From The Ruins of Empire
If you've been following along for a while, you've probably figured out that I like books that look at familiar history from another point of view. (For example, here, and here, and here.) It should be no surprise that Pankaj Mishra's latest book caught my eye.
In From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia, Pankaj Mishra returns again to the intersection between Asian and Western cultures that informed his earlier work, Temptations of the West.
Misra begins with the statement that the intellectual and political awakening of Asia was the central event of the twentieth century for a majority of the world's population. That event came about as a result of a new class of western-educated Asian elites. As a group, they typically rejected their traditional heritage in favor of western modes of thought, then later re-embraced their native traditions, transforming those traditions in the process.
Instead of concentrating on well-known Asian historical figures, Mishra centers his book on the intellectual journeys of three men who are important historical figures in their own cultures but largely unfamiliar to most Westerners. Journalist and political activist Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1838-97) was a founder of Islamic modernism. Chinese intellectual Liang Qichao (1873-1929) inspired a generation of young Chinese activists with his calls for reform. Indian poet and Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was a leaders of the Bengal Renaissance.
Over the course of the book, Misra shows how his characters are shaped by and respond to the familiar events of European imperialism in Asia, giving those events a new perspective for the Western reader. His stated goal is not to replace a Euro-centric view with an "equally problematic Asia-centric one", but to look at both the past and the present from multiple viewpoints. For the most part, he succeeds
This reviewe appeared previously in Shelf Awareness for Readers
Ibn Who?
If you spend any time studying history in a serious way--whether in school and/or as a dedicated history nerd--you end up with a list in your head of Great Historians of the Past: Herodotus*, Thucydides, Tacitus, the Venerable Bede, Gibbon, Macaulay, Prescott. Even after their historical works were revised or even rejected by later scholars**, they remain as monuments of thought, analysis, and masterful story telling.
I had finished my graduate school coursework and was well into my dissertation before I added fourteenth century Arab historian and social observer ibn Khaldun to my personal list of history all-stars.
Ibn who? I thought you'd never ask.
Ibn-Khaldun is sometimes seen as the last great scholar of the Islamic golden age, now considered by those in the know as one of the founders of modern historiography, sociology, and economics. He was born in Tunis in 1332 to an Andalusian family of scholars and officials who had fled Spain after Seville fell to Ferdinand of Castile in 1248.*** When he was seventeen, his parents and teachers died in the Black Death, as did almost half the population of Europe and Asia.
Like many others caught in the chaos that followed the Black Death, ibn Khaldun left his home in search of something: stability, a career, adventure, a life. He was very well educated and had no trouble finding work in the courts of North Africa and Islamic Spain. Although he claimed that he wanted to devote his life to scholarship, he repeatedly became entangled in court intrigues thanks to either bad luck or bad judgment.
In 1375, after he failed to save a friend who was tried and executed for heresy, ibn Khaldun withdrew to the Castle of ibn Salamah, near Oran in Algeria, to immerse himself in his books and try to make sense of his experiences. During his years of retreat, he completed what would be his best-known and most original work: the Muqaddima, or Prolegomenon.**** Intended as the first volume of history of the Arab peoples, the Muqaddima is an introduction to the writing of history and a discussion of the nature of the state and society. In it, he explores the idea that writing history an act of interpretation and suggests a rigorous process of fact checking as a necessary part of the work.
The most important part of the book is the Islamic equivalent of Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Drawing on his personal and family experience and the history of the Arab world, ibn Khaldun analyses how civilizations breed their own decline, moving from strength to luxury to moral laxity and decay. Historian Arnold Toynbee, himself the author of a twelve-volume study of the rise and fall of civilization, described the Muqaddima as "undoubtedly the greatest work of its kind that has ever yet been created by any mind in any time or place…the most comprehensive and illuminating analysis of how human affairs work that has been made anywhere."
After four calm years at the Castle of ibn Salamah, ibn Khaldun needed conversation and a research library so he could work on the main body of his history. He returned to Tunis, where he was immediately sucked into the usual morass of academic, religious and political intrigues. He escaped Tunis under the pretext of going on the hajj, only to fall into similar turbulence in Cairo. Over the course of twenty-five years, the sultan appointed him as a judge and subsequently dismissed him six times.
In 1400, ibn Khaldun was given another chance to help write history, this time as a source. The sultan of Cairo insisted that he join a delegation to Damascus to negotiate with the renowned Mongol conqueror, known in the west as Tamurlane. When the delegation received word of the rebellion back in Cairo, they returned to the west, leaving ibn Khaldun behind in the besieged city of Damascus. The historian was determined to meet with the renowned conqueror. Since the gates of the city were locked, he had himself lowered over the walls in a basket. Ibn Khaldun met with Timur several times over the course of the month, enjoying wide-ranging conversations about history*****, North African culture and Timur's conquests. Ibn Khaldun recorded those conversations, as well as a first hand account of the siege of Damascus in his autobiography, now a major resource for anyone writing about Timur.
Ibn Khaldun returned in Cairo in 1401 and resumed the cycle of appointment and dismissal. He died there five years late.
* AKA the "father of history" and a man who never met an unconfirmed story he didn't like
** If you're lucky, what you write is important enough for someone to argue with you after you're dead.
***NOT the Ferdinand of Ferdinand of Isabella. The Christian reconquest of Spain took several centuries.
**** I'll save you the trouble of looking it up. A prolegomenon is a critical introduction to a book, as opposed to just a regular introduction.
***** When he wasn't too busy conquering someplace, Timur was a history buff.
Adventures with John Buchan
John Buchan: 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, 15th Governor-General of Canada, storyteller
Yesterday I decided not to finish a novel by one of my all time favorite authors, John Buchan. It was a hard choice to make.
Most of you have probably never heard of Buchan, unless you're given to reading popular fiction from the first half of the twentieth century. He wrote biographies, adventure novels, historical novels, and historical adventure novels.* His most famous work, The Thirty-Nine Steps, was named one of the top hundred mystery novels of all time by the Mystery Novels of America in 1995. In 1935, Alfred Hitchcock made a movie of it that was so far removed from the book and so awful without reference to the book that I urge you not to watch it. Or at least don't blame it on Buchan.
I stumbled across Buchan's Prester John my freshman year in college, as part of a term paper on images of imperialism in British novels.** I was hooked.
Midwinter is not one of Buchan's best-known novels. It's not even one of his best novels. It includes the elements of his most popular novels: a elaborate puzzle, a cross-country chase, a boyish heroine, heroes who are confused by their reaction to said heroine, and multiple last minute saves. But as far as I'm concerned they just don't gel. Set during Bonnie Prince Charlie's invasion of England, Midwinter is an adventure novel without tension. We know that even if the hero escapes yet another trap set by his enemies, even if he uncovers the traitor in the Jacobite forces, even if he gets the critical information to his prince in time--it's not going to make any difference. The Jacobites will still be brutally defeated at Culloden. The cause will still fail. Charles Edward Stuart will still flee England and become a drunken, cantankerous, maudlin nuisance to the French.
Frustrated by Midwinter, I am returning to my old favorites: The Thirty-Nine Steps, Greenmantle, Mr. Standfast, The Three Hostages, and Huntingtower. I want to cheer along as stalwart Richard Hannay, the chameleon-like Sandy Aburthnot and, most unlikely hero of all, retired Scottish grocer Dickson McCoy actually succeed in their efforts to defeat the Black Stone, German nationalists, Bolsheviks, international financial conspiracies, and other villains from the first decades of the 20th century. I want my heroes to have a fighting chance.***
* He also was an attorney and political hack who spent the last five years of his life as the Governor General of Canada.
** Not a topic reasonably covered in a 30-page term paper and one that I've returned to in various forms over the years.
*** A word of warning if I've inspired you to try Buchan: he shares some of the most unattractive prejudices of his period. His characters are free with racist comments against both Africans and Jews. They're also pretty snotty about Germans and the Irish.