The Essential Rumi (Part 1)

Source of book: I own this. My wife got this for me for Christmas last year. 

Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, known to us in English as Rumi, was a 13th Century Persian poet, theologian, and Sufi mystic. Born (probably) somewhere around the border between what is now Afghanistan and Tajikistan, his family moved southwest to Persia, then Baghdad, finally ending up in what is now Turkey. Because of this peripatetic childhood, Rumi became fluent in multiple languages. While most of his works are in Persian, he also used Turkish, Arabic, and Greek. 

Immensely influential for centuries in the Islamic countries, he was also translated into many languages, and his works became known around the globe. Today, he is one of the most read poets in the United States, a fact which surprised me. For most of us westerners, Rumi has been our introduction to Sufism, the mystic tradition of Islam. 

I had read a bit of Rumi here and there, but had never really read more than a poem at a time. I mentioned my interest to Amanda, and she managed to find a (sort of) used hardback copy of Coleman Barks’ version, The Essential Rumi. This is one of four volumes. Technically, Barks does not translate the poems. He instead paraphrases them from other translations - and at least he is clear about this. There is some controversy about his work, as it isn’t the most faithful to the original. The worst offense is omitting some lines and phrases, but there is also the recurring problem of translating a text which has strong rhythm and rhyme in the original language into what is essentially free verse in English. This is the challenge of any translation, but particularly of poetry. Translation itself is interpretation, and retelling a translation is one step further away. Poetry is even harder, as many languages do not convert well. Everything ends up with some sort of a compromise. Whether the compromises are acceptable or artistic is a matter of taste, but also a matter of the skill of the translator. 

(For other posts addressing this issue in a poetic context, see The Book of Hours by Rilke (Barrows & Macy translation), Inferno by Dante (Robert Pinsky and other translations), and Beowulf (Seamus Heaney). Also, the interesting case of Gitanjali by Tagore - who wrote his own English translation, which is definitely a bit...different than his Bengali version.)

I am a bit torn on what to think of Coleman Barks’ version. Since I can’t read Persian, I have no easy way of comparing. Most other translations seem to choose either rhyme or meter, but not both, and most of what was easily available online seemed similar to the Barks approach, namely free verse. 

On the one hand, Barks is a poet, so the words flow pretty well. On the other, it seems as if Barks is more concerned with the content - particularly the theology - rather than the poetic essence. Some of the shorter bits cohered as true poems. But the longer passages seemed kind of like a “prose-poem” in the vein of Khalil Gibran. There is nothing wrong with this, but I do wonder how much is missing of the original music when it is prosified. 

Barks also breaks up the original collections of poems, grouping them by his view of their topic. This further removes the poetic form from consideration, as one cannot compare poems within a genre. I think Barks was going for treating the collection more as an organized philosophy or theological text rather than a traditional poetry anthology. 

Because of the organization, I didn’t have the chance to pick just one collection and read it. Rather, I decided to arbitrarily stop at a chapter break, which fell at 100 pages in. This seemed like enough to read of one poet in a row. I would feel worse about that random cutoff if the book wasn’t organized the way it was - since Rumi’s original organization was already mixed up, I figured I wouldn’t miss his intended flow of poems anyway. 

Here are a few that I particularly liked. 

Who Says Words With My Mouth?

All day I think about it, then at night I say it.

Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?

I have no idea.

My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that,

And I intend to end up there. 

This drunkenness began in some other tavern.

When I get back around to that place, 

I’ll be completely sober. Meanwhile,

I’m like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary.

The day is coming when I fly off,

But who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?

Who says words with my mouth?

Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?

I cannot stop asking.

If I could taste one sip of an answer,

I could break out of this prison for drunks.

I didn’t come here of my own accord, and I can’t leave that way.

Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.

This poetry. I never know what I am going to say.

I don’t plan it.

When I’m outside the saying of it,

I get very quiet and rarely speak at all. 

That is indeed a bit of an existential music. Who (of the poetic bent, at least) hasn’t felt like he wasn’t from the same planet as everyone else, that the soul longs for its homeland, or that someday it will return?

I Have Five Things to Say

The wakened lover speaks directly to the beloved,

“You are the sky my spirit circles in,

And love inside love, the resurrection-place.

Let this window be your ear.

I have lost consciousness many times

With longing for your listening silence,

And your life-quickening smile.

You give attention to the smallest matters,

My suspicious doubts, and to the greatest.

You know my coins are counterfeit,

But you accept them anyway,

My impudence and my pretending. 

I have five things to say, 

Five fingers to give 

Into your grace.

First, when I was apart from you,

This world did not exist,

Nor any other.

Second, whatever I was looking for

Was always you.

Third, why did I ever learn to count to three?

Fourth, my cornfield is burning!

Fifth, this finger stands for Rabia,

And this is for someone else.

Is there a difference?

Are these words or tears?

Is weeping speech?

What shall I do, my Love?”

So he speaks, and everyone around

Begins to cry with him, laughing crazily,

Moaning in the spreading union

Of lover and beloved.

This is the true religion. All others

Are thrown-away bandages beside it.

This is the sema of slavery and mastery

Dancing together. This is not-being.

Neither words, nor any natural fact 

Can express this.

I know these dancers.

Day and night I sing their songs

In this phenomenal cage.

My soul, don’t try to answer now!

Find a friend, and hide.

But what can stay hidden?

Love’s secret is always lifting its head

Out from under the covers,

“Here I am!”

I find a lot to love about the language of love in all its contradictions and messiness in this poem. 

Quietness

Inside this new love, die.

Your way begins on the other side.

Become the sky.

Take an axe to the prison wall.

Escape.

Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.

Do it now.

You’re covered with thick cloud.

Slide out the side. Die,

And be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign

That you’ve died.

Your old life was a frantic running 

From silence.

The speechless full moon

Comes out now.

I am really curious how this sounds in the original. Clearly, there is a poetic rhythm of some sort going on, but it is somewhat lost in the translation. The metaphor of rebirth is a universal human (and religious) idea, although the meaning all too often is abandoned in favor of a call to give intellectual consent to dogma. This eliminates both the mysticism and the mystery of transfiguration, and reduces an experience of the whole self to a set of precepts. Here is another poem with a related theme. 

Only Breath

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu,

Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion

Or cultural system. I am not from the East

Or the West, not out of the ocean or up

From the ground, not natural or etherial, not

Composed of elements at all. I do not exist,

Am not an entity in this world or the next,

Did not descend from Adam and Eve or any

Origin story. My place is placeless, a trace

Of the traceless. Neither body or soul. 

I belong to the beloved, have seen the two

Worlds as one and that one call to and know,

First, last, outer, inner, only that

Breath breathing human being. 

Some of the poems aren’t given titles, but are grouped together under a title, with separations marked. This next one comes under the heading of “A Great Wagon,” which doesn’t seem to match more than the first two sections. I wonder if they are drawn from different places, or if they were intended to go together. Anyway, here is a short passage that I liked. 

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty

And frightened. Don’t open the door to the study

And begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.

There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground. 

As one whose experience of the Divine, beauty, and love are wrapped up in music, this one really resonates. 

How about this one, which revels in the myths (true and otherwise) and the necessity to live our own stories. 

Unfold Your Own Myth

Who gets up early to discover the moment light begins?

Who finds us here circling, bewildered, like atoms?

Who comes to a spring thirsty

And sees the moon reflected in it?

Who, like Jacob blind with grief and age,

Smells the shirt of his lost son

And can see again?

Who lets a bucket down and brings up 

A flowing prophet? Or like Moses goes for fire

And finds what burns inside the sunrise?

Jesus slips into a house to escape enemies,

And opens a door to the other world.

Solomon cuts open a fish, and there’s a gold ring.

Omar storms in to kill the prophet

And leaves with blessings.

Chase a deer and end up everywhere!

An oyster opens his mouth to swallow one drop.

Now there’s a pearl.

A vagrant wanders empty ruins.

Suddenly he’s wealthy.

But don’t be satisfied with stories, how things

Have gone with others. Unfold

Your own myth, without complicated explanation,

So everyone will understand the passage,

We have opened you.

Start walking toward Shams. Your legs will get heavy

And tired. Then comes a moment

Of feeling the wings you’ve grown,

Lifting. 

I’ll end with this one, perhaps the most beautiful of the ones I read this time. 

The Grasses

The same wind that uproots trees

Makes the grasses shine.

The lordly wind loves the weakness

And the lowness of grasses.

Never brag of being strong.

The axe doesn’t worry how thick the branches are.

It cuts them to pieces. But not the leaves.

It leaves the leaves alone. 

A flame doesn’t consider the size of the woodpile.

A butcher doesn’t run from a flock of sheep.

What is form in the presence of reality?

Very feeble. Reality keeps the sky turned over

Like a cup above us, revolving. Who turns 

The sky wheel? The universal intelligence.

And the motion of the body comes 

From the spirit like a waterwheel

That’s held in a stream.

The inhaling-exhaling is from spirity,

Now angry, now peaceful.

Wind destroys, and wind protects.

There is no reality but God,

Says the completely surrendered sheikh,

Who is an ocean for all beings.

The levels of creation are straws in that ocean.

The movement of the straws comes from an agitation

In the water. When the ocean wants the straws calm,

It sends them close to shore. When it wants them

Back in the deep surge, it does with them

As the wind does with the grasses.

This never ends. 

There are many more I found interesting, including the longer stories, myths, and parables. Those are a bit like Aesop meets Robert Frost, with extended dialogs pushing the story forward. My biggest regret is not being able to read in the original groupings, but the topical organization is interesting in its own right. 

I look forward to reading more in the future - and perhaps I can get a competing translation/interpretation and compare them. 

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

In the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings earlier this year, I heard about this book, written in 2007, in reference to its treatment of the problems of assimilation. This book explores that question, from the point of view of a successful young Pakistani who rejects the American vision and returns to Pakistan to become an anti-American professor. In a number of ways, the protagonist’s life parallels that of the Tsarnaev brothers, and the book thus seems precient.

I have mentioned before that one of the differences between good literature and poor is that a truly skilled writer doesn’t settle for easy answers. Mohsin Hamid does an unsettlingly good job of that in The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

This book is a novella in length, with a limited focus on a short time period and a very limited number of characters. The narrator, Changez, comes from a wealthy Pakistani family, and has graduated at the top of his class at Princeton. He is hired by a cutthroat business valuation firm, meets and dates a beautiful woman, and seems to have it made. The darkness that lies beneath the surface of this life is not apparent to Changez at first, but two events gradually awaken him to his ambivalent feelings about his experiences in the United States, and turn his love of his adopted country into a desire to leave and never return.

The form of the book is interesting. Changez narrates the book in the first person, unfolding his story to an unnamed American that he meets on the streets of Lahore. The two of them have a meal together, and Changez tells his story as the meal progresses. Each of the twelve chapters begins and ends with the narrator’s part of the small talk about the meal. The mysterious person on the other end never directly speaks, although his responses and statements are referred to when Changez echoes them back. The effect is one of a two-sided conversation, but we are left to guess at what the other side says - and indeed, who he is.

There are essentially two parallel stories. The first, and main one, is Changez’ personal emotional journey as he becomes disillusioned with the American dream. The second is the descent of his girlfriend, Erica, into mental illness. She lost her fiancé to cancer, but is still more attached to him than to the real world. Hamid doesn’t include this subplot merely for its effect on Changez - although it does play a role in his transformation. It in many ways expresses the idea of the two worlds, the desire for the past, and the dilemma of being caught between two worlds, that Changez experiences - but with an emotional dimension more familiar to a modern American who lacks the first-hand knowledge of the immigrant experience.

Likewise, the sexual content (which is brief), serves a purpose in the narrative and particularly in the psychology of Changez and Erica. It is neither gratuitous nor particularly pleasant.

However, the most unpleasant part of this book was the recognition of some truly poisonous American attitudes. In the wake of September 11, there was an outpouring of patriotism. Not a bad thing, necessarily, but one which felt better at the time than it does now in retrospect. Changez feels as if he had stepped into a film about World War Two.

What your fellow countrymen longed for was unclear to me - a time of unquestioned dominance? of safety? of moral certainty? I did not know - but that they were scrambling to don the costumes of another era was apparent. I felt treacherous for wondering whether that era was fictitious, and whether - if it could be animated - it contained a part written  for someone like me.

Really, I think it is the last of his suggestions that makes the most sense. We long for the moral clarity of World War Two, and have never been able to re-create that. (Perhaps the threat of annihilation glosses over any ambiguities in any case.) Our subsequent wars (even the Cold War) have never been as simple as we would wish. Perhaps even on a deeper level, we can never go back to the days of naive colonialism when we could believe that we, as English speaking, white Europeans were an unmitigated force for good in the world. When we could believe that whites were an inherently superior race, and Christianity and Western culture were perceived as synonymous.

This longing for the idealized past is the central theme in this book, actually. Changez is most clear in his own mind that this applies to the newly jingoistic United States, but he also realizes that his own Pakistan also clings to the past, both on a national and personal level. Pakistan mourns the decline of its power and influence - particularly in contrast to India. (The narrowly avoided nuclear war between Pakistan and India features prominently.) On a more personal level, the glory days of the Pakistani aristocracy have passed, and Changez’ family has fallen on hard times. The paint has faded and the servants have had to depart one by one. Their wealth, and, even more importantly, their status, has declined.

What is one to do with the feeling of decline? Whether it reflects reality or not in a given situation, there is a general feeling throughout much of the world right now that things are going downhill. (It is a bit paradoxical that this malaise applies equally to the Euro-American “First World” and to the Islamic empires.) As the author notes, the usual response is to single out some facet of the past as “the reason” and attempt to re-create that portion of the past. For both the muslim world and a significant segment of Conservative America, there has been a religious element advocating a return to the culture of the past, with a focus on “traditional” gender roles, antiquated and restrictive clothing, and a deep distrust of those with whom they disagree.

I found it particularly interesting that Changez (like the Tsarnaev brothers) was not particularly religious. He initially had no beard, was not religiously observant, drank alcohol and ate pork, and was generally secular. He wasn’t pushed toward his anti-American opinions by his religion, but exactly the opposite. The distaste for American arrogance pushes him toward outward manifestations associated with Islam. (He doesn’t appear to become religious in a observant rather than cultural sense.)

As I said, this book is profoundly discomfiting. It is impossible not to identify at some level with Changez, and to recognize the unsavory side of our patriotism. It is also tough to see how easy it is to plaster a veneer of “right” and “wrong” over a longing for a time of unchallenged power.

I also am continuing to mull how to formulate an alternative to nostalgia for the (mythical) past. My children need to have a sense of hope for the future. For that matter, so do I. The future will not be identical to the past - and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We sanitize the past, ignoring the problems - particularly for the poor. We have difficulty seeing the good of the present. (Good news doesn’t tend to get press coverage...)

A few other things in this book were memorable. First, the food. Since the story is told over a meal, delectable dishes appear at regular intervals. Hamid, an immigrant from Lahore himself, delights in the cuisine, and describes it well. Here is some chicken tikka - one of the central dishes of the story. 

Also interesting was a scene in which a bearded older man is sighted staring inappropriately at some young women dressed to show their faces and necks. A brazen sight, as far as he is concerned. As Changez says, “one’s rules of propriety make one thirst for the improper.” The counterintuitive effect of the focus on making females dress “properly” turns out to be a near-pornographic obsession with the female body. (I intend to eventually address this issue in a future post. My experience with the Christian Patriarchy movement is one of a surprisingly high level of sexual misconduct - which is also well documented in the most conservative Muslim countries.)

My knowledge of history has gaps which I am trying to fill through my reading these days. I acknowledge that it is impossible to cover everything in primary school classes, and that it is probably natural to focus on the history of one’s own country, I have found that there is much of world history which was ignored in the curriculum that I studied. This book ended up introducing me to the Janissaries.

The Janissaries were a class of semi-slave soldiers in the Ottoman empire. They were non-Arabic, primarily Albanian and Greek, and were captured/selected as children, and raised specifically for their function. Changez feels that he has himself become a Janissary by helping to promote American hegemony through high finance. I can thoroughly understand his disgust at being part of a thoroughly corrupt financial system, and specifically part of a company that works to the detriment of employees and in favor of corporate raiders. I myself would have moral problems with doing his kind of work.

One particular incident turns out to be an odd coincidence of timing. Changez references Washington Irving’s short story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and the unidentified American notes that he has seen the movie. (One of my least favorite things about my fellow countrymen - they see the movie before reading the book.) Changez notes that he has only read the story, but he is sure the movie is faithful to the book. (I wonder if he is being ironic here.) This year, The Reluctant Fundamentalist was made into a movie. From my reading of the reviews, it has many changes - and not for the better - from the book. (There is an additional subplot, apparently, which seems unnecessary.)

One final note on the ending. Hamid chooses his own version of The Lady or the Tiger for his ending. Changez notes that it is as foolish to assume all Americans are CIA assassins as to assume that all anti-American Pakistanis are terrorists. We never do learn if the mysterious American is such a person or not.

This does raise an interesting question of prejudice, however. In general, my friends who have immigrated to the United States have expressed to me how surprisingly nice Americans are. Quite contrary to the portrayal in the media of their native countries. However, this niceness does not necessarily extend to those perceived to be Middle Eastern. A colleague at the Res Ipsa Loquitur (our county bar association magazine) spent a day in hijab as an experiment. She works at our local community college, so she walked around there, interacting with students and staff, who didn’t always recognize her. She also did her usual rounds to her children’s school and ate out, and generally did her normal routine. Her experience was eye-opening. (She wrote about it at length for the Magazine.) She found that, like the fictional Changez once he grows a beard, she was treated with fear and suspicion.

I had one further experience of my own that also correlates with these issues. Back in my college days, before September 11, and really before Osama bin Laden became a household name, our orchestra had a violinist from Iran. He was a quiet, normal seeming guy. No beard or other signs of being devout. Indeed, I never heard him speak of religion at all. It was a shock to us later when he was arrested and convicted of selling weapons to Iran from his garage. It is yet another example of the danger of looking at appearances as the primary indicator of character.

There is much to think about and talk about and this book is a good contribution to the conversation.

The River War, by Winston Churchill

Source of book: I own this.

One of the interesting questions is whether Winston Churchill would have made his reputation as a man of letters, had he not chosen to serve his country as a statesman. He certainly made a significant fortune with his writings, and his later career certainly owes something to the fame and popularity brought by his books.

The River War was written in 1899, soon after the end of the conflict in the Sudan between Egypt and England, on the one side, and the forces of Abdullah Ibn-Mohammed. Churchill served in the cavalry during the conflict, and thus had personal experience of the decisive battle. However, his superiors were less than thrilled about the book, leading to a change in policy to forbid soldiers from writing about their service.

A bit of a summary of the conflict: Sudan was ruled by Egypt beginning in the early 1800s. Egypt was an ally of England, and was to a degree supported by the British military. The corrupt and oppressive Egyptian regime was resented by the Sudanese, leading to a revolt by “The Madhi”, a self proclaimed prophet of Islam, who promised independence and strict observance of Sharia Law. (This sounds vaguely familiar for some reason.) After the successful revolt and a siege of Khartoum, the Egyptians were evicted. The Madhi then died, and his successor proceeded to consolidate his power by slaughtering most of his rivals, and oppressing any other potential threats. Thus, the Egyptians were replaced by another corrupt and oppressive regime, which further had designs on “freeing” all of Egypt from the apostate form of Islam and foreign influence. Britain eventually decided that its interests were threatened by this, and supported the Egyptians in the reconquest. This occurred over the course of a few years which are the main subject of the book.

The version of the book I read is the abridged version, published in 1902. The original version was nearly twice as long. Many of Churchill’s personal experiences and nearly all of his editorializing was cut from the later version. While it would have been interesting to read these, the book remains a compelling narrative of the conflict.

First and foremost, Churchill was a simultaneously a vivid and a meticulous writer. He had a broad narrative sweep that draws the reader from one incident to another, never taking his eyes off of the destination. On the other hand, even at that young age, he had a remarkable eye for the key details of a military campaign. The ability he showed to comprehend the intricacies of the supply chain, the use of modern weapons and timeless tactics, and the psychology of a disciplined fighting force would later serve him well. Particularly excellent was his chapter on the building of the railroad that enabled the rapid transport of men, weapons, and even gunboats to the front.

In addition to the military details and narrative, Churchill was able to make the desert scenery of the Sudan come alive. The opening of the book sets the atmosphere, and throughout, it continues to add descriptions at key points.

I was also reminded again of how recently disease was a game-changing factor of basic human existence. At one point, five times as many men had died from cholera as from the wounds of war. Later, malaria renders an entire garrison (except for a handful of lucky souls) completely unfit for duty.

Churchill is also notable for his sportsman-like respect for his enemies. He has much good to say about Abdullah and his generals and other key figures on the other side. In contrast to many of his time, he views even the most “savage” of peoples to be human and have ordinary human motives. In this, he is perhaps one of the first to take the modern view of the largely rational motivations behind all except for the most depraved. Ordinary desires for freedom, power, money, glory drive all – some to their own destruction and those of thousands of others. In that sense, he is a critic of the much-abused fiction of the “Just War”. Churchill, of course, believed that it was morally acceptable to fight a war if it is of benefit to the country, without the necessity of ascribing actual evil to the other side. In fact, he believed that it would lead to casual atrocities. After all, if the other side consists of utterly vile vermin, why not torture them? The perhaps older-fashioned view of the enemy as human and even noble, even while misguided, would on the other hand lead to a more humane victory. One can only wonder at whether World War Two would have been as necessary had this view been followed in the aftermath of World War One.

Of the political opinions which survived the abridgment process are Churchill’s views on the aspirations and realities of both colonialism and religious fanaticism. Both can and often do start with noble goals, and both end in something substantially less than noble. An extended quote from the first chapter is worth the space.

What enterprise that an enlightened community may attempt is more noble and more profitable than the reclamation from barbarism of fertile regions and large populations? To give peace to warring tribes, to administer justice where all was violence, to strike the chains off the slave, to draw the richness from the soil, to plant the earliest seeds of commerce and learning, to increase in whole peoples their capacities for pleasure and diminish their chances of pain—what more beautiful ideal or more valuable reward can inspire human effort? The act is virtuous, the exercise invigorating, and the result often extremely profitable. Yet as the mind turns from the wonderful cloudland of aspiration to the ugly scaffolding of attempt and achievement, a succession of opposite ideas arises. Industrious races are displayed stinted and starved for the sake of an expensive Imperialism which they can only enjoy if they are well fed. Wild peoples, ignorant of their barbarism, callous of suffering, careless of life but tenacious of liberty, are seen to resist with fury the philanthropic invaders, and to perish in thousands before they are convinced of their mistake. The inevitable gap between conquest and dominion becomes filled with the figures of the greedy trader, the inopportune missionary, the ambitious soldier, and the lying speculator, who disquiet the minds of the conquered and excite the sordid appetites of the conquerors. And as the eye of thought rests on these sinister features, it hardly seems possible for us to believe that any fair prospect is approached by so foul a path.

The perspective of hindsight is perhaps even more bleak. After World War Two, the continent of Africa was largely freed from European domination, but the result has been brutal. In the Sudan, there has been ongoing civil war, predominantly between the Arab dominated Muslims in the north, and the Christian and Animist tribes, largely black, in the south. Sixty-five years of ongoing war, famine, and genocide. It really is depressing, and there are no easy solutions.

Perhaps then, the most lasting impression of this book is its relevance to the conflicts we face today. Is there a way to establish the rule of law in lawless and dangerous regions without become an oppressor ourselves? Is there hope for a country mired in corruption, oppression, and violence? Churchill reminds us that these issues are far from new, and are likely to continue to be an issue in the generations to come. 

A few minor related notes:

This book is remarkably brief for Churchill, at a mere 350 pages. I have previously read his 6 volume work on WWII (5000+ pages!) and The History of the English Speaking Peoples (4 volumes, 2000+ pages). Both of these are extensively available at used book stores. I found most of mine there, or in thrift stores and library sales. Both are worth reading, but are not for the faint at heart. If you do not care about wars and warfare, the WWII set will bore you to tears. However, if you are interested in that sort of thing, hearing it from the perspective of one of the main participants is priceless. Churchill was, even at that late stage, a soldier at heart, and he captures both the military and the diplomatic aspects of the war brilliantly.

The History of the English Speaking Peoples is, in my opinion, a far more interesting history of England that that found in most textbooks. While Churchill is prone to think in terms of kings and battles more than writers and ideas, his writing is so far from dull. Many a textbook writer should read this before compressing a vivid history into a dry biscuit. It’s also fun because he can’t resist giving his opinion of the military strategy of the American Civil War – a totally different view than we Americans get from our history books.