taken which could have prevented the war from going as badly as it did. When I read these ‘lessons’, I was temporarily stunned, and had to go back and check the year in which the book was written, I could scarcely believe it was written before the start of the current Gulf war.

I do not with to weaken this review with partisan opinions which belong to myself alone, but I will say this. Read the ‘lessons’ of Vietnam as written by McNamara with the current Iraq war in mind, and I think you will be astonished. To my possibly biased eye, it seemed that literally every single lesson was NOT learned; that the exact same mistakes were repeated; and that the list could just as easily be transposed to the ongoing Iraq war as a current list of grievous errors. I do not wish to put words in the mouth of McNamara, and it is entirely possible that he might not agree with my assessment. But when you read it, see for yourself, and ask yourself if these lessons were truly learned. One way or another, we can all hope that they will be paid attention to in the future.

Within the sports world, there are few more compelling figures that Bob Knight. The long-time coach of the University of Indiana, recently resigned from the head coaching job at Texas Tech, few coaches aroused such passionate prosecutions and defenses by commentators and fans. Patrolling the sideline as he did, with his famous scowl and that volcanic temper seething just below the surface at all times, he seemed capable of  things both wonderful and terrible. And there is evidence to support both – he took an undertalented team to the national championship in 1986-87; and he famously threw a chair across the court during a game in 1985. The celebrity Bobby Knight is an angry caricature. But what about the private Knight?

John Feinstein set out to discover this when he wrote Season on the Brink about the 1985-86 Indiana University basketball team. The book is over 20 years old now, but deserves a reading from every fan of college sports, not just basketball. Given access to all aspects of team life during the year, the book gives the reader a rare glimpse into the day-to-day workings of a major college basketball team, and more interestingly, gives the reader the chance to spend some time under the tutelage of Bobby Knight. Knight is most known for his explosive outbursts of anger, yet many of his players would go to the wall in his defense. He is widely regarded as a master basketball teacher and tactician, but was essentially run out of Indiana, where he had coached for 29 years.

The Knight that Feinstein presents us with is one who is constantly nagged by his own insecure need to win, and his unwillingness to take any of the blame when things go wrong. It is always the players who don’t do correctly what he teaches them, or who don’t try hard enough, or who don’t care enough. And make no mistake, nobody cares as much about winning as Knight himself. Feinstein points out that Knight has a good relationship with Digger Phelps – something that continues to this day – but would probably be different if Knight did not have a career winning record against Phelps.

Knight never considers the suggestion that part of the problem with his team might be his own methods of motivation; or his own approach. To his credit, he does at times attempt a softer approach, but these are often short, token interludes. One of the more fascinating aspects of the book is Knight’s relationship with his player Steve Alford, who famously went on to become a successful coach at Iowa and at New Mexico, and from whom Knight is now estranged.

Knight has his defenses. He is known to be generous. He graduates a high percentage of his players. He rarely has players that get in trouble with the law. Yet it is the more spectacular misdeeds that attract the eye and ultimately, define the persona.

Knight’s misdeeds are many and documented – just check his wikipedia entry if you don’t believe me – and the year chronicled in the book contains none of the more famous or recent ones. But it is a good illustration that sometimes the public persona is not softened by the private personal, but rather is reinforced.

Feinstein’s writing is, of course, excellent. It is extremely readable, simple and direct, with no hint of the hubris that infects some sportswriters (though Feinstein does have a regular comment on NPR, something that isn’t good for sports guys). The book is a fantastic read, and well worth purchasing if you are a sports fan. This is one book that still stands strong 20 years later.

I found this book at the airport, and chose it for the sole reason that the New York Times Book Review voted it the best book of the year (presumably 2006, as that is the copyright date). Naturally, being a conservative from the the Western part of the country, I wanted to hate it. What do those pretentious snobs at the NYTBR know, anyway?

Well, in this case at least, they know good writing. Or great writing, rather. Messud’s prose is a feast for the mind: elegant, evocative, in turns elaborate and succinct (well, mostly elaborate). Perhaps at times she is too wordy, perhaps a bit too confident in her ability to guide the reader through labyrinthine sentences. But in the main she uses her mastery of the language to paint pictures, give life to interactions and events, and reveal the characters’ souls, with power and precision.

A quote on the book’s cover calls it a “comedy of manners”, and it is that, but it is much more. The characters are not merely the objects of satire. Messud displays the thoughts, emotions, motivations, and regrets of the characters splendidly, eliciting both sympathy and judgment. The characters are real, three-dimensional. The reader is not told that a particular person is shallow or deep, but the author patiently discloses the depth of each character through that character’s interactions and thoughts. Some characters emerge as more shallow than others, but none is treated dismissively and by the end of the book I felt I knew each one.

