My one liner: The trenches of the First World War were horrific killing fields. Why would the French Secret Service be interested in their topography six decades on ? Other Paths to Glory is both a spy novel and a reminder of 20th Century European military heritage.

Other Paths to Glory won the Gold Dagger award of the CWA for its author Anthony Price.  Dr David Audley is the hero of this, and other novels, by Price.

Paul Mitchell is a historian and expert on the French and Belgian battlefields of the  First World War.  He spends much of his time in the archive rooms of the British Commonwealth Institute for Military Studies. 

Researching.

His mentor and hero is Professor Emerson, for whom Mitchell worked as a researcher at Cambridge.   One day Mitchell is interrupted in the archive rooms by two men, and his life changes:

“Number Two spoke this time.  And whereas Number One was a huge, rumpled, soft spoken, Oxbridge type, Number Two had “soldier” written all over him, from his carefully cropped red hair, and the mirror-shine of his boots, to the bark of his voice.”

Searching questions to Paul Mitchell about a small torn piece of German trench map produced by the two men.  That night, Mitchell, who lives with his mother, is brutally attacked and thrown into the canal near his house.  He manages to somehow clamber out, and make it back home, to the astonishment of the police constable, who have found his “suicide note.”  And Professor Emerson has died that day.  In a house fire.  Except it wasn’t the fire that killed him.

Dr David Audley (British Secret Service) arrives at Mitchell’s house, and persuades him to go into hiding.  Assumed identity...etc.

But Mitchell is also persuaded (seduced ??) into going further than that.  If he is to maximise his chances of survival he must help Audley find out what he and Emerson “knew” that has resulted in one murder and one attempted murder.

This book is somewhat of a trip down memory lane for me.  The school-trip that made the biggest impression on me as a teenager was a four-day tour of the battlefields of The Somme and Flanders, the main sites of the First World War trenches where millions of British, Commonwealth and German troops were killed.

“ “Terrible – yes, it was that sure enough,” he nodded.  Only terrible wasn’t the half of it: if there was a word in the English language for the loss of fifty-seven thousand men in a few hours that first day he hadn’t been able to find it.”

Paul Mitchell has now become Captain Paul Lefèvre (pronounced “Lefever” – English Huguenot, you see) of the 15th Royal Tank Regiment.  Accompanying Audley to find out what is was that had so intrigued and excited Professor Emerson on a recent visit that he had made.  The problem is that every time they find a war veteran, or local, who has something useful to say, he drops dead.

Spy novels, when well-written have the air of imparting “inside” knowledge of the machinations of global geopolitics and secret services, as if they are facts.  This one is no different.  Whether it is indeed true or not, we are told of how “neutral houses” work:

“...That’s the curse of open diplomacy – one side’s got to be seen to win or lose, and if neither does then it’s just as bad.  So the first thing that they came up with was the hot line...Except that when its a matter of life and death nothing beats face-to-face talking...So then they set up the neutral houses...if two countries have a problem they just approach a third party for a key to a neutral house.  No publicity, no TV, no questions asked, permanent top security guaranteed at head-of-state level.  France is a popular country for meeting...”

We find out that the French Secret Service has called its British counterparts to help out because a “neutral house” meeting is about to take place at a farmhouse in the Somme.  And there has been some murderous activity in the area lately.  So they are worried.

One of Paul Mitchell’s specialities is the Hindenburg Line.  In particular he has done much research into the feats of a British Regiment called the Poachers.  Recognised as one of the most incredible feats of the Battle of the Somme was the manner in which the Poachers captured a ridge where there was a Prussian Redoubt, which borders onto “Bully Wood”, or Bois de Bouillet.  The objective had been to attack a village called Hameau which was near Bully Wood.  The Prussian Redoubt was considered impregnable, built as it was into the side of a chateau.  The story of how the Poachers captured it was one of both bravery and foolishness.

But maybe also interesting to someone trying, several decades on, to penetrate an even safer and more impregnable fortress on the border of Bully Wood.

The plot is clever, but the battlefield descriptions and the recounted tales of the veteran characters make this novel as much a work of military history as of fiction.

There is no Wikipedia entry for this book.  The Google Books link is here.

Simon Winchester: Bomb, Book and Compass: Joseph Needham and the Great Secrets of China (2008)

My one liner: How a foremost biochemist became a foremost sinologist, and single-handedly created the Western world’s understanding of China, long before it became fashionable.

 15 May 1948. “Science and Civilisation in China.  Preliminary plan of a
book by Joseph Needham, FRS.  It will be addressed, not to sinologists, nor to the general public, but to all educated people, whether themselves scientists or not, who are interested in the history of science, scientific thought, and technology, in relation to the general history of civilisation, and especially the comparative development of Asia and Europe”.

Needham, a fellow, and subsequently, Master of Gonville and Caius College Cambridge, went on to write Science and Civilisation in China, which is widely considered the foremost work on scientific development in China.  He himself wrote 15 volumes over the next 4-5 decades of his life, and further volumes have continued to be published following his death in 1995. Simon Winchester's book traces the life story of Needham and the path by which his work came into being.  And through that journey we learn much ourselves about a civilisation that for long periods of history has been far more scientifically advanced than the West. Far more, arguably, than wading through the blogs, commentaries and predictions spewed out by some of today’s “China watchers”.
 
And just as importantly we learn something about this remarkable man, and the potential of what can be achieved by human endeavour, application, determination, and an openness to foreign ideas and cultures. Needham was after all a specialist in biochemistry. In 1939, before he was 40, he published a book on morphogenesis which was acclaimed by a Harvard reviewer as “destined to take its place as one of the most truly epoch-making books in biology since Charles Darwin.” 
 
A committed socialist throughout his life, Needham was selected by Britain’s academic community at the start of the Second World War to go to China and assist with a programme of reconstruction of China’s academic and scientific institutions, following the devastation wrought by war with Japan. And from there he didn’t look back. Already familiar with the Chinese written language through lessons from his friend / colleague / lover / concubine / and eventually in 1989, wife, Lu Gwei-djen, Needham embarked on a relentless pursuit of knowledge about China. 
 
The appendix of Winchester’s book lists “Chinese Inventions and Discoveries with Dates of First Mention”.  Here are a few: Algorithm for extraction of square roots and cube roots: 1 AD; Ball Bearings 2AD; Blood, distinction between arterial and venous: 2BC; Compass, magnetic for navigation: 1111AD; Grid technique, quantitative, used in cartography: 130 AD; Melodic composition 475 AD; Numerical equations of higher order, solution of 13C
AD; Pi, accurate estimation: 3AD; Printing, with woodblocks: 7C AD; Rocket arrow launchers: 1367 AD; Soybean, fermented: 200 BC; Watermills, geared: 3C AD.  As Needham said: “The mere fact of seeing them listed brings home to one the astonishing inventiveness of the Chinese people”.

Written in the style of a novel, Winchester's book puts us into Needham’s shoes as he travels to the  what were at the time some of the most remote parts of the planet, for example his Silk Road journey, in a truck which was a converted Chevrolet ambulance.  As he visits academic institutions, government offices and archeological sites he assembles a collection of original papers and documents detailing every facet of Chinese scientific and technological progress, and on returning to Cambridge after the War, proceeds to catalogue these, leading to the 1948 book plan.

There is of course his personal life, sympathetically and empathetically described.   His devoted wife Dorothy, who is accepting of the open nature of their marriage, is a friend and confidante of Gwei-djen. Needham’s political views, bordering on communism in an age of McCarthyism, and his sympathies with Mao’s regime, lead to frequent run-ins with the political and academic establishment.  

But we are left with the enduring notion that the pure pursuit of knowledge, and the desire to open that knowledge to society at large through painstaking effort, prevails in the end.  That a scientist trained in the supposedly physical precision of Western enquiry can be so open to the ancient scientific traditions as the genesis of his work, is a salutary lesson for all of us:

“Heaven has five elements, first Wood, second Fire, third Earth, fourth Metal, and fifth Water. Wood comes first in the cycle of the five elements and water comes last, earth being in the middle.  This is the order which heaven has made.  Wood produces fire, fire produces earth (ie. as ashes), earth produces
metal (ie. as ores), metal produces water (either because molten metal was
considered aqueous, or more probably because of the ritual practice of
collecting dew on metal mirrors exposed at night time), and water produces wood (for woody plants require water).  This is their ‘father and son’relation. Wood dwells on the left, metal on the right, fire in front and water behind, with earth in the centre. This too is the father and son order, each receiving the other in turn...As transmitters they are fathers, as receivers they are sons. There is an unvarying dependence of the sons on the fathers, and a direction from the fathers to the sons. Such is the Dao of heaven” From Chun Qiu Fan Lu, by  Dong Zhongshu 135 BC. Quoted by Needham in Vol II, 1956.

Here is the wikipedia link to the author.  There is no wikipedia entry for the book.

Steven Strange & Jack Zupko (Eds) – Stoicism: Traditions and Tranformations (2004)

My one liner: A collection of articles which traces the development of the Stoic school from its origins through to it contemporary application. The early articles are seriously heavy going, but there are some real gems in here for the lay reader who perseveres.

Since I come to most of my reading as a non-specialist, I feel comfortable suggesting this book to the lay reader, even though some of the articles (particularly the first few) will be 75% impenetrable (although those with some school level Latin or Greek may be able to get that down to 50%). Indeed it gave me comfort when I read the opening paragraphs of the introduction, which says that in compiling the book there was a possible “High Road” approach and a “Low Road” approach, the latter “would focus less on questions that interested ancient Stoics and more on broader tendencies and trends, looking at the way Stoic doctrines were employed in new settings and against different competitors.”  The editors have decided to take the low road. And therefore the reader can equally do likewise.

 To that end, if you need a primer on Stoic philosophy, start, as always, with the Wikipedia entry on Stoicism.  No shame there.  
  
How can these be translated into our contemporary lifestyles, if at all ? The final essay in the collection is by Lawrence E. Becker on Stoic Emotion”. Becker takes us through contemporary developments and attempts to demonstrate that ancient Stoic principles can be applied to our modern lifestyles, with a few “adjustments to the ancient doctrines”.  To take a concrete example, Becker tells us that “Neurophysiologists have identified at least four anatomically distinct structures in the “ancient” or subcortical portion of the human brain that generate affective senses –fear, rage, panic, and goal oriented desire”.  But if these are neurologically generated, how can one then apply a Stoic discipline to controlling these ? The answer is broadly that the neurological response is a “raw” one. The cognitive content that turns it into full-fledged emotion can still be controlled and tamed.  
 
Becker’s essay is interesting because it also forces us to answer some difficult questions about the “good” or value to society of emotions. The modern world seems to feed us with the view that expressing and feeling emotion is a good thing in its own right.  But this is potentially problematic, as human emotion is arguably good only insofar as humans are emotional creatures and expressing emotion allows us to communicate with other humans using emotional gestures. In other words the argument is“frustratingly circular”. Stoics, on the other hand place much less value on emotion, valuing instead the cognitive response which allows us to control our emotions so as to reduce our material attachments. In turn this also makes us think about the nature of attachment, in particular attachment to others.  A Stoic sage will love another person in a way that many would not recognise. In other words “she would not for example, become so attached to others that she literally cannot bear the prospect of losing them, any more than she would be attached to her own life in a way that made the prospect of her own death unbearable.  Nor would she wish others to love her in that way – to be desolate and helpless when she is gone, unable to bear the loss. What Stoics wish for others is what we wish for ourselves: good lives; virtuous lives; including the ability to cope with loss.”  

What this means in practice however is that a Stoic will not fit in many of the commonly prescribed behavioural norms, and will come across as aloof and detached and unemotional.

 Another interesting article in the book deals with contemporary approaches to foreign aid from developed to developing countries (Martha Nussbaum: Duties of Justice, Duties of Material Aid – Cicero’s Problematic Legacy). Its central tenet is that developed countries do not make enough financial transfers to developing countries in the form of direct aid to fight poverty, so-called Material Aid”. Nussbaum traces this allegedly moral deficiency back to a chain of political thought that goes right back to Cicero (who arguably was in a good position to comment as he wrote the work, De Officiis, whilst on the run to escape assassination from Antony and the other triumvirs in 44BC).  Cicero set out some very clear ideas of justice. His duties of justice had two parts, firstly not doing any harm to anyone unless provoked by a wrongful act, and secondly “using common things as common, private possessions as one’s own.”  So passionate was Cicero about the importance of private property that his idea of justice extended to the appropriate way to behave towards the citizens of a country conquered by war. He felt that there should be a strong commitment to institution-building, and that judicial and property-upholding institutions should transcend national boundaries.  Which sounds much like the programmes of “conditionality” (restructuring, supply-side reform,  privatisation) attached to today’s IMF and World Bank lending facilities. But where Cicero then deals a blow to Material Aid of the direct action type is that he sets out a clear hierarchy of whom justice demands that we should help.    He sets out explicit categories that justify some giving as follows: “the bond of nation and language; of the same state; of one’s relatives; various degrees of familial propinquity; and finally, one’s own home.” And just as explicitly he excludes other nations, on the basis that this is a potentially infinite cohort of recipients [infinita multido].  Now, whether you agree or not with (a) the proposition that Material Aid  is desirable in its own right and (b) that there is currently not enough wealth transfer from rich to poor, it is surely interesting and useful to understand that many of the current arrangement for trans-national relationships have their roots in ideas of justice formed 2000 years ago.
 
The book contains much else of interest, too extensive to enumerate, and still keep the review readable.  Epictetus was a Stoic who extolled the virtues of Socrates as defining everything mankind should know about a philosophical methodology for living one’s life. One of the more difficult essays describes the Socratic discourse in Epictetus’ work. Other essays lead us through the development of Stoic thought over time, from the Middle Ages, to Descartes, to Spinoza. Take what you find useful from these, and discard the rest.
 
Sten Ebbesen in his essay Where were the Stoics in the Late Middle Ages ? says: 
 
“Stoicism is not a sport for gentlemen; it requires far too much intellectual work. Most of Western history consists of gentlemen’s centuries.  But there were the couple of centuries, the fourth and the third BC, in which the ancient philosophical schools were created, and there were the three centuries from AD1100 to 1400, when medieval scholasticism flourished – centuries that produced a considerable number of tough men ready to chew their way through the tedious logical stuff that disgusts a gentleman and to make all the nice distinctions that a gentlemen can never understand but only ridicule, distinctions necessary to work out a coherent, and perhaps even consistent picture of the world.”

 If that is indeed the prize on offer, then perhaps we as gentlemen should consider whether we might want to invest a little more time and effort to look into this abit more.

There is no Wikipedia entry for this book. 

Here is the link to Google Books entry.

My one liner: A thorough and informative historical analysis of the whole supply chain, from production to transport to processing to marketing to distribution. From a seasoned investigative journalist.

“Except for those few stones that have been destroyed, every diamond that has been found and cut into a jewel still exists today and is literally in the public's hands. Some hundred million women wear diamonds, while millions of others keep them in safe-deposit boxes or strongboxes as family heirlooms. It is conservatively estimated that the public holds more than 500 million carats of gem diamonds, which is more than fifty times the number of gem diamonds produced by the diamond cartel in any given year. Since the quantity of diamonds needed for engagement rings and other jewellery each year is satisfied by the production from the world's mines, this half-billion-carat supply of diamonds must be prevented from ever being put on the market.”
 
Edward Jay Epstein is an investigative journalist who has studied the history of
commercially-produced diamonds, and presents in this book a collection of his research, which he has been publishing in newspapers and journals since the 1980s.  Indeed you can read the early chapters on Mr Epstein’s website here.
 
Likewise therefore, some of the supporting data and anecdotes are old, but the more recent chapters bring the reader right up to the state of play as of 2011. The central thesis of Epstein’s analysis is that diamond dealers, or wholesalers, charge extraordinary markups to retail buyers of diamonds.  This markup, known as the “keystone”, can be between 100% and 200%. Hence, when you go back to a dealer to try and sell back a diamond, he may well have a slightly embarrassed look on his face, and will probably decline to quote a price, so as to preserve your dignity.

To give an example (my analysis, not from the book).

Anyone who has been involved in trading any item or asset or commodity will be familiar with this concept: the 13k is the dealer’s “bid-offer”, or “spread”, between what he is prepared to buy the asset for (bid) and his offer price to sell it (offer).  In the diamond market these spreads are, apparently, extremely wide.

So, take the following chart, which I pulled from a website called wealthymatters here (by the way, it’s a nice little blog written by a lady based in India). The price shown is the Average One Carat D Loupe Clean wholesale diamond prices in Antwerp. Current “price” $25,000.

What it doesn’t tell you is that if indeed that 65% bid-offer spread is correct then the price you would receive to sell your diamond would be $8,750, a level seen during the 1970s.  Now, I’m sure the reality is not that bad, and that sophisticated investors with market knowledge can make money as an investment, but its certainly food for thought.
 
Epstein takes us nicely through the modern history of diamonds going back to 1870, to show how the market has been controlled.  Until the late 19th century diamonds were found mostly in a few river beds in India, and in the jungles of Brazil. In 1870 however, a huge deposit was found in South Africa, near to the Orange River.  In order to protect their investment the British financiers of those mines had to prevent a glut hitting the market.  
 
Thus was created, in 1888, De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd, incorporated in South Africa.  Epstein traces the history of De Beers through the decades.  
  
How it gained control of the whole supply chain, from production to transport to processing to marketing to distribution.

How networks were established in Europe (particularly the UK, Portugal, Belgium, Holland and Switzerland) and Israel.
 
Epstein provides us with vivid description of what he calls the “Diamond
Invention”:
 
“The diamond invention is far more than a monopoly for fixing diamond prices; it is a mechanism for converting tiny crystals of carbon into universally recognised tokens of wealth, power and romance. To achieve this goal De Beers had to control demand as well as supply.  Both men and women had to be made to perceive diamonds not as marketable precious stones, but as an inseparable part of courtship and marital life.”
 
As the American market grew to become the largest consumer market for diamonds, it was inevitably a New York-based advertising agency, N.W. Ayer, which helped De Beers create this illusion.  A huge marketing campaign was orchestrated in the post-war era to make diamonds be perceived as the only acceptable way for a man to court – and win – a woman’s affections.  Movie stars, celebrities, magazine editors, and even the British Royal Family were co-opted into the campaign. 
 
A campaign which still runs to this day.
 
From N.W. Ayer at the end of the 1950s:

“Since 1939, an entirely new generation of young people has grown to marriageable age.  To this new generation a diamond ring is considered a necessity to engagements by virtually everyone.”
 
And after the Second  World War new markets would open up, particularly Germany, Japan and Brazil.  Epstein leads us through the new productive players in the market: Australia (brought into the fold through the creation of the Rio Tinto Corporation), and the Soviet Union (with whom a cartel deal was done).  
 
We learn that the “blood diamonds” are, apparently, a construct to prevent the supply of “uncertified” diamonds from civil war-ridden countries like Angola and Sierra Leone.  The UN Security Council, no less, has pronounced on the illegality, thus institutionalising the absence from the mainstream markets of these “blood diamonds”.
 
Finally, the US Anti-Trust action which culminated in the break up of the De Beers cartel in 2001, and the eventual exit of the Oppenheimer family (the owners of De Beers since 1927) from the group a few years later.
 
All in all a fascinating read, and enough to give humble men-folk some pause for thought next time we traipse in to acquire the sparkling “diamond invention”.  
  
That said, try telling the story to the object of your affections, and see what she
says…

There is no Wikipedia link to the book.  However, as stated much of the content appears here. 

My one liner: How do societies adapt to Disruptive Change? Exerting discipline through fear. Labour skills reflect society’s needs. Why “National Patrimony” matters.  Being local versus global depends on society’s current needs. We are crucially dependent on our modern communications networks. Opportunity Cost determines Resource Allocation. Life Experiences give us important intuitive skills. Just some of the lessons learned from World War Z.

As 2012 draws to a close, I have taken the opportunity to publish the second in the occasional series, Lessons from Fiction.  The subject is “How Society adapts to Disruptive Change”

The book which gives us some rich insights is World War Z (2006) by Max Brooks.  Written as the account of an agent of the United Nations Postwar Commission, World War Z is a series of post-war interviews with all sorts of people from all over the world who lived through a fictional apocalyptic war.

The war was a 10-year conflict against Zombies, following a Zombie pandemic which originated in China (and was originally covered up by the Chinese government), spread to South America via the illegal donor trade, and finally came to prominence following an outbreak in South Africa.  Zombies are devoid of intelligence and are motivated only by the desire to consume human flesh.  Shortly after being bitten by a zombie, a human will “die” and then become a zombie itself.  The only way to destroy them is to destroy the brain.  They do not tire, and are as strong as the humans they infect.  At peak, there were 200 million zombies threatening humanity, and the book alludes to the human race coming to the brink of extinction.

Here is a YouTube simulation of a Zombie attack (unrelated to the book), originating in Peru.

Which is obviously quite an unlikely thing to actually happen. However, it got me thinking what might be real-world applications.

An interesting paper on the mathematics of containing a zombie outbreak is here.  Its major conclusion is that only quick, aggressive attacks can stave off the doomsday scenario of the total collapse of society.  The paper points to some possible applications of the analysis, including martyrdom-based religious extremism.  Is that why we observe quick and aggressive military strikes against alleged terrorist strongholds ?

And what of the current financial crisis ? “Zombie banks” was a term first coined by Edward Kane during the Savings and Loans crisis of the late 1980s. It describes an insolvent financial institution that continues to exist simply because it benefits from government guarantees of its ability to repay its debts.  Such banks become a drain on the resources of the state whilst fulfilling no useful asset allocation function.  Many commentators argue, and I agree, that much of our current financial system suffers from this malaise.  Modelling the negative systemic impact of keeping zombie banks afloat (as opposed to letting them go) would I think be an interesting field of research. 

But that’s a digression.  Back to the book. The personal accounts tell of people’s survival stories, their roles in discovering or overcoming the threat, and the social, geopolitical, economic and physical changes that people, nations, the environment went through during that period.

Clearly an extreme fictional tale, but extremely well-researched, such that we may draw some interesting conclusions as to how societies behave during times of extreme disruption.

Discipline can be exercised through Fear

The Russian army had its own way of ensuring that its soldiers would fight for the cause.  It stripped the soldiers of their own humanity, and their ability to decide for themselves.  The result was total submission to the mission. An insight into how repressive societies coerce and co-opt their citizens into the national project, whatever that may be.  The 20th century saw this on a grand scale, with millions of people induced to oppress and murder to compatriots so that they become collaborators in the scheme of the dictator.  Decimation also incidentally appears in Roman and Greek mythology.  The three Parcae were the Roman female personifications of fate (see previous post on this subject).  Nona spun the thread of life, Decima measured the thread of life and Morta cut the thread of life.  Not much research available on the internet, but it makes one wonder why the name of the preserver of life refers to partitioning into tenth parts.

“To decimate… I used to think it meant just to wipe out, cause horrible damage, destroy… It actually means to kill by a percentage of ten, one out of every ten must die… and that’s exactly what they did to us…

The Spetznaz had us assemble on the parade ground, full dress uniform no less… ‘You spoiled children think democracy is a God-given right.  You expect it, you demand it ! Well, now you’re going to get your chance to practice it’

… ‘What did he mean ?’

We would be the ones to decide who would be punished. Broken up into groups of ten, we would have to vote on which one of us was going to be executed. And then we… the soldiers, we would be the ones to personally murder our friends… We could have said no, could have refused and been shot ourselves, but we didn’t.  We went right along with it. We all made a conscious choice and because that choice carried such a high price, I don’t think anyone ever wanted to make another one again.  We relinquished our freedom that day, and we were more than happy to see it go.”

Labour skills reflect Society’s needs

When disruption comes, the labour market changes abruptly.  In a Zombie war, modern weapons do not work. Additionally, say goodbye to modern manufacturing methods, large scale agricultural production, non-essential service occupations, mass-media as a leisure pursuit.

Gradual disruptions could also have this effect; if you believe that environmental or economic changes will in the future make people less mobile, then skills which emphasise real production and output will be more valuable than those which value intangible services or agency.

“You should have seen some of the “careers” listed on our first employment census; everyone was some version of an “executive”, a “representative”, an “analyst”, or a “consultant”, all perfectly suited to the pre-war world, but all totally inadequate for the present crisis.  We needed carpenters, masons, machinists, gunsmiths.  We had those people, to be sure, but not nearly as many as were necessary.  The first labor survey stated that over 65 percent of the present civilian workforce were classified F-6, possessing no valued vocation.  We required a massive retraining program.  In short, we needed to get a whole lot of white collars dirty.”

One by-product of this could be an improved sense of emotional well-being, with people feeling that what they do is socially useful.  The evidence on this is not clear-cut either way.  Some studies suggest that once basic human needs are met above a certain level (measured by GDP per capita) then there is no international correlation between happiness and income, although within countries rising income is related to rising happiness (the so-called Easterlin Paradox).  Others argue that there is indeed an international correlation also.  Not for debate here, but it does seem intuitive that what people value is "relative" well-being.   In a world where everyone has more equal personal wealth (in this case because of the need to fight a common enemy), then they derive more utility from contributing to their local community. 

Certainly the author seems to imply that people are happier when they are more connected to their community.

“I met one gentleman on a coastal ferry from Portland to Seattle.  He had worked in the licensing department for an advertising agency, specifically in charge of procuring the rights to classic rock songs for television commercials.  Now he was a chimney sweep.  Given that most homes in Seattle had lost their central heat and the winters were now longer and colder, he was seldom idle.  “I help keep my neighbours warm,” he said proudly.  I know it sounds a little too Norman Rockwell, but I hear stories like that all the time.  “You see those shoes, I made them,” “That sweater, that’s my sheep’s wool,” “Like the corn ? My garden”.  That was the upshot of a more localised system.  It gave people the opportunity to see the fruits of their labour, it gave them a sense of individual pride to know that they were making a clear, concrete contribution to victory.”

The modern communications network is irreplaceable

Satellites are used for a number of civilian applications: navigation and positioning; communication (including telephony, internet, television and radio); weather forecasting; earth mapping (including agricultural yields, forestry, and geology).  Not to mention military uses.  All of our modern communication depends on them: the world as we know it would literally fall apart without them.  In the novel a team of astronauts mans the International Space Station (ISS) in order to keep a small number of satellites in orbit. The team was not guaranteed any passage back to earth, but given the importance of keeping satellites working they decided to stay on the ISS anyway….

National Patrimony determines economic well-being

One of the biggest lessons of World War Z is in my opinion the importance of a term which I think is much under-used “National Patrimony”.  The concept is has been the subject of a previous post, Why the West rules…For Now, and it refers to the accumulated store of a country’s wealth and resources.  In its narrowest definition it may consist of natural resources and financial holdings, but it should really be broadened to cover the entire endowment of attributes and heritage that a country possesses, for example its culture, national identity, homogeneity, role of government, integration with other countries.

In today’s globalised world Cuba’s isolation and self-dependence in relation to the above attributes has been very much a handicap.  In the post-apocalyptic world physical and   cultural isolation, a nationalistic mindset, disproportionate investment in healthcare, and the psychology of being accustomed to face a common adversary, all became important assets in the flourishing of Cuba as the world’s wealthiest country.  

This is surely true of any era in time.  When analysing the relative outlook and capabilities of different countries, do we not put too much emphasis on flow items (deficits / surpluses, income levels, growth items, outputs, etc) ?  Surely in any era or cycle it is the National Patrimony of a country that determines its economic well-being.

“Cases were small and immediately contained, mostly Chinese refugees and a few European businessmen.  Travel from the United States was still largely prohibited, so we were spared the initial blow of first-wave mass migration. The repressive nature of our fortress society allowed the government to take steps to ensure that the infection was never allowed to spread.  All internal travel was suspended, and both the regular army and territorial militias were mobilized.  Because Cuba had such a high percentage of doctors per capita, our leader knew the true nature of the infection weeks after the first outbreak was reported… By the time of the Great Panic, when the world finally woke up to the nightmare breaking down their doors, Cuba had already prepared itself for war… The simple fact of geography spared us the danger of large-scale, overland swarms.  Our invaders came from the sea, specifically from an armada of boat people.  Not only did they bring contagion, as we have seen throughout the world, there were also those who believed in ruling their new homes as modern-day conquistadors.”

Opportunity Cost determines Resource Allocation

The first thing that my Economics teacher at school taught us in our first lesson was: “There is only one cost which matters: Opportunity Cost.” Governments and administrators face choices all the time, since they do not have infinite resources.  In the Zombie attack the realisation that governments came to was that it was impossible to protect and save the whole population.  And, more objectively, once you have decided which cohort of the population you are going to save, then the remainder can actually be turned into an asset to fight against the threat by acting as a decoy.  In the book, all governments eventually adopted a version of the “Redeker Plan” as first developed by Paul Redeker during the apartheid era in South Africa.

Brutal and chilling, yes.  And clearly much too extreme for any peace-time decision making.  However, it does remind us government policy-making must by definition favour one group over another.  This could have profound implications in areas such as healthcare, where currently most governments do not explicitly allocate resources based on quantitative measures of their outcomes.  Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) were an early attempt at this (what will be the patients quality of life and how long will he live, if you apply a given treatment ?), and some stories in the media suggest that hospitals do operate such policies unofficially. I think that with budget constraints in the future, such resource allocation will become more explicit.  

“This is where [Paul] Redeker stepped in.  His revised Plan Orange, appropriately completed in 1984, was the ultimate survival strategy for the Afrikaner people.   No variable was ignored.  Population figures, terrain, resources, logistics… Redeker not only updated the plan to include both Cuba’s chemical weapons and his own country’s nuclear option, but also, and this is what made the “Orange Eighty-Four” so historic, the determination of which Afrikaners would be saved and which had to be sacrificed… Redeker believed that to try to protect everyone would stretch the government’s resources to the breaking point.  He compared it to survivors of a sinking ship capsizing a lifeboat that simply did not have room for them all.  Redeker had even gone so far as to calculate who should be “brought aboard”.  He included income, IQ, fertility, an entire checklist of “desirable qualities”, including the subject’s location to a potential crisis zone.  ‘The first casualty of the conflict must be our own sentimentality’ was the closing statement for his proposal, “for its survival will mean our own destruction.”  Orange Eighty-Four was a brilliant plan.  It was clear, logical, efficient, and it made Paul Redecker one of the most hated men in South Africa.”

Life Experiences give us important intuitive skills

The experience of the older generation is to be highly valued.  Regular readers of this blog will know that I rant about the inexperience of the 40-something world leaders that we have these days. What happened to the 60 and 70-year olds who have seen the world, achieved something in alternative careers, and truly understand how the world works ?  In World War Z, these were the people who understood the true ferocity of what was about to happen.  Sometimes it is just intuition.  One of the first interviews in World War Z is with a Chinese doctor called to an outbreak in Fengdu, where nobody yet understands that they are faced with a Zombie outbreak.  But one old lady senses something serious is about to happen because she has seen calamity many times before…

“I’ve never see Fengdu as anything but a cheap, kitschy tourist trap.  Of course this ancient crone’s words had no effect on me, but her tone, her anger… she had witnessed enough calamity in her years upon the earth: the warlords, the Japanese, the insane nightmare of the Cultural Revolution… she knew that another storm was coming, even if she didn’t have the education to understand it.”

And finally...

Many more accounts in the book than alluded to in this review, and much to reflect on.  Which makes this book a sci-fi / fantasy novel that is eminently accessible to the Reader on the Clapham Omnibus.

The Wikipedia link to the book is here.

There’s a movie due out in June 2013, by the way.  But it looks like it doesn’t really follow the structure of personal accounts where the outcome is already known.  It seems more like Brad Pitt Saves the World.

Which is fine I suppose. 

Here’s the trailer…

My one liner: Arguably, even exceptional people can only ever expect to achieve 55% of what they want in life.  A dip into the 18th century philosophy of Voltaire can help us understand why.

Here’s a basic hypothesis for life outcomes. Bear with me on this, as those of you who know your Voltaire are going to say I’m straying far too far off the reservation…

Imagine that the outcomes that happen to an individual person in life are determined by 80% “world events” which are outside of his control and 20% “specific performance” which is within his control (comments please, on the percentage split).  [as an aside, anyone in finance will recognise the parallels with “market” and “specific” risk – presumably (??) the world in general operates like this, not just stock markets]. 

And let’s say that on average, half of “world events” are “good” ones for a particular individual, and half of them are “bad” ones.  So, your life outcome from “world events” is 40.  And let’s say on individual performance, a person thinks he is a “10-15”, say 15 for the high achievers amongst us.  So, add them up, and even a high achiever only gets to 55, on average.  If events always go his way, he gets to 95, and if events always go against him, he gets to 15.  But his expectation is 55.

Some faiths interpret “world events” in that model above as “Fate”.  The faiths typically differ as to what Fate implies.  The Judeo-Christian / Abrahamic tradition basically says that if you live a virtuous life then divine intervention tilts Fate in your favour. The Buddhist / Hindu tradition says that you can only escape the clutches of Fate through a process of self-realisation; otherwise your Fate is written, and that’s it.

Where on this line does Voltaire site in the tale of Zadig ? Hard to say, but I think he is undecided.  Zadig is frustrated that in his own eyes he is virtuous, wise, and makes good decisions (he probably rates himself as a 20), and yet his outcomes do not always reflect this. 

“Zadig, avec de grandes richesses, et par conséquent avec des amis, ayant de la santé, une figure amiable, un esprit juste et modéré, un cœur sincère et noble, crut qu’il pouvait être heureux. ”

“As Zadig was immensely rich, and had consequently Friends without Number; and as he was a Gentleman of a robust Constitution, and remarkably handsome; as he was endowed with a plentiful Share of ready and inoffensive Wit: And in a Word, as his Heart was perfectly sincere and open, he imagin’d himself, in some Measure, qualified to be perfectly happy.”

Some outcomes for him are simply due to bad luck, and he does try to pick himself up:

“Tout ce que j’ai fait de bien a toujours été pour moi une source de malédictions, et je n’ai été élevé au comble de grandeur que pour tomber dans le plus horrible précipice de l’infortune. ”

“All the Acts of Benevolence which I have shewn, have been the Foundation of my Sorrows, and I have been only rais’d to the highest Spoke of Fortune’s Wheel, for no other purpose than to be tumbled down with the greater Force.”

Others are, sorry Zadig, of your own making, as you do like to chase the girls a bit:

“Qu’est-ce donc que la vie humaine ? O vertu ! à quoi m’avez-vous servi ? Deux femmes m’ont indignement trompé ; la troisième, qui n’est point coupable, et qui est plus belle que les autres, va mourir ! ”

“What is this mortal life ! O Virtue, Virtue, of what Service hast thou been to me ! Two young Ladies, a Mistress and a Wife, have prov’d false to me; a third, who is perfectly innocent, and ten thousand Times handsomer than either of them, has suffer’d Death, ‘tis probable, before this, on my Account !”

So you probably aren’t as close to a 20 as you think you are.

It is not revealing too much to say that in the end Zadig reaches his goal of happiness.  But he has to go through some trials and tribulations to get there.  He kills some Egyptians in Egypt whilst defending a maiden’s honour.  Though his defence is accepted, the law says that he must nevertheless become a slave:

“Les Egyptiens étaient alors justes et humains.  Le peuple conduisit Zadig à la maison de ville. On commença par le faire panser de sa blessure, et ensuite on l’interrogea, lui et son domestique séparément, pour savoir la vérité. On reconnut que Zadig n’était point un assassin : mais il était coupable du sang d’un homme : la loi le condamnait à être esclave.”

“The Egyptians at that Time were just and humane.  The Populace, ‘tis true, hurried Zadig to the Town Gaol; but they took care in the first Place to stop the bleeding of his Wounds, and afterwards examin’d the suppos’d delinquents apart, in order to discover, if possible, the real Truth.  They acquitted Zadig of the Charge of wilful and premeditated Murder; but as he had taken a Subject’s Life away, tho’ in his own Defence, he was sentence’d to be a Slave” as the Law directed.”

He becomes the slave of an Arab merchant Setoc; the merchant realises over time that Zadig has skills way beyond those of an average slave and they become friends.  A taste of Voltaire’s wicked humour, in reference to Zadig’s womanising tendencies:

“Sétoc enchanté fit de son  esclave son ami intime.  Il ne pouvait pas plus se passer de lui qu’avait fait le roi de Babylone ; et Zadig fut heureux que Sétoc n’eût point de femme. ”

“Setoc, transported with his good Success, of a Slave made Zadig his Favourite Companion and Confident; he found him as necessary in the Conduct of his Affairs, as the King of Babylon had before done in the Administration of his Government; and lucky it was for Zadig that Setoc had no Wife.”

Zadig is given back his freedom and continues on his quest to find Queen Astarté, the former queen of Babylon with whom Zadig had fallen in love while he was in the employ of the King.  As a result they had both been forced to flee the Kingdom. 

Zadig’s new found happiness at being freed from slavery does not last long.  He makes his way back to Babylon, where he finds that Astarté has been reinstated as queen and that a competition is underway to find a queen for her. Zadig enters the competition, which takes place between four warriors dressed in full armour, and having anonymous identities.  He wins, but before his identity is revealed his armour is stolen by one of his rivals, and Zadig is therefore eliminated from the competition. 

His final journey (a parallel to the “40 days”) takes him back into the wilderness.  Here he meets hermit who eventually reveals himself to be the Angel Jesrad.  The hermit teaches Zadig that his destiny is beyond his control, and that Evil is a necessary counterweight to Good:

“Les méchants…sont toujours malheureux : ils servent à éprouver un petit nombre de justes répandus sur la terre, et il n’y a point de mal dont il ne naisse un bien. ”

“The Wicked…are always unhappy.  Misfortunes are intended only as a Touch-stone, to try a small number of the Just, who are thinly scattered about this terrestrial Globe: Besides, there is no Evil under the Sun, but some Good proceeds from it.”

As an example, the hermit kills a 14-year-old boy by drowning him, explaining to Zadig that had he not done so, the boy would have killed his aunt, and indeed Zadig himself.  So, Voltaire thinks that Fate can indeed be altered by divine intervention.  The Angel tells Zadig that his destiny lies back in Babylon, and suggests that he go back there. 

Which he does.

And this time he truly finds the “Happiness” that he is looking for (read the book to find out how). 

So who is Zadig ? He is a philosopher, wise man and warrior living in the ancient kingdom of Babylonia.  Voltaire tells his story through Zadig’s reflections on the nature of Mankind:

“Il se figurait alors les homes, tels qu’ils sont en effet, des insectes se dévorant les uns les autres sur un petit atome de boue.”

“He then reflected on the whole Race of Mankind, and look’d upon them, as they are in Fact, a Parcel of Insects or Reptiles, devouring one another on a small atom of clay.”

His journey is one of self-discovery, that starts with the naivety of his own moral standpoint:

“Zadig voulut se consoler, par la philosophie et par l’amitié, des maux que lui avait faits la fortune.”

“As Zadig had met with such a Series of Misfortunes, he was determin’d to ease the Weight of them by the Study of Philosophy, and the Conversation of select Friends.”

There is historical and cultural interest in the book too.  We think today of cities in the Arab world which have become trading hubs where merchants from all over the world congregate.  But it was no different in ancient times too, for example this reference to what is now known as Basra in modern Iraq:

“Il lui paraissait que l’univers était une grande famille qui se rassemblait à Bassora.  Il se trouva à table dès le second jour avec un Egyptien, un Indien gangaride, un habitant du Cathay, un Grec, un Celte, et plusieurs autres étrangers, qui dans leur fréquents voyages vers le golfe Arabique, avaient appris assez arabe pour se faire entendre.”

“It appear’d to him as if the whole Universe was but one large Family, and all happily met together at Balzora.  On the second Day of the Fair, he sat down to Table with an Egyptian, and Indian, that lived on the Banks of the River Ganges, an inhabitant of Cathay, a Grecian, a Celt, and several other Foreigners who by their Frequent Voyages towards the Arabian Gulf, were so far conversant with the Arabic Language, as to be able to discourse freely, and be mutually understood.”

And we get some examples of Voltaire’s deliciously wicked humour:

“Zadig éprouva que le premier mois du mariage…est la lune du miel, et que le second est la lune de l’absinthe.”

“Zadig found, by Experience, that the first thirty Days of Matrimony… is Honey-Moon; but the second is all Wormwood.”

So, does Voltaire truly think that Fate, or “World Events”, as I put it earlier, is the only determinant of our life outcomes ? Well, I am not so sure that he does.  I think he is not sure, and he leaves a few doors open, to suggest that we can tilt outcomes in our favour.  By portraying the story of Zadig as a journey, Voltaire seems to be suggesting that it is Zadig’s learning and understanding of his own capabilities which evolves. 

Taking the analogy at the start of this article a little further, maybe Zadig starts off as 10/20 even though he thinks he is a 20/20.  And perhaps it is his journey and experiences which bring him to being a 15/20.

The English version of this book is a 1749 translation produced for New Bond Street booksellers John Brindley.  I can find no reference to who actually produced the translation.  The book is available for free in French here and in English here via the Project Gutenberg.  The Wikipedia link to the book is in French here and English here.

My one liner: Linguistics for the layman.  Families, lineages, and some syntax and grammar deconstruction to show us how the principal language groups have evolved.  And some crystal-ball gazing on the future of world languages. Readable and Browsable.

I have always thought that learning a language, writing a good computer programme, and drafting a good contract involve essentially the same discipline (I suspect writing a musical score requires some of the same skills but I don’t know – can anyone enlighten me ?). Steven Roger Fischer takes the evolving and increasingly technical discipline of linguistics and language evolution, and gives us a quick tour in the History of Language. 

First off, a small gripe. Split infinitives may or may not annoy people: linguistic conservatives want to preserve the “grammatical rule” that one should not put an adverb in between the two parts of an English infinitive.  They would turn Star Trek’s “To Boldly Go” into “Boldly To Go.”  And that, Mr Fischer, is the standard refutation that British children are taught in schools regarding the split infinitive rule.  Churchill’s famous hypercorrective quip (“This is the sort of English up with which I will not put”), to which you refer (or should that be: “which you refer to” ? J ) is a clever refutation of another so-called grammar rule, but it’s not the split infinitive one, OK ?  Right, rant over (though it does make one wonder whether there are any other errors in this book).  The book is otherwise fascinating.

It has only been in the twentieth century that Western linguists were able to elucidate the principles of phonemics.  But we find out in the History of Language that India’s earliest Sanskrit scholars had already developed the dvhani-sphota relationship in the first half of the millenium.  Utterance was the dhvani; permanent linguistic substance, unuttered, was the sphota.  Teaching us that language rules are inextricably linked to the philosophy, culture and religion of a society (the Hindu Vedas distinguish between word forms that are written, unwritten, and incapable of being written).

And just as amazingly these scholars adopted a highly efficient and systematic approach to documenting their grammatical forms that any proponent today of efficient computer coding would be proud of:

“Ancient Indian scholars appear to have been obsessed with grammar, seeking to state all rules in the most economical prioritized set: one commentator noted that saving half the length of a short vowel while positing a rule of grammar was ‘equal in importance to the birth of a son’.  Word formation rules, applied in a strict set in aphoristic sutras, take precedence; in contrast, Sanskrit’s phonetic and grammatical description is almost wholly assumed.”

Through the study of linguistics valuable insights can be gained into the relationships between people of different regions that disciplines such as genetics are only today discovering.  Take for example the recent genetic “discovery” that Y polymorphisms (extremely rare male genetic mutations), are relatively common both in Asian and Finnish populations.  This would not be surprising to a scholar of the Finnish language.  Since he will tell you that speakers of the Uralic languages in North-Eastern Asia becamce divided into two language families: Samoyed and Finno-Ugric (as an aside, Finno-Ugric is the source language for both Finnish (Finland) and Magyar (Hungary)).

We learn how the discipline of modern linguistics was developed, particularly by scholars in the 19th Century.  Franz Bopp (1791-1867) conducted a comparative study of the verbal forms in Sanskrit, Latin, Greek and the Germanic languages, and in particular the inflection (ie the systems of word endings which denote grammar).  His principal work Vergleichende Grammatik extended this for all inflected forms, and he also carried out investigations into the relationships of the above with other languages such as Litauen, Armenian, Albanian, and the Celtic and Slavic languages.  Hence all falling into the Indo-European family of languages.  Bopp is today considered the founding father of the comparative study of the various Indo-European languages.  The family tree below shows the principal ones and their groupings.

Fischer also walks us through the process of linguistic change.  There are four types of linguistic change: (1) Phonological change (Chaucer’s “hūs” to modern “house” or “haus”), which is a systematic change of sound.  Phonological change is the most easily accepted type of change amongst the users of a language; (2) Morphological change (Shakespeare’s “goeth” to modern “goes”), is a systematic change in the form of words, which is not as frequent as phonological change; (3) Syntactic change (“Attorney-General”, the Norman French form, should really be “General Attorney”, under Old English grammar rules), where there is a systematic reordering of words; (4) Semantic change (“cniht” meaning “youth” in Old English, with the “c” pronounced, to “kniht” meaning “military servant” in Middle English with the “k” pronounced, to “knight” meaning person elevated to honourable rank today, without the “k” pronounced”).  Semantic change systematically alters the meaning of a word.  And of course with the advent of the internet, globalisation and the spread of the English language as the medium of choice, this pace of change accelerates, at least with respect to the English language.

But what of other languages ? Fischer is unambiguously clear that the number of languages in the world will continue to reduce, of around  5,000 languages extant over the last 50,000 years, probably only 4,000 are spoken today, and Fischer thinks that only 1,000 will be spoken at the start of the 21st Century.  Fischer postulates (not surprisingly) that English will be the dominant language in centuries to come (although doesn’t rule out some unforeseen occurrence which brings another rich-country language to the fore such as German or Japanese).  The other two languages which will be globally prevalent are of course Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. And fast forwarding even further to days when we colonise Mars, we will no doubt see differences evolve between “Earthen English” and “Martian English”.

The benefits of standardisation of language are clear, as they reduce “transaction costs” of interacting across the globe. But of course, as Fischer points out:

“Despite the immediate gains language replacement brings, those who voluntarily give up their language invariably sense a loss of ethnic identity, a defeat by a colonial or metropolitan power (with concomitant sensations of inferiority) and a distressing defection from one’s sacred ancestors.  This also entails the loss of oral histories, chants, myths, religion and technical vocabulary, as well as customs and prescribed behaviour.”

This is a short book, and hence very readable, or indeed one that you can dip in and out of at leisure.  The section on animal communication is particularly fascinating for example, and it can be read entirely in isolation.  Did you know that the blue whale emits probably the most powerful sustained sounds known on Earth ?  Its 188-decibel “song” is detectable for hundreds of kilometres, and the perfectly timed notes are emitted at intervals of 128 seconds, or if there is a pause, at exactly 256 seconds. Likewise humpback whales emit “long love songs” used for mating.  These are regular sequences of sounds varying widely in pitch and lasting between six and thirty minutes. But when you record these songs and speed them up around 14 times, they apparently sound remarkably like birdsong ! 

If I had a criticism of the book it would be that it is longer on Proto-Indo European and shorter on Semitic and Asiatic languages, and hence arguably reflects a linguistic-cultural bias of its own. 

But that is a minor quibble as it is full of pointers for anyone who wants to study more in this area. 

There is no Wikipedia entry for this book.  The Google Books link is here.

Amartya Sen - The Idea of Justice (2009)

My one liner: Nobel Prize winning economist.  A comprehensive survey of the great theorists' competing notions of justice, concluding that a system based on Social Realism (or taking society as it is) is preferable to constructing institutions of justice in a vacuum (“Transcendental Justice”).  
 
Framing the debate on the nature of justice, Amartya Sen provides a practical illustration, which he calls Three Children and a Flute, in the Introduction of the book: Imagine which of three children Anne, Bob and Carla should get a flute about which they are quarrelling.  Anne claims the flute on the grounds that she is the only one who knows how to play it. Bob, on the other claims the flute because he says that he is the only one of the three who is so poor that he has no toys of his own, so the flute would give him something to play with. Carla then intervenes and says that it was she who made the flute with her own painstaking labour, and just as she finishes her work “these expropriators came along to try to grab the flute away from me.”
 
It is clear that theorists of different persuasions would give the flute to different
candidate.  The economic egalitarian would give it to Bob, on the basis that poverty and inequality should be reduced.  The utilitarian hedonist “would face the hardest challenge”, but would be persuaded to give it to Anne, as her pleasure would be greatest from owning and playing it (though he would recognise that Bob’s incremental pleasure in owning it may outweigh this).  The libertarian would of course have no hesitation in awarding it to Carla.  
 
Amartya Sen’s credentials in leading us towards new theories of justice are of course impeccable, so this is a book that we have to pay attention to.  “Transcendental Justice” is the term he gives to the theories, which seek
to prescribe an institutional framework to the ideal form of justice, a sort of
build-it-and-they-will-come approach. Sen uses the work of John Rawls as his "departure point".  Sen was a student of Rawls, and whilst he acknowledge Rawls’ contribution to modern thinking on justice, he also considers it to be too rigid.  Rawls’ concept of “Justice as Fairness” is centered on a requirement of  “primordial equality”, namely that the “parties involved have no knowledge of their personal identities, or their respective vested interests, within the group as a whole.  Their representatives have to choose under this ‘veil of ignorance’”.  The primordial equality requirement then goes on through a chain of reasoning to determine the types of institutions that would be required to deliver it.

 Sen is more drawn to the “Social Realisation” school of justice. This is more concerned with justice as resulting from “actual institutions, actual behaviour and other influences.”  These concepts are to found in Smith, Condorcet, Bentham, Wollstonecraft, Marx, and Mill. In Sen’s words all of these thinkers, though having very different ideas about the demands of justice were “all involved in comparisons of societies that already existed or could feasibly
emerge”.
 
Sen is able to draw on Indian notions of justice, both from Sanskrit texts on jurisprudence and also from the Hindu epics of the Bhagavad Gita and the Mahabharata. So in Sanskrit literature, niti and nyaya both stand for justice.  Niti  signifies organisational propriety (and hence more akin to the transcendental institutionalism) and Nyaya which stands for a comprehensive
concept of realised justice.  And  he draws on examples of Eastern emperors who have come to symbolise one or the other.  Contrast the practical, societally relevant forms of justice practised by both Ashoka (a Hindu) and Akbar (a Muslim) on the one hand, with the much more prescriptive format expounded by Kautilya (a must-read by the way, if you want do a compare and contrast with Machiavelli), the latter having little faith in the ability of his  subjects to make such decisions for  themselves.
 
The arguments that Sen draws us towards are those of Adam Smith in his Theory of Moral Sentiments.  Smith invokes the concept of an “impartial observer” who can adjudicate on fairness given the world as it is, and who can take into account factors and opinions which are not merely present within the immediate community but which are geographically distant, but nevertheless relevant.  Sen believes that this is a more relevant way to approach justice in an interconnected world in which we grapple issues such as global terrorism and the financial crisis.

 Overall, there is as you would expect real intellectual substance in this book.  But it is highly readable, and more importantly highly relevant for how we think about what constitutes realistic justice.

Here is the Wikipedia link to the book.

Ian Morris: Why the West Rules...For Now (2010)

My one-liner: Quite simply the best popular history book you will ever read.  Astounding survey of historical forces that have shaped today’s world.

At the top of the front cover of this book, there is the following quote from Niall Ferguson: “The nearest thing to a unified field theory of history we are ever likely to see”.  That is not far off the mark, and it would be impossible to do justice to the breathtaking breadth covered by this work in a short review.

There is much current debate the so-called catch-up of developing / emerging countries after several centuries of Western economic dominance.  The West’s relative decline, exacerbated by the financial crisis, is personified by the projected overtaking of the USA’s GDP by China some time in the next 10-40 years, depending on which research you read. And in the world of finance and investment, this translates into debates around upcoming fast economic growth in emerging markets being a driver for superior investment returns.  After a reading of Ian Morris’ book, that analysis seems less applicable as an appropriate framing for relative rise and decline.  Because it forces the reader to think in much longer time frames. And to ask himself some different questions.

The book is an astounding synthesis of biology, geography, geology and socio-economic history, that surveys the ascent of humanity from pre-historic times until today.  The style is both story and analysis.   From Monty Python’s Life of Brian to Voltaire’s Pangloss (“All is for the best in all possible worlds”) to Alexander Pope (of Newton: “Nature, and Nature’s laws lay hid by night, God said Let Newton be ! And all was Light !) to Albert Einstein (“I do not know how the Third World War will be fought, but I can tell you what they will use in the Fourth – rocks”), there is enough literary, poetic, scientific and cultural commentary to keep any self-styled polymath reader happy. 

Some central themes of the thesis. 

The frame of reference is the evolution, over the last 16 millenia, of Morris’ Social Development Index.  You can quibble, if you want, with the construction and the components (energy capture, organisation / urbanisation, war-making, and information technology), but what it serves to do is impose a consistent development measure across all time periods for the relative development of the West and East. 

Throughout pre-history and history the index has swung in favour of either East or West for many centuries at a time. Geography (“maps”) and human progress (“chaps”) variously define which region takes the lead.  Progress, is in Morris’ self-confessedly pithy theorem, “made by lazy, greedy, frightened people looking for easier, more profitable, and safer ways to do things.” The analysis thus looks to dismiss the notion that there is somehow a hard-wired ethnic or geographical lock-in of development capability for any one region. 

The first sustained decline in social development in both West and East, began around 100CE and there was another one around 1000CE, as both regions hit what Morris refers to as a “hard ceiling”.  Both periods were characterised, in Morris’ analysis by the prevalence, using the biblical analogy, of the “Five Horsemen of the Apocalypse”, namely climate change, famine, state failure, migration, and disease.  The West spent most of the period from 1400 to 1800 CE catching up with the East, ending a 1200-year year reign of Eastern supremacy, and crucially, resulting in both regions breaking through the previous 1000CE hard ceiling. The last two hundred years ? We know the story. An unprecedented, acceleration in development for both regions, but a clear advantage to the West (the opening of the Atlantic trade route, the industrial revolution, European military power etc, etc), with its roots in an ex-ante highly probable chain of history stretching back to the twelfth century .

The surprising end to the book is less about whether China will now regain its superiority, although the projection is that it will, around 2103 at the latest, and we all kind of know that. With a further massive acceleration (from an index score of 900 to 4000) for both regions as new technologies and globalisation unlock development.  This “Singularity” is borrowed from futurist Ray Kurzweil. It is “a future period during which the pace of technological change will be so rapid, its impact so deep…that technology appears to be expanding at infinite speed.”

The more ominous question is whether the world will instead enter a period of “Nightfall” (last flirted with in the Younger Dryas ice age period around 10,800BC), using the title of the novel by Isaac Asimov.  Not only will the world hit another hard ceiling, but, like any crash after a big bubble, the next crash of humanity will be utterly destructive. Are the “Five Horsemen” amongst us again, as climate change threatens and the free transfer of technology increases the chance that devastating and dangerous technology can end up in the wrong hands ? Morris concludes that there will be no halfway house, no “silver medal”.  Only one of Singularity or Nightfall will prevail.

Here is the wikipedia link for the book.