tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/non-fiction-10795/articlesNon-fiction – The Conversation2024-02-28T19:14:56Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2211162024-02-28T19:14:56Z2024-02-28T19:14:56Z‘If we burn … then what?’ A new book asks why a decade of mass protest has done so little to change things<p>In 2010, in response to ongoing ill-treatment by police, a fruit vendor performed an act of self-immolation in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia. This set off an uprising that led to the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/1/14/remembering-the-day-tunisias-president-ben-ali-fled">removal of dictator Ben Ali</a> and a process to rewrite the constitution in a democratic direction. </p>
<p>Inspired by this, huge demonstrations against police brutality erupted in Egypt, centred in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the protesters calling for the removal of the country’s president, <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/02/hosni-mubarak-legacy-of-mass-torture/">Hosni Mubarak</a>. </p>
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<p><em>If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution – Vincent Bevins (Hachette)</em></p>
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<p>These events catalysed what Vincent Bevins calls the “mass protest decade”. The years from 2010 to 2020 saw a record number of protests around the world seeking to transform societies in broadly progressive ways. Many groups were inspired by democratic ideals. </p>
<p>These protests were truly global. Those in Tunisia and Egypt became part of the wider uprising that came to be called the “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2021/jan/25/how-the-arab-spring-unfolded-a-visualisation">Arab Spring</a>”. </p>
<p>In 2013, the <em><a href="https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/brazilian-free-fare-movement-mpl-mobilizes-against-fare-hikes-2013">Movimento Passe Livre</a></em> (MPL) or “Free Fare Movement” led to mass protests in Brazil. Initially directed against rises in transport fares, they rapidly expanded to include an unwieldy and contradictory set of groups and grievances. </p>
<p>Many other protests sprang up, including Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests in 2014, dubbed the “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/30/-sp-hong-kong-umbrella-revolution-pro-democracy-protests">umbrella movement</a>” in their first phase by the global press. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/whatever-happened-to-the-arab-spring-10973">Whatever Happened to the 'Arab Spring'? </a>
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<h2>From bad to worse</h2>
<p>In his new book <a href="https://www.hachette.com.au/vincent-bevins/if-we-burn-the-mass-protest-decade-and-the-missing-revolution-as-good-as-journalism-gets">If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution</a>, Bevins starts by asking “how is it possible that so many mass protests apparently led to the opposite of what they asked for?” </p>
<p>The answer he provides is suggested in the book’s title, which <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If5w78BrmT4">he expands</a> as: “If we burn … then what?” </p>
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<p>Aiming to make sense of the significant role of mass protest across the decade, Bevins focuses on countries where the protest movements were so large that the existing government was either seriously destabilised or dislodged: Bahrain, Brazil, Chile, Egypt, Hong Kong, South Korea, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine and Yemen. His book explores why movements failed to achieve their goals and why, in many cases, things got decidedly worse. </p>
<p>In Egypt, for example, the Mubarak regime ended up being replaced by the even worse <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/egypts-sisi-authoritarian-leader-with-penchant-bridges-2023-12-08/">El-Sisi dictatorship</a>. In Brazil, the leftist-led protests ended up undermining the progressive government led by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dilma-Rousseff">Dilma Rousseff</a>, when groups on the right adopted similar tactics, media strategies, and anti-establishment and anti-corruption rhetoric. What ensued led to the impeachment of President Rousseff and the rise to power of far-right demagogue <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Jair_Bolsonaro">Jair Bolsonaro</a>.</p>
<p>For a significant part of the mass protest decade, Bevins was based in Sao Paulo as the Brazil correspondent for the Los Angeles Times. In If We Burn, he draws on his extensive experience as a journalist, as well as his academic background. He has travelled around the world and conducted over 200 interviews in 12 countries, which he has woven into an interesting narrative history. </p>
<p>His particular focus is on the activists who conceived and enacted the protest movements. Bevins covers their experiences at the time and, later in the book, what they came to understand about the events that unfolded, and their advice for future activists. He also engages with others, such as politicians and journalists, and draws on the work of social and political theorists. </p>
<p>The narrative is slanted towards his Brazilian home base. Bevins was there to witness the Free Fare Movement and the waves of mass protest it unleashed. Caught up in the action, he experienced, among other things, tear gassing. His colleague Giuliana Vallone was shot in the eye with a rubber bullet.</p>
<p>Vallone found her picture “flying through social networks”. Her image was used as a part of the Brazilian media’s reframing of the protests from broadly bad (leftist troublemakers) to broadly good (nationalists and patriots). </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578462/original/file-20240228-28-jrhegh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578462/original/file-20240228-28-jrhegh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578462/original/file-20240228-28-jrhegh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578462/original/file-20240228-28-jrhegh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578462/original/file-20240228-28-jrhegh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578462/original/file-20240228-28-jrhegh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578462/original/file-20240228-28-jrhegh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578462/original/file-20240228-28-jrhegh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Journalist Guiliana Vallone was hit in the eye with a rubber bullet during the Free Fare Movement protests in Brazil.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6QVLE8PQJ8">YouTube</a></span>
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<p>The effect of this reframing illustrates the power of dominant news media. As Bevins argues, media narratives shaped how the decades’ protests were viewed around the world, but they also shaped the configuration of the protests in real time, influencing who showed up, and why.</p>
<p>The reframing turbo-charged popular support for the mass protests across Brazil – but not in ways that aligned with the goals of the originators of the protests, which were taken over by an assortment of better organised right-wing groups, including proto-Bolsonaristas. </p>
<p>In a classic right-wing tactic, one group – the <em><a href="https://reason.com/2016/10/15/free-brazil/">Movimento Brasil Livre</a></em> (MBL) or “Free Brazil Movement” – even appropriated the originators’ name. “In Brazilian Portuguese,” Bevins notes,“‘MBL’ sounds nearly identical to ‘MPL’.” </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-bolsonaro-failed-to-overthrow-democracy-and-why-a-threat-remains-223498">Why Bolsonaro failed to overthrow democracy – and why a threat remains</a>
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<h2>International solidarity</h2>
<p>On June 13, 2013, while being tear gassed, the crowd in Sao Paulo chanted “love is over – Turkey is here”. They were referring to the ongoing repression of protesters in Turkey, whose <a href="https://carnegieeurope.eu/2019/10/24/legacy-of-gezi-protests-in-turkey-pub-80142">occupation of Gezi Park</a>, next to Taksim Square in Istanbul, began as a protest against the park’s redevelopment, but became a focal point for wider discontentment with the regime of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.</p>
<p>Bevins posts the words on Twitter and is stunned to see them go viral. He receives a flood of images and messages in response. Signs pop up in Gezi Park over the following weeks reading “the whole world is Sao Paulo” and “Turkey and Brazil are one”. </p>
<p>The story exemplifies a new type of international solidarity. Facilitated by the speed of social networking sites, digitally mediated mass protests in significant public places, often squares, emulated the Tahrir Square “model”. </p>
<p>The global protests extended from Taksim Square and Gezi Park in Turkey, to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/12/occupy-wall-street-10-years-on">Zuccotti Park and Occupy Wall St</a> in the United States, to the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-13551878">Plaza del Sol in Spain</a> and the <a href="https://kyivindependent.com/euro-maidan-revolution/">“Euromaidan” protests in Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Ukraine</a>. </p>
<p>Bevins emphasises that these protests tended to share certain features: they were “digitally coordinated … horizontally structured … apparently leaderless … apparently spontaneous”. </p>
<p>He describes this phenomenon as a “repertoire of contention”. It involved a certain “recipe of tactics” that became largely taken for granted as the “natural way to respond to social injustice”. </p>
<h2>Repertoire of contention</h2>
<p>During the protest decade, this “repertoire of contention” was more successful than expected. It often put so many people on the streets that it gave protesters real political leverage. They were suddenly in a position where they could make demands and extract reforms from the political establishment. In some cases, they generated “revolutionary situations” where they might potentially take power themselves. </p>
<p>But this type of protest is, as Bevins observes, “very poorly equipped” to take advantage of the kinds of destabilisation or “revolutionary” situations that they create. In such situations, groups must either enter the ensuing power vacuum or use their leverage to negotiate with the establishment. The problem was that to do this effectively required the type of representation and organisation that had become almost impossible. </p>
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<span class="caption">Vincent Bevins.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vincent_by_Best_Wishes.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>On one hand, Bevins says this was due to the “material conditions” existing before the popular explosions. In the North African dictatorships, for example, unions and alternative political parties had been severely weakened or suppressed. As such, the protests took the “horizontal” form characteristic of the decade.</p>
<p>But in countries with democracies, however imperfect – Brazil and Chile, for example – there were unions and alternative political parties. The horizontal nature of the protests there tended to be driven by an ideological commitment to “horizontalism”. </p>
<p>The ideal was a form of radical participatory democracy, emerging from left-libertarian and anarchist traditions, in which “everyone is equal”. Hierarchy is eschewed, as is any type of enduring formal structure of leaders or spokespeople. As the anthropologist and activist David Graeber wrote: “It is about creating and enacting horizontal networks instead of top-down structures like states, parties or corporations.”</p>
<p>Bevins reports that, at crucial moments, due to their lack of organisation and structure, key actors often replicated tactics they had learned beforehand. Their “repertoire” left them ill-prepared for both the challenges and opportunities that arose.</p>
<p>An unprecedented, technologically facilitated sense of solidarity and inspiration flowed around the world, but it happened so quickly that it led to the “cutting and pasting” of approaches into different national contexts. “Transfer of solidarity” became bound up with “transfer of tactics”. </p>
<p>This meant, in particular, that the “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alter-globalization">alter-globalisation</a>” movement, conceived in the democratic context of North America, had a disproportionate influence, creating a mismatch of tactics and circumstances. The hasty adoption of tactics meant most movements did not take the time to think through strategies that might be successful in their local context. </p>
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<p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/louisa-lims-outstanding-portrait-of-a-dispossessed-defiant-hong-kong-is-the-activist-journalism-we-need-179091">Louisa Lim's 'outstanding' portrait of a dispossessed, defiant Hong Kong is the activist journalism we need</a>
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<h2>New strategies</h2>
<p>Bevins suggests that by taking this and other lessons on board, the deep desire for progressive change, both nationally and in the global system, might come closer to being realised in coming decades. The “mismatches” can be overcome with study and reflection on the events of the mass protest decade. More suitable “repertoires” might be arrived at. </p>
<p>The spontaneous horizontal protests, Bevins observes, “did a very good job of blowing holes in social structures and creating political vacuums”. But the power vacuums they created were filled by those who were ready. </p>
<p>In Egypt, that meant the military. The Gulf countries, especially the United Arab Emirates, were also involved in the El-Sisi coup, via their funding of the anti-Morsi <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-23131953">Tamarod movement</a>. In Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council “literally marched in to fill in the gaps”. The Hong Kong movement was crushed by Beijing. In Brazil, Rousseff was “not removed, not immediately; but to the extent that she lost influence in June 2013, that power did not fall to the anti-authoritarian left, as the [Free Fare Movement] would have liked”.</p>
<p>Lasting progressive change, Bevins argues, requires better organisation and vehicles capable of handing down knowledge, strategy and tactics to the next generation of activists. He offers the example of Chile. </p>
<p>In Chile, the role of unions and political parties, as well as the activists engaging in institutional politics, proved more successful in producing progressive outcomes than digitally organised, horizontal, mass protests alone. </p>
<p>The powerful student unions played a strong role. The “autonomist” left-wing activist <a href="https://www.gob.cl/en/institutions/presidency/">Gabriel Boric</a>, who emerged through university politics, ended up becoming president in 2022. He was pivotal in the referendum process that sought to rewrite Chile’s Pinochet-era constitution. </p>
<p>Bevins proposes that the horizontalist left is so traumatised by the “sins of the Soviet Union” and “other revolutions” that many activists have given up “the things that work” – like organisation, structure and co-ordination. </p>
<p>“But if you refuse to use the tools that work”, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If5w78BrmT4">he points out</a>, you are “ceding your power” to those who will. It is “like showing up to a football game without a coach, strategy, or even a clear idea of who’s on your team”. Being well organised does not guarantee success, but it is essential when you enter into conflict with other well organised forces. </p>
<p>Bevins describes the decade’s dominant form of protest as being ultimately “illegible”. A key part of the problem was that “the square” was, in most of these protests, not asking for one coherent thing, or set of things. Activists, years later, often had widely divergent views as to “what the movements were all about”. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Vincent Bevins speaking at the Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy at Boston College, October 25, 2023.</span></figcaption>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-20-year-rule-of-recep-tayyip-erdogan-has-transformed-turkey-188211">How the 20 year rule of Recep Tayyip Erdogan has transformed Turkey</a>
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<h2>American influence</h2>
<p>As the world’s dominant superpower, the United States is entwined, in complex ways, with the individual countries and the regional power-politics Bevins discusses. In 2011, for example, the US took the opportunity provided by unrest in Libya, and a brutal state crackdown in response, to invade and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/20/nato-libya-war-26000-missions">overthrow the Gaddafi regime in a NATO mission</a>. Hong Kong protesters came to believe they were “sacrificed” for the Trump administration’s ongoing “propaganda war against China”. </p>
<p>Bevins also argues that the American domination of the internet has contributed to unrealistic views about the nature of social institutions, power and social change. The techno-utopianism that has accompanied its rise, the US-centric culture and ideas that circulate on oligarch-owned social media platforms, and “online communities born in the alter-globalisation era”, such as <a href="https://indymedia.org/">Indymedia</a> and <a href="https://www.adbusters.org/about-us">Adbusters</a>, played an “outsize role” in the mass protest decade. </p>
<p>Protesters’ ideas about what was possible and how to proceed were shaped by their immersion in this media landscape. Reflecting in retrospect on the prominent use of material from The Hunger Games, V for Vendetta and Star Wars, a Hong Kong activist said: “I think it is … a little sad, and definitely very unfortunate, that we got so many of our ideas from pop culture.”</p>
<p>The simplistic faith of “liberal techno-optimists” that the internet and social media are intrinsically progressive has proved unfounded, as has the belief that “the internet would make the world more like the United States”. </p>
<p>No protest action or technology is intrinsically progressive. As Bevins points out, is has become clear in recent years that the protesters’ “repertoire” of tools and tactics can be used at least as effectively by right-wing demagogues and disinformation outfits. The shock of Trumpian politics was accompanied by a sobering realisation that “the internet was something that could be used by malevolent foreign powers to undermine the American project”. </p>
<p>Digital communication, Bevins observes, has facilitated “the existence of big protests that come together very quickly – so quickly, perhaps, that no one knows each other, people are trying to realize contradictory goals, and after the initial energy fades, nothing remains”. In a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTRkIY6NQhA">recent interview</a>, he paraphrases one Free Fare Movement interviewee reflecting on how events unfolded in Brazil: “all we wanted to do for eight years was to cause a popular uprising; and then we did, and it was awful”. </p>
<p>Throughout If We Burn, Bevins shows that “movements that cannot speak for themselves will be spoken for”. As an Egyptian activist reflects: “we thought representation was elitism, but actually it is the essence of democracy”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221116/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Pollard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Throughout If We Burn, Vincent Bevins shows that “movements that cannot speak for themselves will be spoken for”.Christopher Pollard, Tutor in Sociology and Philosophy, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2169102023-12-17T19:17:00Z2023-12-17T19:17:00ZConversing with the ‘restless dead’ – a posthumous collection of Hilary Mantel’s writing illuminates her singular literary achievement<p>Hilary Mantel’s writing career falls neatly into two periods: before and after Wolf Hall. </p>
<p>At the time of the novel’s publication, Mantel described her nine previous novels as a long apprenticeship for the first volume in her brilliant trilogy centred on the life of Thomas Cromwell: <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9780008366759/wolf-hall/">Wolf Hall</a> (2009), <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9780008366766/bring-up-the-bodies/">Bring Up the Bodies</a> (2012) and <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9780007481095/the-mirror-and-the-light-the-wolf-hall-trilogy-book-3/">The Mirror and the Light</a> (2020).</p>
<p>Her posthumous collection <a href="https://www.hachette.com.au/hilary-mantel/a-memoir-of-my-former-self-a-life-in-writing">A Memoir of My Former Self</a> supports this self-assessment. </p>
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<p><em>Review: A Memoir of My Former Self: A Life in Writing – Hilary Mantel (Hachette)</em></p>
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<p>Wolf Hall and its sequel were both awarded the Booker Prize. Before Mantel, only Peter Carey and J.M. Coetzee had won the prestigious prize twice; they have since been joined by Margaret Atwood. </p>
<p>But Mantel is the only author to have claimed the prize for two novels in a series and to have won it twice in such quick succession. There is an average of 16 years between the first and second wins for Carey, Coetzee and Atwood. </p>
<p>A shining thread through A Memoir of My Former Self traces Mantel’s impassioned engagement with the Booker, making me wonder whether she is also singular for so openly and honestly setting her sights on it as the pinnacle of achievement for a novelist.</p>
<p>In the essay <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/sep/12/hilary-mantel-exam-stress-booker">Exam Fever</a>, first published in the Guardian in 2009, Mantel describes her Booker routine, which she compares to waiting for exam results when she was so “ill with nerves” and “feverish” that she could not attend school. </p>
<p>Until 2008, her publisher would call when the Booker shortlist was announced, “sounding like an undertaker”. Mantel then “swallowed hard” and continued work on her next book. She recalls that this routine varied only once, in 1992, when Adam Thorpe’s <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/ulverton-9780099573449">Ulverton</a> did not make the shortlist: </p>
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<p>I cried, because if Ulverton wasn’t good enough, I couldn’t think what you’d have to do. </p>
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<p>The introduction of an official longlist in 2009 broke Mantel’s routine, so that “by the time the shortlist is released you simply don’t know what to do with yourself”. Describing a party for the shortlist announcement, she speculates that the writers’ calm public expressions are masks: </p>
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<p>Inside (unless they are very unlike me) they feel like mad axemen. </p>
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<p>For Mantel, to not have made the shortlist with Wolf Hall would have been to know that “words have failed me”.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hilary-mantel-was-one-of-the-great-voices-of-historical-fiction-and-so-much-more-191282">Hilary Mantel was one of the great voices of historical fiction – and so much more</a>
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</p>
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<h2>A celebration</h2>
<p>A Memoir of My Former Self is a selection of Mantel’s writings by Nicholas Pearson, her book editor of two decades. To make his selection, Pearson read all of Mantel’s work for newspapers and periodicals, an experience he describes as “a revelation”. </p>
<p>Presented by its publisher as “a celebration of one of Britain’s greatest contemporary writers”, the book appears roughly a year after Mantel’s death as a salve to the many readers saddened that she will write no more. I feel confident Mantel would fully and deeply understand this response to the news of her death. I think, too, that she would appreciate my choice of tense here. In her own words, her “concern as a writer is with memory, personal and collective: with the restless dead asserting their claims”. </p>
<p>The book is published by Hachette’s literary imprint, John Murray, for which Pearson began working as Publishing Director in January 2023, around six months after he was let go by Mantel’s longtime publisher <a href="https://www.thebookseller.com/news/pearson-leaves-fourth-estate-after-26-years-following-redundancy-process">Fourth Estate</a>. Mantel was reportedly “<a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/publishing-giants-left-on-the-shelf-in-dash-for-youth-00q6jc2vh">furious</a>” about Pearson’s departure. There is thus the potential to read this book as a fascinating artefact of publishing history in the making. </p>
<p>Mantel frequently described the work of writing as a type of congress with “ghosts”, a description that extends to Pearson’s anthology. “You talk to the dead one way or another,” she <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/oct/17/hilary-mantel-if-suffering-can-make-pay">observed</a>, “and you make it pay.”</p>
<p>There are ghosts asserting their claims everywhere in this book, and throughout Mantel’s oeuvre, including the ghost of the author herself. “As soon as you sit before the screen,” she wrote, “you start haunting yourself.” </p>
<p>Many of the pieces were written by Mantel to “subsidise, financially, the slow process of art”, to support her true calling as a novelist. Reading the collection’s first essay, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/dec/22/featuresreviews.guardianreview1">On the One Hand</a>, I imagined the ghost of Mantel finding humour in the timing of this book’s release for Christmas, the season when the inseparability of art and commerce is most undeniable. “For many imaginative writers,” she insists, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>working for the press is a fact of their life. But it’s best not to like it too much. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The goal and passion of the novelist, as Mantel presents it, is not to generate the columns, reviews and occasional lectures selected for A Memoir of My Former Self, but to produce a “couture response – lovingly tailored, personal, an unmistakable one-off”. </p>
<p>I am therefore reading with the grain when I write that, while I liked this book, I did not like it too much. </p>
<h2>The shock of personal connection</h2>
<p>I liked this book most for Mantel’s reflections on the distinctive sensibility and habits of readers and writers. I disliked this book most for its flagrant literary exceptionalism, which is communicated through Mantel’s repeated use of “ink” as a metaphor to communicate her essential writerly identity. She is a person for whom “ink is a generative fluid”. </p>
<p>A Memoir of My Former Self will be affirming for people seeking endorsement that, as avid readers of high-shelf literature, they are on the better side of human history and culture. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, there were many times when I felt that delicious shock of personal (almost too personal) connection with the writer that Mantel herself describes. It was as though the “author leaned out of the text and touched my arm”. </p>
<p>In 2015, reading Hilary Mantel was my work for several months. I read every one of her books, in the order of their publication, for my essay Hilary Mantel: Raising the Dead, Speaking the Truth, published in James Acheson’s collection <a href="https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-contemporary-british-novel-since-2000.html">The Contemporary British Novel Since 2000</a>. I thus felt directly addressed when Mantel, meeting an “amiable man” who remarks that she seems “to have plenty of energy”, asks “what are authors to academics, except more work?” </p>
<p>For avid readers, the potential for such moments of connection is abundant. Mantel recalls a time in her life when she was “unable to walk past a bookshop without going in”. She confesses that she once stole a book from her school library that had been “lying unappreciated on the shelves” since its publication. She claims she is “addicted to the physical act of reading”. </p>
<p>The book is subtitled “A Life in Writing” and Pearson concludes his short introduction with the claim, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>What emerges is a portrait of Hilary Mantel’s life in her own words, “messages from people I used to be”. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>What it means to succeed or to fail as a writer is the unifying question of A Memoir of My Former Self, but for readers new to Mantel this book is not the place to start considering her success. Instead, begin with Wolf Hall, the novel that explains why she was the first living writer to have her portrait commissioned by the British Library. </p>
<p>For readers who read and loved the Cromwell trilogy, I would recommend her 2005 novel <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9780007354894/beyond-black/">Beyond Black</a> or her 2003 memoir <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9780007142729/giving-up-the-ghost/">Giving Up the Ghost</a> (in that order), both of which connect deeply with the Cromwell books and may well inspire you to reread them rather than pick up this volume.</p>
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<p>Many of the pieces gathered here – articles from the Guardian, film reviews from the Spectator, the 2017 Reith Lectures – are freely available online. Charting your own journey through Mantel’s short-form writings might be a better route to the “revelation” Pearson experienced in making this volume. </p>
<p>There is, for example, a special pleasure in listening to the Reith Lectures, recorded live in Manchester and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08tcbrp">available to stream from the BBC</a>. Mantel’s breathy voice, simultaneously tremulous and supremely confident, gives the lectures a spectral quality they lack on the page. </p>
<p>Having read the 15 film reviews included, Mantel may now be my favourite film critic, and I am impatient to dig into the Spectator archive to read more. But I wish that I had found more coherence in Pearson’s organisation of this book. Perhaps I am simply missing the powerfully controlled authorial voice of Mantel’s books, which no posthumous selection can achieve. </p>
<p>It seems fitting to give the last word here to Mantel’s Cromwell, from the final pages of Wolf Hall: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s the living that turn and chase the dead. The long bones and skulls are tumbled from their shrouds, and words like stones thrust into their rattling mouths: we edit their writings, we rewrite their lives.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p><em>Correction: an earlier version of the article mistakenly referred to Thomas Cromwell as Oliver Cromwell.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216910/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lisa Fletcher does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A Memoir of My Former Self is a celebration of one of Britain’s most beloved and celebrated novelists.Lisa Fletcher, Professor, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2142522023-11-27T19:17:21Z2023-11-27T19:17:21ZEverybody has a spider story, but these amazing creatures are often misunderstood<p>The comedian Jimeoin once wrote a song titled Everybody’s Got a Spider Story (I believe; I can’t find it on YouTube now I am looking), in which each verse tells some alarming story of giant spiders crawling on faces or millions of baby spiders bursting out of someplace unexpected. </p>
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<p><em>Review: Silk and Venom: The Incredible Lives of Spiders – James O'Hanlon (NewSouth)</em></p>
<hr>
<p>James O'Hanlon’s <a href="https://unsw.press/books/silk-and-venom/">Silk and Venom: The Incredible Lives of Spiders</a> is, at heart, a call for us to start telling better spider stories – stories that celebrate the incredible biology of these creatures, rather than focusing on the surprise, terror and disgust they evoke in some people. </p>
<p>The book begins with an exploration of humankind’s negative feelings towards spiders, before examining a series of fascinating examples of spider biology, following the theory that to remove fear you must supply knowledge. </p>
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<p>For me, as someone who has spent over a decade specifically investigating venoms and silks in my professional capacity as a researcher, the call to recognise the valuable and wondrous aspects of spiders was preaching to the choir. I also suspected, having worked in this area for so long (as well as being an avid consumer of popular science), that there would be little in this book that would be new to me.</p>
<p>But I learned plenty and enjoyed it greatly. O'Hanlon’s easy and humorous style makes Silk and Venom a readily digestible and satisfying meal for anyone with an interest in the natural world. </p>
<h2>Spider fear</h2>
<p>Beyond the explanations of interesting aspects of spider biology, Silk and Venom is suffused with episodes from O'Hanlon’s own experience. These are among the most entertaining parts of the book. </p>
<p>In the first chapter on society’s fear of spiders, for example, O'Hanlon relates his surprise that a favourite part of a spider museum exhibition – where the museumgoers walked across an animation of a multitude of tiny spiders to enter – was moved due to the unease it induced. </p>
<p>We learn that when people’s fear of spiders is analysed, it is usually centred on spiders’ “leginess” or “the way they move”, rather than their venom. Much spider fear appears to be a learned behaviour.</p>
<p>In the second chapter, which proposes <a href="https://australian.museum/learn/animals/spiders/jumping-spiders/">jumping spiders</a> as the gateway to a spider addiction, O'Hanlon describes performing experiments on jumping spiders and recording the way they looked at him – a look that seemed to indicate there was someone in there: not just a creature with high intelligence and a sophisticated visual system, but one capable of something akin to derision and amused contempt.</p>
<p>There is an interesting chapter about spiders that mimic other creatures, either visually or through pheromones. These include <a href="https://australian.museum/learn/species-identification/ask-an-expert/spiders-that-mimic-ants/">ant-mimicking spiders</a>, which feed on ant larvae, and the exquisite camouflage of <a href="https://www.australiawidefirstaid.com.au/resources/australian-crab-spider">crab spiders</a> and <a href="https://australian.museum/learn/animals/spiders/bird-dropping-spider/">bird-dropping spiders</a>.</p>
<p>It’s the examination of some of the more confusing findings about spiders, which would have been easy to ignore for the sake of simplicity, that I really like in this book. </p>
<p>For example, crab spiders are an oft-cited example of perfect camouflage. They appear to blend in perfectly with the flowers on which they wait to ambush bees. However, we learn that crab spiders are not perfectly camouflaged to their bee prey. Bees see in ultraviolet, so we would expect crab spiders to be camouflaged in this visual range too, but the spiders actually show up brilliantly in the ultraviolet. </p>
<p>This turns out to be a kind of visual luring. The bees are more attracted to flowers with spiders than flowers without spiders. A similar process of luring seems to occur with spiders occupying orb webs, and web-markings, such as the X-patterns of the <a href="https://australian.museum/learn/animals/spiders/st-andrews-cross-spider/">St. Andrews Cross Spider</a>.</p>
<p>The chapter about how spiders capture their prey is where the discussion really gets going. O'Hanlon does a good job of reducing the complexities of how venom works into something both true and readable. He deftly explains some of the other aspects of venom research.</p>
<p>Asking which is the “most venomous spider”, for example, is a question that doesn’t really make sense. This is because venom acts differently on each individual species of animal, including the prey and predators of the spider and others. The actual danger posed by spider venom also depends on how much venom is injected, how likely the spiders are to bite, and so on. </p>
<p>This part of the book deals with which spiders are actually dangerous for humans, going through the handful of species that do actually pose a medical risk. It also delves into the use of spider venom as a biotechnological tool in medicine and agriculture, showcasing some examples where clever humans have repurposed molecules from venom to improve human health or agriculture. </p>
<p>We learn about attempts to use molecules from venom to battle facial tumour disease in Tasmanian devils, and how spider venom toxins are being repurposed into eco-friendly insecticides. This is actually a big field and there are many more examples that could have been included here, but what is included is dealt with well.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/dont-like-spiders-here-are-10-reasons-to-change-your-mind-126433">Don't like spiders? Here are 10 reasons to change your mind</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Myths and misconceptions</h2>
<p>The myths and misconceptions around spiders are explored, starting with some of the most well-known. No, white-tailed spider bites do not cause tissue necrosis. No, spiders are not accidentally eaten when you sleep. </p>
<p>This section progresses from examining almost-believable urban myths to looking at how the treatment of spiders in mainstream media is almost unbelievably bad.</p>
<p>Some of the better spider stories we could be telling are about silk, the truly amazing material made by many arthropods, which has perhaps been perfected by spiders. </p>
<p>Spiders make multiple types of silk, including the strongest kinds we know of. Via people who have arduously collected and woven spider silks by hand, we learn about another quest in biotechnology: to understand the genetic codes behind spider silk, so that we can transfer those genes into microbes (or even arrange for them to be expressed in goat milk) and produce artificial silk in the lab.</p>
<p>This has been attempted many times with varying degrees of success. Though we are still not wearing shirts made by expressing spider silk genes in bacteria, I enjoyed reading about the individuals and companies who have tried to bring these kinds of silks to market and how far they have got – which is not far, mostly because it is just not profitable.</p>
<p>Sex and death are topics close to our hearts and O'Hanlon has an amusing chapter that considers spider reproduction and life cycles. He starts by looking at the recent discovery of <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2186972-some-spiders-produce-milk-and-its-more-nutritious-than-cows-milk/">spiders that lactate</a> to feed their spiderlings, thereby possessing the feature we use to define our own order, the mammals. </p>
<p>The best parts of this chapter are about spider sex and sexual cannibalism, and the many quirks that evolution has delivered, including strategies some males use to avoid being eaten by their partners, and examples of those that seem to offer themselves willingly. </p>
<p>We also learn about spider death and the longest-living spiders. There is very little information about how long spiders live, but did you know that Tasmanian cave spiders can live for 20 years? Or that the oldest tarantula we know of (called #16 instead of something sensible like Methuselah) lived for at least 43 years?</p>
<p>My favourite part of Silk and Venom considers spider ballooning: the phenomenon of airborne spiders, with attached silk, floating or flying to new places. I had not come across the research O'Hanlon presents here, which makes quite a convincing argument that spiders are quasi-magical creatures that can fly. </p>
<p>Spider ballooning, it turns out, does not rely on a good breeze, as I had always imagined. Apparently, it <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2020/dec/05/ballooning-spiders-take-flight-earth-electric-fields">relies primarily on electrostatic forces</a>. The clever spiders can sense electromagnetic fields and tell when conditions are perfect to release a negatively-charged silk web that will be repelled by the ground and attracted to the air. </p>
<p>In experiments in the lab, given the right electrostatic environment, spiders can take off in a completely windless chamber. </p>
<p>Spiders flying is a perfect segue to spiders in space. O'Hanlon reviews this fascinating history. Since 1973, there have been five missions to put spiders in space, the first four focusing on orb-web spiders and web construction in micro-gravity. </p>
<p>The spiders took time to adjust, first spending much time “swimming through space”, before learning to make almost-normal webs. Webs of golden orb weavers are usually slightly asymmetric, with the spider sitting on top facing the ground. In space, they became more symmetric (since there was no down) and the spider was doing its best to act normal by facing away from the light source. </p>
<p>The last mission focused on jumping spiders hunting in space, with the spidernauts again showing a remarkable ability to adapt their understanding of the laws of motion and hunt successfully in micro-gravity.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/here-are-5-new-species-of-australian-trapdoor-spider-it-took-scientists-a-century-to-tell-them-apart-165327">Here are 5 new species of Australian trapdoor spider. It took scientists a century to tell them apart</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Better stories</h2>
<p>Silk and Venom concludes with two chapters that look at arachnophobia, how it arises and how it can be treated. O'Hanlon expresses his hope for the future of human-spider interactions. </p>
<p>He emphasises reasons why our storytelling about spiders matters, drawing an analogy with the discovery of whales singing and the way the complexity of whalesong had a big effect on how people thought of whales and contributed to their eventual protection from commercial whaling. Conversely, the “Jaws effect” led to worsening perceptions of sharks and the danger they pose, and has contributed to the persecution of sharks. </p>
<p>Silk and Venom was easy and enjoyable to read. O'Hanlon has done a great job of exemplifying how we can tell better stories about our arachnid friends. As well as the main text, the book features a survey, a choose-your-own-adventure section in which you play a jumping spider, and a selection of colour photographs. If you would like to pick up some better spider stories, I suggest you give it a read.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214252/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Walker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>James O'Hanlon’s easy and humorous style makes Silk and Venom a readily digestible and satisfying meal for anyone with an interest in the natural world.Andrew Walker, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Institute for Molecular Bioscience, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2139922023-11-08T19:10:37Z2023-11-08T19:10:37ZIs capitalism dead? Yanis Varoufakis thinks it is – and he knows who killed it<p><a href="https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/">Yanis Varoufakis</a> grew up during the Greek dictatorship of 1967-1974. He later became an economics professor and was briefly Greek finance minister in 2015.</p>
<p>His late father, a chemical engineer in a steel plant, instilled in his son a critical appreciation of how technology drives social change. He also instilled him with a belief that capitalism and genuine freedom were antithetical – a leftist politics that made his father a political prisoner for several years during the “junta”, as they called it.</p>
<p>In 1993, when he first got the internet, Varoufakis’s father posed a “killer question” to his son: “now computers speak to each other, will this network make capitalism impossible to overthrow? Or might it finally reveal its Achilles heel?” </p>
<p>Varoufakis has been mulling it over ever since. </p>
<p>Though, sadly, it is now too late to explain to his father in person, Varoufakis’s new book <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/technofeudalism-9781847927286">Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism</a> answers the question in the form of an extended reflection addressed to his father.</p>
<p>“Achilles heel” was on the right track. In his striking response, Varoufakis argues that we no longer live in a capitalist society; capitalism has morphed into a “technologically advanced form of feudalism”.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism – Yanis Varoufakis (Bodley Head)</em></p>
<hr>
<h2>Rent over profit</h2>
<p>Traditional capitalists are people who can use capital – defined as “anything that can be used to produce saleable goods” (such as factories, machinery, raw materials, money) – to coerce workers and generate income in the form of profits. Such capitalists are clearly still flourishing, but Varoufakis argues they are not driving the economy in the way they used to. </p>
<p>“In the early 19th century,” <a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/techno-feudalism-replacing-market-capitalism-by-yanis-varoufakis-2021-06">he writes</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>many feudal relations remained intact, but capitalist relations had begun to dominate. Today, capitalist relations remain intact, but techno-feudalist relations have begun to overtake them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Traditional capitalists, he proposes, have become “vassal capitalists”. They are subordinate and dependent on a new breed of “lords” – the Big Tech companies – who generate enormous wealth via new digital platforms. A new form of algorithmic capital has evolved – what Varoufakis calls “cloud capital” – and it has displaced “capitalism’s two pillars: markets and profits”. </p>
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<p>Markets have been “replaced by digital trading platforms which look like, but are not, markets”. The moment you enter amazon.com “you exit capitalism” and enter something that resembles a “feudal fief”: a digital world belonging to one man and his algorithm, which determines what products you will see and what products you won’t see. </p>
<p>If you are a seller, the platform will determine how you can sell and which customers you can approach. The terms in which you interact, share information and trade are dictated by an “algo” that “works for [Jeff Bezos’] bottom line”. </p>
<p>The capitalists who rely on this mode of selling are granted access to the digital estate by its virtual landowners, the Big Tech companies. And if “vassal capitalists” don’t abide by the laws of the estate, they are kicked out – removed from Apple’s App Store or Google’s search index – with disastrous consequences for their business. </p>
<p>Access to the “digital fief” comes at the cost of exorbitant rents. Varoufakis notes that many third-party developers on the Apple store, for example, pay 30% “on all their revenues”, while Amazon charges its sellers “35% of revenues”. This, he argues, is like a medieval feudal lord sending round the sheriff to collect a large chunk of his serfs’ produce because he owns the estate and everything within it.</p>
<p>This is not extracting profit through the production or provision of goods and services, as these platforms are not a “service” in the sense in which the term is used in economics. They are extracting rents in the form of the huge cuts they take from the capitalists on their platforms.</p>
<p>There is “no disinterested invisible hand of the market” here. The Big Tech platforms are exempted from free-market competition. Their owners – “cloudalists” – increase their wealth and power at a dizzying pace with each click, exploiting a new form of rent-seeking made possible by the new algorithmically structured digital platforms. Parasitic on capitalist production, they are now dominating it. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/yanis-varoufakis-from-accidental-economist-to-finance-minister-36827">Yanis Varoufakis: from accidental economist to finance minister</a>
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<h2>Cloud serfs</h2>
<p>But something even more transformative has happened, Varoufakis argues.</p>
<p>Even though most of us are regularly interacting with capitalists and earning wages via our labour, now, for the first time in history, all of us contribute to “the wealth and power of the new ruling class” through our “unpaid labour”. </p>
<p>Every time we use our cloud-linked devices – smartphones, laptops, Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri – we replenish the capital of the Big Tech cloudalists. This in turn increases their capacity to generate more wealth. How? We train their algorithms, which train us, to train them, and so on, in a feedback loop whose goal is to shape our desires and behaviour. They are “selling things to us while selling our attention to others”. </p>
<p>This interaction, Varoufakis insists, is not taking place as any kind of market exchange, such as wages being paid by a capitalist to a group of workers. In this interaction, we are all high-tech “cloud serfs”. </p>
<p>The new advertising men of the postwar world, portrayed in the series Mad Men (Yanis is clearly a fan), thought television was amazing because of its power to deliver audiences to advertisers. They could innovate “attention-grabbing” ways of “manufacturing” consumer desires – and it was delivered free-to-air! </p>
<p>But, Varoufakis emphasises, the ad men of the previous century could never have imagined the development of something like Amazon’s Alexa: a digital network learning “at lightning speed”, via the input of millions of people, how to train us. It is shaping our desires and behaviours in a process of perpetual reinforcement. Our experience and reality are increasingly algorithmically curated. And due to the incredible ease and utility, the information is all freely given. </p>
<p>So the “cloud capital” we are generating for them all the time increases their capacity to generate yet more wealth, and thus increases their power – something we have only begun to realise. Approximately 80% of the income of traditional capitalist conglomerates go to salaries and wages, according to Varoufakis, while Big Tech’s workers, in contrast, collect “less than 1% of their firms’ revenues”.</p>
<h2>Quantitative easing</h2>
<p>So how did this dystopian turn happen without us really noticing the change? Varoufakis’s story is detailed, but he emphasises two main drivers.</p>
<p>First, the “internet commons” of Web 1.0 transformed into Web 2.0, privatised by American and Chinese Big Tech.</p>
<p>Second, the colossal sums of central bank money that were supposed to refloat our economies in the aftermath of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC) – a process known as “<a href="https://theconversation.com/more-money-more-problems-the-quantitative-easing-quandary-9758">quantitative easing</a>” – were lent out to big business. Coupled with “austerity” economics for the many, this “murder[ed] investment” and led to what Varoufakis calls “gilded stagnation”. </p>
<p>Much of the central bank money, particularly following another round of quantitative easing during the COVID pandemic, made its way to the Big Tech companies. Their share prices soared to astronomical levels. </p>
<p>The “world of money” was decoupled from the “real economy” where most of us live and work. In an environment where profit became “optional”, loss-making Big Tech companies run by “intrepid and talented entrepreneurs” chose to build up their cloud capital. </p>
<p>So along with markets being steadily replaced by digital platforms, central bank money displaced private profits as the fuel that “fire[s] the global economy’s engine”. Intended by G7 central bankers and their presidents and prime ministers to “save capitalism”, it has unintentionally helped finance the emergence of a new form of capital (cloud capital) and a “new ruling class”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554466/original/file-20231018-23-rnfwr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554466/original/file-20231018-23-rnfwr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/554466/original/file-20231018-23-rnfwr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554466/original/file-20231018-23-rnfwr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554466/original/file-20231018-23-rnfwr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554466/original/file-20231018-23-rnfwr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554466/original/file-20231018-23-rnfwr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/554466/original/file-20231018-23-rnfwr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The ‘world of finance’, argues Yanis Varoufakis, has decoupled from the ‘real economy’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Markus Spiske/Unsplash</span></span>
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<h2>GFC: the turning point</h2>
<p>So why was the GFC such a pivotal point? Varoufakis has a lot to say. Here’s a brief sketch. (Bear with me!)</p>
<p>Crucial changes had taken place in our economies since the rise of large corporations in industry and banking, which grew ever bigger over the course of the 20th century, eventually becoming global in scale. </p>
<p>The Bretton Woods international financial system – designed to prevent the “greed-fuelled recklessness” that led to the 1929 crash, the Great Depression and a world war – was abolished in 1971. From the 1970s, economies were progressively deregulated and free-market policies were increasingly enthusiastically practised, leading to a new “financialised” version of capitalism.</p>
<p>This was facilitated by the suppression of workers’ wages and bargaining power. The weakened state was progressively captured by lobbyists for the interests of big business. And the hegemony of the US dollar in the global system led to a “tsunami” of dollars pouring back into US markets from Europe, Japan, and later China, “[enriching] America’s ruling class, despite its [large trade] deficit”. </p>
<p>By the new millennium, this had led to an orgy of speculation and, by 2007, the financiers, using “computer-generated complexity” to obscure the “gargantuan risks”, had “placed bets worth ten times more than humanity’s total income”.</p>
<p>The new version of capitalism was failing. But it had grown to such scale and in such a complex, integrated “globalised” way that the banks and insurance companies were “too big to fail”. Their collapse in 2008 would have taken down the US banking system, and the rest of the world with it. Their hubris was thus “rewarded with massive state bailouts”.</p>
<p>What <em>could</em> have happened, as in <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/Explainer_How_Sweden_Rescued_Banks_1990s/1379859.html">Sweden in the 1990s</a>, was to “kick out” the bankers, nationalise the banks, appoint new directors and, years later, sell them to new owners – thus saving the banks, but not the bankers.</p>
<p>What happened instead was that bankers, handed large bailouts, did not direct the money to where it was most needed. Neither punished nor chastened, they sent it straight to Wall Street. And there it stayed. Combined with the profits sent to Wall Street from the rest of the world, it eventually caused an “everything rally” that went on for over a decade. </p>
<p>This ultimately helped fuel the development of the cloud capital that has overtaken capitalism. And every time we use our devices, we contribute to its value. The more we transact via platforms, the further we move away from an economic system primarily driven by markets and profits, and the more power concentrates “in the hands of even fewer individuals” – a “tiny band of multi-billionaires residing mostly in California or Shanghai”.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/greed-is-amoral-how-wall-street-supermen-cashed-in-on-pandemic-misery-and-chaos-207311">'Greed is amoral': how Wall Street supermen cashed in on pandemic misery and chaos</a>
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<h2>A tech-driven economic revolution</h2>
<p>Varoufakis suggests his theory helps us better understand extreme wealth inequalities, the “atrophied democracies” and “poisoned politics” of the West, geopolitics (he interprets the United States and China as two rival “super cloud fiefs”), the stalling of the green energy revolution, and more.</p>
<p>For Varoufakis, we are not just living through a tech revolution, but a tech-driven economic revolution. He challenges us to come to terms with just what has happened to our economies – and our societies – in the era of Big Tech and Big Finance.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558188/original/file-20231107-19-nr1728.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558188/original/file-20231107-19-nr1728.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558188/original/file-20231107-19-nr1728.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=935&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558188/original/file-20231107-19-nr1728.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=935&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558188/original/file-20231107-19-nr1728.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=935&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558188/original/file-20231107-19-nr1728.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1175&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558188/original/file-20231107-19-nr1728.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1175&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558188/original/file-20231107-19-nr1728.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1175&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>The first decades of the 21st century have brought challenges that we are still struggling to come to grips with. One thing is for sure – we have no hope of improving things without properly understanding our predicament. </p>
<p>This book is a welcome contribution towards that task. A technofeudalist age, Varoufakis argues, is not inevitable. Despite the difficulties we face, we have the agency to reject “techno dystopia” and structure our institutions in ways that more meaningfully embody freedom and democracy.</p>
<p>Towards the end of Technofeudalism, Varoufakis canvasses some proposals, drawn from his earlier book <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/another-now-9781529110630">Another Now</a> (2020), for how to address these issues. These include ending the cloudalists faux “free service” model and replacing it with a universal micro-payment model, instituting a Bill of Digital Rights, and using digital technology to “democratise companies” (with decisions being taken collectively by “employee-shareholders”).</p>
<p>Varoufakis also proposes to “democratise money”. This plan would involve central banks issuing digital wallets, a universal basic income, reconfiguring “the central bank’s ledger” in the direction of a “common payment and savings system”, and abolishing the current capacity of private banks to “create money”.</p>
<p>The proposals are pretty radical, but I think Varoukais would say they are as radical as the times require them to be.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213992/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Pollard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Traditional capitalists are still flourishing, but according to Yanis Varoufakis they are not driving the economy like they used to.Christopher Pollard, Tutor in Sociology and Philosophy, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2102832023-10-16T19:04:58Z2023-10-16T19:04:58ZIn Killers of the Flower Moon, true crime reveals the paradoxes of the past<p>Martin Scorsese’s latest film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5537002/">Killers of the Flower Moon</a> is based on a 2017 <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com.au/books/Killers-of-the-Flower-Moon/David-Grann/9780857209030">book of the same name</a> by David Grann that chronicled a true story of Osage Indians being systematically murdered in the 1920s. </p>
<p>Fifty years earlier, the Osage had been driven from their ancestral lands in Kansas to a reservation in Oklahoma deemed by the Department of Indian Affairs to be “rocky, sterile, and unfit for cultivation”. It was then found to contain huge reserves of oil. </p>
<p>This oil brought enormous riches to the Osage people, who legally enjoyed “headrights” to land that could not be bought, only inherited. But it also led to a gruesome tale of white entrepreneurs marrying into the Osage clan to murder their relatives and make off with the family wealth.</p>
<h2>New Journalism</h2>
<p>Grann currently works as a staff writer for the New Yorker. His bestselling book was based around the principles of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/New-Journalism">New Journalism</a>, which developed as a popular literary genre during the 1960s in the hands of writers such as Truman Capote, Tom Wolfe and Joan Didion. </p>
<p>The most successful longer works in this format, such as Capote’s <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/in-cold-blood-9780241956830">In Cold Blood</a> (1966) and Norman Mailer’s <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-executioners-song-9780099688600">The Executioner’s Song</a> (1979), dramatise factual events to explore the complexities of American life. They typically eschew the more closeted dimensions of experimental fiction to engage openly with the public world. </p>
<p>Wolfe, who did a PhD in American Studies at Yale prior to his career as a writer, wrote several literary manifestos pointing explicitly to 19th-century realists, such as Dickens and Balzac, to support his claim that a capacity for “reporting” was more valuable to a creative writer than abstract “theory”. </p>
<p>Though Grann’s writing does not quite have the verve of Wolfe or Mailer, Killers of the Flower Moon gains much of its power from a similar sense of authenticity. His fastidiousness about historical records compels the reader to recognise the narrative’s factual rather than fictional basis. </p>
<p>The third and final section of the book, titled “The Reporter”, boasts an epigraph from William Faulkner’s novel <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absalom,_Absalom!">Absalom, Absalom!</a> (1936). And like Quentin Compson – Faulkner’s narrator – Grann portrays himself sorting through historical archives and oral testimonies of surviving witnesses in an attempt to reconstitute the past. </p>
<p>Killers of the Flower Moon is a captivating detective story, with all the usual twists and turns, but in this case the apparently unbelievable twists turn out to be true. </p>
<h2>The mythology of West</h2>
<p>Killers of the Flower Moon not only describes institutional racism and violence against Native American tribes, but the growth of law enforcement agencies in the United States between the two world wars. </p>
<p>One of Grann’s key themes is how J. Edgar Hoover used the Osage murder investigations to highlight the limitations of local police forces, so as to justify the establishment of the FBI on more centralised, scientific principles. The book’s subtitle – “Oil, Money, Murder, and the Birth of the FBI” – underlines its interest in the origins of Hoover’s agency, which was officially founded in 1935. </p>
<p>During the investigation, the Bureau of Investigation – the precursor to the FBI – regarded a rancher named <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/osage-murders-case">William Hale</a> as the “lone mastermind” of the killings. Grann’s conclusion, working from an impressive variety of sources, is that the focus on Hale was misplaced and the murder of Osage people during the 1920s and early 1930s was actually much more widespread. </p>
<p>He quotes an Osage tribe member as saying the white community considered murdering an Indian as merely akin to “cruelty to animals”. Indeed, one of the convicted criminals in 1924 justified his nefarious deeds on the grounds that “white people in Oklahoma thought no more of killing an Indian than they did in 1724”. </p>
<p>Grann’s wider perspective allows him to generalise his theme of racism. He suggests that such illegal forms of brutality were always embedded at the heart of the mythology of the American West. He quotes a Tulsa Tribune report on the trial of Hage and his accomplice John Ramsay, which described them simply as “two old-time cowboys”. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/david-granns-the-wager-a-drama-of-murder-insurrection-escape-and-an-empire-at-sea-206758">David Grann's The Wager: a drama of murder, insurrection, escape and an empire at sea</a>
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<p>An unsettling aspect of Grann’s book is its suggestion that the entire American system of commercial wealth and appropriation of territory was implicitly based on such gangsterism. Hale justified his activities by saying they were just a “business proposition”. Calling himself “the Reverend”, he presented himself in the venerable tradition of American pioneers who helped to forge God’s chosen nation out of the wilderness.</p>
<p>The chameleonic character of Hale accords with the theme of ambiguity, which is a central concern of Killers of the Flower Moon. Grann acknowledges the procedural inequity of implicating Herb Bert, a long-deceased guardian of one of the Osage women, simply on circumstantial evidence: “I was conscious of the unfairness of accusing a man of hideous crimes when he could not answer questions or defend himself.” </p>
<p>Grann admits finally that, in his role as investigative journalist, he “had lost the illusion that I would find some Rosetta stone that would unlock the secrets of the past.” In this sense, the ambivalence surrounding Hale – the question of whether he was a staunch pioneer, a clinical murderer, or both – is recapitulated in the book’s formal ambivalence, whereby Grann portrays the truth as impossible to pin down.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548748/original/file-20230918-17-ai5ae0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548748/original/file-20230918-17-ai5ae0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548748/original/file-20230918-17-ai5ae0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548748/original/file-20230918-17-ai5ae0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548748/original/file-20230918-17-ai5ae0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548748/original/file-20230918-17-ai5ae0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548748/original/file-20230918-17-ai5ae0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548748/original/file-20230918-17-ai5ae0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1146&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>This narrative complexity has interesting repercussions for the debates around the question of “truth-telling” in the fraught conditions of contemporary Australia. Grann’s point is that truth-telling is always an intertextual rather than a positive concept. Records can be corrected and hidden facts brought to light, but no final truth is ultimately available. </p>
<p>Grann’s book is valuable not just for the history it recounts and the obscure murder mysteries from the past that it illuminates, but for what it suggests about racial politics in contemporary America – and, by extension, Australia. He shows how the upstanding citizens of Oklahoma were perturbed by the newfound prosperity of the Osage Indians, a wealth they had come to assume was the birthright of their white community, and he describes how these ethnic frictions have continued into the present day. </p>
<p>In a recent interview, Grann remarked that his favourite genre of fiction is the detective novel. One of the heroes in Killers of the Flower Moon is Tom White, a fearless investigator from Texas, who is sent by J. Edgar Hoover into Oklahoma to organise undercover operations and expose the conspiracies in this tight-knit community. </p>
<p>White subsequently left Hoover’s organisation to work in Kansas as a prison governor on a higher salary, but in the late 1950s he attempted to commercialise the fleeting fame he had gained from the widely publicised murder investigations. He asked Osage novelist Fred Grove to assist him in writing a historical account. White’s memoir was rejected by publishers, but many years later it did morph into a fictionalised version by Grove entitled <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Years_of_Fear.html?id=sCsp4GjImqEC&redir_esc=y">The Years of Fear</a> (2002). </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/oklahoma-is-and-always-has-been-native-land-142546">Oklahoma is – and always has been – Native land</a>
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<h2>New light</h2>
<p>Tom White plays a minor part in Scorsese’s film. The director remarked in a recent interview with <a href="https://deadline.com/2023/05/martin-scorsese-interview-killers-of-the-flower-moon-leonardo-dicaprio-robert-de-niro-1235359006/">Deadline</a> that he was more interested in exploring the story’s “mystery” than reproducing “a police procedural”. </p>
<p>Reports of the movie’s premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May suggest it pays less attention to the bureaucratic reforms that led to the establishment of the FBI than Grann’s book. Scorsese focuses instead on the characters of William Hale, played by Robert de Niro, and Hale’s nephew Ernest Burkhart, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who was the husband of an Osage woman named Mollie. He casts the two men as charismatic villains with one foot in the old Wild West. </p>
<p>Scorsese is a truly great director who has previously represented enclosed ethnic communities (mainly Italian Americans), as well as the expansive mythologies of capitalist America. He has explored capitalism’s dangerous proximity to criminal activity in films such as <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338751/">The Aviator</a> (2004), starring DiCaprio as Howard Hughes. Scorsese would thus appear to be just the kind of cinematic artist to take on this complex subject and avoid reductive stereotypes or one-dimensional perspectives. </p>
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<span class="caption">David Grann.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.goodreads.com/photo/author/1431785.David_Grann">Goodreads</a></span>
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<p>Grann’s book sets its criminal activity in a wide social context. Its fascination lies in the scrupulous detail it brings to the story. Its depth of archival research shines new light on a distressing but not entirely anomalous episode in the recent American past. </p>
<p>Grann gestures explicitly towards some of the grand narratives of American literature, citing Don DeLillo on conspiracy theories and Faulkner on the opacities and bitterness of the Old South. But his particular expertise lies in more traditional journalistic virtues: punctiliousness, fine detail, and a precise sense of time and place. His version of events, while slow and meticulous at times, reconstructs an important event that probably seems even more significant now than it did 100 years ago. </p>
<p>The rise of interest in Indigenous rights across the globe, along with increasing scepticism about the racial assumptions of settler colonial authority, has changed the framework in which the Osage story can be understood. In an intelligently self-reflexive manner, Killers of the Flower Moon also interrogates the paradoxes of the past, the multiple ways in which it relates to the present, and vice versa.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210283/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Giles does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>David Grann’s account of a sensational murder investigation, the basis for Martin Scorsese’s latest film, delves into the mythologies of the old Wild WestPaul Giles, Professor of English, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, ACU, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2134562023-10-01T19:16:37Z2023-10-01T19:16:37ZCloser relations between Australia and India have the potential to benefit both nations<p>The structure of Andrew Charlton’s <a href="https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/australia-s-pivot-india">Australia’s Pivot to India</a> is built on three promises: the promise of India; the promise of the Australia-India relationship; and the promise of the Indian diaspora becoming a powerful mainstream force in Australian politics. </p>
<p>At a time when the Indian diaspora is attracting attention globally, this book – launched on Wednesday by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese – will be read, and read widely. </p>
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<p><em>Review: Australia’s Pivot to India – Andrew Charlton (Black Inc.)</em></p>
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<p>Unfortunately, the successes of the diaspora have been temporarily overshadowed by the Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/justin-trudeaus-india-accusation-complicates-western-efforts-to-rein-in-china-213922">accusation</a> that Indian government agents were involved in the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Vancouver. Nijjar was an advocate for a separate Khalistan Sikh state and the government of India believed he was involved in terrorist activities. India has categorically denied Trudeau’s charge.</p>
<p>Written for a discerning but popular audience, Australia’s Pivot to India is an elegant volume that treads ground familiar to those who have followed the bilateral relationship. The book serves as a primer and a political manifesto embedded in Charlton’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldview">weltanschauung</a>. It is written with finesse and fluency, but hurriedly: there is at least one sentence borrowed from my writings, used without attribution. </p>
<p>Charlton, the federal member for Parramatta and a rising star of the Australian Labor Party, is a believer. He is persuaded by India’s contemporary success and advocates the need for even greater intimacy between New Delhi and Canberra. For him, India’s rise is almost inevitable. As he puts it: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>For all its twists and turns, India’s journey has brought it to a point of extraordinary promise. Just as the twentieth century was said to be the American Century, and the nineteenth century was the Age of Empire, we may well end the twenty-first century with India on top. </p>
<p>India is already the largest nation in the world by population. And it’s growing so quickly that by 2070 its population should rival that of China, the United States and the European Union combined. India also has the fastest economic growth of any major nation. It has the second-largest armed forces and the fastest growing military capability in the world. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Will this book, and the earlier Peter Varghese report <a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/publications/trade-and-investment/india-economic-strategy/ies/index.html">An India Economic Strategy to 2035</a>, do for India what the <a href="https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/series/china-update/china-next-twenty-years-reform-and-development">Ross Garnaut report</a> and Kevin Rudd’s writings did for China three decades ago? </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/india-has-landed-on-the-moon-heres-what-the-political-and-economic-gains-are-212313">India has landed on the Moon: here's what the political and economic gains are</a>
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<h2>Amrit Kaal</h2>
<p>Charlton’s book is dedicated to the people of Parramatta and the Indian diaspora across Australia. But his India-focused political vision speaks beyond the Little India of his Parramatta electorate.</p>
<p>For his electorate and the Indian audience of his book, Charlton is preaching to the converted. Indians, including its diaspora across the world, believe in India’s rise probably more strongly than the most generous outsider. </p>
<p>While the Chinese were content to emerge after just 150 years of Western humiliation, many Indians believe Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of <a href="https://www.investindia.gov.in/team-india-blogs/new-india-amrit-kaal">Amrit Kaal</a> – literally the “age of immortality” – will see the return of the “Golden Age” of India after nearly 2000 years of suppression. Amrit Kaal refers to the period between 75 years and 100 years of India’s independence (2022-2047): a period in which it is projected that India will transition to become a developed country.</p>
<p>While Charlton focuses on India’s staggering demographics and its growth story, more recent news has also celebrated the country’s rise. As the Economist <a href="https://www.economist.com/asia/2023/09/07/the-g20-summit-will-be-a-resounding-success-for-india">recently suggested</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>In 2008 China used the Beijing Olympic games as a “coming-out party” to show itself off to the world. For India, the Presidency of the G20 has served much the same purpose.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The <a href="https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/meetings/international-summit/2023/09/09-10/">G-20 Summit in September</a> demonstrated India’s convening power and its ability to generate a consensus at what is arguably the most important forum engaged with the globe’s most consequential problems. The summit, and 200-odd meetings held all over India this year, brought the diversity, colour and genius of the Indian people onto the world stage with a new confidence.</p>
<h2>Civilisational strength</h2>
<p>Soft power is too vulgar, too belittling a term, to describe arguably the most resilient source of India’s power: a civilisational strength often suppressed by a lack of self-confidence. This has changed, and changed in such a way that India is being perceived as a key destination for dialogue and debate over the most contentious of issues. </p>
<p>Despite the seductive force of realpolitik, India seems to be able to retain its core values and its space, as well as its conscience. The theme of India’s G-20 presidency – <em>Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam</em>: a Sanskrit term meaning one earth, one family, one future – signalled this. The theme was fleshed out in the <a href="https://www.g20.org/content/dam/gtwenty/gtwenty_new/document/G20-New-Delhi-Leaders-Declaration.pdf">G20 New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We meet at a defining moment in history where the decisions we make now will determine the future of our people and our planet. It is with the philosophy of living in harmony with our surrounding ecosystem that we commit to concrete actions to address global challenges.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Simultaneously, India has become the voice for an alternative technological vision. Just ahead of the summit, <a href="https://datatopics.worldbank.org/g20fidata/">World Bank G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion</a> released a document that endorsed the transformative impact in India of <a href="https://www.ibm.com/topics/api">Application Programming Interfaces</a> (APIs), which allow different computer programs to communicate with each other. </p>
<p>It pointed out that a comprehensive data coordination system, known as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JAM_Yojana">JAM trinity</a>, has increased rates of participation in the Indian financial system from 25% in 2008 to over 80% of adults in last six years, and that it could do for much for the world. </p>
<p>The government established an electronic identification system, known as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aadhaar">Aadhaar</a>, which provides a unique identification number, based on biometrics, to everyone resident in India. Its electronic financial inclusion program, the <a href="https://www.pmindia.gov.in/en/major_initiatives/pradhan-mantri-jan-dhan-yojana/">Jan Dhan Yojana</a>, lets every citizen open a bank account, which provides access to a debit card, accident insurance cover, an overdraft facility and transfer of all direct benefits from the government. All transactions can be done through a mobile phone. </p>
<p>This technology is part of what has come to be known as the <a href="https://indiastack.org/">India Stack</a> – open-access software that can be provided to all those interested in the Global South. </p>
<p>India’s insistence on the African Union’s inclusion in the now G-21 was also rooted in this “alternative” vision of not losing your heart, even while being dictated by your head.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/au-and-g20-membership-will-give-africa-more-say-on-global-issues-if-it-speaks-with-one-voice-213737">AU and G20: membership will give Africa more say on global issues – if it speaks with one voice</a>
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<h2>Mutual understanding</h2>
<p>All of these developments complement the argument Charlton develops in Australia’s Pivot to India and will surely find place in the next edition of the book. The bulk of his book is concerned with examining the past, present and future of the bilateral relationship.</p>
<p>Charlton does well to look beyond the clichés of the “3Cs”: Commonwealth, cuisine and cricket. He considers multiple sectors where there are enormous opportunities for the relationship to grow. The “3Cs” lead to the “4Ds”: democracy, defence, <em>dosti</em> (friendship) and the diaspora. </p>
<p>Business, politics, media, education and culture are also identified by Charlton as potential areas of development. As he incisively points out: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Australia’s pivot to India should aspire to build a distinctive relationship that goes beyond transactional engagement and circumstantial alignment […] the essence of the partnership is to deepen the relationship with mutual investment in common endeavours across every sphere of our interactions. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The aim should be “to increase mutual understanding, build relationships and breed familiarity”. With their “expertise and energy”, the almost one-million-strong diaspora can play a key role in cementing the relationship and is therefore a “vital part of Australia’s pivot to India”.</p>
<p>In fleshing out areas of cooperation, Charlton illustrates the huge potential of the Australia-India partnership. As I have written in the foreword of historian Meg Gurry’s book on the <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/australia-and-india-mapping-the-journey-electronic-book-text">bilateral relationship</a> (the only full-length study on the relationship, which Charlton cites extensively): </p>