Knowing the characters was not, by and large, a pleasant experience. None of them would be a likely friend of mine, nor me of theirs. For the most part they are selfish, even narcissistic, and nearly all of them at some point accuse another of just that trait. They are liberal, atheistic, opinionated. Simply put, they’re distasteful and pretentious New York elites or wannabes. There were points early on at which I wondered whether I could finish the book because it didn’t seem to be written for someone like me. But my persistence paid off, for Messud’s genius is that she made me want to know these people in spite of myself, in spite of them. She gave me just enough sympathy for them to keep me turning pages, even eagerly.

The storylines are not complicated: members and wannabes of the New York intelligentsia struggle with their professions and relationships over the course of a few months in 2001. Frederick Tubbs has dropped out of college for reasons that would have made Holden Caulfield proud (were that possible). He then seeks to make it as a New York intellectual by hitching himself to the wagon of his uncle Murray Thwaite, an aging 60’s radical and leading liberal commentator. Along the way we come also to know Murray’s daughter, her friends, and her love interest. What fills the nearly 500 pages is the interior lives of individuals. Messud’s human insight is profound, and her ability to convey it is no less. Her commentary on the human condition as it exists in this miniscule subset of the populace is subtle yet distinct, sad and rarely hopeful, yet not wholly dark.

The Emperor’s Children is not a light read and it is far from being my favourite novel (Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath is still king of that mountain). For all of Messud’s insight and literary prowess, I cannot yet say precisely what I’ve taken away from the book. It’s too good to be merely entertaining, yet it needs something (I know not what) to push it into the next echelon. Perhaps if you pick up a copy you can tell me what it lacks, or that I’m the one lacking. If you can stomach the characters, you won’t regret the purchase or the investment of your leisure time.

As we enter the spring, thoughts turn to beaches, sun, sand, warm sun and cannibalism. Ok, perhaps most of us do not think of that last one. But for one member of the Shark People, thoughts have definitely turned to the consumption of human flesh. And his prime roasting candidate is one Tucker Case, a disgraced former private jet pilot with a severely injured penis. Add to the mix a cargo cult, a talking bat, and a transvestite navigator and you have the irreverent, wacky, and combustible mix that is Christopher Moore’s Island of the Sequined Love Nun.

The book follows Case, a private jet pilot for a cosmetics mogul who is felled by his two weaknesses: women and drink in a hilarious, though painful, scene. Cut off by his strict boss, he is rescued by a mysterious job offer flying for a missionary couple who live on a tiny island in the South Pacific. With no other options, he is forced to accept. His journey to the island and what he finds there defy description in this review. Suffice it to say it is not what he was expecting.  It’s an island paradise, inhabited by a eccentric doctor, Japanese henchmen, and betel-chewing natives.

Many adjectives are applied to humorous novels: comic or darkly comic, comedic, and so on. I don’t know which of those applies to this book. But it is funny. It is hard not to wonder at the mind that created this insanity. Regardless of Moore’s mental state, I am thankful that he provided me with a few hours of levity. I certainly recommend this as a light read that won’t make you think, but will make you chuckle.

Tales from political insiders often promise much in the way of revelation and instead reveal little more than ego-driven chest pounding. Indeed, one only needs to crack Bill Clinton’s Ben Hur-esque My Life to see one who looks on himself as perhaps the most gifted and effective (and verbose) leader ever. However, in DC Confidential, former British Ambassador to the USA Christopher Meyer gives a memoir of a career in which the author was often not the biggest personality in the room. The question is whether Meyer is gracious enough to get out of the way and let the reader observe the true power-brokers with whom Meyer must deal on a daily basis.

For the most part, he does. Meyer’s stories of encounters with American presidents Clinton and Bush, British Prime Ministers Thatcher, Major, and Blair, as well as other luminaries such as Al Gore, Rupert Murdoch, Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and others are often illuminating. That is not to say that Meyer is shy about sharing his own impressions; he is not. But often one is able to take Meyer’s candid shots and compare them to what one knows of the people’s public persona.

Meyer is also able to paint portraits that are not complete, but in many ways more intimate than what that person’s public profile. His portrayal of George W. Bush as a quick learner, someone who was in charge of his people, and a politician’s politician reveals a different side of Bush than is normally seen. Meyer compares Bush to other natural politicians Clinton and Blair, those who instinctively connect with the very people from whom they want to garner support. On the other hand, both Gore and Kerry are portrayed as intelligent wonks who were ineffective campaigners, a trait which likely cost both of them their respective elections.

