Tag: History

Cobh & Kells Priory

Cobh & Kells Priory

This is a series on my trip to Ireland. The other entries are:

It is a rite of passage for every Irish American to return to the motherland and to visit their ancestral village. Sure, it is ridiculous, and deservedly makes us the butt of jokes. (There is a great SNL skit about this.) After all, it is the most tenuous of connections, a coincidence of genealogy rather than anything genuine. DNA does not remember where it’s from.

But in a country where nearly everyone is descended from immigrants, where identity is constructed out of bits and pieces, and where ancestry can feel bizarrely abstract, there is something therapeutic about going to a physical spot and connecting our genes with soil. At the very least, it gives us a story to tell when we get back.

So it was that, during our drive to Galway from Dublin, we stopped at the town of Longford, where the Farrells supposedly hail from. There were signs of our family name everywhere—literally lining the roads in the surrounding area, as property for sale signs had a Farrell’s name for the realtor. In town, there was a Farrell stationery store. And next to the main road, there was a monument to one James Farrell.

This seemed especially significant, since this is also the name of my late grandfather. But the monument is to someone who passed away before my grandfather was even born—on April 15th, 1912. You may recognize this date: the day the Titanic sank.

James Farrell was, like many of the Irish on board, travelling third class. Just 26 years old, he was bound for New York, in search of better opportunities. He is remembered today for aiding several women escape to the life boats. While the wealthier passengers were being evacuated, those in steerage were kept below deck. James reportedly said to one of the crew members: “For God’s sake man, let the girls past to the boats, at least!” He was obeyed, and several of the women were allowed up and ultimately survived.

This history was hard to fathom while the three of us—my mom, my brother, and myself—looked at the modest monument. “I bet we’re the only people to come here in years,” my brother said. As if on cue, another car pulled up, and out walked—more American tourists. Our search for roots may lead us to see more of Ireland than the Irish themselves.

Fast forward to nearly the end of our trip. Coincidentally, it was my brother’s birthday. To celebrate (perhaps morbidly) we decided to visit Cobh, the last place the Titanic docked before embarking on its fatal voyage.

Cobh is a small town—its population only slightly bigger than my native Tarrytown—located on the southern coast of Ireland. During the days of English colonial rule, it was called Queenstown. After gaining their independence, however, that name obviously would not do; and so the Irish searched for something better. They decided on “Cobh,” the Irish spelling of the English word “cove,” pronounced exactly the same. (The word has no meaning in Gaelic.)

We arrived on a beautiful day, a few fat clouds hanging in the sky like overfed sheep, the water glistening in the bay. After parking the car, we were greeted by the sound of church bells. Cobh, you see, has a strangely magnificent cathedral for such a small town. Built in a neo-gothic style, its single spire soars into the air, dwarfing every other structure in the vicinity.

As we approached, we noticed a crowd was gathered around the church, listening to the bells. Strangely, every one of these people was wearing an identical red fez cap. To add to the confusion, there were also two fellows with Hitler mustaches who were dressed in old-fashioned suits and top hats. We listened, and soon realized that this wasn’t merely the tolling of bells, but a concert. Inside, we could see a video feed of a man playing on a keyboard. The church itself was acting as a kind of enormous instrument.

By asking around, we found out that this was all part of a conference of the Sons of the Desert. This is the official fan club of Laurel and Hardy, the legendary comedy duo. The two men with mustaches were impersonators (and quite convincing ones), while the red caps are a reference to a 1933 film, which shares a name with the organization. Even the concert was part of it: the music being played on the church bells were themes from the movies. The whole spectacle was oddly delightful. Although none of us knew anything about Laurel and Hardy, the overwhelming enthusiasm devoted to this niche bit of cinematic history was thoroughly charming.

The main thing to do in Cobh is to visit the Titanic Museum—or, as they call it, “Experience.” This is located in the old White Star Line building, where the passengers bought their tickets and boarded the doomed vessel. Each ticket features a profile of one of the 123 passengers who embarked from Cobh (fewer than half survived). The visit itself is a kind of guided tour, which takes you through models of different cabins, tells stories of some individual passengers, and includes a remarkably bad CGI portrayal of the sinking. It is a bit corny and rather touristy, but still a fun way to pass an hour.

The town of Cobh itself is a lovely place—picturesque, cozy, atmospheric. A row of Victorian houses running down a hillside, all of them painted a different color, creates an image reproduced in countless post cards and screen savers. Next to the water, you can see a statue of Annie More, the first Irish immigrant to be admitted through Ellis Island. And though my own ancestors entered the United States years before Ellis Island opened its doors, they must have taken a very similar journey across the stormy, gray Atlantic—the same trip, indeed, that James Farrell was on when his vessel crashed into the ice.

On our drive back to the Airbnb to cook my brother his birthday meal, we stopped at a place we found in our trusty Rick Steves guidebook: Kells Priory.

Kells Priory is not the monastery that gave its name to the famed Book of Kells, which is located much farther north. This monastery was founded later, at the end of the 12th century; and it has a storied past. Attacked and burned on three separate occasions—notably by Edward Bruce, who tried to make himself king of Ireland in the 14th century—the monastery also has an odd connection with witchcraft.

In 1324, a wealthy and powerful woman in County Kilkenny, Alice Kyteler, was accused of heresy by her stepson. A bishop came to investigate the accusation (which unsurprisingly was based on personal resentment) and was imprisoned by the local lord, in this very monastery. Eventually, the bishop was released, but Kyteler had time to flee the country. She was never heard from again. But a poor maidservant, Petronilla de Midia, was accused of being her follower, tortured, and burned at the stake—the first known such case in Ireland.

Like so many other monasteries, Kells Priory was dissolved in 1540, under the orders of Henry VIII, who wanted to remove his kingdom from Catholic power (so as to have more leeway to decapitate his wives). Since this, it has lapsed into one of the many ruins which dot the Irish landscape.

But it is an arresting ruin. Situated in an open green field, the monastery presents itself to the viewer as a collection of towers, connected by a wall. In other words, it looks more like an abandoned castle or fortress than a religious institution—perhaps unsurprising, given its conflicted past.

My brother on his birthday

When we visited, we were the only people there. It felt like stumbling upon a secret. With the sun low in the sky, we wandered among the ruins—walking up staircases that led nowhere, balancing on demolished foundations, and passing through empty doorways. The ruins were vast, covering the whole hillside, and yet there was little if any signage. When we got to the other side, we found a river flowing quietly alongside the stony pile, where a few locals were strolling, inured by overexposure to the majesty of the ruins.

This was not to be our last glance of Irish ruins—that would be Glendalough—but it was the most evocative. To American eyes, such a place deserves to be world-famous. But in Ireland, and in Europe generally, it is a historic footnote—just one monastery among hundreds. In such a small country with such a deep past, the years seem literally piled up beneath your feet, constantly reminding you of the lives which have come and gone. Having grown up in such a place, it must have felt like a tremendous rupture for those like my ancestors to leave this land behind and step foot on a new continent.

The rest of our night was delightful. We went back to the Airbnb—a cottage in the countryside—and cooked birthday pasta for my brother. Then, we watched Irish public television. As soon as we turned it on, we were amazed to be watching Stan & Ollie, the Laurel and Hardy biopic, which features a scene in Cobh. Surely, that cannot have been a coincidence. That movie (surprisingly good) was followed by The Patriot, one of the most anti-British films of recent history. It seemed appropriate for the Republic of Ireland.

It had been a strange day, and yet oddly appropriate for the end of our trip. We had come to Ireland, in part, in order to wring a little bit of meaning out of our past. And in different ways, this is also what we did by celebrating my brother’s birthday, or what the Sons of the Desert did by visiting Cobh, or what the public television did by playing The Patriot. Ireland is, of course, far more than a landscape of ruins, or a playground for Americans to find their roots. It is, as we discovered, a thoroughly charming country—whose people, places, and past all promise a great future. And I look forward to seeing it.

Review: Florentine Codex, Book 12

Review: Florentine Codex, Book 12

Florentine Codex: Book 12: Book 12: The Conquest of Mexico (Volume 12) by Bernardino de Sahagún

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The more I read about the Pre-Colombian cultures of Mexico, the more I am confronted with the basic questions of historiography. Though there are many excellent sources of information—ruins, artwork, living ancestors, Spanish eyewitness accounts, pre-contact documents, indigenous stories, and later historical accounts—all of these carry with them strong limitations and biases, giving our knowledge a kind of multicolored, mosaic quality.

This book is an excellent example of this. Written by a Spanish friar using native informants, this is a kind of hybrid insider/outsider document. The knowledge collected by Sahagún was authentic and valuable, and yet it was collected as a part of a missionary effort—not just to conserve, but also to convert. Further, Sahagún wrote his enormous treatise on Aztec culture many decades after initial contact, at a time when the Mexica empire was shattered, its people subjugated, and its culture already heavily influenced by the Spaniards. While enormously valuable, then, this document cannot be read as a clear window into the past.

The strongest example of this is the beginning of the document. Here, it mentions the several ominous omens—a flame in the sky, a boiling lake—that supposedly appeared before the arrival of the Spanish, giving the conquest an almost Biblical aspect. The codex also claims that the Aztec emperor initially mistook the Spaniards for gods, thus leading to several strategic errors.

But this information is dubious for several reasons. For one, anything so highly flattering to the Christian missionaries (as if God is intervening on their behalf) should be suspect in itself. What’s more, these stories were collected from people living a generation or more after the conquest, not direct witnesses; and one can see how these stories serve a kind of defensive purpose. After all, if the heavens intervened to topple their culture, it somewhat absolves the fallible humans who were defeated. It is no wonder that modern historians have largely discarded these stories as myths.

Does that make this document valueless? Absolutely not. Apart from the specific information contained therein—much of it indeed reliable—it also preserves a sense of huge cultural disruption that the Spanish caused when they arrived. So much of the book consists of confused and desperate battles, which escalate in scope and intensity until the book has a nearly apocalyptic tone. Even now, one can feel the sense of cultural dislocation and loss in these pages. Particularly evocative, I found, was the section on the introduction of smallpox:

But before the Spaniards had risen against us, first there came to be prevalent a great sickness, a plague. It was in Tepeilhuitl that it originated, that there spread over the people a great destruction of men. Some it indeed covered [with pustles]; they were spread everywhere, on one’s face, on one’s head, on one’s breast, etc. There was indeed perishing; many died of it.

This book is also worth reading precisely because of the issue that I highlighted above. As lay readers, we are rarely confronted with the realities of actually doing history—the difficult work of piecing together coherent narratives from a variety of fragmentary and sometimes contradictory sources. Yet when a historian does this work in the background, and presents us with a neat story, we are given a false perception of how easy it is to draw conclusions about the past. In the case of the Spanish conquest of Mexico, it just so happens that our sources are particularly fraught. This period in time, then, shows in exaggerated form the problems that exist in any historical work, and is thus an education in itself.

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Review: History of the Conquest of Mexico

Review: History of the Conquest of Mexico

History of the Conquest of Mexico by William Hickling Prescott

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I began this book with great expectations—cracking open its pages in the airport, on my way to Mexico City for my first ever trip to Latin America. The book seemed extremely promising: the classic work on a subject that fascinates me, written by a man who is considered to be both an excellent prose stylist and one of the founders of scientific history. Rarely does a book seem more perfectly suited to my tastes.

By the end, however, I found myself drained and unmotivated—dragging myself through the final pages. And now, I am in the strange situation of being unable to recommend this book to nearly anyone, despite seeing why it was considered a classic for so long.

I should begin by giving Prescott his due. Severely visually impaired, he could not travel to any of the places he was famous for writing about—never once stepping foot in Mexico, Peru, or Spain. Instead, he had to rely on secretaries, on copies of manuscripts sent to him, and most of all on his prodigious memory, which allowed him to gain fuller access to the primary sources than any scholar before him. And judged by the academic standards of his time, he was an extremely thorough and careful researcher. This book is extensively footnoted, and includes bibliographic essays at the end of many chapters. He did his homework.

He was also an accomplished writer. Believing that history was a genre of literature as much as a record of facts, he labored to make his narrative colorful and attractive. True, his style can seem overly verbose for modern tastes. But the book is still very readable. Indeed, the experience is often more comparable to reading a good swashbuckling novel than a serious work of history. More impressive still—considering his trouble seeing and his never having traveled there—his descriptions of the landscapes are quite lovely examples of nature writing. As both a historian and a writer, then, there is much to commend.

As James Lockhart points out in the introduction, however, there is a tension between these two sides of Prescott. While he is meticulous and skeptical in his footnotes, he is willing to take poetic license with his narrative. Facts, after all, are not always conducive to drama; and the records of history often leave unsatisfying lacunae. But Prescott was intent on writing a story that would stand on its own merits, and shows a willingness to fill in gaps or twist facts to suit his purposes. His urge to tell a good story, in other words, often overpowered his judgement.

Yet for the modern reader, this is not the most serious issue with this book. The glaring and obvious problem is Prescott’s candid sympathy for the conquering Spaniards, combined with his open disdain for those they conquered. Referring to the Aztecs as “barbarians” and “savages,” he dismisses their entire civilization as “half-civilized,” comparing their culture to “Asiatic despotism.” Now, to be fair to Prescott, these sorts of prejudices were nearly universal in his cultural milieu. But I have been alarmed to see other users on Goodreads swallow these prejudices uncritically—which I think requires some correction.

In Prescott’s hands, you see, the conquering Spaniards are romanticized to the point of unrecognizability—becoming an intrepid band of knights errant, motivated by genuine religious conviction, on a civilizing mission to free the oppressed and ignorant denizens of the New World from their tyrannical oppressors. The Aztecs are reduced to bloodthirsty savages, superstitious to the point of insanity, whose barbaric religion must be eradicated for the good of the world. This is no exaggeration. I am using his language and his phraseology here.

Now, I am certainly not going to sit here and write a defense of human sacrifice. But it is worth noting that the Spanish conquest led to a calamitous demographic collapse—one of the great mortality events of recorded history. So any notion that they somehow saved lives is absurd. It is also worth pointing out that the Spanish subjugated everyone they could, peaceful or otherwise. Further, any historian of the period will tell you that the Spanish conquistadores were motivated by one thing above all else: riches. This was obvious and openly admitted. Indeed, their actions don’t make sense in any other light.

If this book is worth reading, then, it is because it is itself a piece of history—a stirring work of literature, a contribution to the academic discipline of history, and an example of the dominant prejudices of the time. But in both its understanding of the period, and in the attitudes it reflects, this book is more than dated. It is obsolete.



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The Cliffs of Moher & the Burren

The Cliffs of Moher & the Burren

“Make sure to apply plenty of sun cream,” the radio advised, “and take it easy on the beer. One or two is fine, but any more and you might get dehydrated.”

This was the voice of an expert on public health, speaking on Ireland’s national radio station, RTE. Ireland, you see, was experiencing a heat wave. The skies were clear and sunny, and the temperature was reaching highs of… around 25°C (75°F). In other words, the weather was absolutely perfect. But on this rainy island, such scorching temperatures were worthy of serious news coverage.

Meanwhile, we rode down country roads, windows down, soaking in the effervescent green of the Irish countryside. We were on our way to one of Ireland’s most famous natural wonders: the Cliffs of Moher.

Now, here I want to add a note about RTE. Despite the official name being in the Irish language (Raidió Teilifís Éireann), RTE primarily broadcasts in English. This makes it an absolutely delightful resource for any American travelers to the Emerald Isle. Just by turning on any car radio, you are given an immersive window into the realities of Irish culture. During our trip, we listened every time we were in the car, hearing programs about budget negotiations, interviews with cookbook authors, and discussions of rising energy prices. This may not sound especially engrossing, but it made our visit feel that much more intimate.

The health expert elaborated on the dangers of sunburn and dehydration as our destination came into view: the visitor centre. You know you have arrived when you see the huge parking lot across the road, which on any given day will be full of tour buses and private cars. The cliffs are free, but the parking is not.

The visitor centre is worth stepping into before you see the cliffs. Opened in 2007, it was built into a hillside to better preserve the natural environment. Aside from serving snacks and having public toilets, the centre also has small exhibits on the geology, history, and wildlife to be found on the cliffs. But the detail that most sticks out in my memory are the women working at the gift shop, who were visibly red and covered with sweat due to the heat wave—despite my feeling entirely comfortable. I suppose it matters what you’re used to.

It is a short walk from the visitor centre to the edge of the cliffs. The first view is breathtaking—as is every view after that. Though it is cliche to say it, the photos simply do not do justice to the cliffs. Their scale is unlike anything I have ever seen. Standing at over 100 meters (or around 330 feet) above the sea, and stretching for miles in both directions, the cliffs are an overwhelming spectacle—one of the few tourist attractions that stand up both to the hype and to the inevitable hordes of tourists. 

We like to say that Rome was not built in a day, but geological time operates on a scale that dwarfs even our longest empires. These cliffs are a case in point. What we see today is the process of hundreds of thousands of years of water erosion. The process is simple: the waves crashing into the rock eventually cause a notch in the area touching the sea. As this gets deeper, it cannot support the weight of the rock above it, and the whole side of the shore comes crashing down. This is how we get these sheer rock faces.

Due to this erosion, a huge layer of rock is exposed to the eye. This is what geologists dream of. It is the history of the earth, exposed to public view. The rock here is sedimentary, meaning that it was deposited by ancient rivers, and compacted into layers of hard shale and sandstone over time. As you might expect, the oldest rocks are at the bottom; these date back over 300 million years, before the time of the dinosaurs. The fossils preserved in the rock are the traces left by tiny burrowing creatures who lived in the ancient riverbed.

Yet viewing the cliffs does not put most visitors in the mood for scientific inquiry. Instead, they invite a sense of gaping wonder at the scale and majesty of nature, even amid the famously docile landscape of Ireland. My brother and I wandered up and down the path, taking photos of the cliffs from different angles, none of which was wholly satisfactory. Seabirds glided in the strong currents of air that formed from the ocean wind hitting the rock face—and which sent the sharp scent of salt water up to the viewing platforms.

But enjoying a spectacle is hard work; so, feeling hungry, we wandered off to find a vegetarian hamburger truck that we had heard about (it was very good). Our mom, who wasn’t very hungry, stayed behind at the visitor center. By the time we got back, she was enjoying a performance of a marching band that had set up in the large seating area outside. It was an odd contrast—this austere icon of Ireland, and music that would not have been out of place at an American football game. But, strangely, it only added to the pleasant atmosphere of the unseasonably warm day.

The rest of our day was yet unplanned. We figured that we would be able to find something interesting in the vicinity of the Cliffs of Moher, and we were right. With our trusted Rick Steves guidebook in hand, we opened to one of the many maps, and found that we were near an area called “the Burren.” The name alone sounded strangely promising.

As we drove into the area, the landscape began to change. The hills of grass that characterize the country become relatively flat, and covered in rock. Indeed, from a distance you could see how the landscape abruptly shifts, the trees and greenery giving way to swirls of gray stone. Getting closer, we could see that the ground was blanketed with a natural pavement—a series of flat stones forming a solid surface, between which grass and flowers grew. It produced an immediate impression—a landscape of stark and ancient beauty.

This impression was magnified at our first stop: the Poulnabrone Dolmen. This is an ancient megalith, well over 5,000 years old. As it stands now, the structure consists of three upright stones supporting a slab roof. But this is only the “skeleton” of the original construction. In its time, it would have been covered in soil and topped with a “cairn,” or a tower of rocks. Even so, it is an impressive sight. The arrangement of stones looks fragile, as if it can topple over at any moment. The visitor cannot help but wonder how it survived for so long. It is also impossible not to wonder how the stones were moved into this arrangement without the help of modern technology. The roof stone is so large that I don’t think even several dozen people could safely lift it.

The short walk from the parking lot to the dolmen was unusually difficult, owing to the curious topography of the Burren. You have to be aware of where you are putting your foot, or you may step from the high platform of rocks into one of the crevices between them—thus risking a twisted ankle. Yet this extra awareness gives the Poulnabrone Dolmen an added spiritual element, as the visitor is forced to focus on their surroundings. This, added to the peculiar beauty of the landscape—quiet, empty of birdsong, isolated and exposed, as if you were on the top of a high mountain—lends this lonely monument a mystical atmosphere, as if it really were the portal to another world. 

Our next stop in the Burren was the eponymous visitor centre. Located in the exceedingly small village of Kilfenora, this institution does not look like much from the outside. But it is well worth a visit. A small fee will get you into the museum, which has all the information you could want to learn about the Burren—flora and fauna, geology, history, and even music. I found the information about the flora to be especially interesting. Puzzlingly, this rocky and barren landscape is home to over 70% of the country’s native plant species, many of them wildflowers. Even more puzzlingly, alpine and mediterranean flowers bloom together here. The deep groves in the limestone apparently provide an ideal micro-environment.

Another highlight of the visitor centre is the Kilfenora Cathedral, which today lies mostly in ruins. This attractive church building is now used to exhibit a collection of High Crosses, which are large stone crucifixes. These monuments, dating mostly from the early middle ages, are often decorated with elaborate images—illustrating Biblical stories at a time when most people were illiterate. The finest of these can rival the great gothic tympanums (the area over a doorway).

My mom and brother, admiring the ruined church

Yet during my visit, another parallel came to mind. In Galicia, the northwest of Spain, the landscape is also dotted with tall stone crucifixes, called cruceiros. This parallel struck me as odd, as Galicia is also home to many prehistoric dolmens—some that are remarkably similar to the one I had just seen here. Perhaps this should not be too surprising, however: both Galicia and Ireland were once populated by Celtic peoples. Indeed, there was once a time in human history—over 10,000 years ago, during the last great Ice Age—when it was possible to walk from Spain all the way to Ireland. This may seem like a very long time, but it is just a moment in the history of the earth.

Perhaps I am thinking in these terms because the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren both evoke the deep, geological past of Ireland, and remind us that the land beneath our feet is far more than just a country.

Review: The Conquest of New Spain

Review: The Conquest of New Spain

The Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Díaz del Castillo

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


In the introduction to this book, its translator J.M. Cohen makes a point to emphasize how badly it is written. This is hardly normal for a book that is widely considered to be a classic—though perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise for a document composed by a poorly-educated soldier of fortune. For this edition, Cohen trimmed much of what he considered to be repetitive, and straightened out some of the knottier prose. Even after this treatment, however, a great deal of this book is a confused and monotonous narration of battles.

And yet, it is an absolutely fascinating document. Díaz wrote his account as an old man, to correct some of the earlier stories about the conquest of “New Spain,” which glorified Cortés at the expense of his followers. This would seem to indicate that Díaz—who was one of these followers—had a proverbial axe to grind. But Díaz’s lack of intellectual subtlety, his clumsiness as a writer, and his obvious frankness combine to make this document strangely absent of perceivable bias. Writing down what he witnessed was such a chore in itself, the reader feels, that Díaz did not have it in him to twist the story to his ends.

The result is an eyewitness account of one of the most monumental events in human history—the collapse of a great empire, and with it the only power in Central America capable of resisting the Spanish colonists. It is a story rich in drama and intrigue, as Cortés navigates the politics of his Spanish backers (who turn on him) as well as the local peoples he encounters, seeming to stay one step ahead of trouble through his cunning and a generous amount of luck.

It is also a gruesome and tragic story. Hardly a page goes by in this book without armed conflict and human butchery. It is impossible to root for the Spaniards as they slash and burn their way through the landscape, provoking unimaginable losses to our cultural heritage in the process. And yet, ironically, Díaz—an agent of this civilization’s destruction—was one of the last people to see it at its full splendor, and is now one of our best sources of information on what he helped to destroy.

The passages about the Aztec cities, and especially meeting Montezuma in Tenochtitlan, are easily my favorite part of the book. Despite their selfish and bloody purpose, Díaz and his fellows were absolutely dazzled at the splendor of the empire. He was amazed at the broad and straight causeway, the network of canals and bridges, the high stone pyramids. The vast markets, teeming with alien plants and animals, he compares favorably to those of Constantinople or Rome; and he goes into raptures at the beauty of their gardens. The sheer number of people is shocking for the modern reader, who may be accustomed to thinking of the New World as only lightly populated at the time of European contact. On the contrary, Tenochtitlan would have dwarfed the London or Seville of the time.

A tone of regret or remorse creeps into the writing at this point, as if he is sorry that such a wonderful place was destroyed. It is an especially striking tonal shift, given that so much of the book is one battle after another, often told quite matter-of-factly. In another passage, Díaz seems to be amazed that all of this really happened, and seems unable to explain how it could occur, deciding that it must have been divine intervention. This is somewhat self-serving, to be sure, but it does give a taste of his complete lack of guile. As an author, he writes what he remembers, and shrugs his shoulders at the explanation.

What continually strikes Díaz—and undoubtedly his readers—is the prevalence of human sacrifice in the Aztec world. He describes finding people in cages being fattened for sacrifice, temples covered in blood, and the horrifying way in which victims would be dragged up the temple steps and have their chests cut open. As far as I know, there is no reason to doubt that this really happened. Yet it also serves rhetorically as a constant justification for the Spaniards’ actions. It is difficult to feel bad for the Aztecs, after all, if they are murdering on such a scale.

But I think it is important for the modern reader to keep in mind that Díaz and his fellows were hardly there on a humanitarian mission. These conquistadors—who would go on to commit violence on a much larger scale—were there for personal enrichment above all else. The lives of the peoples they conquered had little interest or value for them, beyond their possessions or their enslavement. To pick just one example, after expounding on the horrors of human sacrifice, Díaz calmly relates: “we dressed our wounds with the fat from a stout Indian whom we had killed and cut open, for we had no oil.” I do not say this to re-litigate the past, only because I think this book is more profitable and compelling if not read as a story of heroes and villains.

So while I cannot call this document a literary masterpiece, or even well-written, I found it to be a window—and a surprisingly clear window—into one of history’s great moments. And the sad truth is, to learn about this moment, we must turn to books like these, for “today all that I then saw is overthrown and destroyed; nothing is left standing.”




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Review: Persians, by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

Review: Persians, by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

Persians: The Age of the Great Kings by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This book begins with a great promise: to correct the distorted view that so many of us have of the Persian Empire. This distortion comes from two quite different directions.

In the West, our view of the Persian Empire has largely been filtered through Greek sources, Herodotus above all. This is nearly unavoidable, as the Greeks wrote long and engaging narrative histories of these times, while the Persians—although literate—did not leave anything remotely comparable. Yet the Greeks were sworn enemies of the Persians, and thus their picture of this empire is hugely distorted. Taking them at their word would be like writing a history of the U.S.S.R. purely from depictions in American news media.

The other source of bias is from within Iran itself. Starting with Ferdowsi, who depicts the Persian kings as a kind of mythological origin of the Persian people, the ruins of this great empire have been used to contrast native Persian culture from the language, religion, and traditions imported by the Muslim conquest. In more recent times, Cyrus the Great has become a symbol of the lost monarchy, a kind of secular saint—a tolerant ruler, who even originated the idea of human rights. This purely fictitious view is, at bottom, a kind of protest against the current oppressive theocracy.

But this book does not live up to its promise. To give the author credit, however, I should note that the middle section of the book—on the culture, bureaucracy, and daily life of the empire—is quite strong. Here, one feels that Llewellyn-Jones is relying on archaeological evidence and is escaping from the old stereotypes. The epilogue is also a worthwhile read, detailing the ways that subsequent generations have used (and abused) the history of this ancient power.

Yet the book falters in the chapters of narrative history. Here, Llewellyn-Jones is forced to rely on the Greek sources, and as a result many sections feel like weak retellings of Herodotus, with a bit of added historical context. Even worse, there are several parts in which I think he is not nearly skeptical enough regarding the stories in these Greek authors. At one point, for example, he retells the story of Xerxes’s passionate love affair with the princess Artaynte—a story taken straight out of Herodotus, and which has all of the hallmarks of a legend. That Llewellyn-Jones decides to treat this story as a fact, and does not even gesture towards its source, is I think an odd display of credulity in a professional historian.

The irony is that the final section of the book—full of scandalous tales taken out of Greek authors, depicting the decadence and depravity of the Persian court—only reinforces the very stereotypes that Llewellyn-Jones sets out to destroy. The really odd thing, in my opinion, is that there are no footnotes or even a section on his sources, so the reader must take him at his word—or not. I suspect this omission is to cover up the embarrassing fact that he relied so heavily on Herodotus.

This is a shame, as the Persian Empire does deserve the kind of reevaluation he proposes. It is fascinating on its own terms, and not just as a foil to the noble Greek freedom-fighters. Still, I think this book is a decent starting point for anyone interested in the subject. One must only read it with a skeptical eye.




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In the Footsteps of García Lorca

In the Footsteps of García Lorca

Federico García Lorca is the most famous playwright and poet that Spain produced in the previous century. This is largely owing to undeniable brilliance, as any readers of Bodas de Sangre or Yerma can attest to. Yet his fame is also due, in part, to the tragic story of his death—executed by Nationalist forces during the first few months of the Spanish Civil War. Among the hundreds of thousands dead from that conflict, Lorca remains its most famous victim. And in death, he has become a kind of secular saint to artistic freedom.

The precise details of Lorca’s murder were, for a long while, rather obscure; and it is largely thanks to the Irish writer, Ian Gibson, that it was finally uncovered. Prior to our trip to Granada, Rebe had read Gibson’s book, El asesinato de García Lorca, and so we had a full Lorca itinerary planned.

Our first stop was the Huerta de San Vicente. This was the summer house of the García Lorca family for the last ten years of the poet’s life. It is a kind of rustic villa, typical of Andalusia, with large windows and whitewashed walls—ideal for keeping cool. We joined a tour and were shown around the house, which has a piano that Lorca would play on (he was a gifted musician, and friends with Manuel de Falla), as well as a desk at which he wrote.

The hour-long visit gave a satisfying overview of the many facets of his short life. Lorca came across as a man wholly devoted to the arts—to music, to poetry, and above all to theater. One of my favorite items on display was a poster for La Barraca, a popular theater group that he helped to direct. They would travel around the countryside and perform for the benefit of the public, putting on avante-garde shows for the masses. It reminds me somewhat of the Federal Theater Project of the American New Deal, and demonstrates that Lorca, while not overtly political, did not shy away from social causes.

Our next stop was the small town of Fuente Vaqueros, which is a short drive from Granada. There, we visited the house where Lorca was born and spent his earliest years. It is a large house with thick walls, ideal for keeping out the heat. We were given a tour—just the two of us—by a local whose grandfather had gone to the same primary school as Lorca himself! He explained that the Lorca family was quite wealthy, having made their fortune in the tobacco business. Indeed, their house was one of the first to receive electricity in the area.

The upstairs of the house was made into a small exhibition space. Among other things, there is the only extant video clip of the poet, as he emerges from a truck used to haul theater supplies. The video has no sound and it lasts for only a few moments. Yet it is a tantalizing glimpse into the past. Also on display are puppets that Lorca made, in order to put on shows for his baby sister.

A short drive from Fuente Vaqueros is the town of Valderrubio, previously known as “Asquerosa” (“Disgusting”). Apparently, this name is a linguistic coincidence, having come from the Latin Aqua Rosae (“Pink Water”), but it led to the unfortunate toponym “asquerosos” for the denizens of this perfectly inoffensive town. Here is yet another house museum of the playwright, this one larger and grander than the one in Fuente Vaqueros. Unfortunately, however, we arrived too late for the tour of this house, and had to content ourselves with a quick walk-through.

Rebe in the theater attached to the house museum.

But we were on time for the tour of the House of Bernarda Alba. This is an attractive villa next to the Lorca property, where a widow lived with her daughters. Federico used this family as the basis for one of his best plays, La casa de Bernarda Alba, which is about a tyrannical widow who imposes a decade’s long period of mourning on herself and her daughters after the death of her husband. Apparently, the actual family—who I presume weren’t nearly as monstrous as Lorca portrayed them—were understandably quite offended by this, and cut off contact with the Lorcas. And now, to add insult to injury, their home stands as a museum to the poet’s honor!

Our last stop was rather more somber. On the 19th of August, 1936, Lorca was arrested, taken outside the city, and shot. Against the advice of his friends, on the eve of the Civil War he had traveled to his native city. But as war broke out and violence spread, he realized that he was unsafe and so hid himself in the home of family friends, who were members of the right-wing Falangist party. The political connection didn’t help. Along with three other men, he was taken to a spot on the highway between Vïznar and Alfacar and shot.

The place where Lorca was executed is hardly recognizable today. At the time it was a barren hillside, completely devoid of vegetation. Today, however, it is a grove of tall pine trees that cover the ground with shade. We parked the car and walked up a hill, not sure what we were looking for. Then we noticed papers tacked onto trees, like ‘Lost Cat’ posters on telephone polls. They were photos of the people believed to be executed here. There were dozens of these photos, each one with a name, profession, and believed date of death.

Even more unsettling were the white tents, standing empty and silent. They were covering excavation pits, where investigators are finally unearthing the remains of the hundreds of victims executed here, nearly a century after the Civil War. The investigators are also collecting DNA samples from surviving family members, so as to be able to identify any remains they uncover. Lorca’s body is believed to be here somewhere, though it hasn’t been identified yet. (You can learn more about the effort by following the groups’s Instagram.)

To state the obvious, it is chilling to think that such a harmless man—a gift to the world and an ornament to his country—could be deemed so threatening that he had to be executed this way. His last moments must have been terrifying. His work, however, has outlived Franco and his regime, and perhaps it will outlive the current constitution.

Now, for the very serious Lorca fan, there are also some sites to visit in Madrid. There is a lovely statue of the poet in the plaza de Santa Ana, and on Calle de Alcalá 96 there is a plaque which marks the apartment where Lorca lived for the last three years of his life. Another worthwhile visit is the Residencia de Estudiantes, where Lorca lived as a student along with his Dalí. The two were very close as young men, though many have criticized Dalí’s later reconciliation with the Francoist regime as a betrayal to the memory of his friend. 

But, of course, the most important thing is not to follow in his footsteps, but to keep reading and performing his works. This way, he will remain forever alive. 

2024 in Books

2024 in Books

2024 on Goodreads by Various

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I seem to be slowing down in my old age. About a decade ago, I was reading well over 100 books a year. Since then, my total book count has steadily gone downward, a dismal sign of adult responsibilities encroaching on my free time. But I still managed to finish some excellent books.

In election years, I tend to get swept up in the frantic political mood, but this year somehow I managed to maintain calm. My big election read was What It Takes, Richard Ben Cramer’s monumental account of the 1988 election. It was a thorough reminder of how much American politics have decayed during my lifetime. This was complemented by Robert Caro’s Master of the Senate, a monumental exploration of how power operates on a national scale. The attempted Trump assassination also prompted me to read the Warren Commission Report and to finally learn all of the gory and suspicious details of the JFK assassination.

But the major theme of the year was, broadly speaking, the 1920s, 30s, and 40s in America. I’m fascinated by this period because it seems to separate the past from the present—a historical crisis that birthed the modern world. The best general overview of the period I know is David M. Kennedy’s Freedom From Fear, but I supplemented this with Studs Terkel’s books on the Great Depression and World War II, Frederick Lewis Allen’s books on the 1920s and 30s, two volumes of Churchill’s WWII memoirs, and two books on the Dust Bowl. I admit that it was reassuring to be reminded that the United States has already survived crises of extraordinary proportions as we face a second Trump term.

But many other valuable books just came my way. Among these were Mozart’s letters—a thoroughly charming self-portrait—and Bianca Bosker’s wonderful book on the contemporary art scene, which illuminated a world that had previously been a complete conundrum to me. This also included Jon Krakauer’s two most famous books—about Chris McCandless and the 1996 Mount Everest Disaster—which deserve their fame. Sei Shonagan’s classic of Heian Japan, The Pillow Book, made a lasting impression on me; but the most unexpectedly good read was The Ethical Slut, a manual of polyamory which has much to teach prudes such as myself.

Like last year, this one has been rather light on literature. I read some good plays—a couple of Brecht plays, and Tom Stoppard’s postmodern Shakespeare sendup—and two novels by Sinclair Lewis. Yet the most beautiful piece of writing I encountered was James Agee’s sui generis Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, a book worth reading for the quality of the prose alone.

As always, I heartily thank the Goodreads community for allowing me to express my thoughts and to learn from yours. In the new world of AI, this platform seems to be stuck in time, and I’m not complaining.



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Review: The Worst Hard Time

Review: The Worst Hard Time

The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The Dust Bowl has always been a somewhat vague disaster in my mind. It occurred during the Great Depression, and the images it generated helped to define the misery of the period. But the question has always lingered in my mind: was it simply chance that the two coincided? Or did one cause the other? Like many people, my primary touchstone for the event is The Grapes of Wrath; but that novel is mainly about people escaping the Dust Bowl, not what it was like to be in it. In short, for such an important event, I had only a vague notion of the Dust Bowl.

This book remedied the problem; and for that, Timothy Egan deserves a great deal of credit. The Worst Hard Time traces the disaster from its historical origins to its conclusion, and provides harrowing descriptions of what it was like to live through the dusters—or die trying.

I have never experienced a dust storm. The closest I’ve come was a few years back, when strong winds deposited sand from the Saharan Desert in Madrid, a climatic event called la calima in Spanish. It was unsettling. The air had a rust-colored hue, with visibility at a minimum. Rain drops fell and left dirty stains on your clothes. I was teaching physical education at the time, and we instructed the kids to use the face masks (which they still had, thanks to the pandemic) when we exercised outside. The only other relevant experience I’ve had was a few summers back, when the huge forest fires in Canada sent haze down to my town in New York. I tried to go on a run in the gray air and ended up with a persistent cough.

These experiences are mild to the point of triviality compared with the dusters of the 1930s. Visibility would drop to zero, pitch blackness. Dust would block roads and bury equipment. Any vegetation would be drowned or stripped bare. Anyone exposed to the dust would develop a cough that could become a fatal case of “dust pneumonia.” Most surprising of all, the dusters would generate enormous amounts of static electricity which would discharge painfully if an unwary victim touched anything conductive.

As to the question of why this happened, the answer seems to be quite complicated. Regardless of human activity, the Great Plains undergo long periods of rainfall followed by drought; and it just so happened that they were populated when the climate was more benevolent. But the 1930s were a time of extreme drought on the plains. Yet human activity had prepared the way for crisis. First, the peoples of the plain—the Apache and Comanche—were pushed off their land, and the buffalo, upon which they depended, were hunted to oblivion. The federal government encouraged farmers to take up residence by simply giving away land. The combination of the increased demand of the First World War and the Russian Revolution—which took the biggest grain supplier out of commission—prompted farmers to increase yield, plowing up as much topsoil as they could.

Like the Great Depression, then, the Dust Bowl seems to have not been the cause of one simple error, but a kind of perfect storm created by many contributing factors. And like the Great Depression—which was partly provoked by a massive trade imbalance, caused by WWI—the Dust Bowl as a kind of delayed hangover of the Great War.

Once again, Egan deserves a great deal of credit for writing such an informative book about a topic simultaneously so well-known and so poorly understood. That being said, I don’t have warm feelings about The Worst Hard Time. Though it is not an especially long book, it feels bloated and repetitious; and I think this is due to the prose, which was heavy-handed and inflated with a kind of false melodrama. This was frustrating, since the story of Dust Bowl contains more than enough drama to stand on its own.

The first lines give some idea of the tone:

On those days when the wind stops blowing across the face of the southern planes, the land falls into a silence that scares people in the way that a big house can haunt after the lights go out and no one else is there. It scares them because the land is too much, too empty, claustrophobic in its intensity. It scares them because they feel lost, with nothing to cling to, disoriented. Not a tree, anywhere. Not a slice of shade. Not a river dancing away, life in its blood.

I don’t know about you, but I find this ponderous and dull. And it irritates me especially because I don’t think this is Egan’s true voice. It is like he is putting on a persona (a quality of much irritating prose, I find). Mostly, it is extremely redundant—we get it, it’s scary—which is why the book feels so long.

This is just one of the faults of style I thought the book suffered from. However, I don’t want to harp on stylistic shortcomings too much. After all, I didn’t pick up this book to be blown over by the prose, but to learn about the Dust Bowl; and that, I certainly did. Even if it is irritating to read, then, The Worst Hard Time comes close to being the definitive work on the subject.

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Review: The Hinge of Fate

Review: The Hinge of Fate

The Second World War, Volume IV: The Hinge of Fate by Winston S. Churchill

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I find that I am liking each one of these volumes more than the last. The pleasure of this history is that, through the eyes of Winston Churchill, the war takes the shape of an enormous board game, played over months and years. Far removed from the gore of the front lines, Churchill sees the conflict as symbols on a map, which he needs to arrange in the most advantageous possible way—a game he plays brilliantly. This is not to say that he is frivolous or superficial. But warfare is far more palatable when experienced from the command chair than from the trenches.

Added to purely military decisions is the messier business of courting allies. Indeed, the best parts of this book describe Churchill’s cultivation of his relationships with Roosevelt and Stalin. Dealing with the Americans was relatively easy, as Roosevelt and Churchill seemed to have gotten along very well. Nevertheless, working so closely together required constant coordination of plans, both short-term and long-term; and Churchill sometimes struggled to get the American command to accept his military vision.

With Stalin, relations were far more tense. The Soviet leader is constantly demanding from Churchill fresh supplies and for a second front in France. Churchill, meanwhile, does his best to placate Stalin while firmly refusing to do what he feels is unwise. This culminates in his 1942 visit to Moscow, narrated in the two best chapters of the book. Churchill, sure that he will not be able to invade France in 1942, decides he must deliver this message personally if he is to maintain his working relationship with the Soviets. Stalin, at first, doesn’t take the news well, but by the end they are up all night, drinking vodka. In virtually any other circumstances, the two men would have been sworn enemies, and it is fascinating to see them try to cooperate.

The title of the book is quite apt, as it contains the battles that marked the beginning of the end for both Germany and Japan: Midway, Stalingrad, and Tunisia. These books, it should be remembered, are public memoirs rather than objective history; and so Stalingrad and Midway, being battles Churchill had nothing to do with, get only a cursory treatment. Northern Africa, on the other hand, occupies much of the book, as British and then American forces beat Rommel, invaded the Vichy territories, and finally won a decisive victory in Tunisia.

As a final thought, I am constantly surprised at how much I am learning from these books. Somehow, after a lifetime of World War II media, I knew close to nothing about operation “Torch,” and had no real idea of the significance of the Northern African campaigns. I was also unfamiliar with the Katyn massacres—Russia’s mass executions of Polish prisoners, an issue which Churchill felt he could not raise with the Soviets, for fear of hurting their relationship. Indeed, having been in Dresden just two weeks ago, I’ve had occasion to reflect that it was not only the axis who committed war crimes.



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