Saturday, December 31, 2022

Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism by Anne Applebaum, Book 47 of 2022

Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism

by Anne Applebaum

This book has been on my shelf for more than a year. I heard Anne Applebaum speak, bought the book, and kept meaning to read it. At the beginning DecemberI finally read it. It was even better than I expected.

The book covers the period from the beginning of the current century to the pandemic. She traces the rise of the authoritarian right across Europe and the world following the collapse of the Soviet Union. For the first decade democracy swept Eastern Europe. Between 1991 and 2000 the trend was toward more democracy in more places.

Then the euphoria cooled and the right wing started to rise again. In Russia the 1990s were chaos and poverty under President Boris Yeltsin. He was followed by Vladimir Putin who remains in power today.

In Hungary and Turkey, right-wing governments are creeping toward dictatorships but are already well along in stifling freedom for their citizens. By 2020, Poland was well along in establishing a religious-based right-wing government.

The UK voted for Brexit. Trump won election in 2016 and tried a dozen different ways to overthrow the 2020 election. In France fascist Marine LePen got thirty percent of the vote. A fascist-adjacent government took over in Italy and German has seen a rise in right-wing activity.

The book was published before the Russians invaded Ukraine so some of the dire trends of 2021 were stopped in 2022. Poland has become the center of shelter for Ukrainians and the transit point for NATO weapons going to Ukraine. Hungary and Turkey remain authoritarian but are suddenly marginal. Sweden and Finland are joining NATO. The NATO alliance is resurgent in the wake of Russia's invasion.

China is rapidly becoming more authoritarian and threatening Taiwan, but they are holding Russia at arms length.

Twilight of Democracy is an important book to see the how the world was moving right in recent years. I am very glad I read it.

First 46 Books of 2022:

Nonverts: The Making of Ex-Christian America by Stephen Bullivant

Poems in English by Samuel Beckett

Epigenetics: A Graphic Guide by Cath Ennis and Oliver Pugh

Life's Edge by Carl Zimmer

The Genius of Judaism by Bernard-Henri Levy

C.S.Lewis: A Very Short Introduction by James Como

English Literature in the Sixteenth Century excluding drama by C.S. Lewis

Le veritable histoire des petits cochons by Erik Belgard

The Iliad or the Poem of Force by Simone Weil

Game of Thrones, Book 5 by George R.R. Martin

Irony and Sarcasm by Roger Kreutz

Essential Elements by Matt Tweed

Les horloges marines de M. Berthoud

The Red Wheelbarrow and Other Poems by William Carlos Williams

The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck

Cochrane by David Cordingly

QED by Richard Feynman

Spirits in Bondage by C.S. Lewis

Reflections on the Psalms by C.S. Lewis

The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler by David I. Kertzer

The Last Interview and Other Conversations by Hannah Arendt

Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut

The Echo of Greece by Edith Hamilton

If This Isn't Nice, What Is? by Kurt Vonnegut

The War That Made the Roman Empire: Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium by Barry S. Strauss.

Civil Rights Baby by Nita Wiggins

Lecture's on Kant's Political Philosophy by Hannah Arendt

Le grec ancien facile par Marie-Dominique Poree

The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen

Perelandra by C.S. Lewis

The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay

First Principles by Thomas Ricks

Political Tribes by Amy Chua

Book of Mercy by Leonard Cohen

A Brief History of Earth: Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters by Andrew Knoll

Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall

Understanding Beliefs by Nils Nilsson

1776 by David McCullough

The Life of the Mind by Hannah Arendt

Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson

How to Fight Anti-Semitism by Bari Weiss

Unflattening by Nick Sousanis

Marie Curie by Agnieszka Biskup (en francais)

The Next Civil War by Stephen Marche

Fritz Haber, Volume 1 by David Vandermeulen

Thursday, December 29, 2022

Nonverts: The Making of Ex-Christian America by Stephen Bullivant, Book 46 of 2022

I read this book after listening to an interview with the author. He is writing about the rise of the "Nones" in America: the people who check None when asked about their religious affiliation. After listening to the podcast, I disagreed with him about the cause of the rise of the Nones.

Now I think he is right.

Bullivant says the rise of the Nones was caused by the end of the Cold War. I thought it was caused much earlier and only became evident at the end of the Cold War.

Bullivant and a team of researchers interviewed people across America about their religious affiliation or not. When they talked about when and why they believed, and when they changed their mind, Bullivant's thesis made more and more sense.

The national survey data certainly support the end of the Cold War as the point that the rise of the Nones began. From the 1960s through the 90s a steady six to nine percent of Americans identified as Nones. In the 1950s it dipped down to two percent. Any survey data before that was at five percent or below.

Since the late 90s, identification as None has risen to twenty percent in the most conservative polls, near thirty percent since the beginning of the pandemic in some estimates. That is a big change.

The trend in America from a culture of belonging to individualism has been documented in many places--think of Bowling Alone. Bullivant shows that America standing against the world of Godless Communism after World War II had a real effect on religious identification.

Bullivant carefully shows that the demise of religious affiliation varies greatly among different churches. Mainline protestant churches have lost the most members by every measure, but Catholic churches have also declined rapidly in some areas in this century. Evangelicals seemed immune for a while but are also losing members in recent decades. Even Mormons are becoming Nones at a rising rate.

The stories of individual Nones and Believers illustrate the trends Bullivant points to. It's a well written entertaining look at a major cultural shift in America.

Nonverts: The Making of Ex-Christian America by Stephen Bullivant

First 45 Books of 2022:

Poems in English by Samuel Beckett

Epigenetics: A Graphic Guide by Cath Ennis and Oliver Pugh

Life's Edge by Carl Zimmer

The Genius of Judaism by Bernard-Henri Levy

C.S.Lewis: A Very Short Introduction by James Como

English Literature in the Sixteenth Century excluding drama by C.S. Lewis

Le veritable histoire des petits cochons by Erik Belgard

The Iliad or the Poem of Force by Simone Weil

Game of Thrones, Book 5 by George R.R. Martin

Irony and Sarcasm by Roger Kreutz

Essential Elements by Matt Tweed

Les horloges marines de M. Berthoud

The Red Wheelbarrow and Other Poems by William Carlos Williams

The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck

Cochrane by David Cordingly

QED by Richard Feynman

Spirits in Bondage by C.S. Lewis

Reflections on the Psalms by C.S. Lewis

The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler by David I. Kertzer

The Last Interview and Other Conversations by Hannah Arendt

Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut

The Echo of Greece by Edith Hamilton

If This Isn't Nice, What Is? by Kurt Vonnegut

The War That Made the Roman Empire: Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium by Barry S. Strauss.

Civil Rights Baby by Nita Wiggins

Lecture's on Kant's Political Philosophy by Hannah Arendt

Le grec ancien facile par Marie-Dominique Poree

The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen

Perelandra by C.S. Lewis

The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay

First Principles by Thomas Ricks

Political Tribes by Amy Chua

Book of Mercy by Leonard Cohen

A Brief History of Earth: Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters by Andrew Knoll

Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall

Understanding Beliefs by Nils Nilsson

1776 by David McCullough

The Life of the Mind by Hannah Arendt

Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson

How to Fight Anti-Semitism by Bari Weiss

Unflattening by Nick Sousanis

Marie Curie by Agnieszka Biskup (en francais)

The Next Civil War by Stephen Marche

Fritz Haber, Volume 1 by David Vandermeulen

Thursday, December 22, 2022

Deutsche Panzer Museum: World War II Self-Propelled Guns

During World War II, the German Army made many self-propelled guns (SPGs) based on all of their main battle tank chassis designs: The Panzer MkIV, Panther and Tiger all had SPG variants. They used a variety of main guns.

The Deutsche Panzer Museum displays all of the variants that could be restored by their staff.

Wednesday, December 21, 2022

A Visit to the Orangerie in Paris

Almost a year ago, I was in Paris and visited the Orangerie Musee on the north bank of Seine in the Tuilleries Garden. The featured exhibit was the work of David Hockney in his pandemic year in Normandy.

Vogue magazine wrote about the exhibition:

Normandy through David Hockney's eyes at the Musée de l’Orangerie

Four years after the exhibition devoted to him at the Centre Pompidou, David Hockney is coming to the Musée de l'Orangerie from October 13, 2021 to February 14, 2022. From the window of his house in Normandy, the painter tells of the tireless cycle of nature and the long-awaited arrival of spring.

The successive lockdowns of the past few months have had many facets, whether they be boring, solitary or creative. For David Hockney, this period brought the opportunity to create a titanic work, conceived over an entire year spent in France. Since 2019, the British artist has been living in Normandy, in a quiet house with a garden that he can observe from his window. He then had the idea of using this peaceful view to create his next work. No sooner had the cycle begun than the first lockdown in March 2020 was announced. Gone were the Californian swimming pools, with the painter choosing to devote himself to an atmosphere rooted in the French landscape. Armed with his iPad, David Hockney sets about representing the changes in nature, and its colours and textures. His inspiration? The seventy-meter long Queen Matilda Tapestry, which he observed during his visit to the Bayeux Museum. This frieze relates the conquest of England by William, Duke of Normandy, and makes the 83-year-old painter want to tell the story of the arrival of spring.

Spring will always come back

The ban on going out, gathering in groups, or crossing borders will never change one thing: the world continues to turn and the seasons continue to pass. Confined to his house in Normandy, David Hockney created a frieze painted on an iPad, measuring eighty meters in length and depicting the unchanging renewal of nature. While our modern world stands still, digital painting allows Hockney to quickly and accurately create more than a hundred images. From the nuanced shades of green in the trees to the flow of the river in its bed to the pop of flowers that spring with the arrival of the warm weather, the exhibition A Year in Normandy reminds us that after humanity, the world shall remain. Displayed in the main gallery of the Musée de l'Orangerie, the frieze is reminiscent of Claude Monet's water lilies, which are housed in the same building. While the museum continues to keep the details of the event secret, we can expect a visit to the Pays d'Auge through Hockney's eyes, as seen in the intimate tour My Normandy, organised by the Lelong Gallery a few months ago. This artistic return is already considered to be the most anticipated exhibition of the year.

While there, I also saw some of the water lilies paintings of Claude Monet done at the gardens in Giverny.

Paintings by Claude Monet

The street just outside Musee Orangerie

Thursday, December 15, 2022

Poems in English by Samuel Beckett, Book 45 0f 2022

I picked up this book at the Franklin and Marshall College Library Book Sale. I have lately been reading Shakespeare's sonnets, so I thought I would reading 20th Century verse by a witty playwright. The wit and wordplay are there, but after reading the hope and ardor in Shakespeare, Beckett is very sad in a visceral way.

From a summary of his work by the Poetry Foundation:

Throughout Beckett’s work we can find evidence of his conviction that everything is hopeless, meaningless, purposeless, and, above all, agonizing to endure. Beckett’s people are leveled off and merged into each other by being all more or less physically disabled—as if this were really the common condition on earth. … Beckett is a prophet of negation and sterility. He holds out no hope to humanity, only a picture of unrelieved blackness; and those who profess to see in Beckett signs of a Christian approach or signs of compassion are simply refusing to see what is there.” Perhaps Beckett himself stated his dilemma most succinctly in L’Innommable: “Dans ma vie, puisqu’il faut l’appeler ainsi, il y eut trois choses, l’impossibilite de parler, l’impossibilite de me taire, et la solitude.” (“One must speak; man cannot possibly communicate with his fellows, but the alternative—silence—is irreconcilable with human existence.”)

Which is what I felt reading the book.

Here is the poem "What I Would Do Without This World"

what would I do without this world faceless incurious
where to be lasts but an instant where every instant
spills in the void the ignorance of having been
without this wave where in the end
body and shadow together are engulfed
what would I do without this silence where the murmurs die
the pantings the frenzies towards succour towards love
without this sky that soars
above its ballast dust

what would I do what I did yesterday and the day before
peering out of my deadlight looking for another
wandering like me eddying far from all the living
in a convulsive space
among the voices voiceless
that throng my hiddenness

Beckett won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969.

First 44 Books of 2022: