Ten Days That Shook the World

Title: Ten Days That Shook the World
Author: John Reed
Publisher: Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1987 (First published 1919)
ISBN: Nil
Pages: 336

The Socialist Revolution in Russia in 1917 actually consists of two phases - in February and October, as per the old Russian calendar and in March and November as per the reformed one. The first part of the revolution, which forced Tsar Nicholas II to step down was staged under the leadership of socialist allies, of which Lenin’s Bolsheviks of the far left variety played only a minor part. A provisional government headed by Alexander Kerensky assumed office but faced immense challenges right from day one. Russia was fighting in World War I against Germany but the battlefront lengthened interminably without any definite results while at the same time bleeding Russia in resources and manpower. Kerensky’s government became unpopular and it employed repressive measures to clamp down on the protests. Bolsheviks called the March revolution a democratic revolution and also bourgeois. Peace at the German border, land for peasants and control of factories to workers were the rallying cry of the revolution. The provisional regime, most importantly, failed to control the Bolsheviks who formed governing councils (soviets) in every sphere of political and economic activity. After ensuring support from soldiers, the Bolsheviks struck on Nov 7, wresting the control of Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg) from the socialists. Kerensky fled and the ten days in which the second revolution began paved the way for the communist takeover of Russia. After a civil war that lasted until 1923-24, the Soviet Union was established. John Reed was an American journalist, poet and socialist labour activist who stayed in Russia during the heady days of revolution and reported on it. This book is a first-hand experience of Reed of the first ten days of the revolution. Not content at being a passive spectator, he took up arms in 1918 for the Bolsheviks. Reed died in 1920 in Russia, at the age of 33, of typhus and was buried in Red Square, beneath the Kremlin Wall.

A crucial thing to remember is that there was strong opposition to the Bolshevik line among the revolutionaries and workers and peasants of Russia. The major rivals were Mensheviks who included socialists who believed that society must progress by natural evolution toward socialism and that the working class must conquer political power first. The Bolsheviks wanted immediate proletarian insurrection and seizure of the reins of government in order to hasten the coming of socialism by forcibly taking over industry, land, natural resources and financial institutions. Both sides denounced the other as counterrevolutionaries. Even after the arrest of some members of the provisional government on Nov 7, the bourgeoisie were complacent, thinking that the Bolsheviks would not remain in power for more than three days. This was a costly blunder. Instead of three days, they clung on to power for 74 long years, till 1991. The peasants were not supportive of the Bolsheviks because even though the land was confiscated from the rich landowners, they had no intention to pass it on to the ownership of peasants because they abolished all private property. Lenin remarked that ‘if socialism can only be realized when the intellectual development of all the people permit it, then we shall not see socialism for at least 500 years’ (p.240). The Bolsheviks took a great risk by plunging headlong into armed combat as extorted by Lenin. The Bolsheviks had firepower in the form of a section of loyal soldiers, but the economic life and labour force in the government, railways and communications were with the socialists. Power was quickly usurped by the Military Revolutionary Committee and the Petrograd soviet of workers’ and soldiers’ deputies by deposing the provisional regime and arresting serving ministers. The Bolsheviks were accused to be German agents by their opponents throughout the struggle which was a time of intense political activity. People eagerly listened to speeches on street corners with great interest and either condemned or praised the speakers based on their arguments. Newspapers were eagerly sought for and whatever little money they had was spent on them so as to become aware of the latest goings on. Bolsheviks, who included the author, claimed that the ‘reactionaries’ preferred military defeat at the hands of Germany than to cooperate with Bolshevik soviets. Coal mine owners in Kharkov fired and flooded their own mines and engineers in the textile factories of Moscow put the machinery out of order.

Reed provides an eyewitness account of the revolutionary takeover of Russia and that’s why this book still motivates communists. I first came to know of this book as referred in a social media post of a left politician in Kerala who praised it profusely. But the situation in Russia in those ten days was really grim and it requires not a small bit of ruthlessness to still be able to feel proud of it. Week by week food became scarcer that eventually bread completely went missing. Robberies and house-breakings increased. Unions of all types of workers developed a truculent stance. Waiters and hotel-servants refused to take tips feeling that the customers were insulting them by doing so. The Petrograd garrison was ordered to the front lines, partly to rid them off the city, but they declined. The soviet of soldiers defied the provisional regime and openly sided with the Bolsheviks which turned out to be a shot in the arm for the latter. The military revolutionary committee quickly seized the arsenal of Petrograd. Reed also describes how the civilian populace lived oblivious to the fighting that went on in a part of the city. While gun fight was going on in the Winter Palace which housed the administration, life was going on as usual in streets a few blocks away. Reed comments that all the theatres were open, but it was more exciting outdoors. Trams were moving, crowds were milling around and electric signs of moving picture shops glittered brilliantly. The author witnessed the discipline of the revolutionary soldiers and Red Guards who were just starting to loot material from the Winter Palace. People shouted at them to put everything back as it was the property of the people. The things were crammed back in their places and self-appointed sentinels stood guard. This is to be taken with a pinch of salt. Bolsheviks’ victory was also aided by the tactless antics of Kerensky. When he reached Tsarskoye Selo near Petrograd, he commanded the army unit stationed there to surrender. The soldiers replied that they’d remain neutral, but would not disarm. This was true, since the soldiers were governing themselves by committees for eight months after the March revolution. Kerensky was annoyed at this insubordination and gave them ten minutes in which to obey. This smacked of the old regime. A few minutes later, the artillery opened fire on the barracks and all neutral troops went over to the Bolsheviks.

The communist regime in the Soviet Union was notorious for silencing voices of opposition and abusing human rights. Even though Stalin is often portrayed to be at the pinnacle of repression, all leaders were complicit in this crime against humanity to some degree. We find in this book that Lenin was also of this mould. Signs of authoritarianism were evident right from the first day of the revolution, after the Bolsheviks captured power. One delegate dared to oppose Lenin’s motion to issue an offer of peace. The author notes smugly that ‘the sudden, sharp outburst around him brought the hand swiftly down’ (p. 121). The peasants’ soviet was initially not on board, supporting the socialists led by Kerensky, but they were brought on line by coercion. Bolsheviks immediately shut down opposing newspapers on the ground that the capitalists who run them would poison the minds of the people. Freedom of opinion thus went down the drain. Advertisements were made the monopoly of the official, state-run newspapers, thereby restraining the income of private newspapers. The municipal council, called Duma, was forcibly dissolved. A new election was called in a week which most parties boycotted. The result was a foregone conclusion and expectedly, the Bolsheviks bagged a big majority. The class disparagingly called bourgeoisie was treated as sub-human. A questionnaire was issued to them in which they had to declare their incomes and apparel, down to the number of underwear they possessed (p. 305). The bloodlust which was lying dormant in some leaders came out in the open once they started to rule the land. There was a bitter civil war raging and a lot of fraternal killing occurred. In retaliation Trotsky demanded to kill five opponents for each Bolshevik killed in battle.

Readers get a glimpse of some of the peculiar features of Bolshevik as well as Russian administrations in general. One is the privilege and awe in which bureaucracy was held which can be judged from the status and entitlement one obtained by possessing a piece of paper duly stamped and endorsed by a seat of authority. Getting a pass assuring entry to restricted places was a great thing. Reed proudly reproduces many photos of such passes he possessed, but getting in without having to show the pass at the gate was greater still. In fact, that was the privilege flaunted by party bosses. The author remarks it to be a characteristic of the country and coins it as ‘Russian respect for documents’. The sentimental importance of the city of Moscow to Russian values is emphasized in the book. Petrograd was the seat of the government for over a century, but it still was an artificial city. The author argues that Moscow was, is and will be Russia and the true feeling of the Russian people can only be had there. The communist regime was noted for its contempt to religion and its institutions as evidenced by instances of transforming places of worship to other uses such as wine storage in later times. Reed ascribes a lack of religious sentiment to the working classes in toto. This is because he didn’t see any priest attending the funeral of the revolutionaries killed in street battles. He then claims that the Russian people no longer needed priests to ‘pray them into heaven’, because ‘they were building a kingdom on earth more bright than any heaven had to offer and for which it was a glory to die’.

The book is graced with an introduction penned by Lenin himself. He certifies that it was a truthful exposition of the revolution and recommends it wholeheartedly to the international labour movement. It is likely that rather than the content, it is this endorsement that makes this book dear to leftists all over the world. Many of the fine details, such as the outcomes of meetings, standings of prominent persons in the hierarchy and analysis of local press reports are either wrong or not aligning with the official party narrative. The publisher frequently clarifies the points through footnotes on the appropriate pages. The book is a piece of communist propaganda and this fact comes out plainly on each page in the book. Still, as a mirror of the tumultuous period which changed the destiny of the world's largest nation, this book should be read by all readers.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

The Children of Athena

Title: The Children of Athena – Greek Writers and Thinkers in the Age of Rome, 150 BC – AD 400
Author: Charles Freeman
Publisher: Head of Zeus, 2023 (First)
ISBN: 9781803281957
Pages: 390

Athena is the Greek pagan goddess of wisdom and the patron deity of the city of Athens. The flower of Greek thought blossomed in the sixth century BCE and spread its delightful fragrance to the rim of the Mediterranean world from Libya, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Italy and Spain. Hellenistic cultural centres sprang up on these parts which continued the pursuit of knowledge pioneered by the Athenian savants. Greece was a conglomeration of city states and vulnerable to a hegemonic kingdom as evidenced by Alexander of Macedon. The story repeated itself around 150 BCE when the Romans conquered Greece proper and the places where its culture had spread. This is a period generally considered to be an era of decline and eventual downfall. The budding religion of Christianity would gruffly obliterate the Greek culture in the fourth century CE. This book argues that even with the loss of political freedom, the scholars referred to as children of Athena kept the flag of inquiry and innovation fluttering high in the peaceful breeze offered by the Roman empire. The classical period (480-330 BCE) and the Hellenistic period (330-30 BCE) are well-covered in books on cultural history, but the period from there to the time when Christianity became the dominant religion is kept a blank. This was no mean period, being that of Galen, Ptolemy and Plutarch, and this book attempts to fill the gap with biographical narratives of several prominent Greek scholars. Charles Freeman is a specialist on the ancient world and its legacy. He has worked on archaeological digs on the continents surrounding the Mediterranean and is the author of many books.

Freeman assesses the vigour of Greek intellectual thought and examines the effects of accepting Roman hegemony on the political side even though the new masters were appreciative and in awe of the calibre of Greek thought. The Greek scholars of this era were imbued with a powerful sense of an intellectual heritage that was believed to be superior to any other. Thus they radiated self-confidence. The Roman empire was disparaging about the peoples they conquered. Though Greece enjoyed peace and stability and intellectual pursuits thrived, they were very careful not to cross the invisible line and offend the Romans. The Greek scholars are seen to be the courtiers or supplicants to Roman governors of provinces or other imperial officials. The Romans ridiculed the lack of fighting qualities among the Greeks while the latter saw the Romans as boorish and uncultured, but the elites of both cultures collaborated and were on fraternal terms. The Roman administration was remarkably light and this allowed Greek cities to run their own affairs and prosper. The Greeks were accommodating to include the cults of Roman emperors in their temples along with the deities of their religion. But one was not to be misled by the facade. Plutarch had warned the Greeks that the boots of the Roman soldiers were just above their heads - always.

The invasion of Alexander, who was himself a barbarian as far as the Athenians were concerned, caused pockets of the Greek culture to be established as far east as Alexandria-in-Sogdia (present Ai Khanum in Afghanistan). Gymnasia in these places taught philosophy to young men. Present day Turkey was the greatest exponent of Greek culture as seen in the number of philosophers it produced. This region spatially coincided with the Greek province of Asia with its capital at Ephesus and turned out to be the most sophisticated of all Greek outposts. Even though conquered and kept under the yoke by the Romans, Greeks were extremely proud of their own and contemptuous of other tongues. Galen once said that Greek was the most pleasant tongue and that 'if one observed the words used by other peoples in their languages, one would see that some closely resembled the wailing of pigs, others the sound of frogs and still others the call of the woodpecker'! Public oration was a skill carefully fostered in young men of an aristocratic background. The importance of sermons in Christianity is a remnant of this early focus on public speaking. It was not permitted for everyone to speak in public. Only if one person is of distinction or could display pedigree, upbringing and education would he be allowed to become an orator. They could charge fees for their appearances on stage. A bit of xenophobia was also present in elite minds. As described by Lucian of Samosata, it was difficult for an outsider to gain entry to the Greek cultural elite. However much he mastered the texts, he had still to acquire the manner of dress, the way of using language that harked back to Attic dialects and even a way of walking reminiscent of the ancient masters. As in classical period, Greek social life revolved around urban centres. 'City before self' was deeply ingrained within the Greek mind with loyalty to one's city often predominating over any form of shared ‘Greekness’.