Meyer, as ambassador to the US, also has some interesting observations on its culture and people. Usually, however, these do not cross the threshold to real insight, but rather exist clearly as observations from an outsider. As an American reader, I felt like Meyer observed astutely, but never really delved deeper into why America was the way it was. Perhaps this is the curse of the lifelong civil servant – to understand the way things are, but never to ask why. On this count, though Meyer makes several good observations that I daresay many Americans have never articulated. One in particular stands out. When Meyer is describing presidential elections, he spends some time discussing how successful candidates often present themselves as outsiders, and he points out several examples. As I was reading it, I couldn’t help but think of Obama and his current message of “Change/hope/more change.”

Meyer’s idealogical/political biases are evident throughout, seen especially in his distaste for New Labour and the “Third Way” movement in politics. Meyer is a Tory, but spent several years serving a Labour government that comes in for much criticism. At times, this is a slight burden for the book.

The books great selling point is that Meyer was in Washington on 9/11 and during the run-up to the Iraq War. His observations on this count are interesting, but not often revelatory. It will dispel some of the more readily accepted leftist myths about the desire for war in Iraq. The books is well-written and very readable, and one who has an interest in American politics of the last 10 years or so will find it interesting.

Grab a person off of the street and ask them what they think of when they hear the words “ancient history” and you are likely to get a variety of responses. If the person is inclined to think of the discipline of history, he or she is most likely to invoke memories of the Greeks or possibly the Romans. If the person is of a Judeo-Christian heritage, they may bring up the Israelites, or even the Egyptians. Suffice it today, that few will think to the early civilizations of Mesopotamia: the Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians. Yet these, along with Egypt, existed earlier than any of those more common answers. And they have left us myriad records with which we can analyze their history. Beneficially, they wrote on clay, which is infinitely more durable than papyrus for example, which the Egyptians used. And it is not only preserved texts such as royal annals or histories which survive – scholars are fortunate to have many everyday household records of ‘ordinary’ people. The benefits of this treasure trove are examined in a handy little book by Marc van de Mieroop, Cuneiform Texts and the Writing of History.

The book is not solely an examination of some obscure texts that were composed millennia before Christ. The book has a more universal aim, which is to investigate how history is written. Historians of Ancient Mesopotamia (sometimes referred to as the Ancient Near East), like the historians of every period, are subject to changing winds of fashion in how to approach their material. Too often history is presented as litanies of names and dates, wars and kings. Scholars of ancient Mesopotamia are no different; Mesopotamian history is divided into convenient periods which are given hard dates, as if the people alive woke up that day and said, “Well, it’s now 2000 BC, time for us to stop being Sumerian, now we are Old Babylonians.” This system of classification was created by the desire to characterize periods by the rulers, maintained by tradition and now is so ingrained in pedagogy that no student of ancient Mesopotamia is ignorant of it. The fallacies of such an approach have been recognized by many authors, and there has been a gradual shift within the field of Ancient Near Eastern studies to try to examine history from other angles, such as social, cultural, intellectual and economic. Much has been written and is being written in this vein.

Cuneiform Texts and the Writing of History is a book that lays out, in layman’s terms, how history has been approached, and illustrates some of the new ways in which history is being approached. Ancient Mesopotamia provides the historical data herein utilized, but the book’s worth is broader than that obscure field; indeed, scholars and students from a variety of disciplines would find it helpful. For the scholar it is often helpful to see how those in another field are dealing with similar problems or how they are incorporating new finds in other fields into their subject. For the student, the book is a good introduction to the history of ancient Near Eastern Scholarship, as well as to the issues and problems currently facing the field.

Van de Mieroop is fortunate that he does study ancient Mesopotamia, there are many historical periods and areas which do not provide such a wealth of information. It is eminently possible to study “History from Below,” as van de Mieroop calls it, in the Old Babylonian period because we have so many household documents from that period. The books does not really explain how history should be studied in areas that lack that wealth of data.

Overall, the book is a short (166 pages), helpful and illuminating guide to one field’s approach to its historical conundrums. Though it is 9 years old this year, I recommend it for anyone who grapples how history should be written, studied, and evaluated. It is written in terms that the layman can access with little or no trouble, and van de Mieroop’s writing style is characterized by an easy readableness. It is well worth a couple hours of one’s time.