How Soccer Explains the World

Review: Franklin Foer, How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization (Harper Perennial, 2004).

I enjoyed this book, probably because, like Foer, I like soccer. I learned something new about world soccerdom in each chapter. The title of the book, however, is a bit overstated. Since each chapter is related to the others only in the largest thematic ways, Foer fails to really present any kind of "theory" of globalization - in other words, the book lacks a central thesis. What he offers instead is a series of pastiches illuminating the impact of globalization upon soccer, and even to some extent the impact of soccer on globalization. The book probably succeeds more in provoking thought about globalization than in making any real explanations. I definitely think soccer proved a good choice for exploring the impact of globalization at the local level in a variety of locales. Since he focuses on club soccer more than international soccer, he can zoom in on the most local of rivalries and see how they have been changed by progress of globalization. Not all the chapters do this as well as some, however.

I was particaulrly intrigued by the inter-play between local (or national) rivalries/group identification within a global culture. One assumes that the world's sport operates simlarly wherever one might go. This might be true on the pitch, although we are all familiar with the different styles of soccer found in the various locales of world soccer. What we find, though, is that the cultural, economic, and political background of each locale affects the nature of the soccer in each locale. What drives a local rivalry in Glasgow, and how the clubs themselves treat it, is not even the same as close as London. Yet, there are some more global aspects to be found in a wider context, such as anti-semitism (although there is little of this outside Europe, so again we see the regional variation with a global culture). Likewise, when powerful economic or political forces get involved in football, the very nature of the game in that region can be affected, whether we are talking about the Brazilian diaspora or Italian catenaccio. And of course, soccer itself can play a political role, as was seen in the chapters on Serbia and Iran.

For me, this book followed nicely on Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch, whose insights into English hooliganism meshed well with several of Foer's chapters. As an insightful glimpse into the world of football, the book succeeded masterfully. As a sustained argument about globalization, however, it falls a little flat. This book essentially leaves it to the reader to draw some significant conclusions from these 10 case studies. It really demands deeper discussion than I can muster up here by myself. The publisher even provides a series of questions to provoke further discussion, many of which I would love to discuss with someone in the know.

RPC

Fever Pitch

Review: Nick Hornby, Fever Pitch (New York: Riverhead Books, 1992).

This book held the double attraction of being a football fan's memoir, and being specifically the memoir of an ARSENAL fan. Ever since I discovered club football, I have been an Arsenal fan, and while I cannot claim to be as fanatical as Hornby, I too find that I cannot relinquish my support of the Gunners.

I have to agree with the many blurbs I have read about this book that it is "a small classic", at least in the genre of sports memoirs, even though it is written by a fan, not a player. In many ways, the perspective of the fan makes it worth reading more, because Hornby uses the exploration of his Arsenal obsession as a window into more serious issues of football and life. His insights into the hooliganism of the 70s and 80s, culminating in the Hillsborough disaster, were interesting and enlightening. His explorations of his development as a person, through the experience, at the same time communal and individual, of football spectating were especially intriguing. One of my own personal theories of explanation for many of the problems of our modern world come down to our collective and personal immaturities, and I think Hornby's book sheds some light on this — it is an explanation of his own maturation process as seen through his obsession. Even though he does some serious maturing in both his personal life and his sporting life, in the end he still remains somewhat immature in his inability to relinquish his obsession, forcing even his closest friends to adapt their lives to his obsession. I would be hypocritical to cast this as too great failing, however, seeing how I suffer from the same, albeit in a much smaller degree since I may never see Arsenal play live in my lifetime, immaturity.

The book also gave me the opportunity to reflect on my own football obsession. For Hornby, it was his visit to Arsenal’s match against Stoke City that ignited his fire for football and Arsenal. For me, it was the 1990 World Cup, which I watched on the Spanish channel, which. I had played little league soccer, but like so many American youths, that hardly had an effect on me after I stopped playing. My personal interests in the world beyond America, the same interest which had also made me a bicycle racing fan starting with the 1987 Tour de France, hit head on with the spectacle of Italia ’90. This was all in the pre-Internet days of globalization, so my only chance to delve further into the world of international soccer was to find a trendy bookstore which carried European soccer magazines – not so easy in Phoenix, Arizona. I would try to guess when the next issue would be put on the shelf, usually guessing wrong once or twice in my enthusiasm. I read every word of those issues, most more than once, but what I liked most were the league tables in the back of the issue – which of course were hopelessly outdated by the time they got to me. It just so happened that Arsenal won the 1990-91 English First Division title, and that is probably how I became an Arsenal fan. I was also attracted to Barcelona, Milan, Ajax, and others (I figured I should have a favorite club in each country), particularly those clubs which had players from the countries I had seen on Spanish television. Somehow, the Arsenal fixation stuck. Not being English, and thus having no local club (I loved Hornby’s account of his experience watching Arsenal play at his “home” club, Reading), I was free to choose any club to support. I think the idea of a club whose name wasn’t particularly associated with a city (like Liverpool, or Manchester United, or Newcastle – boring!), also appealed to me for some reason. I was fortunate in my choice, I guess, since Arsenal have been one of the premier teams of the Premiership in the almost two decades I have been following them. I haven’t had to experience such things as relegation (OK, no Arsenal fan has had to experience that since 1913), fighting to avoid relegation, or floundering in mid-table mediocrity for years on end. I couldn’t have known that when I glommed on to them in 1991, though. I appreciated the opportunity that Hornby offered me to reflect on my own fanhood and maturity.

RPC

Speculative Fiction

I have been reading a fair bit of fantasy and science fiction lately, something that I have generally avoided for many years. It's not that "speculative fiction" is not interesting to me, but rather that I question its quality and such a use of my time. The books that I have been reading have been helping me to think about the nature of "literature." I'm not trained in literary criticism at all, so I really struggle to differentiate real literature - what I consider to be things worth reading because they hold some value for the reader besides just passing the time in an entertaining way - from what I call "fluff fiction" - the literary equivalent of most popular television (only it takes longer to get through a book than a TV episode).

I think most people would agree that Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series can be classified as literature, and I would even go so far as to classify it as a modern classic. It is a rich text, full of potential meaning and interpretation. If there is any book that could be held up as a standard by which to judge other speculative fiction, Tolkien may just be it, and indeed much fantasy literature has been little more than pale attempts at recreating Tolkien in their own (lesser) minds. This is the kind of fantasy fiction that I am not interested in. So, I have tried to focus my latest reading on some of the giants of modern speculative fiction - authors that seem to get a good amount of praise as authors by people who at least claim to be in a position to know such things.

The thing about Tolkien, despite the fact that he took it so seriously himself, is that the fantasy world in which his stories are set are not the real point, at least not for his readers. I read the books not to gaze into Tolkien's imagination as he describes a different world peopled by different sorts of beings, but rather as a tale of heroic goodness in the face of great evil - i.e. the story is about Frodo, not Middle Earth or even the Ring. His sources of inspiration (Beowulf, Arthurian legend, Norse mythology, etc.) are similar: the point of Beowulf is not to enter a world wherein such a monster as Grendel lives, but rather to recall the deeds of the heroic human Beowulf. By pondering Beowulf's deeds and fate, we should be reflecting on our own. The same is true for Frodo, or Samwise, or even Aragorn.

So, how do my recent forays into speculative fiction measure up?

• Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
• Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash
• Ursula K. Le Guin, A Fisherman of the Inland Sea
• Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea
• Gene Wolfe, The Knight

I should say, first of all, that I enjoyed each of these books. I would say, however, that the least "literary" of the books, even though it was perhaps the most entertaining read of the bunch, was the Stephenson book. Not only was I a bit put off by the excessive language in the book, but I have also never been a real big fan of near-future cyberpunk kind of settings. Nevertheless, Snow Crash presented a futuristic, fallen-apart, America which was interesting, and accessible, enough for me to actually enjoy reading about. The main character, Hiro Protagonist, was the kind of heroic protagonist, a sword-fighting, motorcycle-riding, computer programmer, that I could connect with. This was a book that relied heavily upon its presentation of the author's vision of the world of the near future, introduced the reader to some intriguing ideas which had been percolating in the author's mind, but that contained only moderate explorations of the characters' development within the storyline. Basically, it was a fun adventure in a weird setting - the makings of good fluff fiction. However, the ideas that Stephenson plays around with are enough to remove this from the same shelf as the fluffiest fiction out there: What is the nature of language and communication? How is our increasingly computerized world affecting our use and understanding of language at the most basic levels? What is the true power of language, both in reception and production? Even, how has language use and meaning evolved over the centuries, going back to ancient Sumeria? So, it was not a total waste - not just "empty calories" as it were.

I'm going to lump Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and A Fisherman of the Inland Sea in essentially the same category. Both are science fiction - the first a novel, the latter a collection of stories, the last three of which are set in the same imaginative future. Both deal with the social implications of potential future technology. Dick wonders about the relationship between humans and androids which have become practically human themselves. In other words, what does it mean to be a human, or even 'alive' for that matter? I'm probably not really doing justice to this book, which I found quite thought-provoking, for the sake of time. Le Guin's three main stories in the collection deal with the ramifications of instantaneous travel, as opposed to what she calls Nearly As Fast As Light travel. The latter, of course, drawing upon relativity theory, has terrible social consequences, since the time it takes for the traveler to a distant planet is not the same as for those who remain stationary relative to the traveler. Le Guin posits some potential quirks associated with the development of what she calls "churten" technology - instantaneous space travel - although I think for her the opportunity to exercise her imagination in describing different cultures on different planets is at least as important as anything else, perhaps making this work less significant as science fiction and moving it more towards "literature" generally. She should be applauded, however, for considering the real implications of space travel, which are so conveniently over-rided or ignored in other imaginative universes (Star Wars or Star Trek, for example).

Le Guin's other book here held a greater potential trap for the fantasy writer, but she steered well clear of it. This is the first book in what is known as the Earthsea Cycle. She has imagined a new world which requires some description and explanation. It would be easy for her to be sucked into the kind of "world-building" approach I so fear from fantasy literature. The world she imagines is a world of archipelagos - no huge continents, just lots of small, medium and large landmasses (islands) scattered about. Each island has the potential for her to imagine a new and different people/culture, which she does, in fact. Yet, the background world in which she sets her story always remains in the background - it plays its proper role without ever dominating the story, which is always front and center. This is not a fantasy world for role-players that must be completely fleshed out to allow GMs to run their campaigns. The focus is on the story (and it is a good one), and on the development of the protagonist. Her main character is a young man who will become one of the greatest wizards of his world. Not only do we get the standard boy-to-man plot, but we also get the traditional fantasy quest plot, and yet there is nothing too traditional or stale about this plot-line. Indeed, the story is woven together so tightly it draws the reader in and won't let them back out until it is over. Now there is probably some classic literature out there which does both these plots better, or in richer fashion, (Who will ever improve on the quest plot which is the heart of Homer's Odyssey, for example?) but even they may not be written in such a fluid and attractive way.

Finally, Gene Wolfe's The Knight: This is a hard one to judge. I have noticed that this seems to be one of those love it or hate it kind of books. Some readers toss it aside in disgust after reading some or even all of it; others rave about it as one of the best books ever. One way that I could sympathize with the naysayers is in the confusion that Wolfe creates in his presentation. The story jumps forward sometimes without any warning, taking the reader a page or two to get their bearings back and figure out how we have moved ahead so far from the previous chapter. This is done sometimes through the main characters' forays into different worlds which run on different time scales. I wasn't bothered too much by the constant references to things the narrator (the first person main character) knows will happen in the future between the current point in the story and the author's own place and time; however, there are often rather oblique references made to people or places which are obviously meant to be obscure, but they only produce some confusion. Despite all this disorientation, the book moves along at a rather swift pace and because of that, the overall storyline is easy enough to follow. Some commentators have praised Wolfe for what he has done in taking stock characters and situations from traditional fantasy literature (going back at least to Arthurian legend) and putting a fresh spin on them. I can see some of that, and if I took the time I could probably identify more, especially if I was more familiar with those traditional figures of the genre. So, clearly, the book cannot be simply tossed aside as fluff fiction, and those who did not appreciate it were probably not real connoisseurs of literature. Having said that, though, I remain skeptical of how good this might be as literature. Granted, he doesn't overdo the world description, allowing it to take over the story, which is good and well done considering the multi-tiered world he is imagining, which is a bit foreign to us. Also granted, the story focuses on the character development of the protagonist. Like Le Guin's wizard above, Abel, the narrator and protagonist, is growing from boy to man and on a major quest (in more ways than one). Still, I don't know how much of the feeling of confusion comes from me just not reading carefully enough and how much just isn't even there to find no matter how hard I look or how many times I read it. How much would this book repay a re-reading? A good question. I think I could definitely benefit from some good discussion about this book with someone who was more of an expert in literary criticism or at least more experience in reading and thinking about speculative fiction.

Wresting and Wrangling

Review: Jack Monnett, Awakening to our Situation: Warnings from the Nephite Prophets (Nauvoo House Publishing, 2006).

To begin with, this is not a real review because to really do that I would have had to read this entire book, and I'm just not willing to waste that much of life. Two chapters was enough for me, and I am only devoting more of my time to write a review of this book as a public service, seeing as how almost all of the discussion on the Internet about this book is by fellow conspiracy theorists who are enthralled by this tripe.

Up front, I can also say that I am not really qualified to weigh in on the specifics of this book - modern American history is not my specialty. However, unlike the author of this book, my PhD is in historical research, and my profession involves teaching students how to conduct good research. From that perspective, I can tell you that if Dr. Monnett, PhD, submitted this book as work in one of my classes, he would be earning a D at best. He does practically everything I tell students NOT to do when doing research and writing it up. A few examples should suffice.

One of the last chapters of the book is about 9/11. After reminding us that "most ideas that challenge the status quo are not found in traditional radio and television news reports, newspapers, and news magazines", which must explain why he never really cites anything published by a reputable or academic publisher, he proceeds to explain what "really happened" on 9/11 through a series of questions and answers. I will quote a little:

What about the nineteen hijackers? Have they finally paid for their crimes?
We would have expected that the hijackers would have been quickly brought to justice and been sentenced. A year after the tragedy, Director of the FBI Robert Mueller told the nation that "We at this point definitely know the nineteen hijackers who were responsible" and implied that they would speedily be brought to justice.* Instead, today, we find them referred to in most writings as "alleged" hijackers because several have been found to be living (not burned up in plane crashes) and, of those interviewed, all have denied that they had anything to do with the hijackings and have shown plausible alibis. To date, even with various bits of circumstantial evidence found, no convictions have been made against any of them who are living.

But the planes were hijacked and flew into the World Trade Center, didn't they?
There are some inconsistencies in the reporting, but most researchers feel that the airplanes that hit the Twin Towers were the hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175. One concern that has been raised is that hitting either tower with a difficult to maneuver plane such as a Boeing 767 would be particularly difficult for novice pilots. Another interesting aside is that each of the planes "had at least one passenger who was a senior official in Raytheon's division of Electronics Warfare" aboard which, for some, opens other possibilities.*

The chapter then continues on to question the reaction of the Air Force to the hijacking: it was too slow, and the reports afterward show some confusion and conflicting views. The obvious conclusion, therefore, is:

This all may sound quite confusing, but most researchers have come to the conclusion that any scrambling that may have been done by jet interceptors was not done with the intent of preventing the airliners from hitting their targets. Given the prescribed protocol and the nation's state of emergency, the only answer for the silent fighter jets appears to be willful complicity by those who were responsible for scrambling and intercepting the airplanes.

And now we have the crux of it all - a great big conspiracy to get us into war so that the secret combination trying to rule the world could make some more money.