Freeman gives a brief introduction to the various schools of Greek philosophy and why specific people were attracted to individual ones among them. Order and discipline was so important for the smooth functioning of Plato's state that he prescribed banning poetry and bringing up children in common. The school of philosophy known as stoicism resonated much with the Roman mind as seen in emperor Marcus Aurelius writing his book 'Meditations' in Greek rather than Latin, which was the lingua franca of the Roman empire. The book includes many biographies which start with Polybius, a Greek who was sent to Rome as a hostage and later made it his home. His 'Universal History' in 40 volumes must have been a massive work but only the first five volumes survive. He encouraged the Greek audience to recognize that Roman hegemony could not be reversed. Orators had become so successful that they felt themselves superior to entire cities, not subservient to emperors and even equal to the gods in some cases. Many oratories of Dio of Chrysostom survive in written form which attest to his prolific faculty to control the masses through his words. Their sense of pre-eminence rested partly on their meticulous knowledge of the Greek past. The author also notes some errors and inconsistencies in the literary output of the scholars he examines. Some of the herbal remedies suggested by Dioscorides in his De Materia Medica are now known to be poisonous and should not be consumed. Some effects are imaginary and solely depends for its efficacy on the placebo effect. Similarly, Ptolemy had calculated the size of the universe. This was wrong and infinitesimal than the real one, but it was the first time that the universe had been calculated as being so immense. Human beings were thus found to be at the core of a vast creation and this idea permeated Islamic and medieval Christian astronomy.

The Middle Ages witnessed great religious strife due to the intolerance of the monotheistic faiths as evidenced in crusades and jihads. Christian holy scriptures took their present shape in the third century CE. They were there already, but philosophers ironed out the discrepancies. Origen's writings made the Old Testament a Christian, rather than a Jewish text. Philosophical tussles with paganism appeared in works like that of Celsus who found the concept of a jealous god difficult to swallow. The inherent tolerance of Greek religion is evident in a remark made by Plutarch, who was a staunch devotee of Apollo. Regarding the worship of the Egyptian deities Isis and Osiris, he says: "Nor do we regard the gods as different among different peoples nor as barbarian, Greek, northern or southern. But just as the sun, moon, heaven, earth and sea are common to all, although they are given various names by the various peoples, so it is with one reason which orders these things and the one providence that has charge of them" (p. 119). Celsus, as mentioned above, argued that there was indeed one supreme force, but it had been given different names by different cultures and peoples. Origen claimed that Christians are not burdened with temples, altars and extravagant processions which Celsus considered vital for a functioning society. It is ironic that Christianity would later take on all these features! The cruel death of the lady philosopher Hypatia at the hands of early Christians is chillingly described in the text. Hypatia was probably the last famous pagan philosopher in the early fifth century CE. Being a woman, she was not allowed to hold public office but was widely respected for her erudition. Christian fanatics waylaid her, dragged her out from the vehicle, taken to a church on the seafront in Alexandria, then stripped and killed brutally by flaying her skin off with discarded roof tiles. Her lifeless body was then burned (p. 319). In 529 CE, Justinian closed the Platonic schools of Athens and closed the door on more than a millennium of Greek intellect and tradition. The light went out of free, intellectual exposition and Christian thought spread out in its place.

The book provides only an introductory survey of the Greek mind in those centuries when they were under Roman control. Interested readers can use this as a stepping stone to deeper topics. It's amusing for Indian readers to understand how the country influenced Greek culture in this era. Arrian, in his book on the life of Alexander, describes about India which had a bustling trade with Rome in the second century CE. Arrian relates a tradition that many of the fruits of Indian civilization, its cities and even its agriculture, was brought to the subcontinent by the god Dionysus and suggests that the god Hercules was born in India. He talks about a caste of wise men who dispense wisdom naked. The author then remarks that 'clearly the book does not provide much accurate information about Indian society'. However, Arrian's observation, even though appearing fantastic to European minds, might have been an attempt to describe Jain monks who travelled widely and dispensed wisdom while renouncing all clothes. This book contains information on how the Greek and Roman societies began its descent to collapse. Weak emperors, rise of rival kingdoms and barbarians created a grave problem in the third century CE which eventually led to the Greek culture's disintegration. Strife with the newly ascendant Sassanids in Persia did not help. A tribe called Heruli ransacked Athens. Money for buildings and public activities dried up. Greek religion declined and Christianity exploited the situation to turn strident.

The book is strongly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star

The Good Earth

Title: The Good Earth
Author: Pearl S. Buck
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2016 (First published 1931)
ISBN: 9781471151873
Pages: 357

This is not actually a review as I have a few points to note regarding this book which is highly subjective and not of much use to anyone else. But I wanted to record it somewhere before the neurons which control my memory go dysfunctional or dead. So much for reading this book for the umpteenth time, but the first since I started this review series. In fact, I enjoyed reading four books a number of times in my childhood. Buying new books on a regular basis was not an option for the son of a bank clerk and a factory shop-floor worker. Access to a public library was unmanageable in our little hamlet. Reading a good book of which you possessed a copy again and again was the only option to pass time in an era before television or internet. The four books were, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Good Earth, Sherlock Holmes and Children's Mahabharata, all translated to Malayalam. That's how this book with its Malayalam title of 'Nalla Bhoomi' came into my hands for the first time, around 45 years ago. I still remember its green and brown cover with the image of a Chinese dragon on it. That's how this book was an inseparable companion in my reading life and decided to make it a part of this series. Pearl S. Buck was an American writer and humanitarian. This book won her Pulitzer Prize in 1932 and she won the Nobel Prize in Literature 'for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China'. She stayed for a long time in China as the daughter of her missionary parents and she herself worked as a missionary before resigning the position.

This novel revolves around a Chinese peasant named Wang Lung who pervades it from its very first line which starts with 'It was Wang Lung's marriage day' and till the last line of the book which runs 'But over the old man's [Wang Lung] head they looked at each other and smiled'. It tells the story of Wang who led his family through very harsh times and labouring hard on the field. The sordid details of being poor in rural China is brought out in vivid detail. Eventually, he becomes rich and takes to liquor and women. However, he does not lose direction as he is strongly anchored to land, but his sons do not experience that moderating influence. The book ends with his sons planning to sell land for their extravagance by giving false assurances to their father who admonishes them for even considering selling of land. The novel hints that the family was on the road to collapse with sale of land. It clearly portrays the prime position of land in Wang's life and hence in the Chinese countryside. He farmed it, built his home on it and even ate the sand when famine struck. Wang and his family had to flee to the south of the country at that time and he pulled rickshaw in the big city while his wife and children begged on the streets. Even in this difficult period, the thought of his land waiting for him at home, rich with spring rains and this thought filled him with the desire to live. Wang Lung did not beg and was unwilling to touch another's money, but the riot following a war in the city forced him to take a rich man's personal savings as ransom. This was only to help him return to his land, where he worked so assiduously on the field when he returned that he begrudged even the hours he must spend in the house for food and sleep. When he grew too weary in the day, he lied down in a furrow and slept with the warmth of his own land against his flesh. Dead and alive, the family rested on the land.

The writing style in the book is often described as biblical or reminiscent of ancient epics. It reflects the influence of Chinese oral traditions. You feel this only when you read the original in English. One reason may be that the author belonged to the missionary class and must be having the Bible as her foundational reading material. Moreover, she lived in China and was fluent in the language. Chinese story tellers used simple words and a straightforward style to create vivid, fast-moving stories. The somewhat unusual word order in the book mimics the structure of spoken Chinese. The novel describes the intense trauma, poverty and profound changes with a calm, objective and solemn voice. It depicts the incessant series of floods, draught and pestilence that mar the life of a peasant. Each of them led to starvation and people sold their girl-children as slaves to gain a few pieces of money. China's modern craze for dams and flood-control measures are not entirely unjustified, looking at the situation described in this book. Migration to the city was the only option where men worked at this and that for a few pence and the women and children stole and begged. It was a time when Chinese society began to get engaged with foreigners who stayed with them as businessmen or missionaries. They handsomely tipped rickshaw pullers and beggars, but the locals did not feel that they dropped silver because of any goodness of heart but rather because of ignorance and not knowing that 'copper is more correct to give to beggars than silver'. Since Buck had stayed in China for a long time, she must have been sharing her own experience.

Readers get a rich experience in assessing the quirks and flaws in the character of Wang Lung. Though he was poor, he steadfastly saved small sums to purchase land from the House of Hwang, an aristocratic family nearby, who were disintegrating because in the previous generation the lords ceased to see the land and took the money their agents gave them and spent it carelessly like water. Wang assesses that the strength of the land was gone from them and bit by bit the land had begun to go. One or two decades later, the same story was beginning to unfold in Wang's family as well. Wang secretly admired the ways of the rich and copied them when he himself became rich. He left his own home and occupied the palatial house of Hwang where he had once stood as a supplicant and had taken a slave girl of the family as his wife. The girl O-lan, Wang's wife, is a forceful character in the book who attracts the readers' sympathies. Her parents had sold her as a slave in the time of famine. She was a slave to Wang as well. She never talked back to him and did not even smile, but did all the work uncomplainingly and bore him children. She was not beautiful and Wang forgot to observe this, till he was rich. When he became pecunious, he looked at O-lan as a man looks at a woman and found that she was not pretty, and she became afraid of him from that day on. He then took a concubine and settled her in a part of his house. The character of O-lan fills the readers with a tinge of sadness that only a great work of literature can achieve.

Pearl Buck's daughter, Carol, suffered from a rare form of disease called phenylketonuria (PKU) which is an inherited metabolic disorder that causes severe, irreversible intellectual disability if untreated. Carol's condition was not diagnosed until many years after her birth, and she was eventually placed in an institution. Buck chronicled her experiences in the 1950 book 'The Child Who Never Grew'. It is said that Buck turned to writing to save enough to get the child admitted in a decent institution. Carol spent her life there from age 9 till her death at age 72. There is a biographical element in Wang Lung's eldest daughter who was dumb. She is always referred to as the 'poor fool' who smiled and twisted a cloth endlessly. She never spoke nor did those things which were right for her age. She always smiled her baby smile when she caught her father's glance. Wang assigns a trusted maid to poison her after his passing away. This book presents life in Chinese villages in a heart-touching style and it is said that this was instrumental in affecting the American mindset towards China. The book is very absorbing and enjoyable. The simple and personal nature of religious worship is elaborated in many places. The gods shared the fortunes of their worshippers. If the climate was good and harvests are fine, they would get new clothes, incense sticks and other offerings. During famines, they were neglected and left to rot in the open temples exposed to rain and shine.

The book is most highly recommended.

Rating: 5 Star

Fields of Blood

Title: Fields of Blood – Religion and the History of Violence
Author: Karen Armstrong
Publisher: The Bodley Head, 2014 (First)
ISBN: 9781847921871
Pages: 499

The attack on the World Trade Centre on Sep 11, 2001 was a watershed moment in the long history of religious violence. Even though not for the first time, the world sat up and took notice of why the worship of a god or deity demands violence from its adherents. With a start, the world noted that every religious text contained insinuations to violence. If the practitioners followed it verbatim, like a direct revelation from god, violence was bound to follow, whereas if your society is modern enough and above the level of savagery, individuals would assign only a 'symbolic value' to the teachings and quietly ignore the exhortations to kill. It is in this context that this book finds relevance before you read it. After going through it, there is confusion on why such an erudite scholar as the author condones religious violence and essentially points out human nature as the reason behind it. It claims that the 'myth of religious violence' was founded on the belief that the separation of church and state would liberate society from the inherent belligerence of religion, but every secularizing reform in Europe and other parts of the world would begin with an aggressive assault on religious institutions. The book provides a survey of the ancient civilizations of Sumer, India, China and Israel one by one in analysing the violent content in them. Karen Armstrong is one of the world's leading commentators on religious affairs. She spent seven years as a Catholic nun in the 1960s and then returned to normal life. She has authored many books on religion.

Armstrong makes a review of social progress from the prehistoric times, but strangely does not consider why the religious spirit arose in men. Some of the rituals and myths devised by our prehistoric ancestors survived in the religious systems of later, literate cultures. In this way, animal sacrifice, the central rite of nearly every ancient culture, preserved prehistoric hunting ceremonies. Large scale violence originated with sustained farming. The large grain stores of Jericho became a magnet for hungry nomads and thick fortifications were made. Hence large scale violence was linked not with religion but with organized theft. This continued till agriculture ceased to be the economic basis of civilization. Exploitation of the peasants by the elite was an indelible feature of these societies. Civilization required a leisured class to cultivate it - which developed the arts and sciences that made progress possible. Pastoralists, who lived on the fringes of settled society, soon found that the easiest way to replace animals was to steal the cattle of nearby villages and rival tribes. Fighting thus became essential to the pastoralist economy. In agrarian societies, war was not just the sport of kings, but an economic and social necessity to conquer land and gain more peasants to tax. The author identifies a striking contrast between new and old societies. While modernity has institutionalized change, radical innovation was rare in pre-modern times because civilization seemed so fragile. Originality was not encouraged, but conformity was!

As part of its review of ancient civilizations and how they are infused with religious violence, this book begins with Sumer and scoops up India and China in quick succession. She categorically rules out the 'Aryan invasion theory' by stressing that 'there was no dramatic invasion'; they arrived in small groups, 'gradually infiltrating the region over a very long period' (p.41). Aryans established the kings of Kuru-Panchala by force and that 'events may well have conformed to what social historians call the conquest theory of state-establishment' (p.44). Armstrong argues that Ashoka's dilemma in not disbanding his army is the very dilemma of civilization itself. As society developed and weaponry became more deadly, the empire would become the most effective means of keeping the peace. People looked for an absolute imperial monarchy for a peaceful life. As in other states too, in ancient China, all violence in the form of sacrifice, warfare and hunting was the privilege and distinguishing characteristic of the nobility. The author claims that China proves that it is erroneous to believe that a given set of religious beliefs will lead inexorably to violence. Instead, we find people drawing on the same pool of mythology, contemplative disciplines and ideas but embarking on totally different courses of action. Armstrong's unfamiliarity with Indian sacred texts is palpable in the misguided directions she takes. Too literal interpretations of texts are considered without understanding the relevance these texts might or might not have had on the society. She happily reproduces quotes from Wendy Doniger and Romila Thapar, both of whom are notorious for their far-left ideology spilling onto their literary corpus. With such a literal acceptance that only Kshatriyas could rule in ancient India and Shudras were fit only to serve, she is helpless to explain why Shudras like Mahapadma Nanda and Chandragupta Maurya could usurp the Magadhan throne.

The book then turns its attention to West Asia. The Hebrew dilemma was that though Yahweh insisted that his people abandon the agrarian state, they had to return to it time and again because the land for herding which Yahweh had selected for them often failed to sustain them. Monotheism made Israel prone to violence because of the rabid intolerance not found in the generous pluralism of paganism. The author counters this by insisting that Israelites were not strictly monotheistic at this time. As noted earlier, the author was very particular to interpret Indian texts strictly in the literal sense, but for others she bends over backwards to read them in a favourable light. In the seventh century BCE, reformers brought a wholly new intransigence into the cult of Yahweh by incorporating exclusivity to his worship and advocating elimination of all infidels. King Josiah translated these lessons into acts of destruction and bloodshed. Jesus' attitude to violence is also examined. He forbade injury to others, but was verbally abusive. He fulminated against the rich, cruelly lambasted the scribes and Pharisees and called down god's vengeance on villagers who rejected his disciples. As Christianity took root in the Roman world, it set aside platitudes of peace and nonviolence. In the fourth century CE, zealot monks destroyed pagan temples in an act of violent orgy everywhere in the Christian world. They didn't spare synagogues either. Aurelius Augustine, bishop of Hippo, declared that violence was legitimate if it was inflicted with 'the enemy's welfare in mind'. In 528, Justinian gave all pagans three months to get baptized. In the next year, he closed the Academy in Athens that had been founded by Plato. The Dark Ages is believed to have begun with this incident.

What is embarrassingly shameful for the author is that she somewhat struggles to bail out Islamic scriptures in the ancient as well as its interpretations in modern times without even bothering to examine how their holy texts address the issue of violence for the religion's sake. She justifies the early Muslim violence. The Prophet's party in Medina had no independent source of income, so the 'obvious' alternative was plundering raids (p.164). Jews of Khaybar were slaughtered, but they deserved it because they aligned with the Prophet's enemies in Mecca! Umar's campaigns were driven 'entirely' by the precarious economy of Arabia (p.168). When she turns to the modern world, she finds that Muslim fundamentalism is more turned to physical aggression because 'Muslims had a much harsher introduction to modernity' (p.278). She then suggests that it began after World War I. She further makes an audacious comparison that the hard-line Muslim cleric Abul Ala Maududi was in agreement with Gandhi regarding the role of religion in politics (p.284). The most heartless one is that the Ottoman sultans deported and killed their Greek and Armenian [Christian] subjects 'in order to control the rising merchant class' (p.289). As is expected, the author is a vocal supporter of the extremist Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt and Khamenei in Iran! She accuses the former Persian ruler Shah of masterminding every assault on peaceful protests. Regarding the Iran hostage crisis in which 3000 religious students stormed the US embassy in Teheran and kept 52 diplomats hostage for 444 days, she blurts out that 'it is not clear whether Khomeini knew of their plan beforehand' (p.305). The Egyptian hard-line organisation Jamaat al-Islamiyyah segregated the sexes during lectures 'to protect women from harassment' (p.316). The radical students of the University of Minia in Egypt vandalised Christian churches 'in response to government oppression'. This disgraceful kowtowing in front of an intolerant and violent ideology decimates this book's worth as a piece of serious research.

A prominent manifestation of violence motivated by religion in the Middle Ages was the Crusades in which European Christians tried to liberate their holy places in Israel which were occupied by Muslims and who were threatening its very existence. When Roman power had collapsed in the west, the bishops had taken the place of Roman senatorial aristocracy. Pope Gregory VII wanted to free the Byzantines from Turkish aggression and to liberate Jerusalem. The author being biased to the Muslim view; she paints the crusades in a very bad light by claiming - among other things - that the crusades made anti-Semitic violence a chronic disease in Europe. Every time a crusade was summoned, Christians would first attack Jews at home. The crusaders knew nothing about local politics in the Near East and their understanding was derived from religious views and prejudices. The crusading army was a monastery on the march. Jews had been fully integrated in European society till the eleventh century. Their position grew worse with each crusade. In the end, Saladin put down the crusades through his conquest of Jerusalem.

The author then turns her attention to the advent of modernity and the gradual disintegration of the hold of religion first on state power and then in secular society. For the first time, it had to recede from most of the niches it had occupied in driving or controlling every need of the society and was relegated only to the sacred sphere. By 1492, papal power had plummeted and balance of power passed to the kings. The book notes that Renaissance humanists like Thomas More supported the violent subjugation of natives in the New World, believing them to be savages. What the author hints at is that secularism is also not free from violence inherent in its ideals. With the development of tools of capitalism such as joint stock companies, the church had no control over them. Successful merchants, artisans and manufacturers became powerful enough to influence politics. Luther portrayed religion as a discrete activity, separate from the world as a whole, which it had previously permeated. Where pre-modern faith had emphasized the sacredness of community, for Luther, religion was a wholly personal and private matter. The word 'secularization' originally meant the transfer of goods from the possession of the church into that of the world in the sense that legislative and judicial powers that had been in the church's remit were gradually transferred to the new sovereign state. The Thirty Years' War (1618-48) is known to be the most influential occurrence that ushered in secularism in Europe, but the author claims that the War was not in fact between the Protestants and Catholics. People of both faiths were arrayed in both the factions that fought against each other. This may be factually correct, but we can only conclude that Armstrong is missing the wood for the trees. In America, religion still exerted its pernicious effect on the white settlers. The native Americans were suppressed by ruthless colonists, justifying their violence on the bellicosity of Hebrew scriptures.

The basic cause of writing this book is the author's desire to proclaim that violence in human societies is not caused by religion alone, but is a deeper malice of human nature. With this in mind, she examines modern societies and concludes that secular societies are not less violent. The French Revolution brought in a secular republic backed by systemic violence. After a few fits and starts, it eventually held on as a model for the world. The combination of industrial technology and empire was creating a global form of systemic violence, driven not by religion but by the wholly secular values of the market. The American civil war was a conflict charged with religious conviction, both sides believing that God was on their side and that they knew exactly what he was doing. When lost, the Southerners saw their defeat as divine retribution. The book wishes to reiterate that nationalism is the new faith of the secular age. The author handles the issue of Islamic terrorism in a style soothing to its perpetrators by beginning with LTTE and claiming that they were Hindu Tamils. This book tries to lessen the fearful effect of terrorism by arguing that it is not very extraordinary and that 'some of the largest-scale acts of terrorist violence have been carried out by states rather than independent groups or individuals' (p.313). She further points out that 'terrorism is fundamentally and inherently political, even when other motives are involved' (p.313). This means Armstrong believes that the 9/11 attackers were freedom fighters, which is exactly the same as jihadi propaganda. Armstrong lists out some elements that lead to structural violence and terrorism as too rapid urbanisation, inequitable social system and physical and social dislocation. However, these are present in all states, but why does only a few go into terrorism? She terms the 1983 Hezbollah suicide attack on an American base in Beirut as a 'martyrdom operation' (p.320). People who enrolled in al-Qaeda did so to 'assuage the suffering of fellow Muslims and not to fight the US'.

The author's undisguised partisanship to Islam is nauseatingly evident in the clever omissions and commissions. It provides a graphic description of violence inflicted by the crusaders on the captured Muslims, but not vice versa. She commends the Muslim side because 'their wars had always been conducted within mutually agreed limits' (p.195). Then again, 'Muslims were always ready to learn from other cultures' (p.200). Caliph al-Hakim's destruction of the Church of Resurrection in Jerusalem is not listed as a cause of the crusades, but instead, she declares that he was insane! She exhibits a bit of haughtiness and colonial pride in her wishful thinking on Indian society and practically concludes that the Hindu religion did not exist before the British began to categorize a group of people as such. Her assertion that in the Mughal empire, the administration rarely had a 'religious colouration' (p.261) must have come about only because of her ignorance. Regarding the freedom struggle, her claim that 'Hindus campaigned for an India free of both the British and Islam' (p.263) is outrageous because of its naked falsehood.

This totally biased work is a waste of time for most readers and hence not recommended.

Rating: 1 Star