Author: Josh Provan

Posted on

Book Review: Raffles and the Golden Opportunity by Victoria Glendenning

Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: Profile Books (1 Aug 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1846686040
ISBN-13: 978-1846686047
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1846686040/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=103612307&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=1846686032&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=0F0ERBGY7B156YSZJ1GP

Appearance and Handling.
The book is good quality, with an attractive cover, showing Raffles’ portrait, over a view of Singapore surrounded by lovely drawings of plants and birds, the title is written in red Victorian letters.

One of the founders of the British Empire gets put back in the forefront in Victoria Glendenning’s new biography of Sir Stamford Raffles. For those of you who don’t know, Raffles was the founder of Singapore, but he was also a naturalist, collector, writer and governor of Java. Essentially he was one of those early Imperialists who did a bit of everything, defying simple definition. He didn’t come from anywhere special, he was the estranged son of a sea captain who was sent to work as a young man with the East India Company and from these humble beginnings he rose to do great things.
Glendenning writes about Raffles with even handed affection, she obviously feels great sympathy for him, and indeed as she says his story is shot through with tragedy, though his end is hardly as tragic as one expects it to be. Everything his gone in to very nicely, the level of detail is good allowing you to reconstruct a picture of his life, see his enemies, friends, family and even servants in living colour. The insights into the workings of the East India Company are wonderful and were some of my favourite bits in the book, and seeing how small colonial towns were run was a great addition. The book also sheds light on a overlooked part of the Napoleonic wars, that being the “Eastern theatre” where the British were not only facing the French and their agents, but the Dutch and the native people’s who supported them. It covers the little known invasion of Java and introduces many fascinating characters, connecting the dots between the Maratha Wars in India and the further British conflicts out of India against the French and Dutch. The writing style is evocative and rich, it is essentially a tale well told and takes you like any food adventure book, to places you have never seen and shows you things you have never heard of.
Sadly it is rather vague about the military operations, much like Julia Lovell in the Opium War, she has paid little attention to it, and as such the book suffers, now it’s a biography not a military history but since some incidents such as the invasion of Java (in 1811) is central to the story, it could have been a little more thorough. During the description of the invasion, for instance Glendinning mentions a fleet of 200 ships and an army of 12,000 men most of which were India, vague but not inexcusable, it is when she refers to Battleships instead of Ships of the Line, and East India Company Cruisers, which I cannot connect to any one class of ship then afloat, that I begin to start asking questions. 
Also, in this book, soldiers suffer, non more so perhaps than Colonel Rollo Gillespie, once called the bravest man in the British Army, is called a borderline psychopath by Glendenning, not knowing enough about Gillespie to comment on whether he was mentally ill, I will only say that I feel this to be a bit of a harsh and inaccurate appraisal of a talented, courageous officer who from my understanding showed no more cruelty in war than any other European did in the east. This also highlights a tendency with Glendenning to put her personal opinions forwards without necessarily telling us why. Gaps of information are also covered in that way obscure biographies do, by drawing on similar experiences of other unrelated people.

So now on to factual errors, and yes I’m afraid there are some. I have written to the publishers in the hope of alerting them to the problem, or getting them to discuss them with me, but as of yet they have not responded.
It was while describing one of Gillespie’s feats of bravery, many of which she finds far fetched, that the first factual error occurs. During the mutiny of Vellore in 1806 Glendinning explains that the sepoy’s of the garrison were stirred up by none other than Tipu Sultan of Mysore, who she says was a prisoner nearby. Unfortunately there is no doubt who she is talking about. Not to dwell too long on the subject of error, I feel it is my painful duty to inform other readers that Tipu, was not alive in 1806. The Tipu she is talking about was killed by the British during the final assault on his Capitol, Seringapatam, during the 4th Anglo Mysore War in 1799. It was Tipu’s children who were actually prisoners nearby and they are credited with stirring the pot.
Other trivial things follow, little bugbears of mine that are almost shameful to write about for fear of being hopelessly picky, and they shouldn’t put you off. Things like describing Gillespie leading the remaining officers of Vellore in a Bayonet charge, the terminology is flawed, as there was actually a small command holding out under a sergeant until help arrived. Then there is the description of British soldiers clanking around in red coats and feathered helmets with naked sabres. Unless they are Heavy Dragoons or Life Guards, who were not serving in the east, no such Soldiers with that uniform existed in the British army of the period, either way she doesn’t explain.
Had some more thorough research been done, perhaps with the help of a military historian, than these inaccuracies could have been avoided.

Essentially the author has written a good biography of Raffles, with many sideline attractions that many will enjoy. A biography that shows him as a likeable, ambitious man that can relate to many people, a man who had a hard life with many ups and downs, who made a fare share of mistakes yet whose life was unquestionably important to the generations that followed.

Josh.

Posted on

Book Review: Persian Fire by Tom Holland.

Persian Fire: Tom Holland : The first global empire and the battle for the west
Hardback edition published 2005 Little Brown Books.
372 pages
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Persian-Fire-First-Empire-Battle/dp/0316726648/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0
ISBN-10: 0316726648
ISBN-13: 978-0316726641
16 Pages of Colour photos average of 2-3 pictures per page, all good quality and interesting that accompanies the text nicely.

Appearance and Handling: The discover shows the Chigi Vase painting, which shows opposing Archaic Hoplite phalanxes advancing into battle, underneath a Persian Faravahar Fravshi. The background is a rich aged turquoise field with flaked gold edging. A very attractive looking book, that is quite tough and able to take some abuse. Prone to usual atmospheric problems, overly cold and or warm rooms with affect the paper and make it wavy or bleached, especially true if left near a window on a cold day, so position your bookcases strategically! It took me about a week or just over that to cover this one volume, hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

The epic battle between East and West goes back to its roots in Tom Holland’s brilliant narrative history of the Greek and Persian Wars. This book works on roughly three levels. One it tells the story of The Persian Empire, something that many will not have been very beefed up on, the Greek City States, and the course of the war, the more famous battles of Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis and Platea are all there. Level two works by outlining the differences between the two cultures and how they related to one another it attempts to reveal (rather than fully answer) the origins of the question Herodotus asked in his Histories, that essentially “Why can’t we get along?”. And on its third level it’s just whackingly good. Its humorous, refreshingly honest in some parts, and good read about lost civilisations that did so much to shape the world we know today. You’ve got allot of nice stylish writing, smashingly evocative imagery to conjure up the richness of the subject, a pace and timing I would suggest should be put into epic movie form about the whole thing, and exactly what you should be looking for if you want a book that tells you what you want to know without delving through a whole lot of things you don’t, read it as a precursor to attacking Herodotus if you like, as inevitably everything leads back to him. Without a doubt Holland knows his subject from the bottom up and back down again. With a broad and complex subject the best way to write is as simply as possible, and the author has succeeded here, don’t worry, it’s not so novelistic that you don’t trust a word he says but it’s not stiff with academic dissertations either, and he makes everything quite plain and understandable, he doesn’t muddy the waters without explaining why their getting that way, all in all he has hit upon a good mix.
The author is a natural with an epic story like this and handles it with the dexterity of a Persian Cavalryman, or an Athenian helmsman, his points are well constructed and I’m sure would have pleased many Dorian Greek public speakers, yet straight forwards enough to pease the Spartans, meanwhile grandiosely describing the wonders of the Persian Empire with a prose to please the Great King, on most counts if he and his book where to be transported back in time he would surely keep his head (what Roman politicians and dictators would have decided based on his other Ancient history, Rubicon, we won’t go in to) this book is highly recommended and will delight all enthusiasts of Ancient History.

Josh.

Posted on

A very Russian Crimea.

Tolstoy

Every Crimean War enthusiast knows that a chap named Roger Fenton kind of went berserk taking photos of the British, Turkish and French troops stationed outside Sebastopol between late 1854 and 1855. There are enough images of the allied armies and generals to fill several large coffee table books. But though this war was the first to be properly covered by the “Media”, shall we say, there is a large chunk missing from the coverage: The Russians. So I went on an expedition and dug up some, it wasn’t an easy mission and I very nearly didn’t make it out alive, what between the Cossacks and that low battery light blinking every now and then it could have gone either way.Seriously though the Crimean War has been so monopolised by the allied powers that sometimes you forget that this is one of those wars were there is no reason, apart from national prejudice, to look at things from the Russian side, so here take a look. Continue reading “A very Russian Crimea.”

Posted on

The Brendan Voyage Review.

The Brendan Voyage by Tim Severin

The Brendan voyage by Tim Severin E-book Review.
Published by Endeavour Press $4:79
http://www.amazon.com/The-Brendan-Voyage-ebook/dp/B00B4XLT4I/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375089193&sr=8-1&keywords=the+brendan+voyage+endeavour+press

The Brendan Voyage by Tim Severin

Few books can claim to tell the story of a true Adventure in Historyland like the Brendan Voyage. Tim Severin’s record of his epic 1976-1977 crossing of the Atlantic in a small leather boat, to recreate the fabled voyage of St Brendan the Navigator, who was supposed to have landed in America before the Vikings.

The subject is a great mix of adventure and history that will appeal to Traveler’s , historians, adventurers, archeologists and people who enjoy a story well told. It’s a modest size single volume of 234 pages with some helpful appendixes at the back, illustrated by seven interesting pictures. The cover is nice and grabbing, with a great picture of the leather boat Brendan, crossing a troubled sea.

Severin’s quest to research and build the Brendan will be familiar to those of us who are obsessed with trying to tease out the mysteries of History from their long established hiding places. It starts with a quick dive into the adventure, then slams on the brakes and builds back up, but there is no vile tedium, just the loving detail of someone who is telling the story of something he has gone through. The part about the building of the Brendan is fascinating, and the whole book is pervaded with Severin’s deep knowledge of his subject.

His prose is crisp and clear with a lively imagery and turn of phrase that is not at all pretentious, rather the whole takes on the spirit of a modern saga , rattling along with the enthusiasm and attention to detail of a natural story teller, mixed with a quasi romantic flair and sense of timing which betrays Severin’s talents as a novelist. It is an uncomplicated and largely uncluttered formula, which first and foremost tells the story by showing you what happened instead to trying to explain it, giving the whole an immediacy, and fast flowing narrative that is most attractive.

One of the best parts of the tale is the description of the Brendan’s crew. Each individual is set apart from the other to be as instantly identifiable as a character from Robin Hood or King Arthur. They take on a wonderful reality that is at the same time almost too good to be true, making you wonder from time to time whether you are reading about real life people or something from an ancient legend. If this book had been a work of fiction then it would have been a testament to the imagination and skill of the writer, but any writer would have been hard pressed to imagine the tale, of luck, courage, comradeship, skill, bravery, considerable privation and at times just down right insanity that plays out across the book.

Severin is an experienced seaman, but don’t be afraid that you’re going to get lost in allot of technical jargon, it’s very likely you won’t get everything, but even the most confirmed land lubbers will be able to gather what is going on.

Their encounters with birds and Wales are breathtaking and unreal. The welcoming nature of the islanders they encountered is warm and comforting and the terror of the Greenland ice flows brings home just how dangerous the expedition was, it’s all here. Honestly I expected to find monotony, but though when becalmed Brendan’s crew suffered as much as any sailor does from boredom, the nature of the boat in question inclined to craft a story, more of constant activity and watchfulness than drudgery. Were in instances that to any other modern ship would have been crushingly boring to read about, when transposed to the leather hull of the boat that, by the end of the book even I had come to love, makes you feel that there weren’t many dull moments on the Brendan Voyage.

This book will be an eye opener for those people not acquainted with the tales of the Irish monks that Christianised Britain. For it shows what type of men they were. Men of great faith, learning and piety, but also men of great skill, determination and bravery, whose scholarly and spiritual legacy often overshadows their tales of physical endurance and strength. I was struck by the great amount of luck “Brendan Luck” as Severin calls it, that accompanied the mission. Tough scrapes were turned into triumphs by sudden twists of fate, mistakes salvaged by the miraculous appearance of fishing boats and navy patrols, which needless to say the Irish monks could not have benefitted from, making the original premise of the voyage, just that much more amazing.

This book is a testament to the bravery and skill of the crew of the modern Brendan who went into the unknown of long lost endeavours, and also to the mysterious monks who braved the forbidden seas and treacherous shores who distantly call back to us to believe their story, through their manuscripts and illuminated chronicles. In a way this book is a modern echo of their voices, carried far across time and sea, in a small leather boat called Brendan.

Josh.

 

Posted on

The Greatest General.

I don’t care whether it’s reliable or not. One of the greatest stories of the ancient world is that of Hannibal and Scipio Africanus meeting before the Battle of Zama in 202 BC, and their subsequent meeting in Ephesus years later when Hannibal was in exile under the protection of Antiochus III King of Syria. As part of a diplomatic embassy to Syria, sometime around 194 or 7 BC Scipio talked with Hannibal, the Roman asked the Carthaginian who he thought the greatest general in the world was, the answer is priceless, and at the same time extremely gracious. If it is true, then it shows the respect these two great Generals had for one another, if not, then it’s still a great story.

“Africanus asked who, in Hannibal’s opinion, was the greatest general of all time. Hannibal replied: ‘Alexander, King of the Macedonians, because with a small force he routed armies of countless numbers, and because he traversed the remotest lands. Merely to visit such lands transcended human expectation.’ Asked whom he would place second, Hannibal said: ‘Pyrrhus. He was the first to teach the art of laying out a camp. Besides that, no one has ever shown nicer judgement in choosing his ground, or in disposing his forces. He also had the art of winning men to his side; so that the Italian peoples preferred the overlordship of a foreign king to that of the Roman people, who for so long had been the chief power in that country.’ When Africanus followed up by asking whom he ranked third, Hannibal unhesitatingly chose himself. Scipio burst out laughing at this, and said: ‘What would you have said if you had defeated me?’ ‘In that case’, replied Hannibal, ‘I should certainly put myself before Alexander and before Pyrrhus – in fact, before all other generals!’ This reply, with its elaborate Punic subtlety, and this unexpected kind of flattery…affected Scipio deeply, because Hannibal had set him (Scipio) apart from the general run of commanders, as one whose worth was beyond calculation.
Livy, The History of Rome from its Foundation XXXV.14″

The Historian Appian also tells this story in his History of the Rome.

” It is said that at one of their meetings in the gymnasium Scipio and Hannibal had a conversation on the subject of generalship, in the presence of a number of bystanders, and that Scipio asked Hannibal whom he considered the greatest general, to which the latter replied, “Alexander of Macedonia.”
To this Scipio assented since he also yielded the first place to Alexander. Then he asked Hannibal whom he placed next, and he replied, “Pyrrhus of Epirus,” because he considered boldness the first qualification of a general; “for it would not be possible,” he said, “to find two kings more enterprising than these.”

Scipio was rather nettled by this, but nevertheless he asked Hannibal to whom he would give the third place, expecting that at least the third would be assigned to him; but Hannibal replied, “To myself; for when I was a young man I conquered Spain and crossed the Alps with an army, the first after Hercules. I invaded Italy and struck terror into all of you, laid waste 400 of your towns, and often put your city in extreme peril, all this time receiving neither money nor reinforcements from Carthage.”

As Scipio saw that he was likely to prolong his self-laudation he said, laughing, “Where would you place yourself, Hannibal, if you had not been defeated by me?” Hannibal, now perceiving his jealousy, replied, “In that case I should have put myself before Alexander.” Thus Hannibal continued his self-laudation, but flattered Scipio in a delicate manner by suggesting that he had conquered one who was the superior of Alexander.”

Hannibal was a man of dry wit and great intelligence. And it fits his charachter to reply in such a subtle way. For he names Scipio as a greater general than Alexander by not mentioning him. Had I defeated you I would have been greater than Alexander says it all. Yet Livy may have wanted it to read that way, Hannibal would never have put a Roman above himself which gives the story credibility, yet between the lines he admits to Scipio’s greatness, which would doubtless please a Roman audience. Why be so subtle? Well if it’s just a story, then it’s because the Romans had a grudging respect for Hannibal, they saw in him a worthy opponent who had brought out the best in them, by bringing them so low, and outright slander would have been seen as unworthy. Of course there is another interpretation. Arrian says that Hannibal noticed Scipio’s jealousy, so was this incredibly generous reply instead a sarcastic barb? You greater than I? Yeah, right!

So there is a case for both reality and fiction, given that ancient writers almost never quoted actual words, rather they took the basis and embellished from it, we will probably never know. But for me, it happened and it’s one of my favourite stories of the ancient world.

Josh

Posted on

Recuerden El Alamo.

Alamo Church San Antonio

The city of San Antonio sprawls shimmering in the heat of southern Texas. During hot summer days it is surrounded by a milky halo of haze that dirties the bottom edge of the endless roof of cloud flecked blue above. Traveling down the US 281 southbound towards the downtown area, the glass of it’s skyscrapers glint like diodes in the distance. 2.23 million people live in the greater metropolitan area making it the 2nd most populous city in Texas, it is 130 miles from the Mexican border across the Rio Grande and it is bisected by the San Antonio River that flows through the city. The watercourse is usually choked by ferries of tourists and pleasure boats motoring slowly under it’s many bridges. The idyllic setting of modern architecture, hot sun and the iron blue water chugging it’s way towards the Guadeloupe River, that pours into San Antonio Bay and the Gulf of Mexico over 100 miles away from the city, has attracted a fringe of fashionable Cafe’s and Restaurants to its twin concrete banks. The city also has a thriving tourist industry, every year 26 million people come from all over the world to see the sights, and not a few of these will be heading there because of one thing, they remembered that the Alamo is in San Antonio. Continue reading “Recuerden El Alamo.”

Posted on

Castillo’s Oranges.

Bernal Diaz says he planted the first Orange seeds in America.

In his book “A true history of the conquest of New Spain” (Un veridad historia de la conquista de Nueva España) Conquistador Bernal Diaz de Castillo wrote that after experiencing many hardships and battles, Juan de Grijalva’s 1518 expedition to Yucatan, landed in the Tobasco region of Mexico on the 1st of May. There he tells of a very poignant little story, that I found strangely moving, possibly about how the first Oranges came to central America. Continue reading “Castillo’s Oranges.”

Posted on

Say What?

I’m usually the sort of guy who is very irritated by people who correct my spelling. However on the other hand I’m also kind of happy that someone was kind enough to point out an error that I missed. Usually I can tell whether someone is being kind or snide, but this post is not about bad grammar or spelling, it’s about pronunciation. A not too distantly related subject but it’s specific to two words in particular. Normally I would not bother to write about such nit pick’s but in this case I am going to be dealing with foreign words, and so I feel justified in saying that we need to get them right when we say them. Plus these are two of my bugbears so TADAH! A ranting we shall go.

English speaking nations have a notorious reputation for “Barbarising” phrases of other nations, but the treatment of the word Guerrilla, Spanish for “Little War” is a particularly amusing one. For as you no doubt know it is popularly pronounced as if it was referring to the Greatest of the Apes. From TV newscasters to series’ and movies it is pronounced Gorilla, making it seem as if the phrase has more to do with the secretive nature of an endangered African animal than the strategy of Spanish insurgents. So just for the sake of sanity I’d like to set the record straight.
Gorilla: A large African Ape with great strength and intelligence, feeds on green leaves and lives in family groups lead by a dominant male called a silverback, pronounced as it is spelled.
Guerrilla: A type of low level but widespread insurgency usually conducted on a popular level, focused on hit and run attacks on an enemy’s weak points. Pronounced Gerr-ee-ya. With a hard G and usually a nice Spanish roll to the R’s if possible. At least that’s what I try to “Ape”.

My next one is a little more pedantic, and maybe I should be ashamed of myself for being picky, but it is the truth that you cannot watch any documentary about Samurai without hearing the word Bushido. And yes you’ve guessed it, most of the time English and American presenters are usually guilty of pronouncing it wrong. The word means “Way of the Warrior” and refers to the code by which a Samurai of feudal Japan conducted himself, interestingly enough Samurai is Japanese for (Servant).
The usual mistake when people pronounce this word is to lengthen it and overstate it, Boosheedo is usually what you hear but It’s actually quite a fast word and is pronounced Bushy-Doe. Yes it does conjure up an image of a verdant female deer but it’s true, honest.

Right then. That’s my little rant over with. It’s just a few things that bug me but never usually point out, and what’s a blog for if you can’t vent a little know and again.

See you next time.

Josh.