Tag Archives: Top 10

Top Tens – Top 10 History Books: (7) John Ellis – Brute Force: Allied Strategy & Tactics in the Second World War

Posted on by

Cover as published by Viking 1990

 

(7) JOHN ELLIS –

BRUTE FORCE: ALLIED STRATEGY & TACTICS IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR (1990)

 

Quantity has a quality all of its own.

Stalin is reputed to have said this, aptly enough about the Soviet armed forces in the Second World War. It’s probably apocryphal but I like to think that the fact it and other zingers are attributed to him implies an ability to drop one-liners unparalleled by any other war leader than Churchill – and certainly far exceeding Hitler. It amuses me to think that above all else, the Allies won the war of one-liners, the most important war of all. In modern internet parlance, you might say the Axis couldn’t meme.

More relevantly, if you were to sum up this book’s theme and thesis in one line, Stalin’s would do nicely, except that for both his Soviet forces and those of the Allies, it was a somewhat poor quality – the brute force of the title, grinding to a slower and more costly victory than might otherwise have been the case. In other words, war by attrition – and often not too different from the bloody attrition of the First World War for which that conflict’s military leadership is often faulted.

I obviously like Ellis as a historian – his Social History of the Machine Gun was similarly illuminating and insightful – although sadly his books seem somewhat neglected these days and can be elusive to find.

This book remains my favorite by Ellis – as well as one of my favorite general or thematic histories of the Second World War, exceeded only by my entry in top spot, which might arguably be paired together as alternatives (or correctives) to each other.

It certainly was an eye-opening look at Allied strategy and tactics in the war – and his critiques of their lack of finesse, proficiency or skill are persuasive, as for example with RAF Marshal Sir Arthur Harris’ area bombing dogma, a common subject of historical (and moral) criticism.

On the other hand, such critiques are easy to overstate in hindsight, particularly as opposed to the contemporary reality where each theater competed with the others, demanding troops and resources in very different ways and that could not be used elsewhere – or planning or production line decisions well in advance but which took substantial periods of time to change to battlefield requirements.

As opposed to my top spot entry (as something of an antidote), the book does lean into a historical pet peeve of mine – that tendency, dubbed in some internet circles as ‘wehraboo’ (a play on Wehrmacht and ‘weeaboo’ as slang for excessive or obsessive anime fandom), to disparage the Allies compared to so-called German military ‘excellence”.

While I would accept arguments that the Germans were the most consistent in their tactical proficiency throughout the war, albeit not so much in their strategy, much of the critiques Ellis makes about Allied “brute force” might also be made about German military successes.

In fairness, Ellis does make much of the same critiques about the Germans, particularly as the wheels started to fall off their blitzkrieg. However, the book overlooks the extent to which initial German successes relied not just on good luck and timing in a somewhat narrow window of opportunity, but also on significant advantages over their adversaries at the outset – advantages which arguably weren’t effectively matched by the comparable advantages in manpower and materiel by the Allies against them until 1944, at which point the Germans collapsed in a rapid manner similar to their own initial adversaries.

It also overlooks that the Germans owed their endurance in defense, at least in part, to the improvements in defensive firepower from that at the outset of the war, as well as their undoubted tactical proficiency in defense that enabled them to outfight numerically superior enemies until 1944.

I also took away from the book something else from the “brute force” of its title about Allied superiority – just how foolhardy the three major Axis nations in general were and Germany in particular was to decide on war in the first place, resembling nothing so much as a twentieth century version of the ghost dance seeking to conjure victory out of “triumph of the will”.

Germany and Japan even sought to make a virtue out of necessity by vaunting their so-called martial and psychological superiority over the material strength of their adversaries. History generally has a name for nations that do so – losers.

It also overlooks that Allied superiority was hard-earned. Material strength doesn’t just, well, materialize but takes a very real achievement in mobilizing manpower and materiel – one in which the Allies massively outclassed the Axis and one which is highlighted further by the fact that Germany had managed to occupy a productive potential in Europe to rival the United States but was still massively out-produced by the latter.

Italy is often disparaged for its performance in the war, particularly compared to Germany, but the underlying reality was not too different between them, albeit kept at bay for longer by Germany’s greater industrial base and tactical proficiency – such that I like to adapt the late Cold War quip about the Soviet Union being “Upper Volta with rockets” to Germany being “Italy with rockets”, in a very literal sense.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Monday Night Mojo – Top 10 Music (Mojo & Funk): (8) Lana del Rey – Summertime Sadness

Posted on by

 

(8) MOJO: LANA DEL REY –
SUMMERTIME SADNESS (2012)
B-side: Blue Jeans (2012)

 

“I got that summertime, summertime sadness”

You and me both, Lana del Rey, you retro pop queen – “self-styled gangsta Nancy Sinatra” and “L0lita lost in the hood”.

The music of Lana del Rey – or Elizabeth Woolridge Grant – has been noted “for its stylized cinematic quality; its preoccupation with themes of tragic romance, glamour, and melancholia; and its references to pop culture” Also – Hollywood sadcore, baroque pop, dream pop and “about music as a time warp, with her languorous croons over molasses-like arrangements meant to make clock hands seem to move so slowly that it feels possible, at times, they might go backwards”

And somehow all of this seems infused in her 2012 trip hop ballad hit, “Summertime Sadness” – so melancholy!

Also something of a crush of mine, although perhaps more as an idea

And as for my B-side, I’ll go with her characteristically mournful love song, Blue Jeans.

Love, like life, is the long lost last look back…

“I will love you till the end of time
I would wait a million years
Promise you’ll remember that you’re mine
Baby can you see through the tears?”

As for the balance of my Top 10 Lana Del Rey songs:

(3) Ultraviolence (2014)
(4) Video Games (2011)
(5) Born to Die (2011)

(6) Ride (2012)
(7) National Anthem (2012)
( 8 ) West Coast (2014)
(9) Did You Know There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd (2022)
(10) A & W (2023)

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP-TIER)

Top Tens – History: Top 10 Empires (8) Ottoman Empire

Posted on by

Map of Ottoman Empire in 1683 by Chamboz for Wikipedia “Ottoman Empire” licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

 

(8) OTTOMAN EMPIRE (1299 – 1922)

The empire that conquered Constantinople and besieged Vienna – twice.

As the latter, the last non-European empire to invade and conquer significant parts of Europe (unless you count the Americans or Soviets), although Vienna was their high water mark – and as the former, the power that finally conquered (and saw itself as inheriting) the last of the Roman Empire.

Ironically, the Ottomans often resembled the Roman Empire, firstly in its rise from one of numerous non-descript warring tribes on a peninsula, albeit the Anatolian rather than Italian peninsula (although as further irony, the Romans traced themselves from that peninsula as well, with their mythic origin from Troy). And secondly, in its tenacity in decline.

It is also intriguing how much of the origins of modern history might be traced to the looming presence of the Ottoman Empire in Europe and the Mediterranean – such as the discovery of the New World from seeking to find alternate trade routes to Asia and so on.

The rise of the Ottoman Empire rivals the conquests by the Arab caliphates it ultimately replaced in predominance in the Middle East – and indeed replayed much of the same history. The Ottoman Empire may have lacked the range and speed of the Arab conquests, although it made up for that in the extent to which it invaded and conquered within Europe.

With its conquest of the Byzantine Empire (as well as Constantinople as its newly conquered capital) and control of the Mediterranean basin, the Ottoman Empire was a transcontinental empire at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and Africa for six centuries.

Egypt was of course the jewel in the crown of their African empire – but it extended westwards from Libya to Morocco (and briefly into the Atlantic with the Canary Islands), becoming the basis of the fabled Barbary corsairs or pirates which even fought the United States, although these were only nominally under Ottoman control. The Ottomans also extended southwards to the Horn of Africa – and into naval wars in the Indian Ocean.

In Asia, they inherited the caliphate and its predominance in the Middle East, extending south through the Arabian peninsula, although held at bay by a resurgent Persia under their own Turkic Safavid dynasty.

And in Europe, they conquered the Balkans, extending to Crimea with the Crimean Khanate or Tatars, successors to the Mongol Golden Horde, as their vassal state, and also reached to the heart of Europe to besiege Vienna. Although apart from its defeats when besieging Vienna, it encountered significant holdouts or resistance elsewhere – Croatia, Dracula or Vlad the Impaler, Venice and the naval Battle of Lepanto.

It faced its waning tide of decline in the aftermath of its second defeat at Vienna, steadily losing its conquests in the Balkans even as it was propped up by Britain against Russia, resulting in it being styled as the “sick man of Europe” in the nineteenth century – somewhat overconfidently, as the Allies were to find out in WW1, although ultimately it collapsed in that war.

 

DECLINE & FALL

Ironically, the Ottomans might be compared favorably to the Romans they supplanted in their tenacity in decline. They did not endure for so many centuries as did the Romans – but then modern history moves a lot faster.

Of course, they were helped by European powers propping it up against each other, particularly Britain propping it up against Russia.

And against the apparent odds, they and their predominance in the Middle East endured until the First World War – and they might well have endured beyond that if they had remained aloof from that war and not chosen the losing side. Even in that war, they proved a resilient adversary, and even in defeat, they cast a long shadow – historian J.M. Roberts refers to most wars in the Middle East thereafter as the wars of Ottoman succession, up to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.

THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE NEVER FELL

On the other hand, their imperial core Turkey, to which they were shorn after the First World War, has also had a remarkable resurgence, rebounding almost immediately after its defeat from that war against further incursions, and newly emerging as a regional power in the Middle East, extending its influence and military presence through much of its former imperial territory

THE SUN NEVER SETS

Well, the sun did literally set on the Ottoman Empire in pure geographic terms – for example, it did not extend as far eastwards into Asia as its Arab caliphate predecessors. However, it can properly be ranked as a world empire in its influence, extending across three continents and reaching even further beyond that.

EVIL EMPIRE

As I said, the Ottomans get a lot of historical hate from certain circles – but sadly, I do have to rank them highly in the evil empire stakes. To be honest, I don’t know quite how brutal they were in maintaining their conquests, but they were notorious for their patronage of piracy and slavery, particularly through the Barbary corsairs.

What earns them their high ranking in evil empire stakes is their actions against ethnic minorities in the empire’s dying days – notably the Armenians – that gave the definition to genocide in the twentieth century

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Top Tens – History: Top 10 Wars (8) Mongol Conquests – Mongol Invasion of Europe

Posted on by

The Battle of Legnica (Liegnitz or Wahlstatt) on 9th April 1241 during the first Mongol invasion of Poland – copper engraving by Matthäus Merian the Elder 1630 (public domain image – Wikipedia “Mongol Invasions and Conquests”)

 

(8) MONGOL CONQUESTS –
MONGOL INVASION OF EUROPE (1236-1242)

The Mongols were essentially a horse blitzkrieg across Eurasia, achieving a mobility and speed on land, exceeded only by modern mobile warfare using the internal combustion engine.

The horse blitzkrieg was a recurring feature mounted (heh) by nomadic herding tribes, particularly by those from the steppes of central Asia, to such devastating effect against more sedentary or settled agricultural states throughout history. I can’t resist the memorable quote by the Pax Romana Youtube channel that “history is mostly a matter of hoping those psychos on horseback don’t attack this summer, steal the grain and take the slaves”.

None were more supremely effective at it than the Mongols, one of the most proficient and versatile military forces in history – one that was also supremely adaptable at coopting its conquered people for further conquests and for strategies of war beyond their horse blitzkrieg. It’s surprising how small the actual Mongol component was of their forces.

The founder of the Mongol Empire – Temujin, better known as Genghis Khan – was the best military and political leader of his era, or arguably any era. He succeeded in unifying the Mongol tribes as the nucleus of his empire, which at his death stretched from northern China through Central Asia to Iran and the outskirts of European Russia. In doing so, the Mongols conquered glittering states along the Silk Road in central Asia that barely anyone remembers because the Mongols wiped them out so thoroughly – the Khwaraziman Empire of Iran and the Qara Khitai.

However, it is the wars of his successors that are particularly fascinating to me as they advanced into almost every corner of Eurasia.

In the Middle East, they besieged and sacked Baghdad, the center of Islamic power for half a millennia, occupying as far as parts of Syria and Turkey, with raids advancing as far as Gaza in Palestine, where they were stopped in the battle of Ain Jalut by the Mamluks of Egypt.

In East Asia, the Mongols did not face a unified China but two warring states, the Jin in northern China and the Sung in southern China. Genghis had largely defeated the former – his successors finished it off and conquered the Sung as well. The latter was most famously by Kublai Khan – and in Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree.

The Mongols also invaded Korea, Burma and Vietnam. It’s interesting to think of the Mongol Vietnam War, which as Vietnam Wars usually go, resulted in defeat for the Mongols. It’s also interesting, given the definitive horse blitzkrieg of the Mongols, that the Mongols launched naval invasions of Java and Japan, but perhaps not surprisingly neither did well – the latter giving rise to the Japanese word kamikaze or divine wind for the storms that scattered the Mongol invasion fleets.

However, I’m giving this entry to the campaigns of his successors most familiar to me from my Eurocentric perspective – the Mongol invasion of Europe, commanded in the field by one of the best Mongol generals, Subutai. The Mongols rolled over European Russia – over much of which they would remain ruling as the Golden Horde until the fifteenth century – and invaded central Europe, decisively defeating Poland and Hungary.

They were poised to strike into the heartland of Europe and the Holy Roman Empire, indeed raiding the latter (and the Balkans), with little to stop them but the English Channel – but fortunately for Europe, the Great Khan Ogedai died, so the Mongol armies withdrew back to Russia while their leaders returned to Mongolia to select the new Great Khan. Or so the story goes – historians vary on whether that was the true cause for the Mongols to desist from their invasion.

Even so, the Mongols continued to cast a long shadow of terror into Europe, reinforced by further raids in the thirteenth century (such that the raids of the 1280’s are sometimes styled as the second Mongol invasion) and fourteenth century.

And traumatizing Europeans with steak tartare, based on the popular legend of Mongol or ‘Tartar’ warriors tenderizing meat under their saddles and eating it at night after it had been ‘cooked’ by the heat and sweat from the horse.

ART OF WAR

Forget Sun Tzu – the true Art of War was written by Genghis Khan and the Mongols…in conquest. A friend and I used to observe the irony of Sun Tzu’s Art of War originating in China – a country that historically has gotten its ass kicked as often as not. (The same irony for Machiavelli’s The Prince originating in Italy – a country known for its political chaos).

But seriously – an army that conquered the world clearly excelled in the art of war. Ruling their conquests on the other hand…although in fairness any empire that size at that time was doomed to fragmentation.

WORLD WAR

The Mongol Conquests were nothing short of what should be described as a world war to create the largest contiguous land empire in history, and one that is still only exceeded by the British Empire – perhaps the most serious contender for the first true world war.

STILL FIGHTING THE MONGOL CONQUESTS

One of the few wars we’re not still fighting, even though we live in a Mongol-made world. The rising Russian state, with long memories of the Golden Horde, saw to that by conquering the steppes and various residual khanates (into the nineteenth century), but arguably inheriting their legacy and former territory as the new horde.

GOOD GUYS VS BAD GUYS

History has tended to overlook the positive or even progressive aspects of the Pax Mongolica – but it is also difficult to cast them as good guys, given the destruction they wrought, exceeding even the Second World War relative to world population.

RATINGS: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Subjects of Mythology

Posted on by

Free ‘divine gallery’ sample art from OldWorldGods

 

TOP 10 SUBJECTS OF MYTHOLOGY

 

So many topics for top tens, so little time – hence my top tens on the spot, shorter shallow dips as opposed to my longer deep dives.

And what better topic for shallow dip than the Top 10 Subjects of Mythology? Although that prompts the obvious retort that’ll be a shallow dip indeed – it’s mythology, innit? There – done!

Well, yeah nah – as mythology meaningfully overlaps with or includes many other subjects that are interesting in themselves.

So here we go all in one go – my Top 10 Subjects of Mythology.

 

(1) MYTH

 

Well, obviously – and such that it also obviously had to be in the top spot, although defining myth or mythology is less obvious, except perhaps at their core, for example as with the Olympian gods in classical mythology.

Partly that’s because of the extent that myth or mythology overlaps with other subjects – particularly with…

 

(2) LEGEND

 

Legendary!

A subject so intertwined with myth and mythology that it tends to be virtually synonymous with them – although funnily enough calling something a myth often is dismissive in contemporary usage while calling something a legend or legendary usually is a term of acclaim.

That might be because of the usual distinction drawn between myth and legend – that the main characters in myth are usually non-human, such as gods or other supernatural beings, while legends involve everyday humans in historical settings.

“Myths are sometimes distinguished from legends in that myths deal with gods, usually have no historical basis, and are set in a world of the remote past, very different from that of the present.”

So while we’re taking a step down from myths to legends as it were, that brings me to…

 

(3) FOLKLORE

 

In a sense you could say I’ve got this ass-backwards as myth and legend are more properly genres of folklore – and that I really should (or could) be doing a top ten subjects of folklore.

It’s just that folklore is so broad as to encompass the entirety of “the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture” – including oral traditions of myth and legend as well as many more besides.

Also, I tend to see folklore (and legend) in a more ‘low church’ sense involving figures or narratives closer to humans and nature, as opposed to the ‘high church’ sense of myth or mythology involving divine beings or sacred narratives.

 

(4) RELIGION

 

Probably the most obvious overlapping subject with mythology apart from legend or folklore – and perhaps even more obvious than those.

“Myths are often endorsed by secular and religious authorities and are closely linked to religion or spirituality”.

And while mythologies without a religion tend to come to mind – such as classical mythology, alas! – it is harder to think of a religion without its mythology, even such apparently atheistic religions as Buddhism or Taoism.

The link between mythology and religion brings me to…

 

(5) RITUAL

 

Given how much religion overlaps with or is comprised by ritual, it’s not surprising that mythology does as well.

For one thing, you have the depictions of ritual in mythology, which are then followed by the community that holds that mythology to heart.

For another, there’s the theory of mythology that holds that myth is tied to or even originates in ritual – to the extent “that every myth is derived from a particular ritual”. It even has a school of thought named for it – the “myth and ritual” school or “ritual school of myth”, based in Cambridge (and sometimes styled as the “Cambridge Ritualists”, conjuring up images of lurid secret societies in that university).

For example, animal-headed gods or beings like the Minotaur originate in masks worn by priests or priestesses – and so on

 

(6) HISTORY

 

Wait – what? Isn’t mythology the antithesis of history, as the latter is concerned with verifiable evidence of factual events?

Well yes – but also no.

For one thing, communities that hold mythologies also tend (or tended) to hold them to be true in a historical sense, at least in part – although fortunately for those communities myths also tend or tended to be ahistorical, as occurring in a realm outside historical time or space.

For another, legends as opposed to myths tend to have a historical setting – which have a surprising tendency to turn out to have more historical truth to them than skeptics give them credit. People believed Troy was a myth until they found it.

And for yet another, communities often have historical myths about themselves and their history – origin myths or national myths.

 

(7) POETRY

 

The gods speak in verse.

No, seriously.

From the Iliad and the Odyssey to substantial parts of the Bible, it’s striking how often myths or legends are written (or spoken or sung) in verse. Even when in prose, it often has a lyrical resonance to it.

Speaking of which…

 

(8) EPIC

 

“Do you have it in you to make it epic?”

Closely resembling legend in popular usage, originating from its origin in long poetic narratives, “typically one derived from ancient oral tradition, narrating the deeds and adventures of heroic or legendary figures of the past history of a nation”.

Obviously overlapping with poetry, it’s striking how much poetic epic is at the core or origin of myths and mythology. The Epic of Gilgamesh. The Iliad and the Odyssey. The Hindu epics. Much or even most of the Bible.

Speaking of poetry and epic, particularly in classical Greek literature, brings us to…

 

(9) DRAMA

 

Particularly that originating in classical Greece – most strikingly with tragedy, a name that literally translates from the original Greek as “goat song” and seems to originate in or overlap with religious festivals, especially for Dionysus, hence the goats (or satyrs). Don’t dismiss comedy however, which also originated in or overlapped with the same religious festivals, translating as (drunken) “revel song”. Funnily enough that prompts to mind something I always recall reading (in some sort of dictionary of Christian thought) that the gospels of Christianity are ultimately comedy, effectively reversing tragedy into a happy ending – further prompting to mind the Christian passion play, yet more mythic drama (albeit Greek drama might also be described as pagan passion plays – Euripide’s Bacchae for example).

It’s striking how much classical drama (or the passion play) reenacts mythology – to the extent that it might be regarded as similar to ritual as the reenactment of myth (or vice versa).

 

(10) FANTASY

 

On the one hand, the term that perhaps best reflects the pejorative contemporary usage of myth – dismissing myths as fantasy or fantastical.

On the other, the modern genre of fantasy comes closest to being like our original mythologies or their literal and figurative enchantment of original mythology – deliberately so with founding figures of literary fantasy such as Tolkien, who wrote The Lord of The Rings as a modern mythology for England.

 

Friday Night Funk – Top 10 Music (Mojo & Funk): (9) The Weeknd – Can’t Feel My Face

Posted on by

 

MUSIC (MOJO & FUNK): TOP 10

(9) FUNK: THE WEEKND –
CAN’T FEEL MY FACE (2015)
B-Side: I Feel it Coming (2016)

 

“I’m a m***********g starboy!”

Of course, that’s the titular chorus from his song Starboy (featuring Daft Punk because they make everything funkier), but it encapsulates Abel Makkonen Tesfaye a.k.a The Weeknd. Also, it is funky – but my funk favorite still goes to this 2015 single from his Beauty Behind the Madness album, my introduction to The Weeknd.

The Weeknd has been so consistently funky through the 2010s to the 2020s – and so ubiquitously funky, as each time my ears prick up for any funk recently, it’s usually The Weeknd – that I’ve had no choice but to rank him in my Top 10 Mojo & Funk (and also ultimately compile my Top 10 Weeknd songs). And how can you not like the Weeknd? We all love the weekend!

“I can’t feel my face when I’m with you
But I love it, but I love it”

Anyway, I can’t resist this tagline for “Can’t Feel My Face” from Billboard – “The Weeknd’s irresistible, Michael Jackson-esque “Can’t Feel My Face” is so perfectly crafted that it’s impossible to imagine a world or alternative reality in which this song isn’t number one”. And it’s not every music video that ends in the immolation of its singer.

As for my B-side entry, I have a soft spot for “I Feel It Coming” (once again featuring Daft Punk, again making it funkier).

“You’ve been scared of love and what it did to you
You don’t have to run, I know what you’ve been through
Just a simple touch and it can set you free
We don’t have to rush when you’re alone with me”.

As for the balance of my Top 10 The Weeknd songs:

(3) Starboy (2015). Obviously
(4) Blinding Lights (2019)
(5) Take My Breath (2020)
(6) Ariana Grande / The Weeknd – Love Me Harder (2014)
(7) The Hills (2015)
( 8 ) Save Your Tears (2020)
(9) Swedish House Mafia ft The Weeknd – Moth to a Flame (2021)
(10) Sacrifice (2022)

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Top Tens – History: Top 10 Books (8) Felipe Fernandez-Armesto – Civilizations: Culture, Ambition & The Transformation of Nature

Posted on by

Cover 2002 Free Press edition

 

(8) FELIPPE FERNANDEZ-ARMESTO –

CIVILIZATIONS: CULTURE, AMBITION & THE TRANSFORMATION OF NATURE (2000)

 

A book on the suject of human civilization – or rather, civilizations, arranged by environment, consistent with the definition of civilization in the subtitle as the transformation of nature.

The book essentially treats all human societies as civilization, or at least a civilization – eschewing attempts at ‘checklist’ of criteria that define a civilization, given the problems of previous attempts to do so for any that are universally agreed, instead looking at human societies in classic Toynbee terms of challenge and response to their natural environments, at least in origin.

While such an approach may have flaws in its lack of distinction between a ‘civilization’ and other human societies, the book does have much to offer from its thematic history of human civilization from a geographic and environmental perspective.

Firstly, it vividly impresses on you the extent to which human history and societies have been shaped by nature, at least in origin – including the most basic or stark features which one might otherwise overlook from a different thematic perspective.

This is most striking when it looks at those environments it groups together as the wasteland, worlds of ice or sand deserts, which can only support the most minimalist societies – minimalist that is, beyond surviving in them, prompting to mind the lines from the poem “Australia” by A.D. Hope, about men whose boast is not “we live” but “we survive”. There’s a similar quality

Perhaps its most insightful feature – which it states in its introduction – was its comparative history of civilizations, “arranged environment by environment, rather than period by period or society by society”, thus yielding comparisons across time and space that might not otherwise occur to the reader.

The evocative part and chapter headings (or subheadings) illustrate those environmental classifications:

  • Part 1: The Wasteland – Ice Worlds & Tundra, Deserts of Sand
  • Part 2: Leave of Grass – Prairie & Grassy Savannah, the Eurasian Steppe (the Highway of Civilization)
  • Part 3: Under the Rain – Postglacial & Temperate Woodland, Tropical Lowlands
  • Part 4: The Shining Fields of Mud (alluvial or river floodplains in the ancient Near East, China and India)
  • Part 5: The Mirrors of Sky – the Highland Civilizations of the New World and the Old
  • Part 6: The Water Margins (Civilizations Shaped by the Sea) – Small Island Civilizations and Seaboard Civilizations such as the Seaboard Civilizations of Maritime Asia or the Greek and Roman Seaboards
  • Part 7: Breaking the Waves (the Domestication of the Oceans) – the Rise of Oceanic Civilizations, the Making of Atlantic Civilization, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific – from the Pacific to the World

I was particularly fascinated by its comparison of grassland societies – prompting to mind, as such things tend to do, whether other grasslands might have produced the horse blitzkriegs that the Eurasian steppes did in other circumstances.

Or its subject of the oceans – how maritime navigation has been shaped by the distinctive currents and wind patterns of each ocean, with the Indian Ocean proving the most ”precocious’ for long distance navigation (indeed from the dawn of human history), the Atlantic being somewhat more tricky, and the Pacific trickier still (Polynesian island-hopping aside).

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Top Tens – History: Top 10 Empires (9) China – Qing Empire

Posted on by

The Qing dynasty at its greatest extent in 1760, with claimed territory not under its control in light green – based by Aldermanseven on Albert Herrmann’s map in the 1935 History and Commercial Atlas of China for Wikipedia “Qing Dynasty” under license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

 

(9) CHINA – QING EMPIRE (1644 – 1912)

The last Chinese empire, lasting into the twentieth century with perhaps the most spectacular decline and fall on the world stage in modern history.

Like India, China has seen the rise and fall of numerous empires over millennia that could well be the subject of their own top ten, although Chinese empires are probably better known to general history and more coherent imperial states than their Indian counterparts.

Similarly to India, there are a number of candidates for the top spot among Chinese empires – the Qin and Han empires were its definitive empires (giving their name to China itself and its predominant ethnicity respectively), while the Tang, Song and Ming empires all vie for status as classical Chinese empires or golden ages. The Ming empire is particularly reputed for being on the threshold of becoming a maritime empire with its fabled fleets and expeditions, before turning back to the usual landbound nature of Chinese empires.

The Yuan Empire – the dynasty of Kublai Khan and China’s Mongol conquerors – could also argue its claim for top spot, and depending on how you reckon it, may well qualify as China’s largest empire.

However, I award the top spot to the Qing Empire. Firstly, it is the Chinese empire of modern history, its last empire that survived until falling in the early twentieth century, as well as the empire that interacted most with European powers as they increasingly encroached upon it.

Secondly, my particular fascination with empires is with their decline and fall – and few things were as spectacular in modern history , or loom as large in the hindsight of a Chinese revolutionary regime succeeding it and adapting its imperial forms, as the decline and fall of the Qing Empire.

And by spectacular, I mean the grand spectacle playing out on the world stage of it desperately trying to fend off foreign powers it previously saw as barbarians or tributaries, but even more so fighting the endless rebellions within itself, until it was ultimately overwhelmed by the final one.

Of course, it didn’t start off that way – like every empire, it had its robust rise, essentially as a conquest of Ming China by one of those northern non-Chinese minorities that bubbled up occasionally to rule China, in this case the Manchus (for which Manchuria is named).

At its height in the 18th and early 19th centuries, it was the largest Chinese empire in history (depending on how you calculate the Mongol Yuan Empire) – and indeed fourth largest empire in history, as well as the most populous state and largest economy in the world.

And then came its decline and fall, in the so-called century of humiliation – usually reckoned to start with its defeat by Britain and France in the Opium Wars, which heralded ever more depredations by foreign powers, as well as ever more dangerous rebellions against the empire.

I’ve heard it said that the Qing Empire literally faced a peasant rebellion an average of every hour or so. I don’t know the truth of that assertion, which probably tallies up the hours in the numerous historical rebellions against the Qing, although I also suspect that many or most rebellions were too limited or localised to have any serious consequence.

Not so the Taiping Rebellion, in which a cult with a leader proclaiming himself the younger brother of Jesus and declaring his own Heavenly Kingdom, slogged it out with the Qing in the bloodiest civil war in history, with casualties to rival the First World War or even the Second World War.

Although it was in the Boxer Rebellion that China’s humiliation by foreign powers perhaps reached its nadir. That or its defeat by Japan in the Sino-Japanese War. It was one thing to lose to European powers – it was another to lose to another Asian state, a former Chinese tributary, that had been in a similar position to China vis-a-vis European powers only a generation or so previously

Qing China finally fell to rebellion or revolution in 1911, which abolished empires in China altogether (even if many of their features were to recur in their successors), with the last Qing emperor abdicating in 1912.

 

DECLINE & FALL

As the decline and fall of empires go, Qing China ranks up there with the most spectacular and tenacious of them, holding the line despite the odds – and when it did fall, at least it fell to internal revolution rather than conquest. Particularly as they did it on a shoestring – apparently they were never able to raise taxes above 2% of their economy.

“There are serious questions as to whether any government could’ve handled the gargantuan tasks the Qing faced, and they managed to survive a civil war that by all accounts should have destroyed them and would probably have taken down most lesser Chinese empires.”

Even then the Qing emperor at least managed to bounce back, although his empire did not – twice, albeit more by that adage of history repeating itself first as tragedy and then as farce. Firstly in 1917, when he was briefly crowned for a fortnight by a royalist warlord in the so-called Manchu Restoration, and secondly in 1932 as “emperor” of the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo

It’s tempting to think what might have happened if the Qing could have pulled off the same trick as the defeated Nationalists and retreated to Taiwan – but unfortunately for the Qing, they had lost Taiwan to Japan in the Sino-Japanese War

If nothing else, they totally had a better flag than any of their successors.

THE QING EMPIRE NEVER FELL

On the other hand, the Qing Empire never fell. As the Soviet Union ironically replicated much of the nature and territorial claims of imperial Russia – with Stalin as the red Tsar – so too did Communist China with imperial China, particularly under Mao as red Emperor

THE SUN NEVER SETS

Although the Qing Empire was confined in physical extent to east Asia, it deserves its status as a world empire – its designation for itself as the Middle Kingdom or heart of the world not too far from the reality as a world unto itself, the world’s most populous state and largest economy

EVIL EMPIRE

While the modern view of Qing China tends to be closer to that of victim to Western powers, it can rank reasonably high as evil empire. Its original conquest of Ming China is estimated to have a death toll of at least 25 million. And it was seemingly indifferent to even higher death tolls to suppress the rebellions against it – although a casual indifference to loss of human life, even in the millions, was not unusual in either its predecessors or successors in China.

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Top Tens – History: Top 10 Wars (9) Spanish Conquest of the Americas – Spanish Conquest of the Aztec Empire

Posted on by

The 1521 Fall of Tenochtitlan by Spanish Conquistador Hernán Cortés, from the Conquest of México series – oil on canvas 17th century (public domain image)

 

(9) SPANISH CONQUEST OF THE AMERICAS –
CONQUEST OF THE AZTEC EMPIRE (1519-1521)

 

Remarkable for just how few Spanish forces conquered such a populous empire in such a short span of time (as it was with the conquest of the Inca Empire).

The Spanish Conquest of the Americas – la Conquista by the conquistadors – falls within the broader native American wars. Indeed, it and the American Indian Wars might be regarded as the two poles of native American wars – whereas the American Indian Wars fall at the tail end of them, the Spanish Conquest is at their very head.

It also propelled Spain, something of a peninsular backwater in Europe that had only just reconquered all its territory from Islamic conquest to the first world maritime superpower.

As for which Spanish conquest to nominate for this entry, I’ve gone with the conquest led by Hernan Cortes of the Aztec Empire. After all, it was either that or the close second for the conquest by Francisco Pizarro of the Inca Empire – and the conquest by Cortes was the influence and model for the latter, as well as effectively the springboard of the whole Conquest of the Americas, at least on the mainland.

Population estimates of the Aztec Empire prior to its conquest vary but generally seem to be about 10 million people, while Cortes had 508 soldiers in his expedition.

And he was lucky to get away even with that, as he set sail only just evading the Governor of Spanish Cuba revoking his commission, as it had become obvious that Cortes had something far more audacious in mind than mere exploration or trade. Cortes also famously scuttled his ships after arriving in Mexico, so that his forces could not retreat and had no other option but to fight.

Of course, Cortes’ forces did have some qualitative advantage of technological superiority. It is tempting to see it purely in terms of the first element of Jared Diamond’s titular trinity of guns, germs and steel – guns.

The Spanish certainly had guns, even cannon, and while the latter gave a useful advantage to the Spanish, I’m not sure I’d want to face down a fanatical horde of Aztec warriors in close combat with my inaccurate sixteenth century muzzle-loading single-shot musket, let alone whatever an arquebus is.

Far more useful were the Spanish crossbows and of course the third element of trinity – steel, in their armor and weapons, which the Aztecs lacked. More useful yet were the 16 horses of the expedition, as the Aztecs (and the Americas) were utterly without and therefore unfamiliar with horses, so that the Spanish cavalry had a real impact of shock and awe on the Aztecs. Probably with less impact but fascinating to me was the Spanish use of war dogs.

Another qualitative advantage was leadership. While Cortes had no experience, he proved himself a capable and charismatic military commander, while the Aztec emperor Moctezuma or Montezuma was generally perceived as weak or hesitant, even by the Aztecs.

Cortes was so capable and charismatic, that he defeated the larger Spanish force sent to retrieve him and then talked its soldiers and cavalry around to joining his conquest. However, this expanded Spanish force was still pitifully small compared to the Aztecs, even with its technological and tactical superiority

Which is where the second element of Jared Diamond’s trilogy was probably decisive – germs. The Aztecs are estimated to have lost almost half their population to smallpox from the Spaniards by the last year of the conquest and Cortes’ assault on their capital.

God and the gods also played their part. Faith in God was an important part of motivation and morale for the Spanish and not least Cortes himself in their conquests, coming as they did on the heels of the Reconquista of Islamic Spain.

One factor may or may not have played a part, reported by Cortes himself, was that he was seen as the return of the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl – but it is disputed as to whether or what extent the Aztecs actually believed this, and impossible to know its effect on them even if they did.

Another factor that certainly did play its part was that of the old saying that behind every great man is a woman. Malintzin, a slave-woman “gifted” to the Spanish with her own gift for languages, who became Cortes’ interpreter, diplomatic adviser and mistress – and who might well be hailed as co-conquistador.

Malintzin was an instrumental part in the true reason for the Spanish victory other than disease – that the Spanish force didn’t win it as such, but rather led the much larger winning force consisting predominantly of their native American allies against the Aztecs.

The Aztecs had their own bloody sacrificial empire that was still new and expanding just prior to the Spanish conquest – for which they were absolutely hated by many or most of their imperial subjects, at least some of whom were all too happy to ally themselves with the Spanish to overthrow the Aztecs.

ART OF WAR

Well obviously when your forces of a few hundred (or few thousand with reinforcements) defeat an empire of millions in a few years, you’re doing something right in the art of war.

And partly this would seem to be down to factors you can’t plan or even predict according to Sun Tzu – good fortune, and even more so, the boldness it favors. Say what you will about Cortes but he had cojones.

Of course, partly this would seem to be down to factors you can draw from Sun Tzu – subterfuge, diplomacy or alliances, and capturing enemy leaders or holding them hostage

WORLD WAR

The Spanish Conquest was the decisive landmark in what might be described, in its total scope, of a world war as the powers of one continent commenced their conquest of two others – the world war that started all the world wars of European maritime empires.

Even more as the Spanish conquest extended beyond the Americas to Asia (where the Spanish conquered the Philippines) and Africa, not least in the slave trade to the Americas.

STILL FIGHTING THE SPANISH CONQUEST

While the Spanish empire in the Americas fought for and (mostly) won its independence, the Spanish conquest casts a long shadow in Latin America – with native American resistance persisting even today, as with the Zapatistas in Mexico.

GOOD GUYS VS BAD GUYS

Modern historical perspective tends not to favor the Spanish as the good guys, although this is often disputed as a continuation of so-called Black Legend of anti-Spanish history – with some fairness. On the other hand, of all people the Spanish conquered, the Aztecs qualify the least as good guys, although again often disputed as historical propaganda against them – with some fairness.

Probably the only people who unambiguously qualify as the good guys are the indigenous population of Mexico caught between the two empires as one conquered the other.

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Top Tens – History: Top 10 Books (9) Adrian Goldsworthy – How Rome Fell: Death of a Superpower

Posted on by

Cover – 2010 Yale University Press edition

 

(9) ADRIAN GOLDSWORTHY –

HOW ROME FELL: DEATH OF A SUPERPOWER (2009)

 

 

Adrian Goldsworthy has risen to the status of my favorite historian of the classical Roman empire, mostly on the back of this book although his 2023 book The Eagle and the Lion: Rome, Persia and an Unwinnable Conflict was a leading contender for my wildcard tenth place entry for best history book of 2023.

 

I’ve used the American title for the book because I prefer it as more catchy – and it also prompts to mind one of my personal highlights of the book in its introduction, dismissing the cliché of comparing the decline and fall of the Roman Empire to the modern United States (a cliché with which Goldsworthy entertainingly relates that he is routinely accosted at dinner parties when he informs someone of his historical speciality).

 

As to the question in the book’s title, in a nutshell Goldsworthy answers that they did it to themselves. It’s a little like the twist in Fight Club, with the Romans revealed as the protagonist beating himself up, to the bemusement of the barbarian onlookers – and their delight when picking up the pieces.

 

I think it’s a solid answer. Goldsworthy does not dismiss the various barbarian invasions as the reason for the empire’s demise but that looks to the question of how they did so, given that the empire’s adversaries were not fundamentally different from when the empire successfully resisted them – and in the case of the various German tribes, so surprisingly small compared to the empire.

 

As Goldsworthy memorably observes, no matter who won their seemingly endless civil wars or wars of imperial succession, the losses were all Roman, weakening the empire as a whole against its external adversaries. Another memorable observation is how the Romans never really left the crisis of the third century, just muted it to fewer civil wars and usurpations.

 

Also, the Romans ultimately played a losing game enlisting German tribes as allies or foederati in its own territory – in that the territory occupied by the Germans was no longer Roman territory, with the Romans losing any revenue from those territories, or any manpower beyond that provided by the Germans. Thanks a lot, Theodosius – you empire killer.

 

As for the history itself, Goldsworthy takes the same starting point as that of Gibbon’s famous History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire – itself following on from Roman historian Cassius Dio who marked it as their descent from “a kingdom of gold to one of rust and iron” – the death of Marcus Aurelius and accession of Commodus in 180 AD.

 

However, he pulls up stumps well before Gibbon’s finishing point, wrapping up the book aptly enough with the reign of Heraclius and the empire’s territory lost to the Arabs.

 

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

A-TIER (TOP TIER)