This is the second of a three-part series of columns on must-read books from 2024: Fareed Zakaria’s book, Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present investigates the eras and movements that have shaken norms while shaping the modern world. He centers on three historical periods that hold profound lessons for today. The first is seventeenth century Netherlands which created politics as we know it today. Second is the French Revolution that left a legacy that still haunts us today. Third is the Industrial Revolution which resulted in Great Britain and the U.S. rising to global dominance and created the modern world.
Zakaria goes on to illustrate four present-day revolutions: globalization, technology, identity and geopolitics. In the last half-century, the first two have produced profound disruptions and pervasive anxiety. Now, the U.S. is no longer the dominant power and it is easy to imagine a very dark future. But Zakaria proves that such pessimism is premature. His bold and compelling arguments make this book essential reading in this age of revolutions.
Ian Johnson, who is known for his reporting on China, has written Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and Their Battle for the Future. He carries on a tradition long-established in China – writing about history in a way that challenges the current leadership efforts to revise history to reflect their supposed expertise in administering the government.
The current leader Xi Jinping’s signature policy is his control of history which he equates with the Communist party’s long-term survival. In spite of this effort, a network of independent writers, artists and film makers have begun to challenge the government’s policy of disremembering events. They use many methods to get their ideas known to a wide audience, both inside and outside China. Johnson tells their tales with clarity and phenomenal persistence. This is well worth reading to learn about dissidence in the largest communist state.
Rachel Maddow’s Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism deals with a history of propaganda, originating in Nazi Germany in the 1920’s and 30’s that involved members of the U.S. Congress. They supported those disinformation efforts, believing it would keep America out of a potential European war and in hopes of bringing to the US a regime equivalent to what Hitler’s in Germany.
Maddow charts the wild American strain of authoritarianism that lived on the far-right edge of US politics for the better part of the twentieth century. Even after American troops were engaged in World War II, a network of Nazi sympathizers disseminated disinformation aimed at sapping the strength of the US war effort and persuading Americans that the U.S.’ natural alliance was with the Axis and not against it. This well-funded effort campaigned to undermine democratic institutions, promote antisemitism and destroy confidence in elected American leaders.
At the same time, a handful of activists and journalists tracked these plots and exposed them as they were unfolding. It was only in 1941 that the Department of Justice in the USA finally made a frontal attack, identifying the key plotters, finding their backers and prosecuting dozens in federal court.
The overall scheme involved a large number of the most influential elected officials in the country. Their interference in the prosecutions is a dark story of the rule of law’s enforcement efforts bending, then breaking under the weight of political intimidation.
The War We Won Apart by Nahlah Ayed is the story of young people in their early twenties being parachuted into occupied France to help the Resistance forces to impact the German occupation force both before and after the landings in Normandy in June of 1944. Soni Butt, a young British woman and Guy d’Arti, a French-Canadian soldier and a thunderstorm of a man, became one of the most decorated couples of the Second World War.
They first met while training to become agents in Winston Churchill’s secret army, the Special Operations Executive. They learned how to kill, how to blow up rail lines and also how to love each other. But shortly after their hasty marriage their love is tested by separation. Sofia worked in rural France participating in sabotage operations, while her husband was in another part of France training hundreds of men into a resistance army.
This is a gripping tail of how two young people did their parts to help the Allied forces and managed to survive in an almost miraculous fashion. And now, after more than half a century, their remarkable story been told.
This post was originally published on here