<blockquote>
<p>After six decades characterised by misperception, lack of trust, neglect, missed opportunities and even hostility, a new chapter in India’s relations with Australia has begun.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Consider this: in 1955, Robert Menzies decided Australia should not take part in the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Bandung-Conference">Bandung Afro-Asian</a> conference, which had been organised by India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Burma (Myanmar) and Ceylon (Sri Lanka). In doing so, Menzies – who would later confess that Occidentals did not understand India – alienated Indians, offended Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and left Australia unsure about its Asian identity for decades.</p>
<p>In 2011, when I became the inaugural director of the <a href="https://aii.unimelb.edu.au/">Australia India Institute</a> (whose seminal role in building the bilateral relationship Charlton almost completely ignores), I made a giant leap of faith. I had not visited Australia before and had little knowledge of the country. My friends warned me I was literally going “Down Under”, soon to become irrelevant and marginal to all policy issues in India. My teenage daughters were told they risked being bashed up in school and college. My extended family was astounded.</p>
<p>But today I have no doubt it was one of the best decisions of my life. With not one unpleasant experience in the country, as a family we have found Australians open, friendly, fair, accepting and generous, and the country a model of good governance.</p>
<p>In September 2014, when Liberal prime minister Tony Abbott visited India – <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-03/first-meeting-for-tony-abbott-and-india27s-new-leader-narendra/5716150">the first</a> stand-alone state visit to be hosted by the Modi government – he brought a sordid chapter of bilateral relations to a close. When asked why Australia had agreed to export uranium to India, which is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Abbott was unequivocal: “We trust you!” </p>
<p>No better declaration could have been made to reflect the new Australian belief in the promise and potential of this relationship, for it was the deficit of understanding and faith that severely undermined the relationship in the past. </p>
<p>In a reciprocal gesture, in November of that year, Mr Modi became the first Indian prime minister to visit Australia <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/indian-prime-minister-narendra-modi-draws-thousands-to-sydney-olympic-park-20141117-11oe5f.html">in 28 years</a>, adding new ballast to the relationship. Since then, the bilateral relationship has grown in strength, and across the board.</p>
<p>Today there are few countries in the Indo-Pacific which share so much in common, in both values and interests, than India and Australia. From water management and clean energy, to trauma research, skills and higher education, counter-terrorism, maritime and cybersecurity, there is a world of opportunities that awaits the two countries if they work in close coordination with each other.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213456/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amitabh Mattoo was the inaugural director of the Australia India Institute.</span></em></p>Today there are few countries in the Indo-Pacific which share so much in common, in both values and interests, than India and Australia. Andrew Charlton’s new book examines the possibilities.Amitabh Mattoo, Honorary Professor of International Relations, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2102702023-09-18T20:01:00Z2023-09-18T20:01:00ZGlobal corporate power is ‘out of control’, but reports of democracy’s death are greatly exaggerated<p>The past 40 years have seen massive expansion of the dominance of large corporations in the global economy. A wave of neoliberal reforms spread internationally from the 1980s with the promise that deregulated markets would unleash the animal spirits of private enterprise, bringing a new era of growth and prosperity. </p>
<p>Corporations were touted as the heroes of the neoliberal dream, casting off the shackles of staid state bureaucracy as they leapt forward into a future where there was no alternative to unfettered global capitalism. </p>
<p>So what happened?</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: Silent Coup: How Corporations Overthrew Democracy – Claire Provost and Matt Kennard (Bloomsbury)</em></p>
<hr>
<h2>The dream of popular capitalism</h2>
<p>In the late 1970s, <a href="https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/103336">Margaret Thatcher</a> championed “popular capitalism” as a means to deliver “renewed material prosperity, […] individual freedom, human dignity and to a more just, more honest society”. </p>
<p>Ronald Reagan promised that cutting the taxes of corporations and the wealthy would create a new era of economic prosperity for all. This was dubbed “<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/01/23/woke-capitalism-new-trickle-down-economics">trickle-down economics</a>”.</p>
<p>As leaders in the 1980s of the United Kingdom and United States, respectively, Thatcher and Reagan were harbingers of major changes to the global economic order. By 1989, what came to be known as the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/money/Washington-consensus">Washington Consensus</a> was firmly established as the dominant policy position of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This prompted a wave of structural reforms to economies across the developing world, lest they lose access to IMF dollars. </p>
<p>The “consensus”, for rich and poor nations alike, was that privatisation of state enterprises, liberalisation of markets, corporate deregulation, reduced taxation and the general withdrawal of government from economic affairs were the only ways to secure global economic growth.</p>
<h2>A dream that did not come true</h2>
<p>Journalists Claire Provost and Matt Kennard’s <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/silent-coup-9781350269989/">Silent Coup: How Corporations Overthrew Democracy</a> charts what has become of the corporate-led global prosperity that was promised in the 1980s. </p>
<p>Their assessment is grim and hopeless. Instead of shared progress arriving on the wings of an ever-empowered capitalism, what we got was a massive grab for power and money by the corporations that were supposed to save the world. </p>
<p>The book asserts that corporations have staged nothing less than a political <em>coup d’état</em>: a deliberate and successful attempt to usurp the power of nation states and establish themselves as rulers of the world. By its own account, Silent Coup provides a </p>
<blockquote>
<p>guide to the rise of supranational corporate empires that now dictate how resources are allocated, how territories are governed, how justice is defined and who’s safe. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Provost and Kennard chart four ways this corporate political revolution has been achieved. These involve the international legal system, the international aid and development system, the corporate acquisition of territory, and the growth of private corporate armies. It all amounts to an undermining of democracy by ever-growing corporate empires. </p>
<p>The first part of Silent Coup, “Corporate Justice”, examines the international treaties that have been established across the world by countries wishing to increase corporate foreign investment. These treaties give corporations legal authority to sue nation states in <a href="https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2023/09/17/development-vs-profit-exploring-the-controversial-realm-of-investor-state-dispute-settlement/">international tribunals if their investments are jeopardised</a>. </p>
<p>The book illustrates the power shift this entails with precisely documented examples from around the globe, from El Salvador to South Africa to Germany.
In El Salvador, for example, the Canadian mining company Pacific Rim <a href="https://investmentpolicy.unctad.org/investment-dispute-settlement/cases/356/pac-rim-v-el-salvador">sued the government</a> – unsuccessfully, in the end – for blocking it from opening a particular gold mine. Pacific Rim claimed the government’s actions, while legal, caused it to have lost “future profits”. </p>
<p>Provost and Kennard portray the system as being “out of control”. Investor trade arbitrations have turned the tables of power. The popular sovereignty of democratic nations, they argue, has been ceded to the private economic interest of the world’s corporations. </p>
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<p>Silent Coup then delves into the domination of international aid by large corporations. By way of example, Provost and Kennard report on the G8 initiative called <a href="https://www.feedthefuture.gov/the-new-alliance-for-food-security-and-nutrition/">New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition</a>, designed to reduce poverty and grow agriculture in Africa. In practice, this was implemented through changes to tax and agriculture laws designed to boost the profits of private agribusiness.</p>
<p>Government aid, in today’s world, is no longer positioned as reparation or generosity; wealthy countries now want a return on their investment. Projects that create trade and wealth opportunities for corporations are prioritised. This means, in effect, that aid is increasingly used to benefit big business as much as it ostensibly claims to be funding economic development. </p>
<p>A section on “Corporate Utopias” takes aim at <a href="https://www.britannica.com/money/topic/special-economic-zone">Special Economic Zones</a> established within countries to give corporations preferential tax rates and more relaxed regulations. Some of these zones are even exempt from labour laws and protections. </p>
<p>There are 3,500 such zones across the globe, from Myanmar and Shenzhen to Ireland and the UK, employing 66 million generally low-paid workers. Unfettered, union-free, government-backed worker exploitation, <a href="https://inthesetimes.com/features/special-economic-zones-corporate-utopia-capitalism.html">the authors argue</a>, runs rampant amid this epidemic of “sweatshop globalisation”.</p>
<p>The final section of Silent Coup, “Corporate Armies”, reports how corporations are engaging in military and police-like activities to protect their premises, transportation and logistics in places such as occupied Palestine, Columbia and Honduras. </p>
<p>One example discussed is fruit company Chiquita, which the US Department of Justice found <a href="https://www.justice.gov/archive/opa/pr/2007/March/07_nsd_161.html">guilty of funding and arming known terrorists</a> to protect its presence in the banana-growing regions of Colombia. Elsewhere, corporations are making profits from running <a href="https://www.asyluminsight.com/private-contractors">immigration detention centres</a> and <a href="https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/private-prisons-in-the-united-states/">prisons</a>. </p>
<p>In today’s world, corporations control armed forces at a level hitherto the exclusive realm of nation-states. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/greed-is-amoral-how-wall-street-supermen-cashed-in-on-pandemic-misery-and-chaos-207311">'Greed is amoral': how Wall Street supermen cashed in on pandemic misery and chaos</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The horror of the new world order</h2>
<p>Silent Coup paints a horrifying picture of a new world order in which power has been ripped from the hands of sovereign governments and placed in the hands of private corporations. The investigative journalism that underpins the book is harrowing reading, even for people well versed in the exploitative machinations of corporations and the deleterious effect they can have on people, politics and planet. </p>
<p>Amid the intrigue and suspense that characterises the writing of this book, there is an unnerving and unspoken undercurrent. The book quivers with a feeling that there is no hope. The air of hopelessness starts with the subtitle: How Corporations Overthrew Democracy. It is over, the authors aver; democracy has been defeated. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548706/original/file-20230918-17-rfrffi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548706/original/file-20230918-17-rfrffi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548706/original/file-20230918-17-rfrffi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548706/original/file-20230918-17-rfrffi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548706/original/file-20230918-17-rfrffi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548706/original/file-20230918-17-rfrffi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548706/original/file-20230918-17-rfrffi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548706/original/file-20230918-17-rfrffi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Matt Kennard.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/author/matt-kennard/">Bloomsbury Publishing</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Democracy is under attack, to be sure. But reports of its death are greatly exaggerated, if not irresponsible. That is not to say democracy is not wounded – Silent Coup provides meticulously researched and detailed case studies of just how out of control the political clout of corporations has become. But does that mean we give up hope in the promise of democracy under the guise of a dramatic clickbait headline? </p>
<p>This reviewer says no.</p>
<p>The drama of Silent Coup is, in many parts, unwarranted and misleading. This is not helped by the use of a first-person narrative that, throughout the book, characterises the authors as the protagonists. They are the ones who can reveal the secrets of the corporate revolution that has happened behind all of our backs. They are the fearless and intrepid journalists who have ventured into the big bad corporate world, returning with tales of their amazing adventures.</p>
<p>The rhetorical flair distracts from the real issues. What Provost and Kennard report is important, and reflects some of the most pressing political challenges of our time. But while their discoveries may have been revelations to them, these matters were hardly secrets and their journalistic exploits are not what is important. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548707/original/file-20230918-19-xm5lek.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548707/original/file-20230918-19-xm5lek.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548707/original/file-20230918-19-xm5lek.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548707/original/file-20230918-19-xm5lek.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548707/original/file-20230918-19-xm5lek.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548707/original/file-20230918-19-xm5lek.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548707/original/file-20230918-19-xm5lek.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548707/original/file-20230918-19-xm5lek.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Claire Provost.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/author/claire-provost/">Bloomsbury Publishing</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The problem is not that nobody knows about the growing global corporatocracy; it is that nobody seems to have the will or ability to stop it. </p>
<p>It is only in the book’s epilogue that a glimmer of hope shines through. Provost and Kennard gesture to a few examples of people resisting corporate power in the name of democracy, but little detail is provided. Perhaps this will be a sequel.</p>
<p>Democracy still means something. It means a promise of equality, liberty and solidarity among citizens. It means retaining the primacy of popular sovereignty – the rule of the people – instead of political power residing with a minority class of plutocrats. It means believing in the possibility of shared prosperity.</p>
<p>It is only with hope that we can retain the political will to continue the democratic promise, and to retain and strengthen the practices, institutions and ways of life that enable that promise. Political change does not come from resigning ourselves to a fate beyond our control, but from daring to dream of a better future. This is where the book fails.</p>
<p>It is not too late. Don’t give up.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210270/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carl Rhodes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Multinational corporations can dictate how resources are allocated, territories are governed, and justice is defined.Carl Rhodes, Professor of Organization Studies, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2136902023-09-18T12:19:43Z2023-09-18T12:19:43Z‘Big Bang of Numbers’ – The Conversation’s book club explores how math alone could create the universe with author Manil Suri<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548584/original/file-20230915-21-llxf3v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=30%2C36%2C4059%2C2955&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fractals emerge on Day 4 of Suri's playful Genesis-inspired narrative about math's role in creation.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/abstract-glowing-swirl-backgrounds-royalty-free-image/1129644961">oxygen/Moment via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The Conversation U.S. launched its new book club with a bang – talking to mathematician <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=lFWFsSkAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Manil Suri</a> about his nonfiction work “<a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324007036">The Big Bang of Numbers: How to Build the Universe Using Only Math</a>.” Suri, <a href="https://theconversation.com/pi-gets-all-the-fanfare-but-other-numbers-also-deserve-their-own-math-holidays-200046">a previous</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/want-to-fix-gerrymandering-then-the-supreme-court-needs-to-listen-to-mathematicians-114345">author in</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/declines-in-math-readiness-underscore-the-urgency-of-math-awareness-202691">The Conversation</a>, has also written an award-winning <a href="https://www.manilsuri.com/books">fiction trilogy</a>, in addition to being a professor of mathematics and statistics at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.</em></p>
<p><em>Below is an edited excerpt from the book club discussion. You’re welcome to keep the conversation flowing by adding your own questions for Suri to the comments.</em></p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7_GDfXBUsS8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Watch the full book club meeting and leave your own question in the comments at the bottom of this article.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p><strong>What is the Big Bang of numbers and where do you go from there in the book?</strong></p>
<p>I think the story for me started way back when I was an undergraduate in Bombay. My algebra professor told us this very famous saying by <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leopold-Kronecker">Leopold Kronecker</a>, the famous mathematician, that God gave us the integers and all the rest is the work of human beings. What he meant was that once you have the whole numbers – 1, 2, 3, 4 – which are somehow coming from heaven, then you can build up the rest of mathematics from it.</p>
<p>And then he went on and said, Hey, I can actually do better. I don’t need God. I can actually, as a mathematician, create the numbers out of nothing. And he showed us this marvelous, almost magic trick, where you start with something called the empty set and then you start building the numbers.</p>
<p>It was the closest I’ve been to a religious experience, almost like the walls just dissolved and suddenly there were numbers everywhere. </p>
<p>Once I started writing my novels, I was meeting a lot of people who were artists and writers. And they would always say, you know, we used to love math when we were in school, but afterward we never had a chance to really pursue it. And can you tell us something about your mathematics?</p>
<p>So, I started building a kind of talk, which started with this big bang, as I call it, building the numbers out of nothing. I finally decided I should write a math book, and it would be aimed at a wide audience.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548579/original/file-20230915-29605-ileohl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="black and white photo of a sea shell with light triangles of various sizes" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548579/original/file-20230915-29605-ileohl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548579/original/file-20230915-29605-ileohl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548579/original/file-20230915-29605-ileohl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548579/original/file-20230915-29605-ileohl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548579/original/file-20230915-29605-ileohl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548579/original/file-20230915-29605-ileohl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548579/original/file-20230915-29605-ileohl.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Patterns in nature, like the triangles on this shell, can be explained by simple mathematical rules.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324007036">Larry Cole</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And I said, well, can you go further? You can create the numbers, but can you actually start building everything, including the whole universe from that? So that was a way to try to lay out mathematics almost as a story where one thing follows from the other and everything is embedded in one narrative.</p>
<p><strong>Who were you imagining to be your readers as you were writing the book?</strong></p>
<p>There’s just so much joy to be had out of mathematics, so many things that you don’t really see in normal courses where the emphasis is always on doing the calculations, finding the right answer. So this book is written for people who want to really engage with mathematics on the level of ideas rather than get into computations and calculations.</p>
<p><strong>After you set off your Big Bang of numbers, you dig in to some of life’s big questions. What do you see as math’s role in grappling with those big thoughts, like where the universe came from, why we even exist and so on?</strong></p>
<p>Once you start talking about the Big Bang, what comes into your mind is creation. There is a doctrine called <em>creatio ex nihilo</em>, which is basically creating everything out of nothing. </p>
<p>That’s a cornerstone of many religions where God creates the universe out of nothing. It’s also in some sense being explored by physicists, where you have some sort of singularity and from that, everything emerges in the Big Bang.</p>
<p>So my thought was, both these areas, religion and physics, are in the public’s imagination much more than mathematics is. Is there a way to posit math as the creative force of everything?</p>
<p>Physicist <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1963/wigner/biographical/">Eugene Wigner</a>, who was a Nobel laureate, talked about the “unreasonable effectiveness” of mathematics at describing everything in our physical universe. It’s so good at modeling physics and what have you. Could it be that math is really the true driving force of the universe? Rather than us just inventing it and using it to describe the universe, could the universe really be describing mathematics? Then the universe is just a physical manifestation, an approximation, if you will, of those mathematical ideas. It’s a completely different view of math.</p>
<p><strong>There’s an ongoing debate over whether math is something that people invented or whether it’s something that exists independently of us. In the book, you say that perhaps the deepest insight that math can offer us is that it’s both of those things.</strong></p>
<p>So the glib answer to your question whether math’s invented or discovered is that you have to create a new word. Instead of discovered or invented it’s “disvented.”</p>
<p>What I mean by that is simply that there are some questions we really can’t get to any kind of logical or supportable answer. One is the question of our own existence – people might believe one thing or the other, but it always comes down to: Is there some real purpose to our lives, or is our creation just something that happened randomly – you know, molecules getting together?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548576/original/file-20230915-19-czqnre.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="silhouette of a head with lots of math notations exploding out" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548576/original/file-20230915-19-czqnre.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548576/original/file-20230915-19-czqnre.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548576/original/file-20230915-19-czqnre.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548576/original/file-20230915-19-czqnre.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548576/original/file-20230915-19-czqnre.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548576/original/file-20230915-19-czqnre.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548576/original/file-20230915-19-czqnre.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=372&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Is math something that is born from the human mind?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324007036">'The Big Bang of Numbers'</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Now if we invent mathematics, then we’re inventing it for a purpose. If it just generates by itself, starting with emptiness, building around numbers in some strange realm that we don’t know about, then it’s just wafting around, purposeless.</p>
<p>Math has that duality that can’t be resolved. So it’s a metaphor, telling us, hey, you can’t decide for math, and you’ll never be able to decide for yourself about your own existence. </p>
<p><strong>Can you tell us a bit about your previous books, the Indian novels?</strong></p>
<p>The first one was called “<a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393342826">The Death of Vishnu</a>.” I went back to visit my parents in Mumbai in around 1995, and this man Vishnu, who used to live in our building and do errands, was dying on our steps. I started writing this as a short story.</p>
<p>It started going into a more philosophical realm when a writing teacher said, you know, Vishnu is also the name of the caretaker of the universe in Hindu mythology. So if you name somebody Vishnu, you need to somehow explore that. So that’s what opened up this whole new world for me.</p>
<p>The second book was “<a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393333633">The Age of Shiva</a>.” That one’s the journey of a woman right after India’s independence in 1947. She’s making her way in a very male-dominated world, and she’s not perfect.</p>
<p>Then the third one, I decided, OK, I need to put in some science and math characters. So “<a href="https://wwnorton.co.uk/books/9780393346817-the-city-of-devi-77f37252-adcc-41f0-9b53-383405f76cab">The City of Devi</a>” actually has both a physicist and a statistician. Again it’s in Mumbai, set in the future with the threat of a nuclear war with Pakistan and a love triangle unfolding in front of that. </p>
<p>It’s kind of interesting. I thought that I was done with this mythical “where do we come from?” kind of philosophy that I had in the three books, but apparently not, because now “<a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324007036">The Big Bang of Numbers</a>” looks at it from a mathematical perspective.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213690/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
A book-length thought experiment uses math to investigate some of life’s big questions.Maggie Villiger, Senior Science + Technology EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2116642023-09-18T01:43:04Z2023-09-18T01:43:04ZContaminations, revisions, reinventions: how cultures, ancient and modern, have influenced each other<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543647/original/file-20230821-15-3kdumc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C2723%2C2699&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Replica of a painting from the Chauvet cave in the Anthropos Museum, Brno.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Martin Puchner’s <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Martin-Puchner-Culture-9781804182550/">Culture: A New World History</a> examines “the history of humans as a culture-producing species”. At the core of this statement lies the humanities, which emerges as a collective discipline “through a desire to revive a newly recovered past – more than once”.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: Culture: A New World History – Martin Puchner (Ithaca Press)</em></p>
<hr>
<p>In his introduction, Puchner qualifies this idea through the case study of the <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1426/">Chauvet Cave</a> in the south of France, where elaborate rock art dating back approximately 30,000-37,000 years was discovered in 1994. He reflects on the creation of this ancient art across generations, and the recovery of its remnants by new generations. </p>
<p>Culture is thus defined as a process of creation through transmission, and revival through discovery. This in turn</p>
<blockquote>
<p>means focusing on special places and institutions of meaning-making, from the earliest marks left by humans in places like the Chauvet cave to human-made cultural spaces such as Egyptian pyramids and Greek theaters, Buddhist and Christian monasteries.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As far as a general audience is concerned, Culture delivers. It is well written, nuanced and light in style, spinning a series of historical narratives in an erudite and engaging way. </p>
<p>The history is broad in scope. Each of the book’s 15 chapters focuses on a different cultural space and time. It begins with Queen Nefertiti (c.1370-c.1330 BCE), and ends with Nigeria declaring its independence from Great Britain in 1960. </p>
<p>Puchner takes us through his case studies, interweaving each with attendant stories to show that no discrete culture owns its historical narrative completely. </p>
<p>Rather, each narrative is created from cross-pollination or hybridisation, as different peoples have moved in and out of space and time, adding their own blueprint. Every culture is shown to have an immense backstory of influences, contaminations, revisions and reinventions.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-simon-during-on-the-demoralisation-of-the-humanities-and-what-can-be-done-about-it-186111">Friday essay: Simon During on the demoralisation of the humanities, and what can be done about it</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Cultural interaction</h2>
<p>A particular focus in Culture is the creation, preservation and transmission of culture through writing, translation and art. These processes, according to Puchner, have entailed travel, trade and global interactions. </p>
<p>In Puchner’s stories, we meet a host of fascinating historical characters. He gives an account of the excavation of the sculptor Thutmose’s workshop, which unearthed arguably one of ancient Egypt’s most iconic artefacts: the famous bust of Nefertiti. This, in turn, leads to a discussion of Nefertiti and her husband, the pharaoh Akhenaten, experimenting with monotheism.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543649/original/file-20230821-17-3qny0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543649/original/file-20230821-17-3qny0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543649/original/file-20230821-17-3qny0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=878&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543649/original/file-20230821-17-3qny0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=878&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543649/original/file-20230821-17-3qny0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=878&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543649/original/file-20230821-17-3qny0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1104&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543649/original/file-20230821-17-3qny0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1104&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543649/original/file-20230821-17-3qny0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1104&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bust of Nefertiti, Neues Museum, Berlin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Philip Pikart/Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is the Muslim sultan of Delhi, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firuz_Shah_Tughlaq">Firuz Shah Tughlaq</a> (1309–1388) – a man with a passion for architecture, inspired by his discovery of a mysterious stone pillar, which he eventually retrieved from its isolated location and brought to Delhi. </p>
<p>And there is the epic journey of the Chinese Buddhist explorer, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Xuanzang">Xuanzang</a> (602-664 CE), author of the Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, which Puchner describes as “a classic in cultural mobility”.</p>
<p>Puchner is not naïve about the realities underpinning his stories of cultural interaction, replete as they are with colonialism, destruction, theft, and getting it wrong as much as getting it right. A particularly poignant case study in this respect is <a href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/tenochtitlan/">Tenochtitlan</a>, the floating Aztec city founded c.1325, which was besieged, looted and destroyed by the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés (1485–1547) in 1521. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543653/original/file-20230821-29-x3j9t9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543653/original/file-20230821-29-x3j9t9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543653/original/file-20230821-29-x3j9t9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543653/original/file-20230821-29-x3j9t9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543653/original/file-20230821-29-x3j9t9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543653/original/file-20230821-29-x3j9t9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543653/original/file-20230821-29-x3j9t9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543653/original/file-20230821-29-x3j9t9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hernán Cortés (1485-1547) – artist unknown.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Public domain</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This reality check reminds us that we need to do better than we did in the past. Recovery means more than wilful and ambitious archaeological practices. It means more than class-riven scholars locking up the artefacts of antiquity for the eyes of the intelligentsia only. </p>
<p>Recovery is about the constant striving towards “getting it right” and communicating with the broader community. It entails educating the next generation, entrusting them with the preservation of “human inheritance”, so they may proceed with “humility”. </p>
<h2>The necessity of education</h2>
<p>Puchner is interested in the creation of repositories for histories, religious texts, and literature in the form of academies, monasteries, libraries, and even <em>studioli</em> (“little studios”). </p>
<p>He discusses the necessity of education – written and spoken – as a mechanism of preserving culture. His book considers the examples of <a href="https://iep.utm.edu/plato-academy/">Plato’s Academy</a> (the first western university); the <a href="https://www.islamicity.org/60008/baghdad-the-house-of-wisdom-bayt-al-hikmah/">House of Wisdom</a>, also known as the Grand Library of Baghdad, from the Islamic Golden Age (c.8th–13th centuries CE); and the scriptoria or “writing rooms” of the <a href="https://osb.org/our-roots/a-brief-history-of-the-benedictine-order/">Benedictines</a>, the Christian order founded by Saint Benedict in the 6th century.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543651/original/file-20230821-15-j4kcb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543651/original/file-20230821-15-j4kcb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543651/original/file-20230821-15-j4kcb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1093&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543651/original/file-20230821-15-j4kcb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1093&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543651/original/file-20230821-15-j4kcb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1093&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543651/original/file-20230821-15-j4kcb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1373&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543651/original/file-20230821-15-j4kcb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1373&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543651/original/file-20230821-15-j4kcb0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1373&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Saint Benedict – Francisco de Zurbarán (c.1640-45).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Saint_Benedict_MET_DT10251.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Puchner’s heroic tales of creative and intellectual interaction are chronicled in historical artefacts and documents, such as The Pillow Book by <a href="https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Sei_Shonagon">Sei Shōnagon</a> (c. 966–c.1017). Shōnagon was lady-in-waiting to Fujiwara no Teishi, empress consort to Emperor Ichijō. The Pillow Book is a hybrid text in the form of a diary, which includes stories, anecdotes, gossip, poems and character portraits. </p>
<p>Shōnagon’s adventures become the basis of Puchner’s discussion of the extensive Chinese influence on the culture of the Japanese court – a discussion that is additionally fascinating because the information gleaned from The Pillow Book comes from a female perspective.</p>
<h2>Methods and paradigms</h2>
<p>While Culture makes for some thought-provoking reading, not all of the chapters are consistent or clear in the presentation of ideas. The chapter on Plato, for example, shows Puchner to be out of his depth, with ideas not always meshing. His accounts of the Egyptian influence on Greek culture and Plato the young playwright falling under the spell of Socrates and turning to philosophy are messy and uncertain. </p>
<p>Puchner nevertheless challenges us not to get caught up in the traditional Western paradigm of the ancient Greeks as the creators of culture. As he observes, the Egyptians considered the Greeks to be latecomers, compared to their own monumental history. </p>
<p>His chapter on Rome, which is overtly concerned with the Greek influence on Roman culture, adds little to this extensively researched topic. The intriguing story of a statue of Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of prosperity, which somehow voyaged from South Asia to Campania and was eventually unearthed at Pompeii, though delightfully narrated by Puchner, gets lost along the way. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543652/original/file-20230821-19-pfq61q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543652/original/file-20230821-19-pfq61q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543652/original/file-20230821-19-pfq61q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543652/original/file-20230821-19-pfq61q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543652/original/file-20230821-19-pfq61q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543652/original/file-20230821-19-pfq61q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543652/original/file-20230821-19-pfq61q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543652/original/file-20230821-19-pfq61q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lakshmi – Raja Ravi Varma (c.1906)</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lakshmi_by_Raja_Ravi_Varma.jpg">Public domain</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While some chapters, such as the one on Nefertiti, are smooth and coherent, others (Puchner’s discussion of the Muslim philosopher <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ibn-sina/">Ibn Sina</a>’s dreams of Aristotle, for example) could have been better established by a consideration of the function of folklore and aetiological myth in cultural history. A closer reflection on the system of <a href="https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/world-history/ancient-medieval/syncretism/a/syncretism-article">syncretism</a> as a historical methodology, now regularly contested by academics, would also have been beneficial to Puchner’s project.</p>
<p>Despite its charm, Culture does not present anything new, particularly to scholars who are deeply engaged in the varied and intricate history of cultural transmissions. Unfortunately, and perhaps inadvertently, the book gives the impression that it is the first to consider cultural hybridisation in a dynamic global context – an impression augmented by the notes, which are light on the vast scholarship on the theme. </p>
<p>This incorrect impression is not helped by the publisher’s hype around the book, which declares: “Puchner argues that the humanities are (and always have been) essential to the transmission of knowledge that drives the efforts of human civilization.” </p>
<p>This is an argument that has been made many times before.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211664/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marguerite Johnson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Martin Puchner’s engaging new history argues that every culture has its backstory of influencesMarguerite Johnson, Honorary Professor, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2116312023-08-17T13:31:43Z2023-08-17T13:31:43ZSix books to read this Women In Translation month – recommended by our experts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543043/original/file-20230816-29-p8ed5q.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=35%2C17%2C1961%2C1179&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Harvill Secker/The Feminist Press at CUNY/Amazon Crossing/Dedalus Ltd/Deep Vellum Publishing/Other Press</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Only a third of books translated into English are by women authors. August is <a href="https://www.womenintranslation.org/witmonth">Women in Translation</a> month, which hopes to address this imbalance by getting more people reading and buying – and publishers translating – books by women. In a bid to do our part we asked a few of our experts to recommend some of their favourite books.</em></p>
<p><em>This is by no means an exhaustive list, but a starting point for you to go and discover more wonderful books by women from all over the world that have been translated into English.</em></p>
<h2>1. <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/412741/little-aunt-crane-by-geling-yan/9780099569633">Little Aunt Crane</a> by Yan Geling, translated from Chinese by Esther Tyldesley</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Book cover featuring a woman in a red scarf and holding an umbrella." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543004/original/file-20230816-31-1ytir0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543004/original/file-20230816-31-1ytir0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543004/original/file-20230816-31-1ytir0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543004/original/file-20230816-31-1ytir0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543004/original/file-20230816-31-1ytir0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543004/original/file-20230816-31-1ytir0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543004/original/file-20230816-31-1ytir0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Harvill Secker</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Little Aunt Crane shocks readers with its powerful opening. The second world war is ending and the Japanese have surrendered. The village of Sakito in north-eastern China is full of Japanese nationals and as the Chinese draw in, the elders decide to preserve their honour. The villagers embark on a mass suicide. There is only one survivor, 16-year-old Tatsuru. </p>
<p>Tatsuru, alone and in a country hostile to Japanese people, attempts to flee but is captured by human traffickers and sold to a wealthy Chinese family looking for a surrogate. Her name is changed to Duohe and she is told she must bear the children of their son while pretending to be the sister of his wife, Xiaohuan. An unlikely bond develops between the two women in this story that spans several decades of Mao’s rule.</p>
<p>Little Aunt Crane is a powerful novel about identity, love and family that also manages to trace the intricate emotional, ethical and even political challenges in post-war China. It’s a rare example of a Chinese novel that focuses on a Japanese protagonist in the post-war era, highlighting the struggles of women like Duohe and Xiaohuan. </p>
<p><em>Reviewed by Beixi Li</em></p>
<h2>2. <a href="https://www.feministpress.org/books-a-m/la-bastarda">La Bastarda</a>, by Trifonia Melibea Obono, translated from Spanish by Lawrence Schimel</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Purple book cover featuring a white ring and text." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543006/original/file-20230816-19-f4anvz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543006/original/file-20230816-19-f4anvz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543006/original/file-20230816-19-f4anvz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543006/original/file-20230816-19-f4anvz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543006/original/file-20230816-19-f4anvz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543006/original/file-20230816-19-f4anvz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543006/original/file-20230816-19-f4anvz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Feminist Press at CUNY</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“Come on, try it. You’ll like it. You’re in the forest – the Fang forest is a free space. Now you’re free.” Freedom is not something orphaned narrator Okomo is accustomed to. Which makes this particular scene of queer sexual desire – away from the heterosexual, patriarchal traditions of the village – all the more exhilarating. Okomo’s family belong to the Fang community, the largest ethnic group in mainland Equatorial Guinea. </p>
<p>This short, sharp, addictive novel follows Okomo as she decodes and navigates the restrictive norms of Fang culture and searches for her estranged father. The narrative is laden with rules and hierarchies that structure Okomo’s existence and the characters around her are distinguished by their position, their relationships and their achievements. </p>
<p>Yet Trifonia Melibea Obono – and Lawrence Schimel, through his translation from Spanish – draw us to those who do not fit within these hierarchies. In these relationships between outcasts there is sanctuary to be found, away from the structural and physical violence, away in the shelter of the forest.</p>
<p><em>Reviewed by Olivia Hellewell</em></p>
<h2>3. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37660359-the-golden-hairpin">The Golden Hairpin</a> by Cece Qinghan, translated from Chinese by Alex Woodend</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Book cover featuring a hand reaching for a bird cage." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543005/original/file-20230816-19-7z7nqn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543005/original/file-20230816-19-7z7nqn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543005/original/file-20230816-19-7z7nqn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543005/original/file-20230816-19-7z7nqn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543005/original/file-20230816-19-7z7nqn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543005/original/file-20230816-19-7z7nqn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543005/original/file-20230816-19-7z7nqn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amazon Crossing</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Golden Hairpin is a historical crime novel set during the reign of Emperor Yizong of Tang (AD859 to AD873) of China. The main character, Huang Zixia, is accused of murder. She disguises herself as a boy and infiltrates the palace to try to clear her name.</p>
<p>Huang Zixia finds herself caught up in mysteries, which must be solved against a background of treacherous court battles and intrigue. In China, Huang Zixia’s hairpin is as iconic as Sherlock Holmes’s deerstalker hat and pipe and she is an intelligent and courageous female sleuth. </p>
<p>If you are interested in Chinese culture, especially the Tang Dynasty, you will love this beautifully written and intricately plotted novel.</p>
<p><em>Reviewed by Beixi Li</em></p>
<h2>4. <a href="https://www.dedalusbooks.com/our-books/book.php?id=00000378#:%7E:text=This%20volume%20brings%20together%20six,Yugoslavia%20until%20the%20early%201990s.">Take Six: Six Balkan Women Writers</a>, translated from <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian-language">Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian</a> and Macdeonian by Will Firth, and Slovenian by Olivia Hellewell</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Book cover featuring two paintings of women." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543007/original/file-20230816-22-63htsy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543007/original/file-20230816-22-63htsy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543007/original/file-20230816-22-63htsy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543007/original/file-20230816-22-63htsy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543007/original/file-20230816-22-63htsy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543007/original/file-20230816-22-63htsy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543007/original/file-20230816-22-63htsy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dedalus Ltd</span></span>
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<p>Anthologies can be tricky things and grouping writers together by arbitrary labels is not without its problems. But this anthology, which brings us six writers from six countries that were part of Yugoslavia until the early 1990s, is an excellent example of what a good anthology can do. </p>
<p>As one of its translators, I am biased, but this collection showcases a variety of forms and styles and provides the opportunity to dip in and discover writing that is not otherwise easy to come by in English translation.</p>
<p>Under one cover, readers can find autobiographical pieces, little-heard accounts of women’s lives in rural Bosnia, meandering travel prose, a genre-defying polyphonic story about time and space and stories connected by small objects or by settings. As a translator of the Slovenian stories, I am especially fond of the humour that Ana Svetel’s stories inject into the collection.</p>
<p><em>Reviewed by Olivia Hellewell</em></p>
<h2>5. <a href="https://fireflypress.co.uk/books/blue-book-of-nebo/">The Blue Book of Nebo</a>, written and translated from Welsh by Manon Steffan Ros</h2>
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<img alt="Blue book cover featuring a rabbit's head crossed out." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543010/original/file-20230816-19-elkj6x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543010/original/file-20230816-19-elkj6x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=960&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543010/original/file-20230816-19-elkj6x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=960&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543010/original/file-20230816-19-elkj6x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=960&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543010/original/file-20230816-19-elkj6x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1206&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543010/original/file-20230816-19-elkj6x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1206&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543010/original/file-20230816-19-elkj6x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1206&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Deep Vellum Publishing</span></span>
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<p>Told as a series of diary entries, The Blue Book of Nebo is a moving tale of a mother-son relationship after an unspecified apocalypse devastates the UK. Rowenna and her teenage son Dylan survive alone in their Welsh village, growing their own food and raiding nearby houses for tools and books. </p>
<p>The book is a knowing take on the young adult post-apocalypse novel. It reminded me, in the best way, of nuclear novels like <a href="https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/2243130.children-dust-louise-lawrence/">Louise Lawrence’s Children of the Dust</a> (1985) or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Children_of_Schewenborn">Gudrun Pausewang’s The Last Children of Schewenborn</a> (1983). </p>
<p>Manon Steffan Ros usually writes in Welsh. The English version is a beautiful reflection on reclaiming the Welsh language – an aspect of the novel which was, intriguingly, introduced in translation. Last year the novel became the first ever translated book to win the <a href="https://yotocarnegies.co.uk/2023-winners-announced/#:%7E:text=For%20the%20first%20time%20in,translated%20by%20Manon%20Steffan%20Ros.">Yoto Carnegie Medal</a> for children’s literature.</p>
<p><em>Reviewed by Carol O'Sullivan</em></p>
<h2>6. <a href="https://otherpress.com/product/as-we-exist-9781635422849/">As We Exist: A Postcolonial Autobiography</a> by Harchi Kaoutar, translated from French by Harchi Kaoutar and Emma Ramadan</h2>
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<img alt="Book cover featuring a Polaroid picture of a woman holding a baby." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543012/original/file-20230816-23-gpnjf5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543012/original/file-20230816-23-gpnjf5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543012/original/file-20230816-23-gpnjf5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543012/original/file-20230816-23-gpnjf5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543012/original/file-20230816-23-gpnjf5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543012/original/file-20230816-23-gpnjf5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543012/original/file-20230816-23-gpnjf5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>Harchi’s literary memoir retraces the author and sociologist’s formative years in eastern France. Born in a loving, hardworking family from the Moroccan diaspora, Harchi dispels the myth of a multicultural France to capture the injustices of a society where “the figure of the Muslim embodies the myth of the enemy within”. </p>
<p>Harchi describes various forms of sanctioned violence imposed on post-colonial citizens that fall under the banner of state racism, including marginalising women and banning religious symbols from state schools. Harchi’s elegant prose recalls the fear experienced within many communities when <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/06/29/in-2005-three-weeks-of-rioting-shook-france-after-the-deaths-of-two-teenagers_6039444_7.html">the death of two teenagers</a> fleeing from the police led to three weeks of violent riots against police brutality and increased cultural divisions in 2005. </p>
<p>Written in powerful poetic language, Harchi’s book eloquently describes how growing up as an outsider shaped her identity and awakened her political awareness. This timely translation provides a pertinent insight into contemporary French society.</p>
<p><em>Reviewed by Nicole Fayard</em></p>
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211631/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span><a href="mailto:nicole.fayard@le.ac.uk">nicole.fayard@le.ac.uk</a> has previously received funding from the British Academy.
Affiliations: Chair of Leicester Freeva; member of the Executive Board of the ASMCF (no financial interest in either) and member of staff at the University of Leicester (no financial gain).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Beixi Li, Carol O'Sullivan, and Olivia Hellewell do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Mysteries from China, short stories from the Balkans, a French-Morrocan autobiography and more.Beixi Li, PhD Candidate, Translation Studies, University of BristolCarol O'Sullivan, Associate Professor in Translation Studies, University of BristolNicole Fayard, Associate Professor in French and Francophone Studies, University of LeicesterOlivia Hellewell, Assistant Professor in Peninsular Spanish and Translation Studies, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2103262023-08-09T20:35:27Z2023-08-09T20:35:27ZTelling stories of our climate futures is essential to thinking through the net-zero choices of today<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/telling-stories-of-our-climate-futures-is-essential-to-thinking-through-the-net-zero-choices-of-today" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>It has been a year of devastating climate impacts with <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2219825120">humanity around the world experiencing a bitter taste</a> of what climate scientists have been warning about for years. The dire prospect is that we are on the precipice of a “<a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/us/voices/air-quality-index-nyc-fires-smoke-b2354703.html">new abnormal</a>.” </p>
<p>Observers of climate change, and its victims, are desperate for action while the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-action-on-climate-change-gets-stuck-and-what-to-do-about-it-128287">manifold political and economic obstacles remain tough to overcome</a>. However, what is even more evident is that we lack a clear vision of our future to guide our pursuit of climate action. </p>
<p>To be clear, it is not for lack of <em>goals</em>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/net-zero-by-2050">Net Zero by 2050</a>. <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/">1.5 C above pre-industrial levels</a>. <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/services/environment/weather/climatechange/climate-plan/climate-plan-overview/emissions-reduction-2030.html">A 40 per cent reduction of 2005 greenhouse gas emissions by 2030</a>. These are all admirable goals, but they are not visions that can help people to see, feel and understand where we are going. </p>
<p>Canadians and people around the world need stories that can help make those visions real. Stories that can help build the national conversation we need about the massive transformations on the horizon.</p>
<h2>The power of story</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/energy-research-and-social-science/vol/31/suppl/C">Social science</a> and <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/ebook.php?isbn=9780520967557">humanities</a> research is exploring the role of stories and imagination in pursuing climate action and increasingly concluding that they are crucial. </p>
<p>Indeed, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.249">one study found</a>: “Transformations require the capacity to collectively envision and meaningfully debate realistic and desirable futures. Without such a collective imagination capacity and active deliberation processes, societies lack both the motivation for change and guidance for decision-making in a certain direction of change.”</p>
<p>Creative writers have been responding to this <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/G/bo22265507.html">need for vision</a> through <a href="https://theconversation.com/ca/topics/climate-fiction-29777">stories</a>. The climate fiction genre, both <a href="https://theconversation.com/imagining-both-utopian-and-dystopian-climate-futures-is-crucial-which-is-why-cli-fi-is-so-important-123029">utopian and dystopian</a> is now too broad and diverse to briefly review with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jun/26/stories-to-save-the-world-the-new-wave-of-climate-fiction">novels</a>, <a href="https://climateimagination.asu.edu/everything-change/">short stories</a> and <a href="https://grist.org/fix/imagine-2200-climate-fiction-2022/">literary contests</a>. </p>
<p>Some works, such as Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel <em>Ministry for the Future</em>, have even found themselves in mainstream conversations — endorsed by prominent figures like Barack Obama — while climate change is also increasingly a motif in novels that <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2022/05/climate-change-fiction/629809/">are not necessarily about climate change</a>.</p>
<p>Scholars are <a href="https://climateimagination.asu.edu/research/">keenly aware of this trend</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.2020.081">have been studying</a> its <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-017-2020-2">impacts and contributing stories themselves</a>. </p>
<p>A project at Lund University in Sweden developed a <a href="https://www.climatefutures.lu.se/carbon-ruins">Museum of Carbon Ruins</a>, projecting forward to a post-carbon future and envisioning how we will look back upon our world today, while Cree scholar Sandra Lamouche’s research explores how <a href="https://climateinstitute.ca/publications/power-acimowin-storytelling-climate-change-policy/">Indigenous storytelling can inform climate policy and action</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/storytelling-allows-elders-to-transfer-values-and-meaning-to-younger-generations-197766">Storytelling allows elders to transfer values and meaning to younger generations</a>
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<p>Stories matter for shaping how we think about the future and what we do in the present. They can make the future tangible and the process of getting from now to then visible. They can serve as warnings and signposts and can make the abstract concrete. As Alexandra Nikoleris, Johannes Stripple, and Paul Tenngart <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-017-2020-2">argue in a recent piece comparing climate fiction and scientific reports on climate futures</a>, “Through identification with the protagonists in literary fiction, climate futures become close and personal rather than distant and abstract.” </p>
<h2>The role of story in action</h2>
<p>At present, Canada has a <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-19.3/fulltext.html">legislated goal of achieving net zero by 2050</a>. <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/services/environment/weather/climatechange/climate-plan/net-zero-emissions-2050.html">Policies are being made</a> and <a href="https://climateinstitute.ca/news/budget-2023-is-a-strong-gameplan-to-keep-canada-competitive/">billions are being spent and pledged</a>. This is a good thing. Canada desperately needs to move quickly in its pursuit of climate action. To help governments and Canadians consider what this means for them, there are <a href="https://climateinstitute.ca/reports/canadas-net-zero-future/">think tank reports</a>, an <a href="https://nzab2050.ca/">advisory body</a>, and many opinion pieces that fall along predictable partisan lines. </p>
<p>What is missing are stories. Stories of how we might get there. Stories of what might go wrong along the way. Stories of what net zero looks like. Stories of what might still need doing once we are there. Stories that help people to connect policy decisions and socio-technical changes to their lives now and as Canada moves through the transition to net zero.</p>
<p>At the <a href="https://envirogovlab.ca/">Environmental Governance Lab</a> at the University of Toronto, we are contributing to filling this gap with the first volume of a speculative fiction magazine set in an imagined 2050 in a Canada that has achieved its net-zero goal, <em><a href="https://wedidit2050.ca/">We Did It!?</a></em>. Produced through a series of workshops with writers, social scientists and technical experts, the stories consider different aspects of how Canada got to net zero, what life looks like, and the work still left to be done to create a just and equitable low-carbon society. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/forget-net-zero-to-halt-global-heating-aim-for-net-negative-195484">Forget net-zero: to halt global heating, aim for net-negative</a>
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<p>Through profiles and human interest stories, poetry, a movie review job ad and more, the stories in the magazine explore the tensions, obstacles and opportunities found in the pursuit of net zero. Some are stories of what goes wrong. Others explore what the good life in 2050 might look like. </p>
<p>Taken together they personalize the policies and technical shifts that are all too often remote and removed. They make concrete <a href="https://wedidit2050.ca/about">the social, political and economic dynamics</a> that are all too often abstract. The goal is to spark the imagination and conversation about what climate action can and will mean for Canadians. </p>
<h2>An ongoing discourse</h2>
<p>This is the first volume of what will hopefully be many. We plan to explore additional aspects of Canada’s net-zero journey and bring the process of future history storytelling to multiple audiences and story producers, including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14733285.2022.2153329">secondary students interested in climate change</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-students-can-use-storytelling-to-bring-the-dangers-of-climate-change-to-life-166693">How students can use storytelling to bring the dangers of climate change to life</a>
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<p>Stories are not just visions or flights of imagination. They can reflect our understandings, help us think through choices and see possibilities for action, contingencies and consequences. They add colour to technical analyses that are often lacking human stories, and frequently ignore the perspectives and understandings of people who live in the world of those policies and consequences. </p>
<p>They can <a href="https://wedidit2050.ca/pride-and-joy">shift our perspective</a> on <a href="https://wedidit2050.ca/travelogue-a-transportation-engineer-retraces-journey-to-chicago-50-years-later">what is possible</a>, provide a channel for hearing new voices and force us to reflect on our <a href="https://wedidit2050.ca/the-people-of-net-zero">hopes</a> or <a href="https://wedidit2050.ca/thirsty">fears</a>. If we are going to change the story of climate destruction and despair that we read everyday, we need more stories to help us understand and contemplate where we are going and how we get there.</p>
<p>After all, as Robinson reminds us, <a href="https://climateimagination.asu.edu/everything-change/">“We decide what to do based on the stories we tell ourselves.”</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210326/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Hoffmann receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the University of Toronto Scarborough and the Dean Family Symposium Fund.</span></em></p>The power of storytelling to help inform our decisions is underappreciated and of vital importance in envisioning a better future, and the steps to take to get us there.Matthew Hoffmann, Professor of Political Science and Co-Director of Environmental Governance Lab, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2099792023-07-18T22:53:35Z2023-07-18T22:53:35ZBig W has withdrawn Welcome to Sex from its stores to protect staff – but teen sex education can keep young people safe<p>Teaching young people about gender, sex and sexuality has long been controversial. </p>
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<p>The most recent debate is over Dr Melissa Kang and Yumi Stynes’ <a href="https://www.hardiegrant.com/au/publishing/bookfinder/book/welcome-to-sex-by-melissa-kang/9781760509538">Welcome to Sex: Your no-silly-questions guide to sexuality, pleasure and figuring it out</a>, which has been withdrawn from sale at <a href="https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/parenting/teens/anger-intensifies-over-welcome-to-sex-book-in-big-w-and-target/news-story/8d87194408908c18b2cccd14c73ac4db">Big W</a> stores this week, after “multiple incidents of abuse” of its staff by angry critics of the book. However, Big W “stands by” Welcome to Sex, which it calls “educational, age-appropriate and inclusive”. The department store will continue to sell it online.</p>
<p>Two sides to the debate are playing out. </p>
<p>One side <a href="https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/disgusting-big-w-blasted-for-selling-sick-sexual-book-written-for-children-by-melissa-kang-and-abcs-yumi-stynes/news-story/4f609491783ea9c788a1e62e7c7e1798">argues</a> the book is a graphic sex guide that’s “teaching sex” to young children. Critics have taken particular issue with small sections of the book that address inclusive sexual practices beyond penetrative sex, including “fingering”, “oral sex”, “scissoring”, and “anal sex”.</p>
<p>They are also critical of the inclusion of what they term “<a href="https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-70060-1_86-1#Bib1">gender ideology</a>”. Others are accusing the authors of “<a href="https://theconversation.com/grooming-an-expert-explains-what-it-is-and-how-to-identify-it-181573">grooming</a>” children – a term that is <a href="https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/may/11/why-its-not-grooming-what-research-says-about-gend/">increasingly misused</a>.</p>
<p>The other side is celebrating Welcome to Sex for providing comprehensive and inclusive sex education. Many are <a href="https://twitter.com/AdeleKThomas/status/1681093744291098625">saying</a> they wish they had access to this kind of book growing up. </p>
<p>The book describes itself as a “frank, age-appropriate introductory guide to sex and sexuality for teens of all genders […] inclusive, reassuring and all about keeping sex fun, real, and shame-free”.</p>
<p>I am a researcher on texts for young people that deal with issues around sex, sexuality and gender. With my colleague, Dr Paul Venzo, we have been examining the rise of (and demand for) books that provide an inclusive, safe and engaging way to discuss the essential topic of sex for young people. </p>
<h2>Sex education books aren’t new</h2>
<p>Sex education books for young people aren’t new. Non-fiction picture books from the 1970s like Peter Mayle’s <a href="https://www.dymocks.com.au/book/where-did-i-come-from-by-peter-mayle-and-arthur-robins-9780330273442">Where Did I Come From?</a> (1973) and <a href="https://www.dymocks.com.au/book/whats-happening-to-me-by-peter-mayle-and-arthur-robins-9780330273435">What’s Happening to Me?</a> (1975) began the trend of introducing young people to sex in direct and detailed ways. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003131434-4/tingly-feeling-paul-venzo">Paul Venzo’s research</a> shows there are now more than a thousand sex education books for young people, in English alone. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538054/original/file-20230718-23-kdv2fz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538054/original/file-20230718-23-kdv2fz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538054/original/file-20230718-23-kdv2fz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538054/original/file-20230718-23-kdv2fz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538054/original/file-20230718-23-kdv2fz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538054/original/file-20230718-23-kdv2fz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538054/original/file-20230718-23-kdv2fz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538054/original/file-20230718-23-kdv2fz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Peter Mayle’s Where Did I Come From? started the trend of child-centred sex education books.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AbeBooks</span></span>
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<p>While books like Where Did I Come From? present sex and gender in binary and heterornomative ways, sex education books have expanded to include diverse sexualities and genders – with a greater focus on race, disability, culture, and religion. </p>
<p>Many books now include discussions of consent and are careful to not only focus on the “risks” of sex, such as pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, but also on pleasure, safety and communication. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-havent-been-taught-about-sex-teens-talk-about-how-to-fix-school-sex-education-206001">'We haven't been taught about sex': teens talk about how to fix school sex education</a>
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<h2>Sex education for young people is valuable</h2>
<p>Sex education books can be used by parents and caregivers to guide tricky conversations about puberty, sex, gender and sexuality.</p>
<p>At what age should young people learn about sex? It’s difficult to say. Context and nuance is important. It depends on the identity and life experience of the young person, their education and maturity levels, their religious, geographical or cultural background, and the wishes of their parents or caregivers. So we should be careful about making generalisations. </p>
<p>However, the basics of sex education, such as bodily autonomy and consent, can be taught to primary-school aged children – and younger. </p>
<p>Yumi Stynes is quoted saying she’d “be happy with a mature eight-year-old having a flick through”. Many critics are using this to say the book is targeted at readers as young as eight. </p>
<p>But while a parent might make an informed decision about whether to make the book available to their younger child, Welcome to Sex is clearly targeted to a teen audience. This is evident in the length, design, complexity, marketing, language and age of the teen contributors inside the book (the youngest is 17).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538066/original/file-20230718-19-oqxycp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538066/original/file-20230718-19-oqxycp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538066/original/file-20230718-19-oqxycp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538066/original/file-20230718-19-oqxycp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538066/original/file-20230718-19-oqxycp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538066/original/file-20230718-19-oqxycp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538066/original/file-20230718-19-oqxycp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/538066/original/file-20230718-19-oqxycp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Welcome to Sex is clearly targeted to a teen audience.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Karolina Grabowska/Pexels</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Some critics are arguing the book teaches young people how to perform sex acts. But we know young people are not ignorant about sex. Whether it’s through the internet, media, or friends, young people access sexually explicit material from a young age, <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12119-020-09771-z">with many learning about sex from pornography</a> in harmful ways. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://aifs.gov.au/research/commissioned-reports/teenagers-and-sex">2019 research report</a> from the Australian Institute of Family Studies shows that 53% of boys in the study and 14% of girls intentionally viewed pornography before the age of 16. <a href="https://aifs.gov.au/research/research-reports/effects-pornography-children-and-young-people">A UK study</a> reported that 53% of 11–16 year olds had watched pornography, most before the age of 14.</p>
<p>Comprehensive and inclusive sex education <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1054139X20304560">that begins at a young age</a> can prevent child sex abuse, decrease rates of domestic violence and intimate partner violence, and reduce homophobic bullying.</p>
<p>Sex education texts play a vital role. They can be given to young people to navigate with a parent or caregiver, or as an individual resource. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-do-you-teach-a-primary-school-child-about-consent-you-can-start-with-these-books-190063">How do you teach a primary school child about consent? You can start with these books</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>So, what’s in Welcome to Sex?</h2>
<p>Welcome to Sex is the latest in the “Welcome” series by former Dolly Doctor Melissa Kang and broadcaster and mother Yumi Stynes. The series also includes <a href="https://www.hardiegrant.com/au/publishing/bookfinder/book/welcome-to-your-period-by-yumi-stynes/9781760503512">Welcome to Your Period</a>, <a href="https://www.hardiegrant.com/au/publishing/bookfinder/book/welcome-to-consent-by-yumi-stynes/9781760507497">Welcome to Consent</a> and <a href="https://www.hardiegrant.com/au/publishing/bookfinder/book/welcome-to-your-boobs-by-melissa-kang/9781760507503">Welcome to Your Boobs</a>. </p>
<p>The book’s introduction states, “Welcome to a book about sex and being a teen!” Its two key sections are teen-centered, leading with questions and reflections from young people. Despite claims the book is a “sex manual”, most of it is centered around the tricky emotions, concerns and questions young people might have about sex.</p>
<p>In the first section, teens are introduced to “safe learning”. Chapters cover definitions (of both sex and body parts), communication, relationships, sexual and gender diversity, myths about sex, and reasons to not have sex. </p>
<p>The second section explores getting intimate with someone. Importantly, though, it tells teens: “It’s totally OK if you’re not ready for any of that.” This section focuses on things like consent, pleasure, intimacy, cheating, safety, and different ways people might have sex.</p>
<p>Welcome to Sex treats teenagers seriously and meets them where they are. It intersperses sex education with young people’s reflections, questions for the “doctor” and facts from experts. It uses clear language and inclusive imagery.</p>
<p>The important thing for concerned parents to remember is that sex is an important topic we can’t ignore. Sex education books combat misinformation – and empower young people with essential information to keep them informed and safe.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209979/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Whatman is affiliated with The Australasian Children’s Literature Association for Research (ACLAR) and The Australian Women’s and Gender Studies Association (AWGSA).</span></em></p>Yumi Stynes and Melissa Kang’s sex education guide for teens is a topic of hot debate for its frankness. It also provides comprehensive, inclusive sex education that combats misinformation.Emma Whatman, Subject Coordinator in Gender Studies, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2059172023-06-15T20:04:53Z2023-06-15T20:04:53ZAwe can alter our sense of self and open us to new possibilities – could it help save the planet?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532078/original/file-20230614-29-9imelh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C7%2C5147%2C3607&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog – Caspar David Friedrich (c.1817)</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Arnold Schwarzenegger recently <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/arnold-schwarzenegger-on-climate-pollution-and-tv-series-fubar/">made the claim</a> that climate change has an image problem. He railed against what he thinks is an overemphasis on degrowth and bad optics:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>As long as they keep talking about global climate change, they are not gonna go anywhere. ‘Cause no one gives a s*** about that. So my thing is, let’s go and rephrase this and communicate differently about it and really tell people we’re talking about pollution. Pollution creates climate change, and pollution kills. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Whether or not a rebranding exercise will be enough to shift perceptions is as yet unclear. But <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/05/stop-making-sense-why-its-time-to-get-emotional-about-climate-change">calls to recognise the power of emotions to drive change</a> are becoming increasingly relevant in motivating action.</p>
<p>In his new book <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/awe-9780241624104">Awe: The Transformative Power of Everyday Wonder</a>, psychologist Dacher Keltner claims emotions like awe “unite us into something larger than the self” and can lead to a better relationship with the natural world. </p>
<p>But what exactly is awe and how can emotions help us save the planet?</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: Awe: The Transformative Power of Everyday Wonder – Dacher Keltner (Allen Lane)</em></p>
<hr>
<h2>The science of emotions</h2>
<p>For a long time, attempts to understand the mind’s responses to reality were grounded in <a href="https://imotions.com/blog/learning/research-fundamentals/what-is-experimental-psychology/">experimental psychology</a>. This involved focusing attention on the internal mental processes at the heart of human behaviour. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529983/original/file-20230605-109719-fcm11k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529983/original/file-20230605-109719-fcm11k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529983/original/file-20230605-109719-fcm11k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529983/original/file-20230605-109719-fcm11k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529983/original/file-20230605-109719-fcm11k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529983/original/file-20230605-109719-fcm11k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1162&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529983/original/file-20230605-109719-fcm11k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1162&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529983/original/file-20230605-109719-fcm11k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1162&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>In the 1950s, a movement that became known as the <a href="https://www.cs.princeton.edu/%7Erit/geo/Miller.pdf">cognitive revolution</a> reacted against the <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/behaviorism/">behaviourism</a> that had come to dominate the field of psychology. Its approach was to treat the mind like a computer, seeking to understand its parts and the relations between them, but neglecting its more fallible and subjective elements.</p>
<p>It wasn’t until the 1980s that scientists and psychologists came to appreciate the importance of emotions to understanding the secrets of the mind. American psychologist <a href="https://www.paulekman.com/">Paul Ekman</a> would lead this paradigm-shift with his study of facial expressions and their relationship to emotions. His work was instrumental in understanding the non-verbal language of the body. </p>
<p>Acknowledging the multifaceted nature of psychology led to the evolution of emotion science – a combination of empirical investigations with meta-studies of non-observable phenomena. </p>
<p>Strides were soon being made in research examining the hidden side of the brain and a new understanding of emotions emerged. Some of the first emotions to be charted scientifically included anger, disgust, fear, sadness, surprise and joy. These were soon followed by more positive states, such as gratitude, love, desire and sympathy. Much of this early work is still relevant today and serves as the bedrock for more normative claims around improving one’s <a href="https://www.simplypsychology.org/emotional-intelligence.html">emotional intelligence</a> or EQ. </p>
<p>Scientists such as Ekman speculated about why we have emotions. They posited the place of emotions in the evolutionary hierarchy of human capabilities, viewing them as experiences that enable self-preservation by alerting us to danger or helping us to find nutritious food. This evolutionary bent has led to a view of emotion as “oriented towards minimising peril and advancing competitive gains for the individual”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-wonders-and-terrors-of-modern-technology-evoke-the-ancient-concept-of-the-sublime-and-present-us-with-a-choice-186909">The wonders and terrors of modern technology evoke the ancient concept of the sublime, and present us with a choice</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Rule breaking emotions</h2>
<p>Influenced by the work of Ekman and others, Keltner recognises the limits of the cognitive revolution. He seeks to develop a holistic view of the mind. “What was missing from this understanding of human nature was emotion,” he writes. “Passion. Gut feeling.” </p>
<p>According to Keltner, awe does not fit comfortably within a deterministic theory of emotion: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Awe, by contrast, seems to orient us to devote ourselves to things outside of our individual selves. To sacrifice and serve. To sense that the boundaries between our individual selves and others readily dissolve, that our true nature is collective.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Keltner’s research suggests awe occurs in response to the “eight wonders of life”. It can be found in nature, collective movement, visual design, music, mystical encounters, life and death, epiphanies, and the courage and kindness of other people. </p>
<p>When people experience feelings of awe, they enter a unique physiological and psycho-social state, which culminates in a sense of appreciation and positive emotion. For example, in <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28481617/">a study</a> of 1,100 travellers from 42 countries who visited a lookout in Yosemite National Park, researchers found awe has the power to temper human inclinations towards individual interests and concerns. Experiencing a sense of awe alters our sense of self and opens us to the possibility of collaboration and a sense of community. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32955293/#:%7E:text=in%20older%20adults-,Big%20smile%2C%20small%20self%3A%20Awe%20walks%20promote%20prosocial%20positive%20emotions,Emotion.">another study</a> conducted on the benefits of walking in nature, it was found the sense of wonder generated during these walks led participants to feeling less anxiety and depression, with notable increases in expressions of joy. </p>
<p>Given these life affirming characteristics, can awe provide the missing link between science and emotion that is required to generate action on climate change? For Keltner, the answer is yes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Our default mind blinds us to this fundamental truth, that our social, natural, physical, and cultural worlds are made up of interlocking systems. Experiences of awe open our minds to this big idea. Awe shifts us to a systems view of life.</p>
</blockquote>
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<h2>Systems thinking</h2>
<p>Applied to different contexts like biology, technology, organisational theory and culture, systems thinking takes a holistic view of the many parts that make up the world and the interdependent relationships between them. Systems, according to Keltner’s definition,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>are entities of interrelated elements working together to achieve some purpose. When we look at life through this systems lens, we perceive things in terms of relations rather than separate objects.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In contrast, linear thinking involves understanding processes of cause and effect, whereby analysis follows a known step-by-step progression. Isaac Newton’s observation of an apple falling from a tree, for example, led him to develop a causal theory of gravity. The effect, an apple falling from a tree, is caused by the force of gravitational attraction between objects. </p>
<p>Yet the same process has different implications when it is viewed within a systems-thinking approach. In Einstein’s theory of General Relativity, gravity is understood as part of a larger system of matter, energy, space and time. The paradigm shift offered by a systems-thinking approach can transform how we understand reality. </p>
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<span class="caption">Dacher Keltner.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
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<p>The implications for approaching the world through a systems-thinking framework are wide-ranging. Understanding how environmental processes influence each other has consequences for environmental sustainability. For example, instead of building more dams as part of a flood prevention strategy, a systems-thinking solution would be to preserve and restore wetlands that act as sponges during floods. </p>
<p>A more holistic approach to environmental systems governance can yield better outcomes by moving away from individual interests towards decisions that maintain and support interdependent relationships. </p>
<p>The key is to identify the intricate relationships between natural phenomena to seek solutions that operate successfully within existing environmental conditions. Instead of observing and analysing entities and processes individually, systems thinking leads to a greater awareness of the fragile interdependencies that constitute all life on earth.</p>
<p>Keltner observes that many Indigenous civilisations have long operated with a systems-thinking approach:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Systems thinking, it is worth noting, is at the heart of an Indigenous science now thousands of years old. It is an old, big idea. It may be our species’ big epiphany.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As a result of generations of cultural erasure, much of this knowledge has been lost or destroyed, but Keltner believes it is still possible to experience the world with a sense of awe: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Mysteries awaken us to systems. Look to the sky and listen for migrations of birds. Follow the tides. Watch the growth of a seedling and its relationship to the earth.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/saving-humanity-heres-a-radical-approach-to-building-a-sustainable-and-just-society-205566">Saving humanity: here's a radical approach to building a sustainable and just society</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<h2>Cultivating awe</h2>
<p>Keltner also considers the ways that culture represents and shapes our experiences of awe in the form of music, visual art, religion and spirituality. Many of the examples he gives emphasise the importance of discovery: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>In musical awe we hear the voices and feel the sounds of our culture. We recognise, we understand, our individual identity within something larger, a collective identity, a place, and a people.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The key is not to extract more from the world. Instead, Keltner thinks awe can help unlock truths within ourselves that are buried by external forces, such as capitalism and economics, reorienting us away from a self-serving, hyper-individualistic and materialistic characterisation of human nature. Cultivating awe leads to an awareness of interconnectedness. It encourages people to engage with activities and experiences that force then to think about humanity’s place in nature as being part of a much larger whole:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In our narration of experiences of awe in these symbolic traditions, a clear motif emerges: our individual self gives way to the boundary-dissolving sense of being part of something much larger.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Keltner does not make any claims for how emotion can motivate positive action. Living a life filled with awe does not guarantee an ethical approach to nature, nor is there any proof that encouraging others to approach the world with wonder will lead to action on climate change. But the practical examples and observations of awe provided in this book suggest that emotions do transform perceptions and can lead to meaningful change. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The epiphany of awe is that its experience connects our individual selves with the vast forces of life. In awe we understand we are part of many things that are much larger than the self.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At very least, these examples of awe serve as a testament to the power of nature to move the human spirit, and if that is not enough to motivate greater care for the environment, then perhaps nothing is.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205917/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nanda Jarosz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Based on years of studying the science of emotions, a new book by Dacher Keltner makes the case for the life-affirming power of awe.Nanda Jarosz, Executive Officer, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1874712022-08-02T17:00:18Z2022-08-02T17:00:18ZFive books to read that bring Naples to life<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475647/original/file-20220722-12-5da8r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3000%2C2083&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/naples-italy-march-20-2015-classical-273331316">Yulia Grigoryeva/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Napoli, or Naples for English speakers, is my favourite city. It’s a city of stark contrasts – glorious architecture competing with multi-layered graffiti, hidden piazze surrounded by piled-up rubbish. </p>
<p>Naples might be the only place where, late in the evening, you can see a group of nuns carrying takeaway pizza back to their convent. It is, after all, the city where the pizza was invented. It has been reviled for its mafia clans while being deeply steeped in age-old superstitions, with polished skulls in countless crypts. </p>
<p>It is also the place where, twice a year, the entire population prays that its patron saint San Gennaro’s blood will liquefy as a portent of good luck. </p>
<p>Here are five novels that really bring this wonderful city to life:</p>
<h2>1. <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/10/the-sweet-linearity-of-my-brilliant-friend">My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante</a></h2>
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<img alt="Book cover with two girls crouching by a car." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475640/original/file-20220722-16-ypzjwc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475640/original/file-20220722-16-ypzjwc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475640/original/file-20220722-16-ypzjwc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475640/original/file-20220722-16-ypzjwc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475640/original/file-20220722-16-ypzjwc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475640/original/file-20220722-16-ypzjwc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475640/original/file-20220722-16-ypzjwc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Europa</span></span>
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<p>There is no better place for a late afternoon aperitivo than the Piazza San Domenico Maggiore in the heart of the historic centre to soak up the atmosphere of this vivacious city, and no better novel to get a flavour of it than Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend (2012). Following childhood friends Lenù and Lila through their troubled teenage years into adulthood, this book wonderfully conveys the spirit of Napoli.</p>
<p>Ferrante masterfully conjures up images of this colourful city as we follow her characters along to the Piazza Carlo III, the Albergo dei Poveri, the botanical garden, Via Foria and Port’Alba. For anybody already familiar with Napoli, these are well-known landmarks; for those new to the city they serve as a good starting point for a mid-morning <em>passeggiata</em> (a leisurely stroll) that should always end with a lunch time slice of pizza. When in Napoli, do as the Neapolitans do.</p>
<h2>2. <a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781609451134">Blood Curse by Maurizio De Giovanni</a></h2>
<p>Maurizio De Giovanni’s Commissario Ricciardi series is set in Fascist era Napoli, between 1922 and 1943. Ricciardi solves murders aided by his peculiar visions – he can see the last seconds of a murder victim’s life – and his insatiable appetite for sfogliatelle, a sweet pastry originating in the Campania region. </p>
<p>His novels are full of atmospheric detail, like this passage from Blood Curse: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Vico del Fico was a blind alley, an inset halfway up one of the steep streets of the Spanish Quarter. At the entrance to the alley was a shrine to Our Lady of the Assumption … then there was a little piazzetta, invisible from the street: five bassi teeming with life.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>They are gritty and violent but convey a real sense of a city where passions run high and loyalties cannot be betrayed.</p>
<h2>3. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/may/28/naples-44-norman-lewis-rereading">Naples’44 by Norman Lewis</a></h2>
<p>Similar impressions of Naples were made by the British Intelligence Officer Norman Lewis while he was stationed in Napoli during the second world war. His military memoir Naples’44 (1978) conjures up images of coffee at the Gran’ Caffè Gambrinus on Piazza Plebiscito, or meals at Zi’ Teresa’s in the shadow of Castell d’Ovo. It is a testament to his affection for this city of contrasts: a lament for the poverty and corruption he encounters but simultaneously a love letter to the beauty that captivated him.</p>
<h2>4. <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/falling-palace-a-romance-of-naples-by-dan-hofstadter-409930.html">Falling Palace: A Romance of Naples by Dan Hofstadter</a></h2>
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<img alt="Naples skyline from a balcony with a lamppost and statue of a woman." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475641/original/file-20220722-26-4yc98o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475641/original/file-20220722-26-4yc98o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475641/original/file-20220722-26-4yc98o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475641/original/file-20220722-26-4yc98o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475641/original/file-20220722-26-4yc98o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1162&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475641/original/file-20220722-26-4yc98o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1162&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475641/original/file-20220722-26-4yc98o.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1162&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Vintage</span></span>
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<p>Written in 2006, this book is an evocative account of Hofstadter’s time spent in Napoli as he followed his Italian girlfriend. Hofstadter beautifully depicts this city of contrasts as he tries to settle there. The book recounts living in a traditional <em>basso</em> (a typical Neopolitan ground-floor flat) and befriending many local characters, like the owners of the many curio shops, the typical Neapolitan lottery vendor and the men carving traditional Nativity scenes. </p>
<p>Just as De Giovanni, much of Hofstadter’s account is focused on the <em>Quartieri Spagnoli</em> (Spanish Quarter) whose “reputation for violence, caused by rival Camorra clans” was well known to him but where he “never felt menaced in the streets”. </p>
<p>He too conjures up the overcrowded <em>bassi</em> where, passing “their wide-open doors or windows”, he would “glimpse intimate yet completely unself-conscious scenes: tired housewives fanning themselves under pictures of Padre Pio; muscular youngbloods shining up their Vespas next to their beds; groups of girls sewing or basting skirts or dresses”. For Hofstadter, like so many other writers, it is the very contradiction of Napoli – beauty vs dereliction, sweet domesticity vs crime – that makes this city so captivating.</p>
<h2>5. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/aug/26/roberto-saviano-interview-gomorrah-piranhas">Gomorrah by Roberto Saviano</a></h2>
<p>No list of books about Napoli would be complete without Gomorrah, which delves straight into its dark heart. Also written in 2006, the book depicts Saviano’s infiltration of local Camorra clans and their dominance over local businesses and industry.</p>
<p>Gomorrah, which has been adapted into a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT7Wok6jPzI">film</a> and a successful <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4QORgagblU&ab_channel=ArrowFilms">TV series</a> (2014-2021), is a brutal and discomforting read. The book shows just how much crime infiltrates daily life in Napoli. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, I would hazard that Saviano’s motivation for this book was his deep love for his home city and his one-man crusade to rid it of the crime that has plagued it for so long.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187471/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christine Berberich does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A city of contrasts, these books represent the heart and the violence of this Italian city.Christine Berberich, Reader in Literature, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1795522022-05-09T13:56:36Z2022-05-09T13:56:36ZReading to improve language skills? Focus on fiction rather than non-fiction<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460430/original/file-20220428-25015-j044p9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C60%2C5760%2C3043&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The growth of benefits derived from reading for pleasure starts young.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/reading-to-improve-language-skills-focus-on-fiction-rather-than-non-fiction" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>We all know that reading is good for children and for adults, and that we should all be reading more often. One of the most obvious benefits of reading is that it helps improve language skills. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021890">A major review</a> of research on leisure reading confirmed that reading does indeed foster better verbal abilities, from preschoolers all the way to university students. But, does it matter what we read? </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2015.1069296">In four separate studies</a>, based on data from almost 1,000 young adults, behavioural scientist <a href="https://ca.linkedin.com/in/marinarain">Marina Rain</a> and I examined how reading fiction and non-fiction predicts verbal abilities. </p>
<p>We found that reading fiction was the stronger and more consistent predictor of language skills compared to reading non-fiction. This was true whether people reported their own reading habits or if we used a more objective measure of lifetime reading (<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2015.1069296">recognizing real author names from among false ones</a>). Importantly, after accounting for fiction reading, reading non-fiction did not predict language skills much at all. </p>
<h2>Measuring meaningful language skills</h2>
<p>To measure verbal abilities in three of these studies, we relied on items from the verbal section <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/04/mit-admissions-reinstates-sat-act-tests/629455/">of the SAT</a>, the standardized test used by many U.S. universities when judging applicants. Thus, the measure of language skills employed in these studies is rather obviously tied to an important real-world outcome: admission to university. </p>
<p>Although it was somewhat surprising to discover that reading fictional stories predicts valuable language skills better than reading non-fiction, the repeated replication of this result across several studies increased our confidence in this finding.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman in a hat sitting cross legged on a couch reading." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459881/original/file-20220426-14-8ggnis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459881/original/file-20220426-14-8ggnis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459881/original/file-20220426-14-8ggnis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459881/original/file-20220426-14-8ggnis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459881/original/file-20220426-14-8ggnis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459881/original/file-20220426-14-8ggnis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459881/original/file-20220426-14-8ggnis.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People who reported they read for their own enjoyment were also more proficient in terms of language skills and this was partially explained by how much fiction they had read.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Seven Shooter/Unsplash)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Motivations behind leisure reading</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-020-10112-7">a follow-up study</a>, a collaboration between <a href="http://www.yorku.ca/mar/">my psychology lab at York University</a> and a lab at Concordia University led by education professor <a href="https://www.concordia.ca/artsci/education/faculty.html?fpid=sandra-martin-chang">Sandra Martin-Chang</a>, we asked 200 people about their various motivations for engaging in leisure reading. </p>
<p>Those who reported that they read for their own enjoyment tended to have better language skills. Related to our previous finding, this association was partially explained by how much fiction they had read.</p>
<p>In fact, across several types of motivation, those motivations linked to reading fiction rather than non-fiction were invariably associated with better verbal abilities. On the other hand, when a motivation was more strongly associated with reading non-fiction it tended to be either unrelated to verbal abilities or associated with worse abilities. </p>
<p>For example, people who were motivated to read in order to grow and learn focused on reading non-fiction, so this attitude was actually associated with poorer language skills. </p>
<h2>Reading stories</h2>
<p>Based on these five studies, the picture is quite clear: it is reading stories, not essays, that predicts valuable language skills in young adults. But why does reading fiction have this unique advantage over non-fiction? We don’t yet exactly know, but we can rule out one obvious possibility: that fiction employs SAT words more often than non-fiction. </p>
<p>To <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0163853X.2017.1289794">investigate this possibility</a>, we turned to several large collections of texts, containing around 680 million words in total. Words that appeared in the SAT were either less common in fiction compared to non-fiction, or the difference was so small it was negligible. </p>
<p>Fiction readers are therefore not doing better on SAT items simply because fiction contains more SAT words. This means that there must be something special about reading fiction that helps promote language skills. Perhaps the emotions evoked by stories help us to remember new words, or maybe our intrinsic interest in stories results in a stronger focus on the text. Future research will hopefully uncover the reasons for this fascinating difference between reading fiction and non-fiction.</p>
<h2>Long-term benefits of reading</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460432/original/file-20220428-20-pem05o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A boy sits on the floor in a classroom reading." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460432/original/file-20220428-20-pem05o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460432/original/file-20220428-20-pem05o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=711&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460432/original/file-20220428-20-pem05o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=711&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460432/original/file-20220428-20-pem05o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=711&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460432/original/file-20220428-20-pem05o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460432/original/file-20220428-20-pem05o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460432/original/file-20220428-20-pem05o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Leisure reading is important for developing language skills.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Allison Shelley for EDUimages)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
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<p>Regardless of the reasons, the fact that it is narrative fiction and not expository non-fiction that helps us develop strong language skills has important implications for education and policy. </p>
<p>When it comes to reading, it really is a case in which the rich get richer: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021890">A great deal of past research</a> has established that those who read more tend to get better at reading, find it easier and more enjoyable and read more as a result. This results in a causal loop in which leisure reading reaps increasingly larger benefits for readers in terms of language skills. Remarkably, this remains true all the way from preschool to university.</p>
<p>These improved language skills in turn result in all kinds of important advantages, such as doing better at school, attaining a higher level of education and being more successful at work. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/start-a-tradition-of-choosing-picture-books-to-share-with-children-in-your-life-128369">Start a tradition of choosing picture books to share with children in your life</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<hr>
<p>In fact, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612466268">one study of over 11,000 people</a> found that children who were better readers at age seven had a greater degree of socio-economic success 35 years later! This held true even after accounting for important factors like their socio-economic status at birth, intelligence and academic motivation. Leisure reading is important for developing language skills, which in turn are linked to key socio-economic outcomes. </p>
<h2>Implications for education and policy</h2>
<p>Work from our lab, based on young adults, is beginning to clarify the association between reading and language abilities, pointing to the importance of reading fiction and not just non-fiction. </p>
<p>This means that it is important to foster a love for fiction in children, to promote the healthy habit of reading stories for pleasure as early as possible.</p>
<p>The current trend of governments <a href="https://theconversation.com/stop-telling-students-to-study-stem-instead-of-humanities-for-the-post-coronavirus-world-145813">prioritizing the sciences over the humanities</a> in education runs directly counter to the evidence available. Given the benefits that verbal abilities provide in terms of success in school and in one’s career, fostering a love for stories in children should be a high priority for governments and educators.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179552/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Raymond A. Mar receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada. </span></em></p>Verbal abilities provide benefits in school and in one’s career. Fostering a love for stories and fiction in children should be a high priority.Raymond A. Mar, Professor of Psychology, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1766672022-04-18T19:57:13Z2022-04-18T19:57:13ZSo what is the good of book reviewing? A review of a review of the reviewers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457854/original/file-20220413-19-w4ga3t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">shutterstock</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Imagine you’re the literary editor for a major US newspaper, like The New York Times or The Washington Post. You know that getting a good notice in your paper can launch the career of a young writer and you’re far from indifferent to the fate of literary culture. You majored in English and once nurtured dreams of being a novelist yourself. But tens of thousands of fiction titles are published each year and it sometimes feels like most of them are piled up on your desk. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times – Phillipa K. Chong (Princeton University Press)</em></p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455426/original/file-20220331-20-we7ab1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455426/original/file-20220331-20-we7ab1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455426/original/file-20220331-20-we7ab1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455426/original/file-20220331-20-we7ab1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455426/original/file-20220331-20-we7ab1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455426/original/file-20220331-20-we7ab1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1123&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455426/original/file-20220331-20-we7ab1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1123&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455426/original/file-20220331-20-we7ab1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1123&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So, what are you to do? How do you decide what gets covered and what ignored? Spoiler alert: it’s not meritocratic. </p>
<p>You are to some degree condemned to judge books by their covers. You quickly get quite good at it. Anything by a Big Name author, a new title by Margaret Atwood or Jonathan Franzen, is a publishing event and of course needs to be reviewed by one of your go-to writers. That piece will go the front of the section with a large author photo. </p>
<p>As to the others? Some genres don’t stand a chance. Romance fiction? No way. Sci-fi, fantasy, thrillers? No, no, no. In general, that which seems like “literary fiction” will attract your eye and it’s not hard to pick those out from the pile, based on the blurb or the publisher. Occasionally, you might do a round up of recent crime writing.</p>
<p>But remember, you’re working for a newspaper, so it helps if the book treats a story that is topical or in some way relatable to current events. Every so often you can cover a suite of books under an eye-catching theme, and make it into a longer piece about fiction’s response to Climate Change or the #MeToo movement, a phenomenon that a recent <a href="https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-40/the-intellectual-situation/critical-attrition/">n+1 editorial</a> about the dismal state of criticism has derisively dubbed CRT – the “Contemporary Themed Review”. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455437/original/file-20220331-16-39hok5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455437/original/file-20220331-16-39hok5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455437/original/file-20220331-16-39hok5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455437/original/file-20220331-16-39hok5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455437/original/file-20220331-16-39hok5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455437/original/file-20220331-16-39hok5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1038&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455437/original/file-20220331-16-39hok5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1038&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455437/original/file-20220331-16-39hok5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1038&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Romance? Sci-fi? Fantasy? Thrillers? No, no, no. Image: Beyond Fantasy Fiction cover (May 1954)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Public domain</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These pieces might risk coercive homogeneity, ironing out differences in tone, theme, structure or style, in order to intervene in the Zeitgeist, but with any luck these will get a bit of reaction on Twitter, which is the name of the game. </p>
<p>“Books of the year” and “best of” lists are other ways you can get into the slipstream of social media. It is fandom, not analysis, that gets most attention, spiced up with the occasional eye-catching takedown or hatchet job. </p>
<p>We are a long way from critics as the arbiters of taste, the gatekeepers of culture who might introduce readers to vital and new literary forms and thereby provide an antidote to the algorithmic conformity and banality that hangs over contemporary book culture.</p>
<h2>Contingency and precarity</h2>
<p>Phillipa K. Chong’s Inside the Critics’ Circle gives us a snapshot of contemporary reviewing from the perspective of a sociologist. Unlike a lot of “state of culture” interventions, the book is not a polemic or a jeremiad, but a dispassionate inquiry into the world of editors and reviewers in the USA based on some forty interviews. </p>
<p>Inside the Critics’ Circle is about critics as journalistic reviewers, a category she distinguishes from literary essayists and literary academics, both a little further along the chain in the process of “consecration” through which an author is deemed significant enough to enter the literary canon. What emerges is a tale of contingency, precarity and uncertainty, from the moment books get selected for review all the way to the future prospects of newspaper critics and criticism. </p>
<p>While the book is US (indeed New York) focussed, there are surely lessons here for Australia. The same precarity afflicts reviewing culture here, with the dwindling of on-staff critics in most newspapers and the need to compete for online attention. </p>
<p>There are still prominent book reviewers who are not themselves novelists (Geordie Williamson, chief reviewer for The Australian comes to mind). But the circuits of book festivals and dinner parties are small, with an even greater potential for coteries and back-scratching. </p>
<p>But in some ways the everyday little accidents of fate are the most chilling. How many major new novels, for example, get overlooked because the editor cannot think of a suitable reviewer on one particular day? Chong’s interest here is exclusively on fiction reviewing and one of the distinctive and consequential features she highlights is that, in the US at any rate, there is currently a tendency to ask novelists to review novels. </p>
<p>And why wouldn’t they, you might ask (and so might they). Novelists understand the form, having practised it themselves and are, therefore, qualified to evaluate their fellows. True, we don’t expect films to be reviewed by directors or restaurants to be reviewed by chefs, but then novelists and critics both seem to be using the same material – the written word. And now, since most newspapers have far fewer if any on-staff critics than they used to, and most reviewing is done on a freelance basis, many fiction writers are only too happy to have a bit of extra income, especially when the gig might also increase their visibility. </p>
<p>Yet there are some drawbacks to this arrangement. I don’t want to open the Romantic can of worms between the “creative” and the “critical” sensibility, but let’s just say that one does not guarantee the other. Sure, there are examples of great novelist-critics. But there are also (looking at you, Susan Sontag) those whose criticism overwhelmingly outclasses their attempts at fiction. </p>
<p>I’m reminded of that scalding quip by the Cambridge critic Eric Griffiths on A.S. Byatt’s Possession (1990): “the kind of novel I’d write if I didn’t know I couldn’t write novels”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455430/original/file-20220331-22-jawglk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455430/original/file-20220331-22-jawglk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455430/original/file-20220331-22-jawglk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455430/original/file-20220331-22-jawglk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=606&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455430/original/file-20220331-22-jawglk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455430/original/file-20220331-22-jawglk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455430/original/file-20220331-22-jawglk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=762&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Looking at you, Susan Sontag.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lynn Gilbert/Wikimedia commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-critical-friend-for-whom-does-the-art-critic-speak-14692">The critical friend: for whom does the art critic speak?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The dwindling prestige of the critic</h2>
<p>The palming off of reviewing as a side-gig is a sign of the dwindling status and prestige of the role of the critic and there are some regrettable unintended consequences. Indeed, some of the stories that Chong tells suggest that President Biden should sign an executive order forbidding the practice. </p>
<p>You see, novelists, when reviewing someone else’s efforts, often have more skin in the game than a professional critic and arguably can muster less distance. They know how hard it is to write a novel, and how devastating and embarrassing a snarky review can feel. </p>
<p>More selfishly, why would a novelist give a bad review to someone that might be reviewing their novel the following week? What if that writer is a judge on a prize committee? What if others judge the negative review to be motivated by malice or envy? </p>
<p>There are unpredictable and even long-term consequences. Chong records one instance when a reviewer was confronted, years later, at a party by the wife of someone who had been on the receiving end of a bad review: “You know, you’ve ruined his life!” </p>
<p>So instead of writing bad reviews, reviewers tend to “play nice” or couch what they feel. What if they really loathe the book? They can talk around it, giving a plot summary or reflecting on the wider literary field of which the book forms a part, maybe throwing in some tempered evaluation in the final paragraph. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455427/original/file-20220331-20-m33teo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455427/original/file-20220331-20-m33teo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455427/original/file-20220331-20-m33teo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455427/original/file-20220331-20-m33teo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455427/original/file-20220331-20-m33teo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455427/original/file-20220331-20-m33teo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1193&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455427/original/file-20220331-20-m33teo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1193&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455427/original/file-20220331-20-m33teo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1193&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Go in hard: Jonathan Franzen at the 2010 National Book Critics Circle awards party.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Shankbone/Wikimedia commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, all these considerations disappear when reviewing the book by a really famous author. You should never go hard on a first-timer, but big game is fair game. There is an unspoken rule that you can punch up, but not down. The celebrities can take a bit of rough handling. It won’t have the same effect on their sales and they go to different parties to you anyway. Bad reviews and contrarian takes can get people talking, which is why the hatchet jobs end up getting anthologised. </p>
<p>That readerly pleasure is far less guilty if aimed at a tall poppy. If you’ve decided to let loose in your review on the latest Franzen, there is a bit of incentive to go in hard and not to be mealy mouthed. It’s a good way of getting noticed. Franzen doesn’t rely on reviews for his success, the way a fledgling novelist might, and look at the amount of space that gets devoted to him in the books section, space that might be nurturing up-and-coming talent. </p>
<h2>Risky business</h2>
<p>Still, you never really know who will read your review. Once it flies into the world, it’s outside your control and always to some extent a “risky business”, as one of the chapter titles here puts it. </p>
<p>Uncertainty of various sorts is the structuring theoretical frame of Chong’s book, which is divided into three parts, each about one sort of uncertainty. </p>
<p>“Epistemic uncertainty” refers to the absence of clear criteria on which one can base aesthetic judgements. Reviewers evaluate characterization, plot and language, but ultimately any assessment will have a subjective element that could potentially be at odds with that of other critics. </p>
<p>“Social uncertainty” refers to the unpredictable way readers (and editors) will respond to a review and how critics write to accommodate this unknown. </p>
<p>“Institutional uncertainty” refers to the overall purpose of newspaper reviewing, how it fits into the cultural ecosystem, and how critics think about the future of criticism. </p>
<p>The arc of the book follows the review process, beginning with editors deciding what books should be reviewed and by whom, then considering how reviewers go about the process of evaluation, then concluding with their reflection on the value and impact of reviewing as whole.</p>
<p>Yes, many broadsheets have cut back on review sections and others have replaced it with the sort of feature articles or profile pieces which puff up celebrity at the expense of critical discernment. Yes, the on-staff book critic has been outsourced to pay-per-gig freelancers. Nonetheless, paid reviewers (albeit paid per review) are still with us, despite predictions since the rise of the new media that they would go the way of the rag-and-bone man and the bus conductor. </p>
<p>One reason for that is because old-fashioned print media has found a way to move into and work with the internet, rather than compete with it as a medium. If this shift has entailed some vulgar chasing after clickbait, it has also enabled online review sections and longer form writing. </p>
<p>Online only publications like the <a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/">Los Angeles Review of Books</a> and the <a href="https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/">Sydney Review of Books</a> have enriched reviewing culture immensely, while older publications like the <a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/">London Review of Books</a>, the <a href="https://www.nybooks.com/">New York Review of Books</a> and <a href="https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/">Australian Book Review</a>, have adapted to digital culture, and reached new audiences, without losing their quality or altering their core identity.</p>
<p>Of course, the wider blogosphere means that all niche and minority interests can find assessments and conversations online. Interested in reviews of those derided genre novelists? You can glut yourself on your smartphone. Have a hankering for experimental avant-garde poetry? Ditto. </p>
<p>The conversation about quality literature is more diffuse than a generation or two ago, which is one reason that the social standing of a major newspaper reviewer has declined. Yet the reviewers interviewed in Chong’s book still justify their work with appeals to a wider good, as well as to an investment in their own professional standing. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455372/original/file-20220330-5634-1wpn6iz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C0%2C613%2C409&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455372/original/file-20220330-5634-1wpn6iz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C0%2C613%2C409&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455372/original/file-20220330-5634-1wpn6iz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455372/original/file-20220330-5634-1wpn6iz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455372/original/file-20220330-5634-1wpn6iz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455372/original/file-20220330-5634-1wpn6iz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455372/original/file-20220330-5634-1wpn6iz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455372/original/file-20220330-5634-1wpn6iz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What is the role of the professional critic in a world where everyone seems to be reviewing everything all the time?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Martin Vorel/Wikimedia commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/every-critic-counts-why-fairfax-must-keep-its-arts-journalists-77467">Every critic counts: why Fairfax must keep its arts journalists</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Code switching</h2>
<p>So what is the good of book reviewing? How do we – or more pointedly how do the paid reviewers themselves – justify the existence of newspaper critics in an age of Yelp, TripAdvisor and Goodreads? A world in which, in other words, it often feels everyone is reviewing everything all the time? </p>
<p>The critics interviewed here, maybe understandably in the current precarious circumstances, are a little bit too ready with their elbows when it comes to asserting their own worth and purpose. They insist that they fill a vital niche between the amateurs on the one hand, the mere enthusiasts that populate the blogosphere, and the academics who are too arcane, specialised and out of touch. </p>
<p>“I do sometimes think that bloggers are kind of dumb, as a general rule,” confesses one charmer. </p>
<p>Allegedly, the amateurs on the internet treat books as mere entertainment and the serious business of self-improvement needs the paid reviewers in the newspapers. But they themselves must not get too high falutin’, lest they become as abstruse and naval-gazing as the academics. Yes, there is porousness between the three categories and it is not uncommon for academics, for instance, to review for newspapers. </p>
<p>But they “code-switch” when they do so successfully, adjusting the register for a wider audience. One reviewer quoted by Chong, himself an academic, criticised another reviewing academic for being “too pretentious in his intellectual outlook” and for “being so far above his own readers that in the end, rather than doing a service he does a disservice to the book that he is reviewing”. </p>
<p>As for literary theory, predictably and very unoriginally it evokes the greatest populist swagger from the literary journalists. “Outside invading small countries, the worst thing that men do is to invent literary theories,” proclaims one respondent, possibly a recovering academic, who has a PhD in English. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/book-reviewing-is-an-art-in-its-own-way-29093">Book reviewing is an art, in its own way</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Diversity and obsessive self-reflexivity</h2>
<p>Perhaps surprisingly, apart from a glancing mention of the gender politics in the conclusion, there is a very little in Chong’s book about diversity, race, and sexual identity, issues which have been prominent in recent public discussion of the arts and its organs of dissemination. </p>
<p>If this is so for the USA, where many cultural institutions made public commitments to racial inclusiveness following the events of the summer of 2020, it is also true in Australia, where there are frequent calls for decolonisation and racial justice and organisations like <a href="https://stella.org.au/">Stella</a> campaign for gender equity in the literary world. </p>
<p>One would expect that the subject position of a reviewer and the increasing expectation for diversity of the books reviewed must be a consideration in editorial decisions and in the self-positioning of reviewers. If so, we don’t get much discussion of it here. </p>
<p>That also means that any incipient tension between the demands of aesthetic and political realms remain unexplored. Does the need to represent a multiplicity of voices and experiences in the media, especially those voices which have been marginalised and silenced, make it harder or easier to argue for the function of criticism at the present time? Does the current self-examination by institutions of culture, including universities, museums and newspapers, about their own historical implication in oppressive or discriminatory power relations make the role of the reviewer-as-expert, as privileged purveyor of judgement, harder to sustain? </p>
<p>Chong’s respondents are all anonymous, presumably in the interests of scholarly objectivity, but it would be interesting to hear their views about these most livid areas of our current cultural conversations.</p>
<p>Reading this book was, for me, something of a cross-disciplinary encounter. In my own subject, literary studies, self-reflexivity borders on the obsessive. Literary academics, like a lot of scholars in the humanities, are forever examining the whys and wherefores of what they do. What’s the value of “doing English”? How do we justify our discipline in an age when the social and cultural capital of the humanities is frequently challenged by the econometric thinking of politicians and policy makers?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457859/original/file-20220413-25-ixqwe7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457859/original/file-20220413-25-ixqwe7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457859/original/file-20220413-25-ixqwe7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457859/original/file-20220413-25-ixqwe7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457859/original/file-20220413-25-ixqwe7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457859/original/file-20220413-25-ixqwe7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457859/original/file-20220413-25-ixqwe7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457859/original/file-20220413-25-ixqwe7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Phillipa K. Chong approaches the ‘value of criticism’ question from a sociological perspective.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s salutary to look at how a sociologist handles the “value of criticism” question, which is, bluntly, with a lot more lucidity and less theoretical agonising. Chong goes to the practising reviewers and asks them to describe what they do and why they do it, then subjects their answers to qualitative analysis. The questions she raises – what status do we give to someone’s taste? Is there an extra-subjective element to aesthetic judgement? – are pretty venerable ones. </p>
<p>Chong doesn’t go to Kant or Hume to come up with answers, but rather goes to the reviewers themselves. There are benefits to that approach, but also costs: questions go a-begging and many presumptions remain unchallenged. </p>
<p>More than a philosophical angle, I would have welcomed some more genealogy and intellectual history. How did the reviewing ecosystem evolve into its current state? What was it like thirty years ago? How has reviewing culture shifted in recent decades and what are the cultural, social, and institutional explanations for these changes? </p>
<p>In saying that, I may be violating a fundamental rule of fair-minded reviewing – you review the book the author has written, not an imaginary alternative. Chong has given us a valuable, clear-headed inquiry into contemporary journalistic book reviewing. Her research brings calm illumination to these troubled waters. Her own non-judgmental approach gives us a crystal exposition of how and why judgements are made by those, editors and reviewers, seeking to navigate these uncertain straits.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176667/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ronan McDonald receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>How do editors decide what books get reviewed? Spoiler alert: it’s not meritocratic.Ronan McDonald, Chair of Irish Studies, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1804022022-04-13T20:34:23Z2022-04-13T20:34:23ZComplacency, conflict and dodging nuclear cataclysm: the not so great power politics of China, the US and Australia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457802/original/file-20220413-24-pik8or.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=29%2C0%2C4962%2C3323&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nicolas Asfouri/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many foreign policy specialists think there is something universal about the threats nation states face. Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine is a reminder that uncertainty is a perpetual feature of international affairs.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review:</em></p>
<p><em>The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict Between the US and Xi Jinping’s China – Kevin Rudd (Hachette).</em></p>
<p><em>No Enemies No Friends: Restoring Australia’s Global Relevance – Allan Behm (Upswell).</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Neither former PM Kevin Rudd nor Allan Behm, <a href="https://australiainstitute.org.au/expert/allan-behm/">Director of the International and Security Affairs Program at the Australia Institute</a>, can be blamed for not taking the thought processes of Vladimir Putin into account when they penned their respective analyses of China-US relations and Australian foreign policy. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457337/original/file-20220411-20-v7yxwh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457337/original/file-20220411-20-v7yxwh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=930&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457337/original/file-20220411-20-v7yxwh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=930&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457337/original/file-20220411-20-v7yxwh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=930&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457337/original/file-20220411-20-v7yxwh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1169&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457337/original/file-20220411-20-v7yxwh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1169&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457337/original/file-20220411-20-v7yxwh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1169&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
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<p>After all, who would have expected a major inter-state war to erupt in the one part of the world where such things and the horrors they inevitably trail in their wake seemed to have been consigned to history? If Europeans can’t learn from the past, who can?</p>
<p>Yet not only is great-power conflict, and perhaps even nuclear war and the end of civilisation as we know it, still a real possibility, but our collective capacity to manage it may be decreasing. </p>
<p>This possibility is something of a problem for Rudd’s book, which is an otherwise an impressive and deeply informed survey of the world’s most important bilateral relationship. The ambitious goal of The Avoidable War is “to provide a joint road map to help these two great nations navigate a common pathway to the future”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457801/original/file-20220413-26-pik8or.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457801/original/file-20220413-26-pik8or.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457801/original/file-20220413-26-pik8or.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457801/original/file-20220413-26-pik8or.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457801/original/file-20220413-26-pik8or.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457801/original/file-20220413-26-pik8or.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457801/original/file-20220413-26-pik8or.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457801/original/file-20220413-26-pik8or.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, right, reviews a military honor guard with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing in 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Greg Baker/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What Rudd calls “managed strategic competition” is, he contends, the mechanism with which US-China rivalry can be stopped from spilling over into what some think is the very real possibility of military conflict.</p>
<p>Rudd, currently president of the <a href="https://asiasociety.org/policy-institute">Asia Society Policy Institute</a>, is a self-confessed “realist”, so he takes military capabilities seriously. One of the core beliefs of this paradigm is that a durable balance of power is central to international stability. Credible forms of deterrence are the key to ensuring that states do not embark on risky behaviour. </p>
<p>Putin is currently giving the lie to that assumption, reminding us that unaccountable autocrats and/or megalomaniacs cannot be relied upon to act “rationally”. To be fair, Rudd is alert to this possibility and argues that “the risk of nuclear escalation between the US and China must be considered afresh”.</p>
<h2>A theatre of the absurd</h2>
<p>The Avoidable War is a big book with some big ideas, and Rudd spends a lot of time spelling out how the US and China find themselves in such fraught geopolitical circumstances. Although the overall discussion is about the bilateral relationship, most attention is paid to Chinese perspectives, which is unsurprising given Rudd’s deep understanding of the People’s Republic. </p>
<p>It is also a useful corrective to much of the commentary, which is overwhelmingly US-centric. As Rudd points out, while China’s </p>
<blockquote>
<p>understanding of modern America may be imperfect, it is more disciplined and sophisticated than … Washington political elites in their understanding of what actually makes China tick.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For policymakers keen to fill in some of the more glaring gaps in their knowledge of China, Rudd offers “ten concentric circles of interest” that underpin Xi Jinping’s world view.</p>
<p>Given that Xi is likely to be around for a while, one might hope that the book will be widely read, not least by the current generation of Australian defence and foreign policy officials. But as Behm suggests, that is unlikely, given that “we have turned our relationship with China into a theatre of the absurd played on the domestic political stage”.</p>
<p>This makes unpacking China’s unique history, as well as the distinctive attitudes and beliefs it has generated in its leaders and the population more generally, an especially useful and important part of Rudd’s book. Although Rudd is at pains to point out that this is not a traditional “scholarly” work – there is not a single reference in 400 pages – The Avoidable War a great primer for anyone trying to understand the relationship between our most important economic and strategic partners. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457338/original/file-20220411-19-6i1ssg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457338/original/file-20220411-19-6i1ssg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457338/original/file-20220411-19-6i1ssg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457338/original/file-20220411-19-6i1ssg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457338/original/file-20220411-19-6i1ssg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457338/original/file-20220411-19-6i1ssg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457338/original/file-20220411-19-6i1ssg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kevin Rudd: a self-confessed ‘realist’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mick Tsikas/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/china-does-not-want-war-at-least-not-yet-its-playing-the-long-game-160093">China does not want war, at least not yet. It's playing the long game</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Economic challenges</h2>
<p>Of the key objectives that shape Xi’s thinking and policy agenda, none are more important than maintaining the centrality of the Chinese Communist Party and national security. </p>
<p>One of Rudd’s more perceptive insights is that economic management is not Xi’s strong suit, but his pivotal position in Chinese policymaking means his views are decisive. As Rudd points out, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>while the economy is not everything, it is nearly everything when it comes to our efforts to understand the underlying dynamics of US-China relations … </p>
</blockquote>
<p>While the chapter on the economy is generally outstanding, I think the jury is still out when it comes to assessing whether the American or the Chinese versions of capitalism will prove to be sustainable.</p>
<p>Plainly, the stakes are higher in Xi’s China: “communist” countries aren’t supposed to suffer from crises of capitalism, after all. As Rudd makes clear, successfully managing continuing economic development remains the core domestic challenge for Xi, one that will determine the standing and legitimacy of the CCP. An expanding economy also makes it possible to reinforce China’s growing military capacity and its supposed deterrent effect, of course. </p>
<p>Whether the Americans will be deterred by increasingly sophisticated Chinese military hardware remains to be seen. But in the event of conflict erupting over the status of Taiwan or one of the other all-too-numerous “flashpoints” that seem to dot the geopolitical landscape, Rudd suggests </p>
<blockquote>
<p>it is more likely than not that Xi Jinping would be predisposed to escalating a military conflict with America once one has begun in order to retain nationalist support.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is another key idea Rudd develops: nationalism is becoming one of the most important determinants of China’s foreign policy. It is simply not possible for Xi to back down on some of the more grandiose expressions of China’s growing power such as the <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/understanding-belt-and-road-initiative">Belt and Road Initiative</a>, because they are so closely associated with the paramount leader himself. </p>
<p>A failure to resolve the contested status of Taiwan on his watch may prove an even more combustible and existentially challenging problem for Xi.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457800/original/file-20220412-19-jddua2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457800/original/file-20220412-19-jddua2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457800/original/file-20220412-19-jddua2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457800/original/file-20220412-19-jddua2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457800/original/file-20220412-19-jddua2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457800/original/file-20220412-19-jddua2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457800/original/file-20220412-19-jddua2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Joe Biden meets virtually with Chinese President Xi Jinping from the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, 15 November 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Susan Walsh/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>An excoriating critique</h2>
<p>Although Allan Behm’s No Enemies No Friends is primarily about Australian foreign policy, China looms large in this volume, too. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457300/original/file-20220411-19-h5zp43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457300/original/file-20220411-19-h5zp43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457300/original/file-20220411-19-h5zp43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457300/original/file-20220411-19-h5zp43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457300/original/file-20220411-19-h5zp43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457300/original/file-20220411-19-h5zp43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457300/original/file-20220411-19-h5zp43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457300/original/file-20220411-19-h5zp43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Behm is a former Chief of Staff to Greg Combet when he was a Minister in the Rudd and Gillard governments, and a former senior advisor to Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong. He provides a nice complement to Rudd, as he is preoccupied with thinking about the way great-power competition impacts on smaller states like Australia, and how “we” might respond to a rapidly changing international environment. </p>
<p>In this context, there is one area in which relations with China might be easily improved: “there is one thing above all that China wants,” Behm argues, “and that we can easily give to China: respect”.</p>
<p>If this suggestion isn’t enough to induce apoplexy amongst the nation’s strategic hardheads and foreign policymakers, some of Behm’s other observations undoubtedly will. His book is an excoriating critique of Australian foreign policy failures, in which </p>
<blockquote>
<p>we have gone from being the kind of country that many in Asia would have liked to model themselves on to one that is seen as a largely irrelevant remnant of white colonialism.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The principal cause of this decline, Behm argues, is uncertainty about who “we” are and a concomitant failure to develop a plan or vision that might underpin foreign policy in particular.</p>
<p>What he regards as Australia’s insular, unambitious mindset is a direct consequence of </p>
<blockquote>
<p>complacency, national introspection and self-absorption, lethargy, a lack of national self-confidence, and absence of national ambition, and deep anxiety and insecurity.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Looking at Australia’s history as an independent state, it is hard to disagree. A continuing dependence on the presumed security guarantee that the US provides is both a symptom and cause of our collective failure to chart a more independent course. </p>
<p>This is an especially important consideration given that Behm claims “the strategic position in north Asia has changed irretrievably for the United states: it can no longer deter China”. </p>
<p>Rudd, by contrast, still thinks that a “sustained counter strategy” could restore America’s standing, even if “the overall trend lines appear to favour Xi Jinping’s China”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-us-and-china-must-find-a-way-to-cooperate-at-cop26-and-beyond-otherwise-global-climate-action-is-impossible-170094">The US and China must find a way to cooperate at COP26 and beyond. Otherwise, global climate action is impossible</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What about climate change?</h2>
<p>Given that a former prime minster and a senior public servant thought national politics, regional relations and the wider world were not in great shape before Putin started talking obliquely about the possibility of World War III, why aren’t the populations of Australia, the US and China more agitated about their prospective fate than they are? </p>
<p>While Behm provides some plausible explanations for our foreign policy shortcomings and the complacency of Australians more generally, it is striking that foreign policy is still something of a specialist interest, even in those countries that can actually change the course of history for better or worse. Or it is until the bullets start flying, at least.</p>
<p>The question for policymakers (and not just in democracies) is this: how are we to collectively make sense of such barbarities and fit them into our comforting narratives about progress, security and a better life for our children?</p>
<p>Even before Ukraine provided an unwanted reality check, policymakers should have been focusing intently on the one problem that will inevitably overturn all of our dreams of achieving the good life. I refer, of course, to climate change, which has not gone away and will only intensify as we become preoccupied with dealing with “traditional” threats to our collective security.</p>
<p>Behm rightly claims that Australia’s self-serving attitude toward the environment means “we are rapidly heading towards pariah status in the world climate change forums”. </p>
<p>Rudd devotes a chapter to environmental sustainability in China, but for a man who claimed that this was the great moral challenge of our time, the discussion is a bit underwhelming and seen as less important than traditional security threats. If and when they put the guns down in Ukraine and start the process of rebuilding, climate change will still be coming to get us, just more quickly than we thought.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457806/original/file-20220413-14-hvp86m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457806/original/file-20220413-14-hvp86m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457806/original/file-20220413-14-hvp86m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457806/original/file-20220413-14-hvp86m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457806/original/file-20220413-14-hvp86m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457806/original/file-20220413-14-hvp86m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457806/original/file-20220413-14-hvp86m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457806/original/file-20220413-14-hvp86m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The sun sets near a coal-fired power plant on the Yangtze River in Nantong in eastern China’s Jiangsu province on Dec. 12, 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Chinatopix/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/china-taking-history-seriously-47096">China: taking history seriously</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Poverty of imagination and abrogations of responsibility</h2>
<p>In their different ways, these books are excellent contributions to the general foreign policy literature in their respective areas. They are both full of pointed observations and, especially in Rudd’s case, advice for policymakers about what ought to be done. </p>
<p>But I don’t think it is unrealistic to say that neither book is likely to have much success in that context.</p>
<p>Neither the US nor China are likely to take notice of, much less welcome, unsolicited advice about how to manage their affairs. Much the same might be said of Australia, where both Labor and the Coalition go out of their way to demonstrate their unswerving fealty to the US and essentially abrogate responsibility for foreign and strategic policy.</p>
<p>This is more than a pity. We are about to waste yet more billions on <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-30/australia-unveils-10-year-defence-strategy/12408232">unproven weapons systems</a> that won’t arrive for decades and will be out of date when they do. They will not deter anyone (i.e. China) from acting in ways we would prefer they didn’t, but we will lose more time to address the very real threats we actually do face and could conceivably do something about.</p>
<p>Many people in Australia bang on about “creative middle power diplomacy”, but it remains conspicuous by its absence. In this regard, Behm is right to highlight the poverty of imagination and self-belief that distinguishes Australian policymaking; even Rudd fell victim to this when in power. </p>
<p>Indeed, it is noteworthy that policymakers only become creative after they’ve left the political stage and are free of the no doubt realist burdens of office. </p>
<p>The best we can hope for, according to Rudd, is to avoid a nuclear cataclysm and preserve the deeply unsatisfying status quo. If so, we are definitely on track for a climate apocalypse, because only historically unprecedented levels of European-style cooperation can possibly address problems that are truly planetary in scale. </p>
<p>That is not likely to happen when rich, remarkably safe countries like Australia pursue what Behm calls “unconscionable” environmental policies. Perhaps our leaders are simply too stupid, self-absorbed and parochial to save us. </p>
<p>Understanding our place in the international scheme of things is not easy, but putting things in geographic and historical context helps. Even if the end proves to be nigher than we imagined, these books offer some entertaining and informative reading while the sun goes down.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180402/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Beeson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Not only are great-power conflict, nuclear war and the end of civilisation as we know it still real possibilities, our collective capacity to manage them may be decreasing.Mark Beeson, Adjunct professor, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1771522022-03-22T19:01:40Z2022-03-22T19:01:40ZHow one woman’s traumatic experience drove her investigation into pregnancy and mental health<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452399/original/file-20220316-15-pkfc0y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C0%2C1583%2C1041&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Macierzynstwo (Motherhood) - Stanisław Wyspiański (1905)</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Years ago, a friend told me how, a week or two after giving birth, she had been gripped by the idea that her baby had been abducted by aliens. Hearing this, I was astonished. My friend was a smart, well-grounded, rational woman – a medical doctor, in fact. And ideas about the mental health impacts of pregnancy were new to me.</p>
<p>I was, at that time, pregnant with my first child and had become anxious. I was not myself. My friend wanted to let me know that I wasn’t a freak, that pregnancy was tough and complicated and, maybe, things could be worse. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: The Cost of Labour: How Women are Trapped by the Politics of Pregnancy and Parenting (Affirm Press)</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Postnatal psychosis – including mania, hallucinations and delusions – is a serious mental illness that can develop in mothers soon after giving birth. It is reasonably rare, affecting <a href="https://panda.org.au/get-support/support-postnatal-psychosis">one or two in every 1,000 women</a> who have a baby. Most women recover completely, as my friend quickly did.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450878/original/file-20220309-19-1ajq18l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/450878/original/file-20220309-19-1ajq18l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450878/original/file-20220309-19-1ajq18l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450878/original/file-20220309-19-1ajq18l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450878/original/file-20220309-19-1ajq18l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450878/original/file-20220309-19-1ajq18l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/450878/original/file-20220309-19-1ajq18l.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>But anxiety during and after pregnancy is common. It affects <a href="https://www.thewomens.org.au/health-information/pregnancy-and-birth/mental-health-pregnancy/anxiety-pregnancy/">as many as 30%</a> of pregnant women in Australia. Of these, <a href="https://panda.r.worldssl.net/images/resources/Resources-Factsheets/Anxiety-And-Depression-In-Early-Parenthood-And-Pregnancy.pdf">one in five women</a> will be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder.</p>
<p>And yet, nobody talks about it.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://affirmpress.com.au/publishing/the-cost-of-labour/">The Cost of Labour</a>, Natalie Kon-yu investigates women’s mental well-being in pregnancy with rare honesty. Kon-yu knew she was seriously unwell when, at eight weeks, her legs began trembling uncontrollably. She was already nauseous and unable to sleep. A locum prescribed Valium. But she kept waking in the dead of night with shaking legs. “It’s hard to write about this time, even eight years later,” Kon-yu says.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I grew increasingly anxious and oscillated between thinking that the tremble in my legs was caused by the pregnancy and worrying that it was caused by something that could potentially harm the pregnancy. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>‘List the colours of the rainbow’</h2>
<p>Kon-yu went to her local doctor for help. The GP told her to try listing the colours of the rainbow. “I stared at her,” Kon-yu writes. “I couldn’t believe that she couldn’t see the state I was in.”</p>
<p>Next visit, Kon-yu brought a friend to better explain her situation. This time the GP brought in a senior doctor who – addressing Kon-yu’s friend, and not Kon-yu – advised immediate hospitalisation because “I had expressed a desire to harm my unborn child”. Her friend exploded. But Kon-yu couldn’t say a word: “I sat there, small and ashamed, unable to speak for myself.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453506/original/file-20220322-302-1t1noi7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453506/original/file-20220322-302-1t1noi7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453506/original/file-20220322-302-1t1noi7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453506/original/file-20220322-302-1t1noi7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453506/original/file-20220322-302-1t1noi7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453506/original/file-20220322-302-1t1noi7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453506/original/file-20220322-302-1t1noi7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Natalie Kon-yu.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>Kon-yu tried a different doctor who, hearing she had been taken off Endep – a commonly prescribed back-pain medication that influences mood, but is contraindicated in pregnancy – prescribed SSRIs. He mentioned this new medication could make her anxiety worse before it got better. Kon-yu didn’t know what “worse” looked like, but before the end of the week, she writes, “I was having suicidal thoughts and I could not stop seeing images of babies being hurt”. </p>
<p>Her partner took her to the hospital emergency department. Kon-yu signed herself into the mental health unit and stayed there two nights. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/health-check-can-stress-during-pregnancy-harm-my-baby-81825">Health Check: can stress during pregnancy harm my baby?</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A disposable container</h2>
<p>Part of the problem, Kon-yu reflects, is that every doctor she encountered in her first trimester had focused solely on the welfare of her “unborn child”. It was not until week 12 that she found Lila, a doctor who recognised that Kon-yu mattered and promptly told her that in any pregnancy the “mental health of the mother was the most important thing”. </p>
<p>“Lila saved my life,” writes Kon-yu. “She saved my daughter’s life. I’m certain of it.”</p>
<p>It is confronting to read about 21st century medical professionals who appear unable to identify or respond adequately to mental health concerns. It is equally disturbing – but, somehow, less surprising – to read about medical professionals who fail to treat a pregnant woman as a fully human person, instead treating her as an apparently disposable container designed to carry around a precious embryo. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/weve-all-heard-about-postnatal-depression-but-what-about-antenatal-depression-69051">We've all heard about postnatal depression, but what about antenatal depression?</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Kon-yu’s new book combines memoir with political insights into the gender biases that structure pregnant women’s experiences. It scrutinises the social and cultural discourses that shape their bodily experience and the medical treatment they receive.</p>
<p>Historically, structural sexism in the medical profession has led to the marginalisation of women’s legitimate health concerns, with chronic and debilitating pain dismissed as drama or emotion. Stereotypically, culture tells us pain is something women are meant to tolerate. And some doctors listen to the culture, instead of their female patients – pregnant or otherwise. </p>
<p>As Australian surgeon <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/08/gwyneth-paltrows-goop-lab-is-horrible-medical-industry-is-partly-blame/">Nikki Stamp</a> has written: “For virtually the whole of its existence, medicine has disenfranchised women.” Although medicine and its institutions have modernised, “it remains, at times, paternalistic and patriarchal”. </p>
<p>A significant part of the difficulty, according to Kon-yu, is a medical culture that is myopically focused on birth, with its “inbuilt dramatic tension”. This results in little meaningful discussion of a pregnant woman’s well-being apart from the well-being of her “unborn child”. </p>
<p>In many ways, <a href="https://www.lennartnilsson.com/en/the-drama-of-life-before-birth/">the sell-out April 1965 issue of Life magazine</a> with its cover photograph, “Fetus 18 Weeks”, marked this shift in the cultural imagination of childbirth. As Kon-yu puts it, the photograph of a foetus in a sea of amniotic fluid, eyes closed, tiny fists pressed against its chest, looked like a “solo adventurer, floating among the stars”. When it appeared, NASA was embarking on its conquest of space and medical ultrasounds were in their own infancy. The photograph seems to gesture at a heroic, almost cosmic dimension of human existence. </p>
<p>What is less discussed is that this “solo adventurer”, depicted as if at the beginning of its life journey, was – detached from its mother – already dead. All the photographs - except one - were of recently miscarried or terminated foetuses. The hospital the photographer worked with would contact him so that a new foetus could be photographed within a few hours.</p>
<p>At a deeper level, this idea of the foetus as a “solo adventurer” plays into an impoverished kind of political individualism. Pregnancy poses an uncomfortable challenge to the disembodied, individualist and – let’s face it – pale, stale and male models of subjectivity that are enshrined in post-Enlightenment philosophy. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/feminist-stories-and-dangerous-bodies-siri-hustvedt-in-conversation-with-julienne-van-loon-176464">Feminist stories and dangerous bodies: Siri Hustvedt in conversation with Julienne van Loon</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The fact that, as philosopher <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_Marion_Young">Iris Marion Young</a> argues, “the discourse of pregnancy omits subjectivity” is unsurprising, given the historic exclusion of women’s experiences from the canons of philosophy, science and culture. </p>
<p>The result, as Kon-yu writes, is that even when doctors are aware there are two patients in any pregnancy (the mid-century paediatrician <a href="https://psychoanalysis.org.uk/our-authors-and-theorists/donald-woods-winnicott">Donald Winnicott</a> famously said there is “no such thing as an infant”, only an infant and its mother) medical science tends to privilege the foetus as “medically and technically by far the more interesting [patient]”.</p>
<h2>Historical perspectives</h2>
<p>This was not always the case. </p>
<p>The Cost of Labour contains some riveting details about the way women in industrial nations have changed the way they give birth. The manner in which Western women are accustomed to give birth is, as Kon-yu writes, only 300 years old. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452716/original/file-20220317-7982-1jn48y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452716/original/file-20220317-7982-1jn48y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=822&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452716/original/file-20220317-7982-1jn48y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=822&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452716/original/file-20220317-7982-1jn48y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=822&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452716/original/file-20220317-7982-1jn48y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1033&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452716/original/file-20220317-7982-1jn48y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1033&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452716/original/file-20220317-7982-1jn48y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1033&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Midwife Going to a Labour - Thomas Rowlandson (1757-1857)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Public domain</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Before the 18th century, caring for pregnant women was a female-dominated occupation; births were attended by midwives and female relatives. Women devised ergonomic solutions for childbirth. They delivered babies in flexible hammocks, threw ropes across beams, used poles for support and invented birthing stools. Midwives crouched down, taking advantage of biology and gravity. </p>
<p>It was only with the invention of the “laying-in hospital” in the 18th century that the balance of power shifted to male physicians, who clawed obstetrics away from midwives. In some hospitals, the default option is still for women to give birth flat on their backs, with legs in the air, suspended by stirrups. Historically, this change took place for the convenience of male physicians, not for the ease and comfort of the mother. </p>
<p>Ultimately, modern medicine would dramatically reduce maternal mortality and infant deaths. This important fact should not be ignored. But in the early days of the “laying-in” hospitals, the spread of germs saw maternal mortality rise. Physicians blamed women. They painted them in iodine, shaved their pubic hair, gave them enemas and forbade contact between mothers and their newborn babies. </p>
<p>It should come as no surprise that women were barred from medical training until the late 19th century.</p>
<h2>Women at risk</h2>
<p>When Kon-yu started writing, it seemed as if trauma was being always being researched elsewhere – intergenerational trauma, the trauma of racial discrimination, migration and detention, the Stolen Generations. But “nowhere,” writes Kon-yu, “do we speak of pregnancy as an experience which can traumatise people”. </p>
<p>This is the feeling she describes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>…suddenly, going to the supermarket by myself made me feel panicked. I stopped driving, and my world shrank to my living room, doctor’s surgeries, and the houses of a few close friends. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It was only after she met her doctor, Lila, who referred her to a perinatal psychiatrist, that “little by little I crawled out of that dark space”. As she did, she turned an intersectional feminist lens on the “concerning assumptions [that] have found their way into the foundations of the medical care we offer pregnant women”.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Pregnant woman in silhouette in dark room" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453509/original/file-20220322-17-fl08h6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453509/original/file-20220322-17-fl08h6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453509/original/file-20220322-17-fl08h6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453509/original/file-20220322-17-fl08h6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453509/original/file-20220322-17-fl08h6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453509/original/file-20220322-17-fl08h6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453509/original/file-20220322-17-fl08h6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anxiety affects as many as 30% of pregnant women in Australia.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Kon-yu wryly describes herself as a “brown” woman who is “not too brown”: a woman from a Mauritian and Sicilian background, but with what she calls “white-passing privilege”. She is deeply attuned to the additional barriers that diverse women face which prevent them from accessing safe, sensitive and culturally appropriate services.</p>
<p>Women more at risk include LGBTIQ+ families, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families, and culturally and linguistically diverse families. Not only does discrimination and isolation throw up additional barriers to seeking help – Kon-yu argues that in many instances, culturally safe, sensitive and appropriate care for pregnant women is simply not available. </p>
<p>Kon-yu names one innovative program designed with the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in mind, combining traditional practices of “borning” on Country with appropriate medical care. Despite its success, funding for the program has <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-20/indigenous-health-experts-criticise-lack-of-federal-funding/100151854">dwindled</a>.</p>
<p>The Cost of Labour is a brave book. It does not shy away from difficult subjects, foregrounding Kon-yu’s own lived experience of perinatal trauma to draw attention to the cultural and gender biases in the medical care that is offered to pregnant women. </p>
<p>“I’ve talked about my pregnancy experience openly,” Kon-yu writes, “feeling that nobody benefits from silence or from the proliferation of happy stories out there.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177152/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Camilla Nelson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In her brave new book The Cost of Labour, Natalie Kon-yu examines the mental stresses women face in pregnancy and childbirth.Camilla Nelson, Associate Professor in Media, University of Notre Dame AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1041402018-10-09T19:24:19Z2018-10-09T19:24:19ZSix things you can do to get boys reading more<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238832/original/file-20181002-195260-19841vt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Boys typically read less frequently and perform worse on national and international reading assessments than girls.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The OECD consistently finds girls perform significantly <a href="https://www.oecd.org/els/family/CO_3_4_Literacy_scores_gender_age_15.pdf">better</a> than boys in reading. This gap can also be observed across the Australian <a href="https://www.nap.edu.au/docs/default-source/default-document-library/naplan-national-report-2017_final_04dec2017.pdf?sfvrsn=0">NAPLAN</a> reading data. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1111/eie.12143?journalCode=reie20">Research</a> suggests reading more can improve literacy outcomes across a range of indicators. But <a href="https://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=622481487428553;res=IELIND">girls</a> typically read more frequently than boys, and have a more positive attitude toward reading. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/research-shows-the-importance-of-parents-reading-with-children-even-after-children-can-read-82756">Research shows the importance of parents reading with children – even after children can read</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Parents <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/688899">read more</a> with their daughters. This sends a strong and early message that books are for girls, as well as equipping girls with a significant advantage. Recent <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/project/Western-Australian-Study-in-Childrens-Book-Reading-WASCBR">research</a> found even though boys read less frequently than girls, girls receive more encouragement to read from their parents. </p>
<p>So how can parents and educators help bridge the gap for boys’ literacy?</p>
<h2>Stop telling boys they only like non-fiction</h2>
<p>To improve boys’ literacy outcomes, parents and educators may look for ways to connect boys with reading. This had led to discussion about the importance of promoting so-called “boy-friendly” books that boys are supposedly “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/09/why-girls-are-better-reading-boys/571429/?utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_term=2018-09-27T11%3A00%3A44">drawn to</a>”, which are typically assumed to be non-fiction works, as it’s regularly contended that boys prefer to read non-fiction. </p>
<p>But this contention is not typically supported by recent quantitative research. For example, OECD and my own <a href="https://www.aate.org.au/documents/item/1246">research</a> suggests boys are more likely to choose to read fiction than non-fiction. Encouraging all boys to read non-fiction under the assumption this meets an imagined uniform preference can actually lead to negative outcomes. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238836/original/file-20181002-195269-1q9lmcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238836/original/file-20181002-195269-1q9lmcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238836/original/file-20181002-195269-1q9lmcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238836/original/file-20181002-195269-1q9lmcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238836/original/file-20181002-195269-1q9lmcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238836/original/file-20181002-195269-1q9lmcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238836/original/file-20181002-195269-1q9lmcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">You can model good behaviour for your child by reading for enjoyment in front of them.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Firstly, the reading of fiction is more consistently associated with literacy benefit than non-fiction in areas such as <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10888438.2015.1069296?journalCode=hssr20">verbal ability</a> and <a href="https://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisaproducts/46619703.pdf">reading performance</a>. When we tell boys non-fiction books are for them, this may steer them away from a more beneficial text type. This is counterproductive if we’re doing so in order to improve their literacy. </p>
<p>Secondly, <a href="https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/CC-05-2017-0019">recent research</a> suggests non-fiction readers tend to read less frequently than fiction readers. So, if we want to increase boys’ reading frequency, engaging them in fiction may be more effective. </p>
<p>We may also be encouraged to steer boys toward comic books. While children can benefit from exposure to diverse text types, the reading of <a href="https://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisaproducts/46619703.pdf">comic books</a>, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1041608013000642">e-mails</a> and social networking posts, <a href="https://www.oecd.org/education/skills-beyond-school/48631582.pdf">newspapers</a>, magazines and <a href="https://www.springerprofessional.de/en/texting-reading-and-other-daily-habits-associated-with-adolescen/10857408">text-messages</a> is not associated with the same level of literacy benefit.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/five-tips-to-help-you-make-the-most-of-reading-to-your-children-93659">Five tips to help you make the most of reading to your children</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In addition, recent <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009265660500053X">research</a> supports the relationship between reading fiction and the development of pro-social characteristics such as empathy and perspective taking. So reading fiction can help students to meet the <a href="https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/general-capabilities/personal-and-social-capability/">Personal and Social Capability</a> in the Australian Curriculum, among other general capabilities. Instead of buying into stereotypes, we should aim to meet our children’s individual reading interests and encourage a reading diet that includes fiction.</p>
<h2>Six strategies for connecting boys with books</h2>
<p>Here are six strategies you can use to connect boys with books and increase their reading engagement:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>just as your interests and views are not identical to all those of the same age and gender, boys have diverse <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0004944114565115">interests</a> and tastes. These don’t necessarily stay static over time. To match them with reading material they’re really interested in, initiate regular discussions about reading for pleasure, in order to keep up with their interests</p></li>
<li><p>schools should provide <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01930826.2017.1340774">access to libraries</a> during class time throughout the years of schooling. Girls may be more likely to visit a library in their free time than boys, and as children move through the years of schooling they may receive less access to libraries during class time, curtailing boys’ access to books. <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/eie.12071">Access to books</a> is essential to promote reading</p></li>
<li><p>keep reading to and with boys for as long as possible, as many boys find it <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/eprint/Wm6JKfkqU9FfTNhgRQ7z/full">enjoyable</a> and beneficial beyond the early years</p></li>
<li><p>provide opportunities and expectations for <a href="https://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=702325343670795;res=E-LIBRARY">silent reading</a> at home and at school, despite competing demands on time</p></li>
<li><p>keep paper books available. Boys who are daily readers are even less likely to choose to read on screens than girls. The assumption that boys prefer to read on screens is not supported by <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01616846.2017.1354375">research</a></p></li>
<li><p>promote reading as an enjoyable and acceptable pastime by being a great role model. Let your <a href="https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/trtr.1703">children</a> or <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/eie.12126">students</a> see you read for pleasure.</p></li>
</ol>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238835/original/file-20181002-195266-1auu5w7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238835/original/file-20181002-195266-1auu5w7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238835/original/file-20181002-195266-1auu5w7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238835/original/file-20181002-195266-1auu5w7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238835/original/file-20181002-195266-1auu5w7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238835/original/file-20181002-195266-1auu5w7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/238835/original/file-20181002-195266-1auu5w7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Reading is for everyone.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a final comment, the OECD <a href="https://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisaproducts/46619703.pdf">note</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Although girls have higher mean reading performance, enjoy reading more and are more aware of effective strategies to summarise information than boys, the differences within genders are far greater than those between the genders. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>So, parents and educators seeking to support the literacy attainment of young people through increased reading engagement should focus on meeting the needs of <em>all</em> disengaged and struggling learners, regardless of gender.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104140/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Margaret Kristin Merga receives or has received relevant funding from the Ian Potter Foundation, the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund and the Collier Foundation. </span></em></p>Girls are encouraged more often to read, despite performing better in reading assessments nationally and internationally. Here’s how parents and educators can help connect boys with books.Margaret Kristin Merga, Senior Lecturer in Education, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/937542018-03-21T14:14:02Z2018-03-21T14:14:02ZHow women are collaborating to tell stories that break through the noise on Syria<p>Between the news coverage, reportage and statistics around the ongoing Syrian civil war and the battle against Islamic State the firsthand experiences of ordinary civilians on the frontlines are difficult to source and expose. Yet these are often the very stories that can often provide crucial wartime evidence, chronicle social and historic shifts, or unearth true narratives that can counter official ones. And these stories are increasingly found on our bookshelves rather than on the newsstands.</p>
<p>From testimonies to short stories, graphic novels to memoirs, female writers, journalists and survivors are currently fronting the literatures of war, conflict and exile. The past two years have seen a surge of books and memoirs authored by women that capture the far-reaching human consequences of the Syrian civil war. Amid the fatigued reportage on its increasingly more complex escalations – and the cynical moves of other nations vested in opposing outcomes – these are compelling testaments to what befalls ordinary people as a consequence of fanaticism and powerful interests.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211309/original/file-20180321-165554-ejr8oa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211309/original/file-20180321-165554-ejr8oa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211309/original/file-20180321-165554-ejr8oa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211309/original/file-20180321-165554-ejr8oa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211309/original/file-20180321-165554-ejr8oa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211309/original/file-20180321-165554-ejr8oa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211309/original/file-20180321-165554-ejr8oa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Personal account.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amazon</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A remarkable example is Farida Khalaf’s 2016 memoir <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jul/01/the-girl-who-beat-isis-my-story-farida-khalaf-andrea-c-hoffman">The Girl Who Beat ISIS</a>. Khalaf and her family are Yazidis, members of a Kurdish-speaking minority who follow an ancient, pre-Islamic faith. The book recounts how Islamic State crossed the border into their mountainside village in northern Iraq, killing the men, recruiting the boys, and taking women and girls to slave markets in Raqqa. </p>
<p>Through testimonies of those such as Khalaf, the genocide against the Yazidis was <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cuba-election/cuba-holds-one-party-vote-as-post-castro-era-looms-idUSKCN1GN05H">officially recognised</a> by the UN. Khalaf, in collaboration with German journalist Andrea C. Hoffmann, shaped their series of detailed interviews into a first-person narrative. Despite the indiscriminate violence visited on whole communities and towns, her memoir reminds that what women have suffered at the hands of IS, and what they continue to endure in refugee camps, is further devastating still.</p>
<h2>Human consequences</h2>
<p>Kate Evans’ graphic novel, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-interactive/2017/jun/20/threads-a-refugees-story-in-words-and-pictures-world-refugee-day-extract">Threads: From the Refugee Crisis</a>, though different in perspective and style, tells the stories of equally vulnerable people. Volunteering in Calais in 2015-2016, Evans bore close witness to the situation of asylum seekers in the so-called “Jungle”. Accustomed as we are to seeing quick news segments, these drawings are slow documentation at its best. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211310/original/file-20180321-165554-1gnbqbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211310/original/file-20180321-165554-1gnbqbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211310/original/file-20180321-165554-1gnbqbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=252&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211310/original/file-20180321-165554-1gnbqbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=252&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211310/original/file-20180321-165554-1gnbqbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=252&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211310/original/file-20180321-165554-1gnbqbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211310/original/file-20180321-165554-1gnbqbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211310/original/file-20180321-165554-1gnbqbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Graphic novel based on interviews in the Jungle in Calais.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Verso Books</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Its detailed visualisation of ordinary life under extraordinary circumstances enables Threads to vividly capture life in temporary shelters, the direct human consequences of European leaders’ political manoeuvres and the remarkable hospitality of those who have lost everything. Unafraid of checking her privilege and keeping refugees’ stories in the foreground, Evans depicts what reportage on Calais did not – indeed perhaps could not – capture.</p>
<h2>Vivid testimonies</h2>
<p>Interviews are often less depersonalising, but even they can sometimes ventriloquise already vulnerable voices. <a href="http://www.lse.ac.uk/middle-east-centre/events/2018/we-crossed-a-bridge">We Crossed A Bridge And It Trembled</a> avoids this imbalance by presenting the direct testimonies of more than 300 Syrians living across the Middle East and Europe. American scholar Wendy Pearlman’s book gathers four years of firsthand narratives chronicling the Syrian rebellion, civil war and displacement. </p>
<p>The results unfold the extraordinary trajectory of the conflict in Syrians’ own words. The men’s accounts paint a vivid picture of life under Bashar al-Assad’s authoritarian regime, the build up of revolutionary momentum, and the devastation that followed. The female voices here, however, often transport the reader directly into these experiences. One young woman describes her first anti-regime demonstration in electrifying words:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I started to whisper, Freedom. And then I started shouting, Freedom! I thought to myself, this is the first time I have ever heard my own voice.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For some, finding the stories themselves comes with the highest of stakes. Having left Syria with her daughter in 2011 when the regime pursued her, writer and journalist Samar Yazbek secretly returned in 2012 hoping to set up a civic institution for women’s empowerment. The devastated homeland she found took shape into her latest book, <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/review-the-crossing-my-journey-to-the-shattered-heart-of-syria-by-samar-yazbek-1.2303223">The Crossing: My Journey to the Shattered Heart of Syria</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211316/original/file-20180321-165580-mhi1wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211316/original/file-20180321-165580-mhi1wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=966&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211316/original/file-20180321-165580-mhi1wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=966&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211316/original/file-20180321-165580-mhi1wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=966&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211316/original/file-20180321-165580-mhi1wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1214&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211316/original/file-20180321-165580-mhi1wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1214&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211316/original/file-20180321-165580-mhi1wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1214&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Samar Yazbek: tipped as one of the top young Arab writers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amazon</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yazbek’s account is a hauntingly good piece of literature – less than a decade ago, under vastly different circumstances, she was among Hay Festival’s top <a href="http://www.hayfestival.com/beirut39/authors39.aspx?skinid=6">young Arab writers</a>. Yazbek, although a longtime dissident, is an Alawite <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/syrias-alawites-the-people-behind-assad-1435166941">like the Assad family</a> – so to travel in rebel-held regions and speak to jihadis, as she recounts doing, seems an almost suicidal undertaking. The Crossing is unforgettable when it thus entwines the personal and the political, as well as in its powerful lament: for girls snatched from childhood, and a homeland that has become unrecognisable.</p>
<p>All sides of the conflict in the region have <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/03/16/i-screamed-but-no-one-came-the-horrifying-sexual-violence-facing-syrias-girls/?utm_term=.b08a0085ad5d">entrenched the abuse of women</a>. Dangerous journeys to Europe – and that often only to the limbo of refugee camps, rarely promise a way out. It recently <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjj0oyg4OLZAhVRqaQKHV3GDxIQFggpMAA&url=https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/women-in-syria-sexually-exploited-in-return-for-aid-df0kxnw20&usg=AOvVaw1vUG54DvyKp2FKG6LupMlh">came to light</a> that humanitarian workers in Syria had been demanding sex from refugee women for UN food aid. </p>
<p>The sad fact is that this is a body of literature that can only grow as the true costs of this war for women continue to mount. But these books are a vital start.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93754/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Jilani receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK and the Isaac Newton Trust.</span></em></p>A vivid and remarkable body of writing is emerging to highlight the human cost of the war in Syria.Sarah Jilani, PhD Student, Faculty of English, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/823062017-08-17T23:03:14Z2017-08-17T23:03:14ZWorth reading: Bitcoin, BlackBerry, time travel and other outcomes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182500/original/file-20170817-28160-zg3tnr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: The Conversation Canada asked our academic authors to share some recommended reading. In this instalment, Joshua Gans, an economist who wrote about how an <a href="https://theconversation.com/energy-fuels-star-trek-economy-78484">energy revolution will transform the economy and our lives</a>, offers up new picks along with a few of his favourite books.</em> </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182488/original/file-20170817-10986-67igt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182488/original/file-20170817-10986-67igt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182488/original/file-20170817-10986-67igt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182488/original/file-20170817-10986-67igt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182488/original/file-20170817-10986-67igt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182488/original/file-20170817-10986-67igt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1163&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182488/original/file-20170817-10986-67igt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1163&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182488/original/file-20170817-10986-67igt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1163&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>Before Babylon, Beyond Bitcoin</em> by David Birch.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Handout</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35480869-before-babylon-beyond-bitcoin"><em>Before Babylon, Beyond Bitcoin</em></a></h2>
<p>By David Birch (Non-fiction. Hardcover, 2017. London Publishing Partnership)</p>
<p>David Birch’s previous book, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22227908-identity-is-the-new-money"><em>Identity is the New Money</em></a>, was fantastic in the way it drew a relationship between the money you have and your identity in society. This follow-up includes an analysis of <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=cryptocurrency">cryptocurrencies</a> such as <a href="https://bitcoin.org/en/faq#what-is-bitcoin">Bitcoin</a>. Money is a deeper issue than many economists appreciate. Indeed, it is something economists ignore by assumption: Money sits in the background without an impact itself on real economic decisions. That’s why I always value alternative perspectives that make me think. I’m looking forward to reading this one but it will have to wait until I have a good chunk of time to get the most out of it. </p>
<p> </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182495/original/file-20170817-2389-1tz4tau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182495/original/file-20170817-2389-1tz4tau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182495/original/file-20170817-2389-1tz4tau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182495/original/file-20170817-2389-1tz4tau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182495/original/file-20170817-2389-1tz4tau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182495/original/file-20170817-2389-1tz4tau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182495/original/file-20170817-2389-1tz4tau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182495/original/file-20170817-2389-1tz4tau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>Losing the Signal</em> by Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Handout</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25602451-losing-the-signal"><em>Losing the Signal</em></a></h2>
<p>By Sean Silcoff and Jacquie McNish (Non-fiction. Hardcover, 2015. Flatiron Books.)</p>
<p>This book, written by two Canadian journalists, is the definitive business history of BlackBerry, maker of what was once a must-have namesake smartphone. It traces the history of the Canadian technology giant’s “extraordinary rise and spectacular fall,” to quote the subtitle. For example, the book offers unparalleled insight into how disruption can be caused by internal decisions. I believe it’s a must-read for anyone seeking to understand disruption and why successful firms fail. </p>
<p> </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182489/original/file-20170817-28160-1aqx0ym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182489/original/file-20170817-28160-1aqx0ym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182489/original/file-20170817-28160-1aqx0ym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182489/original/file-20170817-28160-1aqx0ym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182489/original/file-20170817-28160-1aqx0ym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182489/original/file-20170817-28160-1aqx0ym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1187&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182489/original/file-20170817-28160-1aqx0ym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1187&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182489/original/file-20170817-28160-1aqx0ym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1187&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>On Intelligence</em> by Jeff Hawkins.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Handout</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27539.On_Intelligence"><em>On Intelligence</em></a></h2>
<p>By Jeff Hawkins with Sandra Blakeslee (Non-fiction. Hardcover, 2004. St. Martin’s Press.)</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_hawkins_on_how_brain_science_will_change_computing">Jeff Hawkins</a> is the inventor of the PalmPilot electronic assistant that made a pocket computer an essential personal tool and paved the way for the BlackBerry, iPhone and other mobile computers. His book is 13 years old but has <a href="https://www.wired.com/brandlab/2015/05/jeff-hawkins-firing-silicon-brain/">new relevance</a> as its central thesis — that intelligence is all about predictive ability — is now at the centre of the recent explosion in machine learning and artificial intelligence.</p>
<p> </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180245/original/file-20170728-23788-7gyilq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180245/original/file-20170728-23788-7gyilq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180245/original/file-20170728-23788-7gyilq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180245/original/file-20170728-23788-7gyilq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180245/original/file-20170728-23788-7gyilq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180245/original/file-20170728-23788-7gyilq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180245/original/file-20170728-23788-7gyilq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/180245/original/file-20170728-23788-7gyilq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>All Our Wrong Todays</em> by Elan Mastai.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Handout</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27405006-all-our-wrong-todays"><em>All Our Wrong Todays</em></a></h2>
<p>By Elan Mastai (Fiction. Hardcover, 2017. Doubleday Canada.)</p>
<p>An interesting time travel journey wrapped up in a family drama where consequences remain consequences. It is also mostly set in Toronto, making it nicely familiar for Canadian readers. One of the things I appreciated about this book is that it deals with a big time travel problem: How can you go back in time and end up in the same physical place you started when the Earth is always moving through space — on its axis, around the sun, in the solar system, in the Milky Way — while the galaxy itself is moving through the universe? That alone makes <em>All Our Wrong Todays</em> more thoughtful than the usual offerings on this subject. [<em>Editor’s note: <a href="https://theconversation.com/worth-reading-future-visions-of-women-war-time-and-space-81658">Bryan Gaensler also recommended</a> this book in his reading list.</em>] </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182504/original/file-20170817-28151-1bmfkdu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182504/original/file-20170817-28151-1bmfkdu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182504/original/file-20170817-28151-1bmfkdu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182504/original/file-20170817-28151-1bmfkdu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182504/original/file-20170817-28151-1bmfkdu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1163&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182504/original/file-20170817-28151-1bmfkdu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1163&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182504/original/file-20170817-28151-1bmfkdu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1163&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/703.The_Plot_Against_America"><em>The Plot Against America</em></a></h2>
<p>By Philip Roth (Fiction. Hardcover, 2004. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.)</p>
<p>An alternative history in which <a href="https://www.biography.com/people/charles-lindbergh-9382609">Charles Lindbergh</a>, the famous aviator, wins the presidency in 1940 and keeps the United States out of the Second World War. Suffice to say, for anyone living in 2016 and 2017 observing U.S. politics today, there is something chilling about this book given that Roth wrote it a decade ago. You will recognize the trends and concerns that perhaps make up the American mindset that leave its democracy vulnerable to populism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82306/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua Gans has received funding from the Sloan Foundation.</span></em></p>The future and the past, money, technology and politics documented and imagined in fact and fiction, in an economist’s recommended reading.Joshua Gans, Professor of Strategic Management, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/793592017-06-13T12:54:14Z2017-06-13T12:54:14Z‘Facts are not truth’: Hilary Mantel goes on the record about historical fiction<p>In a recent talk at the Hay literary festival, Cambridge historian and biographer <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/31/students-take-hilary-mantels-tudor-novels-as-fact-hay-festival">John Guy said</a> he had seen an increasing number of prospective students citing Hilary Mantel’s Booker Prize-winning historical novels, Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies, as supporting evidence for their knowledge of Tudor history. </p>
<p>Guy suggested that Mantel’s as yet incomplete trilogy on Thomas Cromwell’s life and career – the third instalment, The Mirror and the Light, comes out later this year – has become something of a resource for a number of budding history undergraduates, despite the fact that they contain historical inaccuracies (casting, for example, Thomas More as a woman-hating tyrant, Anne Boleyn as a female devil and getting the wrong sheriff of London to lead More to his execution).</p>
<p>The Guardian quotes Guy as saying that this “blur between fact and fiction is troubling”. In fact, Guy’s comments on the blurring of fact and fiction, and related concerns of authenticity, do read as a worrying prognosis. In the age of Trump and fake news, it seems particularly important that we call bullshit on so-called “alternative facts” and place an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/31/students-take-hilary-mantels-tudor-novels-as-fact-hay-festival">unquestionable fix on fiction</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3Wvd7c_b2pA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Yet historical fiction, in all its varieties, can and frequently does raise vital questions about how we write, and conceptualise, historical processes. Indeed, when writers of historical fiction make stuff up about the past, they sometimes do so in an effort to sharpen, rather than dull, our capacities to separate fact from fiction.</p>
<h2>‘There are no endings’</h2>
<p>In the first of five Reith Lectures to be aired on BBC Radio 4, Mantel similarly argues that in death “we enter into fiction” and the lives of the dead are given shape and meaning by the living – whether that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jun/03/hilary-mantel-why-i-became-a-historical-novelist">be the historian or the historical novelist</a>. As the narrator of Bring up the Bodies puts it: “There are no endings.” Endings are, instead, “all beginnings”, the foundation of interpretative acts.</p>
<p>In Mantel’s view, the past is not something we passively consume, either, but that which we actively “create” in each act of remembrance. That’s not to say, of course, that Mantel is arguing that there are no historical “facts” or that the past didn’t happen. Rather, she reminds us that the evidence we use to give narrative shape to the past is “always partial”, and often “incomplete”. “Facts are not truth”, Mantel argues, but “the record of what’s left on the record.” It is up to the living to interpret, or, indeed, misinterpret, those accounts.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173561/original/file-20170613-12613-dn1hor.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173561/original/file-20170613-12613-dn1hor.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173561/original/file-20170613-12613-dn1hor.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173561/original/file-20170613-12613-dn1hor.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173561/original/file-20170613-12613-dn1hor.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173561/original/file-20170613-12613-dn1hor.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173561/original/file-20170613-12613-dn1hor.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173561/original/file-20170613-12613-dn1hor.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wolf Hall won the Booker Prize in 2009.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In this respect the writer of historical fiction is not working in direct opposition to the professional historian: both must think creatively about what remains, deploying – especially when faced with gaps and silences in the archive – “selection, elision, artful arrangement”, literary manoeuvres more closely associated with <a href="http://www.philippagregory.com/books">novelist Philippa Gregory</a> than with Guy the historian. However, exceptional examples from both fields should, claims Mantel, be “self-questioning” and always willing to undermine their own claims to authenticity.</p>
<h2>Richard’s teeth</h2>
<p>Mantel’s own theorising of history writing shares much with that other great Tudor storyteller: William Shakespeare.</p>
<p>While Shakespeare’s Richard III (1592), can be read as a towering achievement in historical propaganda – casting Richard, the last of the Plantagenets, as an evil usurper, and Richmond, first Tudor king and Elizabeth I’s grandfather, as prophetic saviour – the play invites serious speculation about the idiosyncratic nature of historical truth.</p>
<p>Take this exchange in Act II Scene IV of the play, which comes just before the doomed young princes are led to the tower. Here, the younger of the two, Richard, duke of York, asks his grandmother, the duchess of York, about stories he’s heard about his uncle’s birth:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>York: Marry, they say my uncle grew so fast<br>
That he could gnaw a crust at two hours old …
Duchess of York: I pray thee, pretty York, who told thee this?<br>
York: Grandam, his nurse.<br>
Duchess of York: His nurse? Why, she was dead ere thou wast born.<br>
York: If ’twere not she, I cannot tell who told me.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Fresh in the knowledge that his uncle’s nurse died before he was born, the boy has no idea who told him the story of his uncle’s gnashing baby teeth. Has he misremembered his source, blurring the lines between fact and fiction? Was the boy’s uncle born a monster, or is that a convenient fiction his enemies might wish to tell themselves? And why on earth would Shakespeare bother to include this digression?</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173562/original/file-20170613-12613-1cls8ro.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173562/original/file-20170613-12613-1cls8ro.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173562/original/file-20170613-12613-1cls8ro.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173562/original/file-20170613-12613-1cls8ro.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173562/original/file-20170613-12613-1cls8ro.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173562/original/file-20170613-12613-1cls8ro.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173562/original/file-20170613-12613-1cls8ro.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173562/original/file-20170613-12613-1cls8ro.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bring up the Bodies won the Booker Prize in 2012.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In all other respects, Richard III invites straightforward historical divisions between good (the Tudors) and evil (the Plantagenet dynasty). But here, subversive doubts creep in about the provenance of the stories we tell about real historical people, with the “historical fact” briefly revealed as a messy, fallible concept, always on the edge of make-believe.</p>
<h2>Near-history</h2>
<p>Richard III reminds us that historical facts can be fictionalised, but also that the fictional can just as easily turn into fact. Mantel’s Tudor cycle has been haunted by similar anxieties. In the often terrifying world of Henry VIII’s court, her novels show how paranoia breeds rumour, how rumour bleeds into and shapes fact and, as a result, “<a href="https://historicalnovelsociety.org/the-border-between-truth-and-lies/">how difficult it is to get at the truth</a>”. History isn’t just a different country for Mantel, it’s something intimately tied to the fictions we cling to.</p>
<p>And indeed in Wolf Hall that blurred relationship between fact and fiction, history and myth, is often front and centre. In Wolf Hall the past is somewhere above, between, and below the official record. History is not to be found in “coronations, the conclaves of cardinals, the pomp and processions.” Instead it’s in “a woman’s sigh”, or the smell she “leaves on the air”, a “hand pulling close the bed curtain”; all those things that are crucially absent from the archive.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173566/original/file-20170613-20116-fpxfqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173566/original/file-20170613-20116-fpxfqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173566/original/file-20170613-20116-fpxfqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173566/original/file-20170613-20116-fpxfqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173566/original/file-20170613-20116-fpxfqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173566/original/file-20170613-20116-fpxfqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173566/original/file-20170613-20116-fpxfqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Brought to life: Thomas Cromwell.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hans Holbein via the Frick Collection.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The fact of history’s ephemerality opens a “gap” for the fictional, into which we “pour [our] fears, fantasies, desires”. As Mantel <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/may/20/hilary-mantel-swaps-historical-fiction-alternative-facts-radio-4">has asked elsewhere</a>: “Is there a firm divide between myth and history, fiction and fact: or do we move back and forth on a line between, our position indeterminate and always shifting?”</p>
<p>For the Canadian novelist, Guy Gavriel Kay, fantasy is a <a href="https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-223225905/the-fiction-of-privacy-fantasy-and-the-past">necessary precondition of all forms of historical writing</a>: “When we work with distant history, to a very great degree, we are all guessing.”</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173563/original/file-20170613-12613-1iqtws1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173563/original/file-20170613-12613-1iqtws1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173563/original/file-20170613-12613-1iqtws1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173563/original/file-20170613-12613-1iqtws1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173563/original/file-20170613-12613-1iqtws1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173563/original/file-20170613-12613-1iqtws1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173563/original/file-20170613-12613-1iqtws1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173563/original/file-20170613-12613-1iqtws1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Guy Gavriel Key’s Lions of Al-Rassan.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is why Kay is at leave to employ the conventions of fantasy to deal with the past, transposing real historical events, peoples, and places – medieval Spain and Roderigo Diaz (El Cid) in The Lions of Al-Rassan (1995), for example, or the Viking invasions of Britain in The Last Light of the Sun (2004) – into the realm of the fantastical.</p>
<p>Kay researches (he provides bibliographies in all his books) and then unravels history and historical evidence, putting a “quarter turn” on the assumed facts: renaming historical figures, reversing and collapsing the order of known events, substituting invented religions for real ones, introducing magic into the history of Renaissance Europe, or China. He has described the result of this process as “near-history”: alternative pasts that are at once <a href="http://boingboing.net/2016/06/01/author-guy-gavriel-kay-on-the.html">radically strange and weirdly familiar</a>.</p>
<p>Like Mantel, Kay’s (near-)historical fictions can be read as less an effort to evade the blur between fact and fiction than to honestly point towards that blur as a condition of history itself. After all, history is debatable and often impossible to verify. It’s a reminder, perhaps, that we sometimes need the tropes of fiction to smooth over those complexities, or render them legible, truthful, in the contemporary moment. We need metaphors, and similes, so that the dead can speak and act, live and die.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79359/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Durrant does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Booker Prize-winning novelist’s Reith lectures explore the complex relationship between historical fact and fiction.Michael Durrant, Lecturer in Early Modern Literature, Bangor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/499512015-11-04T03:15:59Z2015-11-04T03:15:59Z‘Highbrow’ and ‘middlebrow’ are irrelevant when it comes to which writing survives<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/100690/original/image-20151104-25347-twhfui.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The distinctions between highbrow and middlebrow fiction are as old as literature itself. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">régine debatty</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Clearing out my office in preparation for a faculty move, I am faced with the dilemma of what books to retain and what to discard. With non-fiction it is easy: keep any reference books that might prove useful in later life, such as the Oxford Guide to Philosophy or Primates of the World. But with fiction, particularly Australian fiction, it is harder to decide. </p>
<p>What lasts, I ask myself, what writing survives? The Guardian critic Jonathan Jones <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2015/aug/31/terry-pratchett-is-not-a-literary-genius">bemoaned in August</a> that a middlebrow cult of the popular was holding literature to ransom. My colleague Ivor Indyk in the Sydney Review of Books <a href="http://www.sydneyreviewofbooks.com/4-september-2015-literary-prizes/">added in September</a> that it was in the giving of literary prizes that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the cult of the middlebrow seems now to have established itself. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The academic Beth Driscoll entered the debate, with a recent, <a href="http://www.sydneyreviewofbooks.com/could-not-put-it-down/">wide-ranging article</a> on the middlebrow, with particular focus on three recent Australian novels, by Susan Johnson, Stephanie Bishop and Antonia Hayes. To which the authors in question last week <a href="http://www.sydneyreviewofbooks.com/as-one-in-rejecting-the-label-middlebrow/">published their responses</a>, in part taking umbrage at the description of their work as middlebrow because, in Hayes’ words:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>it implies an aesthetic pecking order, and is more often than not used in a derogatory way.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The distinctions between highbrow and middlebrow fiction are as old as literature itself. </p>
<p>In the 18th century, novel-reading was regarded as frivolous and morally suspicious. Real literature was to be found in religious tracts, epic poetry and mannered letters written by the nobility. It was the duty of learned men to uphold literary standards against the rising tide of middle-class tastes. </p>
<p>Even Dickens was considered by many of his contemporaries to be too middlebrow to be a serious writer, and Edmund Wilson wrote of Raymond Chandler that he “remained a long way below Graham Greene”.</p>
<p>“Literature is bunk,” <a href="https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/05/08/raymond-chandler-on-writing/">Chandler replied</a>, “written by fancy boys, clever-clever darlings, stream-of-consciousness ladies and gents and editorial novelists.” </p>
<p>Would I ever read Graham Greene again? Probably not, I decide – all that Catholic angst – but I keep two novels by Raymond Chandler. If we can’t trust our literary academics and critics, to whom, then, should we entrust the judgement of literary quality? </p>
<p>The only answer is the passage of time. What is valorised today might not be read in 50 years. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12610102-quintus-servinton">Quintus Servinton</a> (1830), the first novel published in Australia, was written by a convict in 1830, but no one would ever describe it as literature. It survives for its historical value alone. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/100689/original/image-20151104-25350-pn1fve.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/100689/original/image-20151104-25350-pn1fve.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/100689/original/image-20151104-25350-pn1fve.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/100689/original/image-20151104-25350-pn1fve.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/100689/original/image-20151104-25350-pn1fve.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/100689/original/image-20151104-25350-pn1fve.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/100689/original/image-20151104-25350-pn1fve.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/100689/original/image-20151104-25350-pn1fve.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eugene Hsu</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/may/08/humanities.books">2002 poll</a> by the Norwegian Nobel Institute, 100 international authors, including Nobel prize-winners, chose <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3836.Don_Quixote">Don Quixote</a> (1605) as the most important book of all time, ahead of novels by Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. (No Australian writer made their list.)</p>
<p>In fact, Dostoevsky <a href="http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft3000050r&chunk.id=d0e2472&toc.id=d0e2472&brand=ucpress">declared Cervantes book</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the final and the greatest expression of human thought, the bitterest irony that a human is capable of expressing …</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And yet Don Quixote is neither highbrow nor middlebrow; if anything it is a satire on literary pretensions, on those genres — the epic and romance of chivalry — that preceded it. Yet for a long time Don Quixote was regarded as light literature and not worthy of serious study.</p>
<p>To talk about literature, therefore, we must ask what is literature? A common response is that it’s a force for change, or morally instructive, but these vague motherhood statements would exclude Rabelais, Henry Miller or the Marquis de Sade. </p>
<p>In a wonderful 2002 essay, <a href="http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/samples/cam031/2001025135.pdf">Negotiating with the Dead</a>, Margaret Atwood suggested there is only one question to be asked about any work — is it alive, or is it dead? </p>
<p>This is a far better measure of a novel or story’s worth than whether it is highbrow or lowbrow. The best fiction transcends brows. The playwright David Mamet suggested the purpose of literature is to delight. </p>
<p>“To create or endorse the Scholastic is a craven desire,” <a href="https://partners.nytimes.com/library/books/011700mamet-writing.html">he wrote</a> in 2000. “It may yield a low-level self-satisfaction, but how can this compare with our joy at great, generous writing.” </p>
<p>Great, generous writing that is alive. Now we are getting closer to answering the question: What lasts, what writing survives? And what books should I keep?</p>
<p>The only way a text can survive is through its interaction with a reader – “no matter how far away that reader may be from the writer in time and space,” Atwood wrote. Miguel Cervantes died in 1616 yet his creation Don Quixote de la Mancha lives on four centuries later, and no-one today reads a pastoral romance. </p>
<p>We all know what dead writing is, for we encounter it every day in managerial speak, in those densely-worded, multi-paged documents about course intended learning outcomes, quality assurance mechanisms and international benchmarking activities. All around us dead sentences are falling on the living.</p>
<p>But the writing that survives, great literature, reminds us of our existence in this world, and our connection with other living things. </p>
<p>Tolstoy’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15823480-anna-karenina?from_search=true&search_version=service">Anna Karenina</a> (1877) was written 140 years ago and yet most of it remains alive and vivid. There is something presumptuous, if not pretentious, about the term “literary fiction”. One can’t imagine Tolstoy telling Chekhov at his country estate that he was writing “literary fiction” or “highbrow literature”. </p>
<p>On the contrary, Tolstoy held an aesthetic that required fiction to be morally improving and accessible to the widest public. It is not the morally improving aspects of Tolstoy’s prose that we appreciate today; rather it is passages such as the scene of Konstanin Levin travelling through the Russian countryside, during which: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the tall grass softly twined around the wheels and the horse’s legs, leaving its seeds on the wet spokes and hubs. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is what lasts, this is what survives, our joy of discovery at something simple and straightforward that connects us to the world. If the best fiction is a way of dealing with death, then it is also a way of learning about the inter-related nature of life.</p>
<p>That is the fiction worth keeping.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49951/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Dale does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The distinctions between highbrow and middlebrow fiction are as old as literature itself. So does the current spat over such terms mean anything in the long term for works of literature? Unlikely.John Dale, Professor of Writing and Director - Centre for New Writing, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/488662015-10-08T21:14:33Z2015-10-08T21:14:33ZSvetlana Alexievich exposes the deep contradictions of the literature Nobel<p>The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2015 has been awarded to the Belarusian author Svetlana Alexievich. Her writing, until now not well known in the Anglophone world, is difficult to categorise. In works such as Voices from Chernobyl and War’s Unwomanly Face, Alexievich develops a distinctive kind of documentary writing, drawn from large numbers of interviews, which gives an intimate picture of what it is like to be the victim of war, of state negligence, brutality or totalitarianism. </p>
<p>Neither fiction nor non-fiction, the work develops <a href="http://www.poynter.org/news/mediawire/377619/the-winner-of-the-nobel-prize-in-literature-went-to-j-school/">what the secretary to the Swedish Academy Sara Danius calls</a> a “new literary genre”, which gives us “a history of human beings about whom we didn’t know that much”.</p>
<p>This is surely a welcome and brave award, for at least two reasons. The <a href="http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2015/press.html">statement from the academy</a> announces that the prize was awarded “for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time”.</p>
<h2>Voices heard</h2>
<p>The stress on the “polyphony” of her writing is significant; if it is the case that Alexievich is little known in the English-speaking world, this is partly because the financial pressures on contemporary publishers make it very difficult to publish work that does not conform to a very narrow set of generic and formal norms. </p>
<p>Alexievich’s work is difficult to categorise, and hence difficult to sell, and so nearly invisible. The prize will change this, and will at the same time do much to alert us to the growing importance of documentary writing elsewhere in Europe.</p>
<p>Equally significant is the assertion that Alexievich’s work represents a monument to a kind of experience – a kind of suffering – that ordinarily goes undocumented. In awarding Alexievich the prize, the academy has helped to ensure that the voices she records are heard on a much bigger stage.</p>
<p>With the award of this prize, the Academy is likely to bring an important body of writing to new audiences – something that is much harder to achieve with the better known contenders for the prize, such as Haruki Murakami or the perennial outsider Philip Roth.</p>
<h2>Ideal directions</h2>
<p>So this is a progressive and exciting choice. But it is also one that is mired in the contradictions that surround the prize – contradictions that are perhaps inherent in the concept of literary prizes in general, but which are sharpened by the terms of Alfred Nobel’s original bequest. </p>
<p>Nobel <a href="http://www.nobelprize.org/alfred_nobel/will/">specified in his will</a> that all five prizes were to be awarded to those who, in a given year, “have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind”. The prize for literature, he goes on, <a href="http://www.nobelprize.org/alfred_nobel/will/will-full.html">is to be awarded to</a> “the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction”.</p>
<p>The history of the prize has been the history of attempts to interpret this stipulation. How are we to quantify or to characterise the benefit that art confers on mankind, and what does it mean for literature to take an “ideal direction”? There has been a long tradition of awarding the prize to writers, such as Alexievich, whose work “benefits” us by drawing attention to the injustices which are perpetrated against the weak, the powerless or the dispossessed.</p>
<p>We might think that the award of the prize to Samuel Beckett in 1969 and to J M Coetzee in 2003 belongs to that tradition. These writers, like Alexievich, might be seen to erect a “<a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/10/the-nobel-prize-in-literature-and-a-monument-to-suffering-and-courage/409621/">monument to suffering</a>”.</p>
<p>But in awarding the prize to writers who give us such naked and powerful accounts of the privations of human beings, the academy might appear to be in breach of that second stipulation: that recipients should travel in an “ideal direction”. In awarding the prize to Coetzee, the academy wrote that the value of his work lay in part in his principled refusal of ideals, his absolute commitment to depicting suffering as it is, rather than as we would like it to be. </p>
<p>“His intellectual honesty”, <a href="http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2003/press.html">the academy wrote</a>, “erodes the basis of all consolation, and distances itself from the tawdry drama of remorse and confession”. This is work that resists the consolations or ornament of lyricism; but in recognising the power of this kind of vision, the academy is led to betray its spirit, to transform a difficult, bleak vision, into a redemptive one, one which leads in an “ideal direction”. </p>
<h2>Cui bono?</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97823/original/image-20151008-9664-n80yxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97823/original/image-20151008-9664-n80yxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97823/original/image-20151008-9664-n80yxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97823/original/image-20151008-9664-n80yxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97823/original/image-20151008-9664-n80yxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1031&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97823/original/image-20151008-9664-n80yxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1031&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97823/original/image-20151008-9664-n80yxx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1031&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What did Nobel really have in mind?</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In honouring Alexievich, the academy has done a great service to literature, giving new audiences to a writer who has dedicated her life to speaking for those who have few means of articulating their own experiences. But it has done so in a way that exposes, again, the contradictions in Nobel’s bequest – contradictions that are absolutely central to the idea that we should think of art as conferring a benefit to mankind. </p>
<p>The Nobel Prize seeks to weaponise art, to deploy it in a battle against social injustice. This is a noble aim, but it leads us again and again to make something consoling out of a picture of suffering, or to imagine that art is a kind of alchemy that can make of the terrors it witnesses something restorative, or palliative. </p>
<p>The impossible demand that art makes of us is perhaps to recognise that its benefits are not measurable by existing instruments, and are not “conferred” upon mankind by any reliable mechanism. But in the absence of any readily available means of meeting that demand, the Nobel’s recognition of Alexievich’s courageous work is welcome indeed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/48866/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Boxall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Belarussian is a worthy winner, but the Nobel is getting further and further away from its lofty origins.Peter Boxall, Professor of English, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/334672014-10-30T19:08:01Z2014-10-30T19:08:01ZThe curious case of the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/63252/original/b2cmh2jt-1414631569.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nick Cater’s shortlisted work, The Lucky Culture, is one of several non-fiction options. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP /Dean Lewins</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This year’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/political-bias-and-the-prime-ministers-literary-awards-27645">cultural debates</a> about the constitution of the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards judging panels are now giving way to consideration of the <a href="http://arts.gov.au/topics/pms-literary-awards">shortlists</a> and their relative worth. </p>
<p>Even as these debates wane, I have to declare, factually, that no contemporary academics in literature and history are represented among <a href="http://arts.gov.au/topics/pms-literary-awards/2014-judging-panels">the judges</a>. </p>
<p>To make this point clearly, have a look at the make-up of the Man Booker prize <a href="http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/meet-man-booker-prize-2014-judges">judging panel</a> for 2014. On the panel, chaired by philosopher A.C. Grayling there is a depth of current literary critical academic expertise which should make the Australian panel-makers blush deeply. </p>
<h2>What are the panel-makers scared of?</h2>
<p>In Australia, this almost total lack of academic expertise is true of the Prime Minister’s Awards panel and the <a href="http://www.milesfranklin.com.au">Miles Franklin Award</a>. Last year’s Miles judging panel was made up of journalists, arts administrators, booksellers and one Emeritus Professor. </p>
<p>Of course there is expertise in that line-up, but hey, where, oh where, is the expertise of our top academic thinkers in literary studies and history? What are the panel-makers scared of?</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/63257/original/ysfyhgbx-1414632885.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/63257/original/ysfyhgbx-1414632885.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/63257/original/ysfyhgbx-1414632885.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/63257/original/ysfyhgbx-1414632885.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/63257/original/ysfyhgbx-1414632885.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/63257/original/ysfyhgbx-1414632885.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/63257/original/ysfyhgbx-1414632885.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/63257/original/ysfyhgbx-1414632885.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Evie Wyld’s All the Birds, Singing won the 2014 Miles Franklin Award.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Random House Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s true that the phenomenon of these Australian awards – media and market-hyped as they are – are not the central interest of scholarly researchers. But the fact academic professional expertise is almost completely sidelined in Australia must be an indication of something – ignorance of who our scholars are – on the part of those who constitute such panels? </p>
<p>Fear that academic assessments (for “academic” read “informed, careful, large-view, contextual modes of reading”) might make public pundits look silly? Is it embarrassment about the depth of reading and debate academics generate? </p>
<p>These are fighting words, of course, and they’re coming from an academic. But the larger cultural point still stands: there is a deeply impoverishing divide between academic knowledge and media/ market-driven instrumentalist interests in literature.</p>
<p>After the dust settles, and the winners receive their moment of fame, and a deserved pay-cheque, academics who write national and international research papers and books about literature and history, who set curricula and teach students with different abilities, from multiple class, age and ethnic sectors, continue their task of selecting and teaching texts they see to be speaking into already dynamic, international debates. </p>
<p>Surely this expertise is being wasted in Australia, when it comes to the public valuing of literature.</p>
<h2>The fiction shortlist</h2>
<p>So what do the shortlists for the PM’s Awards look like? The <a href="http://arts.gov.au/topics/pms-literary-awards">fiction list</a> contains the already prize-winning novelists Richard Flanagan, Fiona McFarlane, Alex Miller and Steven Carroll, plus a collection of essays by Nicholas Rothwell, described in the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/dec/12/belomor-nicolas-rothwell-review">Guardian review</a> by Alex Clarke in this way:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This sort of global psychogeography encourages a certain grandiose mysticism; filled with coincidences and convergences, symbols and auguries, its attempts to reach what is out of sight or already disappeared make it by definition unsuccessful, unable to achieve anything beyond a kind of yearning provisionality. To some extent, susceptibility to this way of seeing the world is a matter of personal taste. But the attempts to forge connections also make for a magpie brilliance …</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As is often true of newspaper reviews, there’s a bit both ways in this one. Ouch to “grandiose mysticism”; and outrider pride, or another grimace, for “magpie brilliance”, depending on what you want, I suppose.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/63255/original/pqdn7vtc-1414632543.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/63255/original/pqdn7vtc-1414632543.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/63255/original/pqdn7vtc-1414632543.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/63255/original/pqdn7vtc-1414632543.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/63255/original/pqdn7vtc-1414632543.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/63255/original/pqdn7vtc-1414632543.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/63255/original/pqdn7vtc-1414632543.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/63255/original/pqdn7vtc-1414632543.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Richard Flanagan won the 2014 Man Booker Prize.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Facundo Arrizabalaga</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The works by the four novelists are sustained, imaginative, daring and enthralling, each one. Both Flanagan and Carroll revisit and reimagine the second world war, the first in Burma and POW camps along the death railway, the second in the London blitz. I am persuaded by <a href="http://hass.unsw.adfa.edu.au/staff/profiles/lever.html">Susan Lever</a>’s balanced, informed <a href="http://www.sydneyreviewofbooks.com/heroes-certainly/">review</a> of <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17905709-the-narrow-road-to-the-deep-north">The Narrow Road to the Deep North</a> when she concludes that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This novel, then, does not make its suffering characters virtuous, but it does uphold a more social and communal notion of virtue. Ultimately, it is a work of filial and national piety …</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I would add, though, that there is a more pervasive sense of forgetting, meaninglessness and ontological scepticism permeating this novel, perhaps despite its humanist themes and seeming intent. Yes, there are the low-key heroes who stand up for conscience and justice, as much as they can among the horrors of the POW camps. But Flanagan does work hard to convince us that many Japanese too had a strong “social and communal notion of virtue”. </p>
<p>Such virtue is not just “ours”. There is a sense of alienation and human impotence that also seeps through the novel’s exposure of literature and its failure to make any difference. Or rather, literature is seen to bolster individual equanimity, but also relentless violence, equally. </p>
<p>Humans, in this novel, are just and corrupt, humble and narcissistic, lovers of beauty and violence, selfish and selfless. In a strange way, the novel writes of human intimacy and love, but finally casts a net of estrangement, forgetting and pointlessness across history and relationships. It’s indicative that the novel’s most riveting scenes are those of violence and the continual reduction of human bodies to maggot-infested corpses.</p>
<p>There is no space here to discuss all the novels on the fiction list, but commanding and substantive reviews of Carroll’s <a href="http://www.sydneyreviewofbooks.com/whatnots-and-wall-jobs/">A World of Other People</a>, McFarlane’s <a href="http://www.sydneyreviewofbooks.com/the-night-guest-review/">The Night Guest</a> and Miller’s <a href="https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/107-october-2013-no-355/1656-hanging-on-the-cross">Coal Creek</a> make clear arguments. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17788580-eyrie?from_search=true">Eyrie</a> by Tim Winton, <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18247932-the-swan-book?from_search=true">The Swan Book</a> by Alexis Wright, and <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18142324-all-the-birds-singing?from_search=true">All the Birds, Singing</a> by Evie Wyld, all shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award (with <a href="https://theconversation.com/and-the-winner-of-the-miles-franklin-award-is-evie-wyld-28522">Wyld the winner</a>), are not shortlisted by this judging panel. The Narrow Road and The Night Guest are on both shortlists.</p>
<h2>The non-fiction shortlist</h2>
<p>In the non-fiction list, war is again a theme in <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16158481-rendezvous-with-destiny?from_search=true">Rendezvous with Destiny</a> by Michael Fullilove. Despite the clichéd (or is that “media savvy”) title and cover of this volume, readers may be interested in what the New York Times described as “an entertaining, if truncated history”. </p>
<p>The reviewer, David Nasaw <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/books/review/rendezvous-with-destiny-by-michael-fullilove.html">wrote</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Regrettably, in this, as in other histories written as collective biographies, the whole ends up being less than the sum of its parts. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In a wonderfully coruscating, sardonic and hardly objective <a href="http://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2013/june/1370181600/mark-latham/lucky-culture-nick-cater">Monthly review</a> of <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17899174-the-lucky-culture-and-the-rise-of-an-australian-ruling-class?from_search=true">The Lucky Culture</a> by Nick Cater, Mark Latham argues that most of Cater’s arguments “… are imported from neo-con journals in the US and applied crudely to Australian circumstances”. </p>
<p>Latham writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I had great expectations for the intellectual firepower mustered in The Lucky Culture. In the book’s acknowledgements, it is clear Cater has collaborated closely with the best and brightest of Australian conservatism, most notably his News Ltd colleagues Paul Kelly, Christopher Pearson, Henry Ergas and Rebecca Weisser, plus fellow travellers Peter Coleman and Gerard Henderson. This was to be their magnum opus.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But the results are feeble.</p>
<p>Gerard Henderson, Peter Coleman, Nick Cater … the links in another would-be ruling class? Does Cater’s work amount to any more than another attack on Australian intellectuals? Readers will decide, despite (or perhaps because of) the PM’s Award winners.</p>
<p>The three other shortlisted works are biographies: Phillip Dwyer’s <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17802916-citizen-emperor?from_search=true">Citizen Emperor</a> being the second volume of the biography of Napoleon; Helen Trinca’s <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16057591-madeleine?from_search=true">Madeleine: A Life of Madeleine St John</a>, the tightly written life-story of a little known Australian novelist; and Gabrielle Carey’s <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18432081-moving-among-strangers?from_search=true">Moving Among Strangers</a>, an intimate memoir of expatriate Australian novelist Randolph Stow and his connections with Carey’s family. </p>
<p>Bernadette Brennan has written a marvellous, comprehensive and positive review of Carey’s work, <a href="http://www.sydneyreviewofbooks.com/keeping-the-darkness-at-bay/">concluding</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>By a literary homecoming I mean that Moving Among Strangers, while traversing new territory, also returns to the pain and loss articulated in [Carey’s earlier works] In My Father’s House, So Many Selves and Waiting Room. At the conclusion of this new work, however, there is a notable sense of peace, healing and love.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So, who will win the Prime Minister’s Awards for 2014? And more importantly, how is the community of readers, teachers, students, booksellers, librarians and other involved members to be more productively constructed?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/33467/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lyn McCredden has received funding from The Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>This year’s cultural debates about the constitution of the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards judging panels are now giving way to consideration of the shortlists and their relative worth. Even as these…Lyn McCredden, Personal Chair, Literary Studies, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.