What Are You Reading?

[crawjo]

I know a thread like this has been started in the past, but it has long since disappeared, so I thought I'd kick up a new one.

Right now, I am reading Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World, by Barrington Moore.

It's a book, written in 1966, that is a comparative study of six countries (Great Britain, France, the U.S., China, Japan, and India) and tries to understand how each society modernized itself (or, in the case of India, didn't modernize itself) through revolutionary means. Particularly in the Great Britain, Japan, France, and China chapters, the author looks at how old feudal relationships evolved, and what role peasants and lords played in bringing about modernization, either through democracy, communism, or fascism. It is interesting and I'm going to be finished with it tomorrow, but I am as of yet unable to make heads or tails of it.

One thing that is interesting is that in the chapter on the United States, the revolution the author discusses is not the Revolutionary War, but the Civil War. Unlike many scholars, he doesn't see that the Civil War was a foregone conclusion. He argues that the Republican Party brought about the Civil War by uniting the interests of increasingly prosperous Western farmers with Northeastern capitalists. The farmers were primarily concerned with keeping out the slave power from the new lands, while the capitalists were primarily concerned with raising tariffs to protect their business interests. Because the South was increasingly exporting cotton to England instead of to the North, the traditional alliance between capitalism and slavery that had fueled much of America's economic progress in the 19th century fell apart, and the Republicans capitalized on this in their rise to power in 1860. He argues that this temporary alliance of Western farmers with Northern industrialists disintegrated, and predictably so, soon after the end of the Civil War. With slavery off the table, the South and the West united under their common agrarian interests, and Northern capitalists who had supported the war for less than noble reasons, soon abandoned any thought of "reconstructing" the South's racial climate. Anti-slavery radicals who had attached themselves onto the Republican banner in a bid to rid the country of slavery were thus outnumbered by the forces within their own party, and the revolution died before it had been finished.

Sorry if this is boring to any of you. Just thought I'd share what I've been reading lately.

[Monte Smith]

Probably a good idea to start a new thread on this. There was one that dates back to the first days of the new board, but it had enough responses to start getting unwieldy.

I'm neck deep in spooks:



It's a number of case files on Soviet citizens who for one reason or another spied for the USA.

I'm going to fly across country in a couple of days: any recs for a good paperback mystery?

[al j]

reading the 2003 edition of below. Last year's was my first exposure to these collections and I now intend to buy them every year. "The Cheerleaders" from 2002 is as unsettling as it gets.

[Brian Olewnick]

Rereading Nabokov's "Ada, or Ardor" (wonderful) and reading for the first time TC Boyle's "A Friend of the Earth". On deck, "Language Visible", a history of the alphabet by David Sacks.

[stonemonkts]

Robertson Davies - The Deptford Trilogy (Fifth Business;The Manticore;World Of Wonders).

[gnhrtg]

Herbert Marcuse - One-Dimensional Man (some of his short-asides on art are quite interesting, especially since I just had to prepare a short presentation on Bourdieu's Distinction and they seem to agree on certain aspects of the current stat3e of art and what its function is)

Martin Amis - London Fields (committing some chronological fallacy I'd already read "The Information" and would agree with Tibor Fischer who said something like the information was london fields re-written)

[Pete C]

Originally posted by Joe Christmas

Hey, I'm reading the same thing. A friend gave it to me.

[Jason Bivins]

I have to reread "London Fields." Just finished up "Angels and Demons," otherwise known as the prequel to "The DaVinci Code." I tried to read with my academic lenses fully off, and I found it quite enjoyable. For what it's worths, friends in church history have said it's pretty reputably done.

Next up is John Banville's "The Untouchable." This fortnight's work crop includes a history of the New Thought movement, Cass Sunstein's "Why Societies Need Dissent," and Amin Maalouf's "In the Name of Identity."

[Lazy River]

DA VINCI CODE by (Page turner; don't think about it too carefully)
TRUE NOTEBOOKS by Mark Salzman (Sloppy; hastily put-together but interesting yarn about
teaching writing to young inmates in Calif. Youth Auth.)
THE CATCHER WAS A SPY by Nicholas Dawidoff (Fascinating biography of catcher Moe Berg)
THE TEAMMATES by David Halberstam (Theme is not baseball, but instead lifelong loyalty.)

[Lazy River]

Guy named Dan Brown wrote DA VINCI CODE.
LR

[Salvador Dali Lama]

Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Endgame by Samuell Beckett
three books of Endgame interpretation

and I've started re-reading Marx. I haven't cracked open Kapital yet, but I read the manifesto again the other day. I have to say, I agree almost completely with Marx and Engels' assesment, and disagree almost completely with their ideas of what to do about it.

[Gordon B]

Crawjo, I just ordered a book you might like, "Rothstein." It's reviewed in today's NYT Book Review.

[walto]

Michael Young, "Rise of the Meritocracy"
Ruth Benedict, "Patterns of Culture"
David Owen, "First National Bank of Dad"

[Pete C]

Originally posted by Salvador Dali Lama
three books of Endgame interpretation

Why?

[crawjo]

Thanks for the tip, Gordon. I'll have to check out the review when I go into work tomorrow.

[crawjo]

I see that it is written by David Pietrusza. I really enjoyed his biography of Kenesaw Mountain Landis, so I will definitely have to check this one out.

[Salvador Dali Lama]

it's for a paper pete. I hate reading "interpretations," I think it defeats the entire point of reading Beckett, but I have to cite some critical and analytical sources. I haven't found any I particularly care for yet either...

[Pete C]

Originally posted by Salvador Dali Lama
it's for a paper pete.

Well, that makes sense. As long as you're not reading that stuff for "pleasure." As an undergraduate I majored in English & creative writing, with a focus on drama, so I read countless books of criticism on modern theatre. Happily, I haven't touched the stuff in 25 years.

[chuckyd4]

Originally posted by Salvador Dali Lama
and I've started re-reading Marx. I haven't cracked open Kapital yet, but I read the manifesto again the other day. I have to say, I agree almost completely with Marx and Engels' assesment, and disagree almost completely with their ideas of what to do about it.

I've often heard it said (I don't dare to call myself knowledgable enough to say whether or not I agree - seems about right to me, though) that Marx is one of the finest analysts of capitalism the 19th Century produced... that it's when he stops talking about capitalism that he becomes less interesting. FWIW...


As for me, I've finally gotten around to Russell Banks' Cloudsplitter ... a good read so far, though I haven't picked it up in about a week, which is bugging me.

[Squaredancecalling Steve]

SDL -- I'd be curious to know what you think of "The Master & Margarita." I liked it a good deal, but was one of only two in a book group of 11 that dug it.

[john williams]

Originally posted by Salvador Dali Lama
Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Endgame by Samuell Beckett
three books of Endgame interpretation

and I've started re-reading Marx. I haven't cracked open Kapital yet, but I read the manifesto again the other day. I have to say, I agree almost completely with Marx and Engels' assesment, and disagree almost completely with their ideas of what to do about it.

Master and Margarita is terrific.

I read more Marx as an undergraduate than any other writer. I agree, like yourself, generally with M & E's assessment of class in the Manifesto, it was interesting and reasonably accurate IMO. However, I just can't accept determinism or economic/historical inevitability. Marx was always going on about this and his thinking seems almost medieval or at least somewhat archaic today. His obsession with determinism and utopianism undermines everything he wrote methinks. In the "Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon" and The "Civil War in France" Marx comes across as a frustrated and neurotic armchair revolutionary, however, they're still fun to read.

I am reading The Culture Industry by Theodor Adorno. Its a bit heavy going in places as I have little background knowledge and feel like there are some gaps but I will persevere.

[GoodSpeak]

I'm teaching this Agatha Christie novel:



Reading this one:





One's a mystery the other is a horror story.

Originally posted by JBW
IMO. However, I just can't accept determinism or economic/historical inevitability.

Neither could Marx.

On this question, see:
Theodor Shanin - Late Marx and the Russian Road
Michael Loewy - The Politics of Combined and Uneven Development
T.H. Aston - The Brenner Debate
Perry Anderson - Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism and Lineages of the Absolutist State
Ellen Meiksins Wood - The Origins of Capitalism

Of all the ideas attributed to Marx that he never actually held, the notion of historical inevitability/historical stagism is the most irritating, because its the most demonstrably false.

BTW, FWIW, Marx is one of the greatest 19th century literary stylists. Don't let the reputation throw you: Capital vol. 1 is not only *not* difficult to read, but is also a great pleasure to read for the prose style alone, regardless of your political leanings.

[crawjo]

Originally posted by Alex
BTW, FWIW, Marx is one of the greatest 19th century literary stylists. Don't let the reputation throw you: Capital vol. 1 is not only *not* difficult to read, but is also a great pleasure to read for the prose style alone, regardless of your political leanings.

I always felt the same way about Nietzsche.

[stonemonkts]

Originally posted by crawjo
I always felt the same way about Nietzsche.

I've always felt the same way about Freud (truly, he was a wonderful writer).

[Nate Dorward]

Originally posted by JBW
I am reading The Culture Industry by Theodor Adorno. Its a bit heavy going in places as I have little background knowledge and feel like there are some gaps but I will persevere.

Incidentally I seem to recall Adorno's essay on Endgame was one of the few useful things I've seen on the play. I think it's in Prisms or Notes to Literature.

I'm reading David Copperfield at the moment--almost done, actually.

[Monte Smith]

You guys are right on: Freud, Nietzsche and Marx are deserving to be read casually and for pleasure.

But if you want to say "greatest literary stylist of the 19th century," there are a lot of contenders for that title and many of them actually considered themselves literary stylists. So for all the clarity and nuance of his prose, I think Marx (and the others) should bow to the likes of a Jane Austen or Charles Dickens. And there are many others you could mention, and Walter will mention Trollope--he always does.

I will read The Eustace Diamonds, I swear!

[crawjo]

Originally posted by Monte Smith
You guys are right on: Freud, Nietzsche and Marx are deserving to be read casually and for pleasure.

But if you want to say "greatest literary stylist of the 19th century," there are a lot of contenders for that title and many of them actually considered themselves literary stylists. So for all the clarity and nuance of his prose, I think Marx (and the others) should bow to the likes of a Jane Austen or Charles Dickens. And there are many others you could mention, and Walter will mention Trollope--he always does.

I will read The Eustace Diamonds, I swear!

Ugh. Charles Dickens? Reading him is like being hit over the head with a bag of wet sand. Give me Dostoyevsky. For the 20th century, give me Proust.

[Jason Bivins]

I'm with craw, at least re. Dostoyevsky. As I've confessed before to my friend, the *great* Walter Horn, pre-20th century British novels generally leave me cold. I'm not exceedingly well-versed in them, and I know that's a giant generalization, but there you have it. 19th century Russians and Americans, now that's where it's at.