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| Book depicting 'Queen of Paraguay' Eliza Lynch prompts calls for Brazilian penitence Eliza Lynch was depicted by Brazil as a warmongering manipulator after South America's bloodiest war. Irish authors present a more sympathetic accountWhen Brazil won the bloodiest war in South America's history it cast itself as the victim and Eliza Lynch as one of the chief villains.The unofficial "Queen of Paraguay", said the victors, was a gold-digging Irish prostitute who encouraged her adopted country to invade neighbours.The war ended in 1870 with Brazil battered and Paraguay destroyed: up to 90% of the adult male population were dead, including Francisco Solano López, the demented dictator who had fallen under Lynch's spell and built her a palace.She escaped execution but not infamy. Brazilian chronicles depicted her as a warmongering manipulator, and the reputation stuck. She featured alongside Lucrezia Borgia in a 1995 book called The World's Wickedest Women.Now, however, a revisionist history by Irish authors has turned the tables by portraying Lynch as a misunderstood hero and Brazil as a near-genocidal aggressor.The Lives of Eliza Lynch: Scandal and Courage, by Michael Lillis, a former diplomat, and Ronan Fanning, a historian, has brought indignation in Brazil and anger and acclaim in Paraguay. It depicts Lynch as a humane woman who stayed loyal to Paraguay and to her man, even after his reckless policies provoked savage revenge from Brazil.The book, published in English, Spanish and Portuguese, has prompted calls for Brazilian penitence. "There was no pity shown to Paraguay," Federico Franco, Paraguay's vice-president, said at its launch in AsuncÃon last week. "Those women, children and elderly people who were raped and murdered deserve a demand for an apology." Paraguayan academics have called on Brazil's military to open its war archives.Lynch was an unlikely interloper into South American history. Born into modest means in Cork in 1833, aged 16, she married a French army surgeon, Xavier Quatrefages. The marriage failed and four years later in Paris she caught the eye of López, who was buying arms for his father, the dictator of Paraguay. He took her back to AsuncÃon where she bore him seven children, though they never married. Local elites mimicked the arrival's Parisian style, but snubbed her as a courtesan.López inherited power in 1862 and two years later launched the so-called war of the triple alliance against Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. As the tide turned against him López, paranoid and possibly insane, purged followers in death tribunals known as altars of blood.Lynch remained steadfast and buried her lover with her bare hands in 1870 after Brazilian troops speared him to death. The country was annihilated. "Paraguay was blasted back to the stone age," said Fanning, emeritus professor of modern Irish history at University College Dublin. Lynch lapsed into obscurity and died in Paris in 1886, aged 52, her name besmirched.After years of research in five countries, Fanning and Lillis, an Irish diplomat-turned businessman, pieced together a more sympathetic portrait.French police files and Paris brothel records showed no evidence Lynch was a prostitute. Nor were there literary or journalistic references to her being a courtesan. The exculpation moved some of her descendants to tears at the AsuncÃon book launch.However the book's harsh assessment of López prompted anonymous threats ‑ thought to be from Paraguayan extreme nationalists ‑ to the local publisher. "Our lives were threatened," said Fanning. "The messages said we shouldn't come or our lives would be in peril."The book has also upset Brazil by accusing Emperor Dom Pedro II of needlessly prolonging the war in a bloodsoaked hunt for López and his army's ragged remnants. "The last two years were close to genocidal," said Fanning.The authors have suggested Brazil apologise to its relatively tiny neighbour, just as Tony Blair said sorry to Ireland for the 1840s famine. Brazilian academics have bristled and pointed out that Paraguay started the war.However, Hugh O'Shaughnessy, a Latin America commentator and author of The Priest of Paraguay, said deep down the continent's superpower did recognise a historic debt: "The Brazilians do have a bad conscience about it. They pulled the insides out of Paraguay."ParaguayBrazilIrelandHistoryRory Carrollguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Buy! Buy! Buy! From Tom Wolfe to JK Galbraith, the banker-turned-novelist gives the inside deal on the best investments you can make in financial readingDavid Charters is a former diplomat and investment banker, who left the City after 12 years of working on many large international flotations and privatisations. He has published six novels and is best known for his best-selling Dave Hart series of satires, set in the fictional world of "Grossbank". Where Egos Dare is the fourth instalment, published on 14 September. Buy David Charters books at the Guardian bookshop"What's different about the City is the numbers. They all have a lot more zeros on the end. This means that when things go well – and sometimes when they don't – the people who work there can demand bonuses which also have a lot of zeros on the end. And the people who determine the bonuses (the bosses) are happy to go along with it because it means that they, in turn, will have to be paid more. Granted, the work is stressful, difficult and demanding, and the hours can be very long, and of course it's highly competitive. But so are a lot of other jobs. The difference is in those zeros. There's also almost no job security, however big the firm."So with huge rewards on the one hand and sudden death on the other, it's hardly surprising when the City brutally exposes the fault lines in human nature. Greed, fear, ruthlessness and impatience are a lethal cocktail. And of course people behaving badly make for great fiction and wonderful villains. They may not be attractive, but they are rarely dull. And, as we have all learnt to our cost, the City matters. When things go wrong in the Square Mile we all get to pick up the tab. So here are my top 10 picks to educate and entertain you about what really goes on there." 1. Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom WolfeFor my money, the "Big Daddy" of financial fiction, a truly gripping tale of the slow, systematic tearing apart of the opulent facade that a New York investment banker calls his life. 2. Liar's Poker by Michael LewisA superbly written, City perennial that shows you the inside workings of a high octane investment bank at the peak of its power, complete with rampant egos. 3. Free to Trade by Michael RidpathFinancial fiction definitely does not need to be dull, and Ridpath is a master storyteller. Coincidentally, along the way it is surprising how much you pick up about how the City works (and sometimes doesn't). 4. Black Cabs by John McLarenWhen investment bankers travel in cabs, they assume the driver hears nothing, sees nothing, spots nothing – to their cost, in this tale of the little guys getting one over on the men in suits. 5. Freud in the City by David FreudBankers are human, or at least some of them can be. David Freud's account of his City career is delightfully self-deprecating but at the same time illuminating. 6. The Great Crash, 1929, by JK GalbraithThe naked emperors waltzing down Wall Street and along Threadneedle Street might have been given shorter shrift if more of our politicians and regulators had read this book. The similarities to recent events will surprise and probably horrify you. Will we ever learn? 7. The Ascent of Money by Niall FergusonA very readable account of the evolutionary history of money and financial systems, made accessible and interesting without being patronising. And yes, it really is a jungle out there. 8. Simple But Not Easy: An Autobiographical and Biased Book About Investing by Richard OldfieldOldfield is something of an anomaly in the City: an investment guru with a great track record, who is also a thoroughly decent bloke with his feet firmly on the ground and a lot of common sense – or at least that is how he comes across in this excellent Plain Man's Guide to investing. 9. The Long and the Short Of It: A Guide to Finance and Investment for Normally Intelligent People Who Aren't in the Industry by John KayDoes what it says on the cover, rather brilliantly, and wins my award for the book I'd most like to have written myself. 10. Free Lunch: Easily Digestible Economics by David SmithIf you only ever read one book about economics – for which I could easily forgive you – make it this one. Smith for Chancellor!Best booksBusiness and financeFictionguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
He Was No Wilsonian A central aim of this major biography of Woodrow Wilson is to explain why he deserves our national esteem. feeds.nytimes.com |
The books podcast: 2010 in preview Reading listFictionHomer and Langley by EL Doctorow (Little, Brown, January)The Pregnant Widow by Martin Amis (Jonathan Cape, February)Solar by Ian McEwan (Jonathan Cape, March)In-Flight Entertainment by Helen Simpson (Jonathan Cape, May)The News Where You Are by Catherine O'Flynn, (Viking, July)Room by Emma Donoghue (Picador, autumn)First novelsBlacklands by Belinda Bauer (Bantam, January)The Temple-goers, by Atish Taseer (Viking, March)Non-fictionWhoops! Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay by John Lanchester (Granta, January)The War that Killed Achilles by Caroline Alexander (Faber, February)A Year in the Woods: The Diary of a Forest Ranger by Colin Elford (Hamish Hamilton, March)The New Capitalism: How and Why the Economic World Has Changed Forever - and How it Affects Us All by Robert Peston (Hodder & Stoughton, March)The Big Short by Michael Lewis (Allen Lane, March)At the Loch of the Green Corrie, Andrew Greig (Quercus, April) Songs of Blood and Sword by Fatima Bhutto (Jonathan Cape, April)This Party's Got to Stop by Rupert Thomson (Granta, April)Full Circle: How the Classical World Came Back to Us by Ferdinand Mount (Simon & Schuster, May)Bugs Britannica by Richard Mabey and Peter Marren (Chatto & Windus, May)Both Sides Now: Some Confessions of a Divided Self by Christopher Hitchens (Atlantic, May)PoetryLove Poems by Carol Ann Duffy (Picador, January)The Wrecking Light by Robin Robertson (Picador, February)White Egrets by Derek Walcott (Faber, March)Dragon Talk by Fleur Adcock (Bloodaxe, May)Claire ArmitsteadSarah CrownScott Cawley feeds.guardian.co.uk |
A World by Itself: A History of the British Isles edited by Jonathan Clark English triumphalism is firmly rejected in this confident and fascinating new history of our 'four kingdom archipelago', writes Tristram Hunt"These small islands, once regarded as remote by those who understandably saw themselves as central, have nevertheless played a role in the world's affairs far beyond their size." So Jonathan Clark writes in his powerful opening to this confident and fascinating history of Britain. It is sold by its publishers as a "definitive" new take on our islands' story, and the six authors certainly make the case for the importance of their subject. "On technical debates within academic history depend real outcomes in the world of action," Clark adds. And the outcome that this volume seeks to shape is the modern meaning of Britishness.There is a pre-history to works like this. In their modern mode they begin with Lord Macaulay's four-volume History of England, which sat on every mid-Victorian bedside table. The single-volume history emerged later in the 19th century, and was perfected by GM Trevelyan in his 1926 History of England, which shifted 200,000 copies in 20 years. Then came the multi-volume, multi-authored histories of which The Oxford History of England was perhaps the most celebrated – not least thanks to AJP Taylor's seminal contribution.What all these works had in common was a conviction that the history of Britain meant the history of England, and that it was a glorious, Whiggish tale of parliamentary governance, the common law, the Church of England, and an avoidance of revolution. In Clark's volume the authors concentrate on the four kingdoms, with the politico-religious interactions between Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England (as well as the American colonies) driving the narrative. As such it fits well with the current vogue for Atlanticist studies and the re-positioning of Britain in its archipelago setting.In turn, the four kingdoms focus undercuts any vestige of Whiggish Âtriumphalism. Here Clark seems to have his sights on Simon Schama's History of Britain. Having condemned historians for "popular entertainment or moral uplift", he is even harder on "historical writing that conceals its working and so presents a bland, uncontestable story implicitly claiming an authority that it does not have". This volume, by contrast, is about questions not answers and, in line with such post-modern hesitancy, each chapter ends with counter-factuals pointing out where history might have pursued different paths.We begin in 500BC and end in 2009, with the six authors providing a predominantly structuralist account of ÂBritain's pasts. While issues of class, Âdemography, politics, and gender are addressed Âcomprehensively, the reader will look in vain for literature, science, or the history of ideas. Historical biography is clearly regarded as vulgar.The first theme to emerge is the wealth of Britain. "Wonderfully rich in grain, it should be called the granary of Ceres; fabulously rich in gold, a veritable treasury of Arabia," was how William the Conqueror's chaplain surveyed England in 1066. The Romans were equally enamoured of Britain's resources, with grain regularly transported from Britain to the armies of the Rhine. And this wealth shaped the physical fabric, as James Campbell describes the lost world of the Roman villas that once littered lowland Britain. He also makes a case for the economic benefits of Viking invasions: the sacking of medieval monasteries put into circulation much needed bullion, and the Norsemen used this to go on to found early urban Ireland.For the most part, however, prosperity was built on political stability. Compared to Europe, civil strife was limited and what the Domesday Book revealed was just how well governed early medieval England was. Seven hundred years on, the authors make a similar case for the Industrial Revolution: forget technology, the things that kick-started industrialisation were a steady state, the absence of invasion and the rule of law.The enemy of political stability was religious instability. And religion is fundamental to this volume, perhaps reflecting the intellectual inclinations of its high Tory editor, Jonathan Clark, but also our post-secular times. There is a masterful account of the Reformation by Jenny Wormald, followed by a Âsuccinct analysis of the English Civil War (or War of the Four Kingdoms), which is seen as the result of a messy religious divergence under a system of multiple monarchies – all unfortunately headed by King Charles I, described as "one of the great tidiers up of history". The Âsecular Enlightenment is dismissed as a non-event and a convincing case is made for the American Revolution as a final "war of religion" by radical Dissenters.But at the volume's core is an exploration of British identity. Wormald chronicles the hostility on both sides of the Anglo-Scottish border to King James VI and I's attempts at union, with the English assuming superiority, the Scots fearing becoming a province, and James attempting to sustain a personal monarchy. Meanwhile Clark, in his chapter, is keen to confront the notion that British identity was forged during the 18th century under the influences of Protestantism, war and Empire. This, he argues, was a 19th-century assumption. "Rather, 'identity' should be understood as a descriptive term, devised and deployed for practical political purposes, not the reflection of any 'underlying' reality." According to Clark, what triumphed was Englishness, with the label British only used as a euphemism for the Irish, Scots and English when abroad.More provocatively still, Clark makes the case that England's status as a monarchical and imperial nation under the Church of England made it more of an open and pluralist society than many Continental nations, fed on blood and soil identities. During the 19th century, even as Welsh, Irish and Scottish romanticism flourished, there was no clear sense of English nationhood. But there did exist an organic, indigenous, non-elite sense of deep British patriotism.That died in the 20th century, according to Robert Skidelsky, whose final chapter is as polemical as Clark's. Skidelsky is characteristically deft on the inter-war economy, lucidly charting the catastrophe of Treasury thinking on the gold standard, the collapse of Britain's staple exports and its failure to grow new markets. At the same time, he rightly baulks at the notion of a 30s Britain composed solely of dole queues, means tests and hunger marches. However, for my taste he seems overly enamoured of the Correlli Barnett thesis of post-war decline, and treats us to an irascible assault on 20th-century Establishment thinking as a betrayal of British identity.There is, on the whole, a certain Grumpy Old Men and Women undertone to this volume. Despite explaining the latest historiography, there is a distinct aversion towards pursuing some of the new academic thinking on questions of space, gender or empire. What we do have, though, is a well-crafted, footnote-free and thorough history of the British Isles containing some brilliant set-pieces and narrative overviews. It is a volume that speaks well to our own sense of Britain today as a globalised, trading island retreating back to the edges of power. While not a definitive history, it is a damned good one.Tristram Hunt's most recent book is The Frock-Coated Communist (Allen Lane)HistoryTrade unionsTristram Huntguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |