This is my review of The Search for Modern China by Jonathan D Spence.

This is an excellent history of modern China, very readable despite the small print and thin pages. Admittedly, it requires a good deal of time and dedication, but repays the effort. Clearly very knowledgeable but modest with it, Spence knows what points to select from a mass of detail to convey a clear understanding of how and why China evolved from a vast empire, which had turned its face inward against western-style development, to the world's largest communist state, now rapidly embracing economic growth.

He starts with the decline of the late Ming dynasty in the late C17, enough to capture the flavour of a highly centralised, bureaucratic, top-down society which has been the nature of China since the first unified Qin dynasty of 221BC, but he doesn't make the mistake of getting bogged down in detail that far back.

In the subsequent Qing dynasty, we see the first painful enforced contacts with the west, including the shameful role of the British, in flogging opium to save having to spend silver on purchasing Chinese goods. In addition to the usual problems of natural disasters and the difficulty of collecting taxes in such a vast area, the Qing had to contend with major rebellions but managed to survive for a surprisingly long time up to 1912, partly owing to the effectiveness of some impressive campaigns under remarkable Confucian-trained leaders, motivated by their loyalty to traditional Chinese values. Despite this, and a belated willingness to reform, the Qing eventually fell, leading to a prolonged period of chaotic civil war between a succession of warlords.

It is clear that the impetus for radical change came from men who, from the C19, had the opportunity to travel abroad where they could gain access to western political ideas of both liberal representative democracy – an alien concept in China – and Marxist-Leninism. Spence provides a clear analytical account of the rise to power of the Guomindang movement, inspired by Sun Yat-sen and led by Chiang Kai-shek until his exile to Taiwan. He traces the development of the communist People's Republic of China, by no means a foregone conclusion. The machinations of leaders like Mao Zedong as they tighten their grip on power, the Orwellian twists in accepted views make fascinating reading, even to those familiar with the basic facts. To quote Spence on the abrupt fall from favour of Lin Biao under Mao Zedong's regime: "The credulity of the Chinese people had been stretched beyond all possible boundaries as leader after leader had been first praised to the skies and then vilified."

Deng Xiaoping is an intriguing character, as he steers his vast nation towards economic development with periodic crackdowns on free speech, the most shocking and tragic being the killing or wounding of thousands in Tiananmen Square – worse violence perhaps than any single incident in the recent "Arab Spring".

Every section starts with a useful summary, and there is a full glossary at the end in the likely event of your finding it hard to retain the confusingly similar names of many people and places. Although there are many maps to describe the numerous military campaigns, I would have liked a brief section at the outset to highlight key aspects of the geography.

I am most interested in present-day China, but this book provides an essential foundation to understanding this country's complex mix of sophistication and barbarity – developing beautiful artefacts hundreds of years before say the UK, only to smash them wantonly in the misnamed Cultural Revolution of the 1970s. The historical approach enables us to appreciate how the protests of the Chinese who spoke out against repression in the 1970s and 1980s echo those of the past, not just the anti-Guomindang and the anti-Qing of the late C19, but even the Ming loyalists of the C17.

Last updated in 1999, this seminal work is now due for a brief update to cover recent developments as China invests in Africa and copes with the effects of global recession.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

This is my review of Romantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper by Alexandra Harris.

I was troubled by the dilettantish nature of this book which seems to lack a clear aim. For the most part, the text flits about like a butterfly, drawn randomly from one alluring flower to the next.

The best aspect is the full colour photographs of 1930s paintings, in particular John Piper’s striking collages of British landscapes. I enjoyed Chapter 1 on artists like John Piper’s flirtation with abstract art, until his fascination with landscape won out . As his French contemporary Hélion observed, abstract art was proving to be a system “cracking at the seams….life budding mysteriously though it”. This would have made an informative chapter in, say, an analysis of abstract art in British painting, but the next chapter changes tack to the early use of concrete in apartment blocks. It soon sets the book’s pattern of being too superficial and lacking in context, for instance, there is no reference to important influences like Le Corbusier, nor to the future wave of brutalist concrete architecture of the 1960s-80s. Instead, Chapter 2 degenerates into scrappy sections on completely different topics, like Victorian pubs, so they are hard to read since they lack a coherent theme.

Thereafter, each chapter stands alone, covering some aspect of English life , mainly from the viewpoint of artists and writers in the 1930s. The wide-ranging topics include views on Victoriana, food, the state of English art in the broadest sense, the weather, village life, landscapes, or the influence of houses on artists, but all covered in a very rambling and disjointed fashion. If you are largely unfamiliar with the references, you are likely to feel overloaded and rather bored. If you have some prior knowledge you may well feel you would like to concentrate more on fewer topics. There is little regard to the social and economic context of this period of dramatic change. The focus is very much on the middle and upper classes living in the countryside or prosperous urban areas.

The chapters cannot even be called essays because they are often broken into shorter sections, further obviating the need for the author to develop a theme properly . For instance, Chapter 10 could have been an intriguing study of the landscape of 1930s Britain as captured by artists for the Shell-Mex advertisements intended to encourage new car-owners to use more petrol. In fact, this aspect is lost in a mass of verbiage with some kind of oblique connection to writing about, sculpting with regard to or drawing landscapes.

I found this book was only readable if I dipped into the odd section of interest. I was left enjoying the illustrations, but very irritated by the unfocused text. I agree with other reviewers who have regretted the lack of an objective and clear-sighted editor.

⭐⭐⭐ 3 Stars

This is my review of All Hell Let Loose: The World at War 1939-1945 by Max Hastings.

Is there a need for another book on the Second World War? For those yet to read one, this will be a good choice, since it provides a synthesis of more than three decades of investigation, research and writing on this theme. Also, as a journalist, Max Hastings writes in a more engaging style than many academic historians.

Although the chapters trace the facts systematically from the invasion of Poland to the fall of Japan, Hastings's main focus is on human experience. The plentiful, often dramatic and moving photographs are of civilians rather than generals and political leaders. He also quotes movingly from the correspondence of ordinary people whose lives were cut short by the war, from the lieutenant who mused how the experience of commanding a battleship, even if it ended in death, was far more fulfilling than slaving in a dull London office, to the seventeen-year-old boy, begging his mother to do her utmost to get him released from service back into a safe job at home.

Hastings reminds us of the full extent of the war, in which fifteen million Chinese died at the hands of the Japanese, and a surprising range of countries suffered heavy casualties. He points out how the Germans lost far more soldiers to the Russians than to the other Allies, and how the demands made by soldiers for food from the civilian population added to the intense hardship of ordinary people. The unimaginable horror of war, until one has experienced it, the fear, fatalism and futility are demonstrated too powerfully for anyone to overlook. For instance, he describes how soldiers were forced to walk on the faces of dead colleagues squashed into the trench floor.

In what he sees as a just war, Hastings focuses on the fact that it was only partly won, since the price of victory was that Eastern Europe (including the Poland which ironically triggered the debacle), although wrested from Nazi control, remained in Soviet hands at the end. He provides fascinating evidence of Churchill's unrealistic desire to continue the struggle, even using defeated Wehrmacht soldiers, but the Russians simply had too many troops on the ground.

I was interested in the ambivalence of the Imperial subjects in India and the Far East, who only supported the British with reluctance since they knew that a Fascist victory would be even worse.

The one "imbalance" may be relatively too little space given to those who suffered in the Holocaust.

Overall, I am not sure that Hastings provides much that is not already known, but he succeeds in arousing our sympathy and respect for those forced to endure the War. Although he is now turning his attention further back to the First World War, it might be more beneficial if he were to apply his forensic skills to the issues of today, say the crisis in Europe, but perhaps there is a strange comfort in reviewing the past through modern eyes.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

This is my review of All Hell Let Loose: The World at War 1939-1945 by Max Hastings.

Is there a need for another book on the Second World War? For those yet to read one, this will be a good choice, since it provides a synthesis of more than three decades of investigation, research and writing on this theme. Also, as a journalist, Max Hastings writes in a more engaging style than many academic historians.

Although the chapters trace the facts systematically from the invasion of Poland to the fall of Japan, Hastings's main focus is on human experience. The plentiful, often dramatic and moving photographs are of civilians rather than generals and political leaders. He also quotes movingly from the correspondence of ordinary people whose lives were cut short by the war, from the lieutenant who mused how the experience of commanding a battleship, even if it ended in death, was far more fulfilling than slaving in a dull London office, to the seventeen-year-old boy, begging his mother to do her utmost to get him released from service back into a safe job at home.

Hastings reminds us of the full extent of the war, in which fifteen million Chinese died at the hands of the Japanese, and a surprising range of countries suffered heavy casualties. He points out how the Germans lost far more soldiers to the Russians than to the other Allies, and how the demands made by soldiers for food from the civilian population added to the intense hardship of ordinary people. The unimaginable horror of war, until one has experienced it, the fear, fatalism and futility are demonstrated too powerfully for anyone to overlook. For instance, he describes how soldiers were forced to walk on the faces of dead colleagues squashed into the trench floor.

In what he sees as a just war, Hastings focuses on the fact that it was only partly won, since the price of victory was that Eastern Europe (including the Poland which ironically triggered the debacle), although wrested from Nazi control, remained in Soviet hands at the end. He provides fascinating evidence of Churchill's unrealistic desire to continue the struggle, even using defeated Wehrmacht soldiers, but the Russians simply had too many troops on the ground.

I was interested in the ambivalence of the Imperial subjects in India and the Far East, who only supported the British with reluctance since they knew that a Fascist victory would be even worse.

The one "imbalance" may be relatively too little space given to those who suffered in the Holocaust.

Overall, I am not sure that Hastings provides much that is not already known, but he succeeds in arousing our sympathy and respect for those forced to endure the War. Although he is now turning his attention further back to the First World War, it might be more beneficial if he were to apply his forensic skills to the issues of today, say the crisis in Europe, but perhaps there is a strange comfort in reviewing the past through modern eyes.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 Stars

This is my review of The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, its Regions and their Peoples by David Gilmour.

"Italy," complained Napoleon,"is too long." It is hard not to warm to a book that begins in this vein. I think that Gilmour's aim is to show not only how Italy came into existence as a single nation state, but why it has proved so difficult both to achieve and sustain unification. Even now, the economic and social divide between north and south remains far stronger and more bitter than that of England.

The author uses his obvious knowledge and enthusiasm for Italy to create a popular history in which each chapter is like a self-contained essay, drawing not only on key events but also on the diverse geography, different regions, peoples and cultures of Italy. For instance, after World War 2, five peripheral regions had to be given special status, including a good deal of autonomy to stem strong separatist demands based on physical separation, as for Sicily and Sardinia, or different languages, as in northern areas speaking mainly French, Italian or Slovene. There are some useful maps to help identify the various regions.

I appreciate why Gilmour felt that a full analysis required him to go back in time to the Bronze Age traders travelling through Alpine passes. After an initial chapter to spell out the physical and social diversity of Italy, he moves systematically forward in time, with a unifying theme for each chapter e.g. the various empires which dominated Italy, starting with the Romans; the growth of city states from the Middle Ages or the period from C15 when Italy was a battleground for foreign warring armies.

Some chapters e.g. 5 on "Disputed Italies" proved hard to follow without a level of background knowledge which would have made it unnecessary to read the book in the first place! I can see that Gilmour wanted to avoid getting bogged down in facts, but perhaps needed to think himself more into the position of a willing reader who may not know enough about the history of say, the Hapsburgs in Austria and Spain versus the French dynasties to understand their complex activities, warring and installing puppets on Italian soil, from 1494 to the early 1800s.

