Cambridge Medieval History, mags

Since my last post I've read two issues of Eclectic Reading and The New Yorker, and one issue each of The New Scientist, Hello Canada, Vanity Fair, and The Economist.

I also read Volumes 3 and 4 of the New Cambridge Medieval History, which represents about2300 pages. It was really interesting, although I got lost in some of the details about ruling families. I was interested in the intimate connection between church and government, and the fact that the church provided all the educated people to conduct the business of government -- most of the people who could read and write were clergy, and this lasted, at least in Scotland, until late in the Renaissance. Wow.

I also ordered up my reading for the month of December, most of which I have teaching-free. I realized how much of the collection La pleiade I had read -- after this lot, there will be only 28 titles left. I have impressed myself.

Marquez, Latin America

Since my last post, I've read two issues of Eclectic Reading, an issue of The New Yorker, and an issue of The Globe.

I also read Modern Culture of Latin America by Jean Franco. Her understanding of all the different national literature,including poetry, novels, short stories and plays is remarkable. I also read Latin American Culture and Modernity, which was disappointing in terms of the content, which focused on the treatment of Latin America in the social sciences. I also read a thematic history of Latin America, which provided me with more of the information I sought. I am at present reading Marquez' Love in the Time of Cholera. It is extremely vivid, and well-characterized, and the story is intriguing, but his work is here, as it is in his other novels, misogynist.

Cambridge Modern History, Johnston, Theriault, Hastings, Bellenger

Since my last post I've read two issues of The Economist, an issue of The New Yorker, two issues of The New Scientist, an issue of National Geographic in French, an issue of British Vogue, an issue of Chatelaine. I've also read two volumes of the New Cambridge Modern History, Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnston, Cul-de-Sac by Yves Theriault, Aloha by Noelle Hastings, Methodes de lecture in the Que sais-je collection by Lionel Bellenger, and I've just started a French pastoral whose title I forget!

Cambridge History of Latin America

I read the final volumes of this history, which brings me to 12. I also started the Cambridge History of Islam, which was also interesting. I learn new things, of course, but also it brings a perspective to my reading for years in history, and puts everything in the proper place.

I also read two Economists, two New Yorkers, three Eclectic Readings, two New Scientists, one Vanity Fair, one Rolling Stone, one Examiner, and one Hello Canada from last summer I found at the bottom of my trunk.

Rieff, de Waal, Cambridge History of Latin America

I've read volumes 3 and 4 of the Cambridge History of Latin America. I am finding the answers to the questions I had, about why the countries had failed to develop their economies and political systems. There are a number of reasons, but two are the fact that the Spanish/Portuguese metropolis never developed passed a feudal political or economic system, so that at independence the many Latin American countries could hardly have moved beyond that point. Second, the Spanish and Portuguese states had no legitimate governments when independence was achieved by the colonies, so that it was the equivalent of the Belgians abandoning the Congo all of a sudden, leaving them with state apparatus that was completely inadequate to the tasks.

I also read David Rieff's cri du coeur, A Bed for the Night. This, and Alex De Waal's Famine Crimes, round out a half dozen books I've read about international aid. I have to say that these recent spate of books about international aid don't hold a candle to Waal's prescient, excellent, illuminating work. I have concluded that as international aid got to be Big Business, so to speak, a way of life, it became what the welfare state actually is in Canada -- a machine that benefits those that are employed by it, rather than the people intended to be helped. And so international aid organizations fall prey to politics, and claim more than they accomplish, and cater to the media, and make only the most marginal of differences. I believe all of it, I find it follows the pattern of most organizations originally created to help.

Terry, Dikotter, Cambridge History of Latin America

Since my last post, I've read an issue of Hello Canada, the Globe, Vanity Fair, GQ Style Guide, Urban Farmer, Utne Reader, and two issues each of the New Scientist, Eclectic Reading, and The Economist. I've read Dikotter's Mao's Great Famine, about the China famine, and Terry's Condemned to Repeat, about the problems in international aid. I have also read the first volume of the Cambridge History of Latin America, all 800 pages of it! Took a long time.

Garner, Carlyle, McFarquhar

Since my last post I've read one issue of The New Yorker, one issue of The Globe, one issue of Hello Canada, one issue of The Economist, two issues of Eclectic Reading, and two issues of The New Scientist.

I also read the two latter volumes of McFarqhuar's Origins of the Cultural Revolution, in which I discovered not just the terrible, sad, wrong-headed decisions of the Communist leadership leading to the terrible famine death toll in China in the late 1950s and early 1960s. I also read a biography of Hugh Garner, another alcoholic writer, and a biography of Carlyle. I also finished Trevor Roper's Last Days of Hitler. The moment I found the most memorable in that book, apart from upper-class condemnation of Hitler's bourgeois habits -- a strange accusation given everything else there is to criticize about him -- was the fact that after Hitler's body was removed from the bunker, everyone immediately lit up. The smoking ban enforced in his lifetime was now, at last, at an end. Extraordinary picture it dredges up.