Now, the two asterixes above are in place of the author's footnote markers. Notice the massive lack of documentation for anything that Monnett asserts. The first * is a citation for an article entitled "Playing the 9/11 Unity Card" which he says in his endnote was authored by the Associated Press on November 3, 2002. He follows this with a link to the nomoregames.net website, which turns out to be the creation of a fellow conspiracy theorist, who appears to be the actual author of the article. This guy, Morgan Reynolds, is another "PhD", this one in economics, who would thus appear to be unqualified to say anything definitive on the subject, particularly on the structural integrity of the twin towers, which is exactly what he does do in another article on his website. Whether he is qualified or not (I'm not saying you have to have a PhD in history to do good research, although one in engineering would be a useful accreditation for someone commenting on the structural integrity of the buildings), this is hardly the place to find your quote from the head of the FBI. There are more reliable sources for this kind of information, and as I teach my young research students, you want your evidence to be from as reliable a source as you can find.

Now we skip down through some pretty amazing, and undocumented, assertions until we finally come to his second source citation. This * refers us to David Ray Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor. Olive Branch Press: Northampton, MA, 2004, p. 209. Now, I don't know anything about this book, but I can tell you a couple of things just from this citation information: The reference to the "new" Pearl Harbor must mean that he is another conspiracy theorist who belives that Pearl Harbor was all a conspiracy by FDR to get us into WWII (I have heard of this conspiracy theory before). I'll leave it to the WWII historians to debunk that myth (as I'm sure they already have). And what about this Olive Branch Press - I teach my budding researchers to look at the press to help determine the reliablity of a source. The best presses use a peer review process that ensures that other experts in the field agree that the work is based on sound research, even if they don't agree with its conclusions. The nice thing about the Internet is that you can usually learn something about these questionable presses right from their own websites, and sure enough, right on the front page of their website:

Our Mission

We endeavor to glorify and serve God, by educating, edifying and entertaining His people. We will do this by providing quality materials that help to develop a Biblical worldview. We desire to be used by God to draw non-believers into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and believers to a closer walk with Him.

Statement of Faith

We believe in one God, eternally manifested in three persons. We believe that the Bible alone is the standard for every area of life, and that all scripture is given by inspiration of God, is infallible, and is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction and instruction in righteousness. We believe that man is saved by grace alone, and that the atoning work of Jesus Christ, and His resurrection, allow us to enter into a personal relationship with God, the Creator.

I'm not quibbiling over their professions of faith. They have the right to assert whatever beliefs they want, and they have the right to publish whatever they want. My point is that this statement should hardly instill in us a sense of confidence in the impartiality of this particular work, the acceptance of its research standards by other researchers, or the reliablity of its conclusions, since clearly the point of any book from this publisher must be to convert people to their own "Biblical worldview". That's great for a Sunday School manual, but not if you want your research to be considered legitimate and reliable. This book by Griffin becomes Monnett's main source for his views of the 9/11 conspiracy (if all the ibid.'s at the end of the chapter are anything to go by).

The same could be said about Monnett's publisher, except that his publisher doesn't even have a website. We might well ask whether this book is being published out of some nut-job's basement - maybe even by Monnett himself. I note that you can't even buy it on Amazon, except through their used book sellers. On the author himself, I found this little blurb: "Jack D. Monnett holds degrees in education from Brigham Young University and a Ph.D. in the Historical Foundation of Education from the University of Utah." Whatever "Historical Foundation of Education" means, I'm guessing his PhD is from an Education department, not a history department. Hardly instills confidence in his ability to do historical research - again, not that he couldn't, just that all his credentials, which he flashes on the cover of his book, don't mean that he is qualified to do the research required for his book. Displaying one's credentials on the cover of a serious academic book is rarely reassuring, rather it suggests insecurity.

So much for Monnett's sources. I teach my research students that whenever you want to argue against some one, you need to present their side as fairly and completely as you can, so that you can say that you have accurately depicted their view and shown it to be lacking. Not only does Monnett fail to do this, but he doesn't even back up his own arguments with any hard evidence. This is D work at best.

Now let's look, just briefly, at his grammar. Hey, no one is perfect. (I'm sure I have a few booboos in this blog - but then I'm not asking a publisher to print this blog.). In my experience of grading papers, however, the ones with the most grammatical problems are usually the ones which demonstrate the shoddiest research as well. So, when Monnett writes, "But the planes were hijacked and flew into the World Trade Center, didn't they?", we must ask: Were the planes hijacked (presumably by the terrorists) or did they fly themselves (the planes 'were hijacked and flew' - subject of flew = planes, presumably by themselves since no other subject is offered)? He either needs to turn 'were hijacked' into an active verb with a clear subject who can both hijack and fly, or he can leave the passive voice, in which case he needs: the planes "were flown", again presumably by the hijackers. The 'they' at the end must refer to the planes, since no other subject was offered. By itself, this problem is minimal, but coupled with the lack of any hard evidence or reliable sources, it must force us to raise an eyebrow.

Now, on to my favorite aspect, which is the illogicality and hyperbole of conspiracy theorists. Follow along in the text with me. Now, I have not done much research into this 9/11 thing, but I did see it live on TV when it was happening (and note: it was the same on the every channel - that's one big media cabal!). So, my understanding was that the 19 hijackers were ON THE PLANES which crashed and burned. Thus, it comes as little surprise to me that these "alleged" (how about a source for that one, eh, Dr. Monnett?) hijackers that were interviewed had plausible alibis. The guys who did it killed thmselves in the act!! No wonder they're not getting the justice due to them - THEY'RE DEAD ALREADY! Now, I understand that Monnett is implying that they did not actually die in the crash - in fact it appears that he is suggesting that the planes did not actually crash into the WTC (one of the conspiracy theories from Steven Jones, see below, is that the towers collapsed from being blown up rather than crashed into). But didn't they convict the one guy who didn't get on the plane but was part of the conspiracy? And hey, let's be honest, this terrorist plot was clearly a conspiracy, and even a secret combination if you want. But he doesn't make that point, does he?

In the next paragraph, Monnett is almost willing to grant that AA Flt 11 was the one that crashed into the WTC. Um... there were only 4 hijacked planes that day, right? We ought to know their numbers... and we know what happened to all 4 - 2 crashed into the WTC, one crashed in PA, and one hit the Pentagon. Or am I misremembering? So "most researchers" (again, whoever they are - no citations) "feel" that this was the case. Good researchers don't "feel", they assert, argue, and provide some evidence. Even if it is hard to control a 767, these terrorists were at pilot training school, right? It might be tough, but how difficult is difficult? It would be nice to have a citation of a 767 pilot saying as much. Then I might accept it. Finally, there is a reference to "Raytheon's division of Electronics Warfare". I checked the index. This is apparently the only reference in the book - how about some explanation as to how this supports whatever contention he is alluding to (Monnett never comes right out and says what he wants to say or actually answers the question he poses). Raytheon is a defense contractor, so presumably they are part of Monnett's big secret combination out to rule the world (I feel like I'm watching Saturday morning cartoons here, sheesh).

Finally, Monnett's conclusions about the Air Force reaction to the 9/11 hijackings defy common sense. OK, the people involved were confused. No surprise there - this was a rather unprecedented attack on American soil. If people forgot to follow some of the regulations or weren't sure what to do, can we blame them? Likewise, we shouldn't be surprised if their after action reports display some confusion and inconsistencies either. No one knew what was going on. And the idea that jets needed to be scrambled to possibly shoot them down may be according to the book, but defies logic: yeah, they're going to shoot down 4 planes full of passengers to get these 19 terrorists - this is not how Americans operate. The biggest guffaw, though, is Monnett's assertion that "most researchers" don't think the jets that were scrambled were done to prevent the planes from hitting their targets. But, no one knew they were aiming at targets! The basic assumption with hijackers is that they want to make a political point, or something, and hold the passengers hostage until they get what they want. Again, these actions were unprecedented on American soil. No one was thinking,"We better keep these guys from hitting their targets." This is not grounds for discovering a conspiracy - this is normal human confusion at a bizarre situation. This all leads to my favorite line of all: "the only answer" is a conspiracy. The only answer?! I think I have already suggested a few other possible answers. I'm sure people who actually know something about all this could provide a few more. So, it is only "the only answer" in this conspiracy theorist's mind.

Now, I think that is enough on his research methods. Clearly the author has failed to grasp the basics of academic research, and so we must treat this book with the contempt we generally reserve for any amateur who thinks he is smarter than the professionals, simply because he wills it to be so, or has received special revelation that all the experts are not privy to. Again, I am not saying you have to be an expert or a PhD to do good research - but you do have to pay an initiation fee into the field by actually reading the primary sources and the best secondary sources (even if you are going to disgaree with them). Is that too much to ask, Dr. Monnett?

The book also includes a CD from the (in)famous Dr. Steven E. Jones. Jones is a Physicist, so maybe he is qualified to comment on the structural engineering of the buildings (actually, his specialty is nuclear fusion). I will simply refer you to the Internet at large if you want to learn more about this guy, but I will note that the Wikipedia (I know, not the greatest source, but I'm growing weary of talking about this book and writing this review) entry suggests that Jones has come in for the same kind of criticism that I am leveling at Dr. Monnett:

Jones' paper has been the center of controversy both for its content and its claims to scientific rigor.^[19] Jones' early critics included members of BYU's engineering faculty;^[20] shortly after he made his views public, the BYU College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences and the faculty of structural engineering issued statements in which they distanced themselves from Jones' work. They noted that Jones' "hypotheses and interpretations of evidence were being questioned by scholars and practitioners," and expressed doubts about whether they had been "submitted to relevant scientific venues that would ensure rigorous technical peer review."^[21]

Now, let me just say before concluding that, yes, the Book of Mormon has much to teach us about the devastating effects of secret combinations. They are undoubtedly all around us in one form or another. But let me also just suggest that the probability of there being one great secret combination out to rule the world, and which has been steadily working towards this end for several generations, seems highly unlikely on the basis of the Book of Mormon evidence itself. Notice that once the Gadianton Robbers got into power, they started killing each other for that power. Yes, they want money; yes, they want power; but that applies to everyone in the group. And the idea that we don't know about this great conspiracy because it is, well, "a secret"? The Gadiantons and those in Jaredite times were unable to keep it a secret - evidenced by the fact that we can read about them in the book! Why assume that modern secret combinations are more adept at keeping the secret?

In conclusion, I warn everyone, and their neighbor, and their neighbor's dog, to steer clear of this kind of drivel masquerading as "academic research". Dr. Monnett, PhD, simply preys on his faithful but unwary readers by wresting the scriptures in service to his personal agenda, and wrangling the facts to fit his bizarre conspiracy theory. If you buy this nonsense, then I know a guy from Nigeria who wants to make you a very rich person - I'll hook you up for a 10% cut of the profits.

Review: Dumbing Us Down

John Taylor Gatto, Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling. New Society Publishers, 1992.

John Gatto is an award-winning schoolteacher who has spoken and written extensively on what he perceives to be some of the major ills of our public schools. Of course, many people think there are a few small problems that should be fixed with their schools, but for some reason, most people seem satisfied enough with the system. Gatto believes that the system cannot be reformed and that the only solution is to scrap it and start over, and he offers some advice for how to do that too. Of course, we all know that he is fighting a losing battle. All the people who benefit, particularly financially, from the public school system will make sure that no serious reform ever happens. Look at No Child Left Behind. Sure no one seems to like it now, and many won’t admit that they liked it when it first came out, but everyone figured we needed something to fix our problems. But the problem, according to Gatto’s views in this book, is that that ‘reform’ simply further entrenched the teacher certification programs (reiterating that only people certifiably educated in a specific field should be teaching children regardless of their actual ability), imposed more rigid standards upon students, and never got to the heart of the problem, which is that schools have been created to supply us with networks that serve as false communities, letting us know that we are pseudo-members of something, but true members of nothing. For Gatto, the solution lies in families.

Now I was probably pre-disposed to appreciate and agree with Gatto’s views, especially since he praises homeschooling as a positive alternative to subjecting your child to the “system”. In reading the book, however, anyone should be able to get a sense of how his views have been shaped, not by some innate hatred of the system or by his own bad experiences in the system, but by his genuine love for his students. He sees, day after day, the harm that is done to the intellectual potential of many a young child. He recognizes the powerful forces (school and TV) which shape our children more than their home and family life.

My favorite essay is the “The Seven Lesson Schoolteacher”, wherein he reveals what his real job as a public school teacher is: to create confusion in students minds, to instill an ever greater sense of class position in all, to sow the seeds of indifference in every student’s young mind, to make students emotionally and intellectually dependent upon others (their superiors) so that they come to feel that their own worth can only be determined by others (again, their superiors), and finally to constantly remind students that they cannot hide or find any time for themselves outside of society as a whole. In other words, he works everyday to train the perfect Wal-Mart associate, all at the tax-payer’s expense, instead of Wal-Mart’s.

I obviously think everyone should read this book, especially those who send their kids to public school, but I know that most people are either willfully ignorant of the problems of schools (since they look at themselves and say, “Hey, public school worked great for me and most importantly I’m perfectly normal and not a weirdo like those homeschoolers” – yeah, hooked onn foniks werked fer mee!) or prefer to let the “experts” – and peer pressure – make the most important decisions about their child’s intellectual, emotional and social well-being. Either that or they just need the free daycare while they go to work at Wal-Mart – and someday their kid will be just like them! I plan to use a lot of Gatto’s stuff when people challenge me on the home school issue. Hey, if you can logically refute Gatto, then I’ll be happy to listen to you – but good luck on that - I teach the results of this system everyday!

Review: Eastern Philosophy for Beginners

Jim Powell. Eastern Philosophy for Beginners (A Writers and Readers Documentary Comic Book). Illustrated by Joe Lee. Writers and Readers Publishing, 2000.

I needed a primer to help me better understand Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism for my world civilizations course. I had hoped that this "comic book" approach would be right at the level of myself and my students - since all I needed was the basics. I can honestly say that I learned quite a bit from this book, but I was also disappointed in how disjointed that new knowledge feels. This book could really benefit from a more systematic approach to teaching the concepts and principles of eastern philosophy. Having said that, I realize that this is just not the series for such an approach. The idea here was to present these 'foreign' ideas through a conversation that a neophyte like myself might have with one who knows, and with the major thinkers and writers from this tradition. The problem was that I couldn't halt the conversation to get further clarification on principles that the writer assumed I now understood based on what was provided. Sometimes these concepts suffered from the age-old problem of how one who has explored the deeper meanings of the ideas teaches the novice at a level that doesn't distort, but doesn't insist upon every nuance either. This is the same principle that explains why I have more trouble teaching the Early Middle Ages than the Roman Republic - I just know too much about the complexities of certain issues to be satisfied with a simplified explanation for my students. And then I only succeed in confusing. But admittedly, what I think it really reveals is a knowledge that is deep, but not quite deep enough - I know enough to understand the complexities, but not well enough to fully explicate those complexities simply. That may be the problem in this book too.

Other criticisms of the book are in the actual content. I might debate the real value of introducing in a page or so the many varieties that have developed within Hinduism, Buddhism, or Confucianism, but I can accept that as an author's choice when he wants to offer a wide survey within a limited space and do some justice to the complexities of his subject. My major gripe is the presence of a certain bias apparent within some of the political commentaries that accompany (Chinese in particular) certain modern philosophies. Whether you agree or disagree with the Chinese occupation of Tibet, this beginners book is hardly the place to discuss its inherent brutalities, especially since the intended audience is unlikely to know much about it, and thus the author is simply taking advantage of ignorance to brainwash, or perhaps predispose to your position would be a less harsh phrasing of this idea, the reader into your point of view.

The other problem I had with the book was the inclusion of sexually explicit discussion and images of some aspects of certain of these philosophies. References to sex are probably unavoidable in a proper discussion of these philosophies, but I don't think they need to be discussed in such graphic detail, especially this aspect is usually just one amongst many of the concepts associated with the philosophy. So, at the very least if you choose to, and I'm not necessarily trying to dissuade you from reading this book since it has some merit, be aware that just because it has a "comic book" style does not mean it is appropriate for children.

Review: Monk's Hood

I recently finished Book 3 of the Cadfael series. I don't think it was as good as the first two two books in the series, but it was enjoyable nonetheless. Part of this may be due to the lack of any real action in the book. The murder happens, so Cadfael investigates, overcomes some minor obstacles, and solves the case. I have to say also, that my first inclination of who the murderer was right, and I only wavered from that conviction for a short while during the book. What does 'happen' in this book is that we learn quite a bit more about Cadfael's past, since he encounters someone from that past. Character development is rarely very exciting, but it does make the series as a whole richer, so I'm not complaining.

The one thing to talk about this book, and I'm trying not to give too much of the book away as I do it, is Cadfael's intervention in justice. In the second book, Cadfael had taken a bit of the law into his own hands, but in the end, the workings of medieval justice were played out. In this book, Cadfael judges the murder, not necessarily excusable, but understandable, and the murderer to be undeserving of the penalty of the law (which would have been death, particularly given the premeditated nature of the murder). So, Cadfael essentially imposes his own punishment (or perhaps 'penance' would be a better word) on the murderer and lets him go. It's one thing to hide a suspect that you are convinced is innocent, and maybe even help him escape, as has happened in all the books thus far, but it is different when you are dealing with the proven guilty. The reader is supposed to feel good about this resolution because the murderer is indeed sincere in his repentance, and the good he can do will probably outweigh his evil deed, but we must conveniently forget that a man was murdered - perhaps not the best of men, but definitely far from the worst of men either.

This strikes me as the author imposing something of her own modern views of justice upon the story, rather than being true to her setting and characters. The author already has this problem with Cadfael the character anyway, as he always come off as a bit less than medieval, and a little too modern in his tolerant and unjudgemental attitude. One of the hallmarks of this series is its authentic medieval setting, but sometimes it feels as if we are following the story of a sympathetic detective from Scotland Yard who has been tossed through a time machine, rather than a former crusader and current monk. Peters is careful to keep him completely dedicated to his monatic vows, which I applaud as being wholly in keeping with the character as I understand him, and his experiences in the East certainly could have given anyone greater perspective on their world (although most who went on crusade, especially the first one, would hardly have changed their views about the world, but rather would have reinforced many of them from the experience). I'll be interested to see whether this trend continues in future books.

Review: Last of the Jedi Series

Watson, Jude. The Last of the Jedi. Scholastic, 2005-2008.

This series of 10 short novels (about 150 pages each) aimed at a teenage audience is not high literature. My personal complaint about the writing is that the author does not know how to use the pronoun 'whom'. At least once or twice per book I noticed this error, and I'm sure there were many others that didn't strike my attention. Despite the grammar problems, if you're looking for what I call "fluff fiction", you've come to a decent place.

The series follows the exploits of Ferus Olin, who had been a Jedi apprentice during the Republic before he left the Jedi temple to strike out on his own. Thus, he knew many of the Jedi masters and padawans of the age of the Clone Wars, including Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker. These connections make him the perfect person to seek out any remaining Jedi who may have survived Order 66 - the order which saw the stormtroopers turn on the Jedi, depicted in Episode III of the films. This mission is what drives the overall plotline of the series, although there also many sub-plots to keep our attention, as we follow a nascent empire-wide rebellion against the empire, led by friends and acquaintances of Ferus. By the end, we are setup for a big showdown between Darth Vader and Ferus Olin, who has learned the true identity of Darth Vader.

What makes the series worth reading are the values-based concepts that form the heart of the series. Again this is not high literature, but there are important issues to contemplate, and with 1500 pages total, there is plenty of time to develop these issues. Perhaps what keeps the series at the teenage level is that the author eventually resolves all the issues for the reader. In the end, good is good and evil is evil, but in the meantime, we can explore the meaning of friendship, loyalty, good, and evil.

During the course of the series, Ferus, who spends much of the series trying to get back his force connection and become the Jedi he had failed to become before, is tempted by the dark side. We gain some understanding of how the Dark Side really works, and where some of its weaknesses lie. In this way, we come to understand more deeply Anakin's own path to becoming Vader. We are allowed to contemplate, along with Ferus, whether one can find any virtue in the Dark Side of the force and whether one can use those supposed virtues without completely giving oneself over to evil.

Another significant virtue that is explored in the series is trust and loyalty. By nature, rebel groups must be very careful in whom they place their trust, as it only takes one to betray the entire organization. And yet, for the group to become successful it must grow by bringing in new members and working together with others. So, whom can you trust, and how can you know that your loyalty is not misplaced? Appearances can be deceiving, in both directions (i.e. good appearances can mask evil intentions, and bad appearances can harbor one seeking to do good). In the end, we find that developing trust-based relationships is worthwhile, even if there is some heartache along the way as well - that is mortal life.

Review: Sailing from Byzantium

Colin Wells, Sailing from Byzantium: How a Lost Empire Shaped the World (Delacourt Press, 2006).

Wells offers us three different tales emanating from a central source point: Byzantium. The issue that unites all three stories is the role Byzantium played in the civilizations of Renaissance Italy, Islam, and the Slavic lands.

The book begins with the Byzantine Greek influence upon the Renaissance humanists who wanted to learn Greek. The central conflict is the religious schism between the Catholic west and the Orthodox east. By the 14th century, Byzantium was in such a desperate situation that some were willing to accept western stipulations for re-union in an effort to secure help against the Turks. The envoys and diplomats sent back and forth between Italy and Constantinople over this issue played a key role in the reacquisition of Greek and Greek texts in the west.

Part II looks at how the Muslims embraced the Greek philosophical, scientific, and medical texts which had been preserved in Byzantium, and then further preserved them by translating them into Arabic. Once they had mastered ancient Greek knowledge, they were then able to expand upon that knowledge, making great advances, particularly in medicine, before a movement to reject reason and Aristotle in favor of faith and the Qu'ran. Throughout this story, the Byzantines make regular appearances, even though most of the history of Islamic-Byzantine relations amounts to steady warfare and conquest, although it took until 1453 and the rise of the Turks to finally bring down Constantinople.

In the last section, we see the passing of the Orthodox torch from Byzantium to Moscow, the Third Rome. A long narrative describes the Byzantine emperor's attempts to deal with the rising Slavic peoples in Bulgaria, Ukraine, Lithuania, and Russia. In eastern Europe, Byzantium's main role was as political legitimizer for the various Slavic states that arose. This role was expanded as the Slavs become Christians, and their metropolitans were subordinate to the Patriarch in Constantinople.

The three sections are tied together thematically, Byzantium serving to unite all three sections. Wells wants to clarify the central role that the Byzantine Empire played in three regions which remain significant today. The idea is that Byzantium passed the torch of the ancient world, as the remnant of the Roman Empire, on to the modern world, embodied in the states that developed out of Renaissance Europe, the Islamic Middle east, and Eastern Europe.

A sub-theme that makes the book particularly interesting is the regular conflict between faith and reason. The Byzantines themselves had to wrestle with this issue, particularly with the rise of Hesychasm, as did the Muslims, the Italians, and the Slavs. Of these latter, Islam retreated away from reason, the Europeans embraced it more and more, while the Slavs essentially ignored it, focusing more on political expediency. And in this way, Wells makes an interesting commentary on the bequest of the Byzantines to the modern world.

Note: I listened to the audiobook, rather than reading the paper version.

Reading Catchup

Last week I finished several books - most of them were my texts for this semester, and since this semester is now winding down, it is inevitable that I would finish a few. I'll just offer a few comments on each.

Klaus Bringmann, A History of the Roman Republic

This was my core textbook for Roman History. I only do the Republic and there are not a lot of texts out there devoted to just the Republic, but the whole Republic (well, really from Rome's foundation to the principate of Augustus). This was a new, recently published, text that covered exactly what I wanted. I found it to be an interesting read, covering a lot of the more recent research on early Rome. Unfortunately, I think it was beyond my students' grasp, as they had no foundational knowledge of Roman History to help. Bringmann's narrative became more complete when treating the Late Republic, but he spent too much time analyzing and arguing and not enough just presenting a straight-forward narrative which is what my students needed. Again, it was perfect for someone with a decent knowledge of the narrative already - I learned quite a bit from his particular perspective on certain issues of the Republic. Perhaps also a little problematic was the fact that Bringmann wrote the text in German and this was a translation. I think the translator did a fine job, although there were a few rough spots, but inevitably there was a Germanic quality to the whole text that alienates your basic American reader a bit.

Maurice Keen, The Penguin History of Medieval Europe

This is the core text of my online Medieval History course. I like it because Keen takes a thematically similar approach to my own in presenting medieval Europe. He examines Europeans' efforts to create and sustain Latin Christendom from the eighth century on. In the end, he explains the end of the Middle Ages in terms of a shift from a Christendom-centric view of Europe to one dominated by national kingdoms. He also offers more information about central and eastern Europe than a standard text, so that even I learned a few things about the Middle Ages from it. It is by no means a perfect text, but it is quite accessible and not too long. I supplement it with a more scholarly text that takes a less narrative and more thematic approach.

C. Edward Good, A Grammar Book for You and I (Oops, Me): All the Grammar You Need to Succeed in Life

This is by far the most readable and yet useful grammar book I have encountered, so I have brought it front and center in my Research and Writing methods course. Good has an engaging style and focuses particularly on issues to make the reader a better writer. Since Good's mian job is to teach lawyers how to write better expository prose, it is perfect for a history methods course. What it lacks is the traditional textbook's exercises, but I am putting those together myself (mainly involving sentence diagramming). I actually picked this up on the Barnes & Noble "Bargain Books" shelf a few years ago (and I did see some more copies on a recent trip to B&N), where it came in a hard back version entitled, Who's (...Oops) Whose Grammar Book Is This Anyway? If you want to understand English grammar better and become a better writer, I highly recommend this book as a 'good' place to start.

Joseph Cummins, Turn Around & Run Like Hell: Amazing Stories of Unconventional Military Strategies That Worked

I got this book for my birthday, and I only just finished it, after getting sidetracked with a bunch of other stuff (mainly work). The nice thing was that since it is just a collection of individual accounts of various military battles, I was able to come back to it and just keep going even after a couple of weeks of no reading. I was probably already familiar with about half of the battles (mainly the ancient ones). Overall, though, each battle was retold in an entertaining style, and I found that each tactic was indeed new and unconventional (not much repetition of tactics in the author's choice of battles). This was not high scholarship, but I certainly learned a few things, and only found a few small errors in the battles I did know. I wouldn't mind writing a book like this someday.

Current Bookshelf :

• Graham Priest, Logic: A Very Short Introduction
• Anthony Everitt, Cicero
• Hugh Nibley, Apostles and Bishops in Early Christianity
• Garth Nix, Keys to the Kingdom #6: Superior Saturday
  
• Ellis Peters, Cadfael #3: Monk's Hood
  
• Jude Watson, Last of the Jedi #2: Dark Warning