I resorted to reading the chapters in reverse order. Perhaps because they interest him most, Gilmour seems to write best about more recent events such as the modern resurgence of "centrifugal Italy" and the rapid rise of the racist and divisive Northern League under Bossi. Once I had absorbed all the fascinating events from say, Garibaldi through Mussolini to Berlusconi, I had the motivation to go back further in time and make the effort to understand the more distant, important yet often less engaging detail which underpins the current situation.

Overall, this is quite an ambitious work, which might benefit from a slightly clearer stated aim, and sometimes becomes too fragmented in its attempts to provide a synthesis, but on balance it is for the most part informative and readable.

It ends on a provocative note. Despite creating "much of the world's greatest art, architecture and music and…one of its finest cuisines" and possessing "some of its most beautiful landscapes and many of its most stylish manufactures", united Italy has never lived up to its founders hopes, "predestined" by its history and geography "to be a disappointment….never as good as the sum of its people".

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

This is my review of The Sinking of the Laconia and the U-Boat War: Disaster in the Mid-Atlantic by James Duffy.

A recent television drama on the sinking of the Laconia during WW2 prompted me to obtain this book. With the aim of putting the already well-documented Laconia incident in context, it provides plenty of examples to show that Hartenstein, Captain of the U-boat U-156 which torpedoed the Laconia, was not alone in putting himself out in the attempt to rescure survivors once they had ceased any attempt to retaliate. German U-boat crews regularly pulled people out of the water, helped them into lifeboats or even on board the submarine, provided food, blankets, medical aid when needed and gave directions to the nearest coast, helped to repair lifeboats, even towed them to passing ships that would take them to safety.

What has made the Laconia incident so striking is the sheer number of survivors, meaning that Hartenstein did not have the capacity and enough supplies to meet their needs without calling for help. As photographs bear out, at one point the entire deck of the sub was crowded with some 200 survivors. There is also the issue of their composition: the Laconia was found to be carrying up to 1800 Italian prisoners of war. The fact that many were trapped below decks as the Laconia sunk was likely to cause diplomatic tension between the Germans and their Italian allies, so Hartenstein was under pressure to do what he could to save the rest.

If Hartenstein had been able to carry out his plan of calling on available U-boats and enemy "Allied" craft to relieve him of his human burden, virtually all those surviving the inital onslaught would have been saved. Sadly, an American bomber on the mid-Atlantic refuelling base of Ascension Island was given by officers who were probably not in full possession of the facts the terse and fateful order "Sink sub at once". Hartenstein had no option but to order the survivors to jump overboard, cut loose the lifeboats, and make a rapid dive for his own crew's survival.

Although the level of detail is sometimes too much for a general reader to take, this book is full of fascinating information. To reduce the risk of attack, ships used to follow a zigzag course, very wasteful of fuel. Only on moonless nights could they risk travel in a straight line, with all lights blacked out. The subs used diesel fuel at the surface but battery power under water. They faced risks on a daily basis when it was necessary to rise to the surface to use diesel power to recharge these batteries.

After the Laconia incident, Admiral Donitz was obliged to issue the infamous "Laconia Order" forbidding U-boats from taking enemy survivors on board. For this he suffered opprobrium, and was imprisoned after the war for his aggressive attacks on Allied shipping. However, Donitz probably refused in the sense of managing not to obey Hitler's order for U-boat commanders to kill the crews of sunken ships, even if they were on lifeboats.

This book leaves it to us to debate the morality of launching a torpedo with the aim of killing as many people as possible, but then risking one's own life to save the survivors of this action. Hartenstein, a brave and humane man with the misfortune to live under the authority of a crazy dictator lost his own life when the U-156 was blown up a few months later.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars