Mike Jay: The Air Loom Gang (2003)

Edition: Bantam, 2003
Review number: 1228

The most famously insane person of the eighteenth century was of course George III, one of the most celebrated madmen of all time. Yet his case is not as interesting in itself (rather than for who the patient was) as that of a contemporary Englishman, James Tilly Matthews. The turn of the nineteenth century was a pivotal time in the history of the treatment of the insane, as asyla began to be built which were more like hospitals than the prison-like buildings which preceded them, and the way in which Matthews was incarcerated turned out to be important in the precipitation of this change. Matthews' life and delusions are fascinating in themselves, as well as being unusually well documented (this fact meaning that he is one of the first cases where psychologists have been able to attempt to make a modern diagnosis).

The Matthews case basically begins, as does Jay's book, with a disturbance at the Houses of Parliament. Matthews interrupted the closing stages of a debate in the early 1790s, the one which lead to the declaration of war with revolutionary France, by shouting out "Treason!" from the Visitors' Gallery. He was led away and committed to Bethlem Hospital, the place that is the origin of the term "Bedlam". He remained there for a couple of decades until just before his death. His delusions were principally that a secret organisation was using a device called an "Air Loom" to control people's thoughts and precipitate a war between France and Britain. The really odd thing is that Matthews had actually been involved in secret negotiations with the revolutionary government, so that his delusions had some basis in reality. That of course was not acknowledged by the British government of the time.

So many elements come together in the Matthews case that it is easy to see why Jay chose him as the subject of his book. He has responded to the story with a book which is exciting as well as fascinating. In places it even seems as though it is a historical thriller rather than a non-fictional narrative. (It reminded me of "steampunk" novels, like K.W. Jeter's Infernal Devices, for example; this is partly because of the science fiction resonances of the air loom device.) The Air Loom Gang is very highly recommended; wonderfully written, engrossing.

Christian Meier: Caesar (1982)

Translation: David McLintock, 1995
Edition: HarperCollins, 1995
Review number: 925

The transition of the Roman government from Republic to Empire is one of the pivotal moments of world history, and Julius Caesar is the key figure of this period. Luckily, there are many sources dealing with his life which are contemporary or nearly so (including Caesar's own writings), and it is on these that Meier draws for his study of the man.

The basic problem that afflicted the Republic, though, as Meier continually stresses, this was not understood by contemporaries, was that its political structures were not really scalable to cope with the demands of a large empire rather than a small city state and its surrounding farms. Order in the city was breaking down, a process culminating in the Civil War between Caesar and Pompey. Caesar, by the way that he used this unrest to accumulate power (and he was not alone in doing this), precipitated the rapid changes to archaic institutions which enabled himself and his great nephew Octavian (Augustus) to rule as effective Emperors, even if both were shy of the title.

The important issue which arises from Caesar's life and which any biographer must attempt to answer is why he was the man who had this pivotal role. Traditional answers to this tend to be in terms of his personal greatness, the gifts that he had; to Meier, the answer lies more in that he was an outsider to the traditional career paths for Roman nobles by temperament if not by birth. To me, it seems that this point is laboured rather than proved, and this would be my major criticism of the book. It is difficult, in particular, to see why Meier's observation applies better to Caesar than to, say, Pompey or Clodius, and so I was not convinced.

I found the style of the translation a bit abrupt, and there are some strange details, such as using the spelling Juppiter rather than the usual English version, Jupiter.

Peter Ackroyd: Dickens (1990)

Edition: Minerva, 1991 (Buy from Amazon)
Review number: 907

As the most popular writer of his age, and as a social campaigner, Charles Dickens had an immense influence which still shapes modern literature and the culture in which we live - his stories helped shape our ideas of the "traditional" Christmas, apart from the more difficult to trace effects of his writing about social issues.

The man who had this influence was extraordinary in himself as well. As a result, he has always been a magnet for biographers, from his friend John Forster onwards. Ackroyd's acclaimed biography concentrates on what formed Dickens' character, and how his life influenced his fiction.

For someone following a sedentary profession, Dickens had an interesting life, and was certainly an unusual personality. While he could often be the life and soul of any party, his self-centredness made him a difficult person to deal with. This is brought out strongly by Ackroyd, who is also particularly good at retreading the well worn path of his relationship between his life and work (especially his childhood and the probably platonic affair with Ellen Tiernan).

It is probably the case that to write this kind of biography you would need to be a fan, and this is certainly the case with Ackroyd, who likes certain of the novels far more than I do and hasn't really a bad word to say about any. This isn't really a failing, as there is no particular reason why people shouldn't have different opinions, but it does lead to an occasional loss of sympathy on the part of this reader.

Another minor problem with this biography, which reduces its usefulness as any kind of reference, is the lack of dated information. Not only is there no separate chronology of Dickens' life, but there are relatively few dates given in the text; to try to work out, say, the dates of the first and last appearances of Bleak House in serial form is extremely difficult.

Andrew Brown: The Darwin Wars: How Stupid Genes Became Selfish Gods (1999)

Edition: Simon & Schuster, 1999
Review number: 439

Brown's book attempts to chronicle from an impartial position what will probably be seen as the bitterest scientific dispute of our times. It is a fascinating book, revealing much about the personalities of those involved and clearly explaining the science needed to understand what is going on. The personalities are important, as much of the argument in the debate is (regrettably) ad hominem; science often takes second place to point scoring rhetoric.

The subject at the heart of the controversy is frequently called neo-Darwinism, and it basically stems from the derivation of a mathematical description of how altruistic behaviour can arise from the assumption of survival of the fittest. In other words, this is the discovery that a creature can sometimes help others to make the transmission of its own genes more likely. (Social insects are the classic example of this: complicated kinship patterns mean that the workers "do better" by enabling the queen to pass on her genes.) As soon as this result was proved, its discoverer killed himself. A committed Christian (who spent his last years making enormous sacrifices to help the homeless), George Price felt that the application of the rule to human beings implied that his own altruism had selfishness at its root.

This feeling is where the controversy stems from, for it is the application of evolutionary ideas to human beings which has always offended since Darwin's The Descent of Man. It hasn't helped the quality of the discussion that much of the debate has been carried on in popular science books, like Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, rather than in more restrained technical publications. There at least arguments could have been presented with mathematics rather than metaphor; there at least what was to be said would have been criticised by colleagues before publication.

The important question, then, is how genetics shapes human lives, not just in the physical sense but in the social. It is the modern form of the nature/nurture debate, and is today perhaps made more serious by the way in which Nazi Germany made eugenics a dirty word (and thus provided many handy insults for just this type of debate). There are those who would claim that the genetic discoveries have made moral philosophy an empty subject; we are what we are because of the environment that shaped our ancestors. The problem is that specific arguments can be made too easily; almost anything we do can be explained by reference to some supposed evolutionary pressure. (The silliest example Brown quotes is an argument that millionaires build penthouse suites to live in because for our ancestors on the African plains a preference for high places gave a better chance for survival by making them able to see further. As Brown points out, to crouch in a hollow hides you from predators, so almost the same argument should imply that millionaires prefer basement flats.) Much that has been written on the subject amounts to a series of illustrations of the futility of arguing from effects to causes. By explaining everything, sociobiology explains nothing (at least as it is often portrayed by its popularisers).

The two most prominent participants in the debate are Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould. Brown may be slightly harder on Dawkins, but generally seems to make an effort to be impartial; Dawkins is a more tempting target, with a passion for lively debate which leads him to overstate his case and an unwillingness to admit that he could have been wrong. His utter contempt for religion, especially Christian fundamentalism, is a case in point, and gets a lengthy criticism from Brown. (The sociogenetic position can easily be turned into an attack on religion, by portraying spirituality as a construct of evolutionary utility.) Brown is himself an atheist, though by spending some years as a religious affairs journalist he has more understanding and sympathy for those who have a religious belief. Dawkins and his followers (Nicholas Humphrey in particular) have let their contempt lead them into saying some really stupid things. An example of this is a lecture to an Amnesty International conference given by Humphrey in which he says both that religion is so dangerous that it should be a crime to teach it to children and that it is so poorly thought out that teaching scientific truth causes it to wither and die. On the other hand, their statements about science, neatly demolished by Brown, lay them open to the accusation that they are making science a religion, with themselves as evolutionary fundamentalists.

I enjoyed this book, feeling that it was balanced and critical. It didn't make me want to read the books it talks about, which many science books do, but then I've never really liked Dawkins or Gould as writers anyway.

Abraham Pais: 'Subtle is the Lord...' (1982)

Edition: Oxford University Press, 1982
Review number: 63


Subtle is the Lord... (the Einstein quote finishes "...but he is not malicious") is an excellent biography of Albert Einstein written by an eminent physicist. A fair knowledge of physics is necessary to read this, but reading a biography of Einstein which doesn't convey the work that he did is much less interesting to those who have such a knowledge.

Pais is not uncritical of Einstein. A major theme of his book is to answer the question of why, after the major achievements of special and general relativity and his quantum mechanics papers, Einstein produced so little work of permanent value in the second half of his working life. In fact, Pais suggests that the very aspects of Einstein's character which made the earlier breakthroughs possible meant that his work became more divorced from the mainstream of twentieth century theoretical physics as time went on.

Subtle is the Lord is rather less interested in the non-physics related activities of Albert Einstein, though considerable space is given to his pacifism and Zionism. There are other biographies which concentrate on these matters, and are much more interested in Einstein's private life. Pais' work is where to come for a definitive description of the way in which Einstein's work and life fitted together.

Richard P. Feynman: Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman - Adventures of a Curious Character (1985)

Edition: Vintage, 1992
Review number: 22
 
As the subtitle suggests, this is the story of an unusual man, a Nobel Prize winning physicist who worked on the atomic bomb who was also an amateur artist who had a successful one man show - among many other talents. It is an interesting read, even to those who (like me) don't normally enjoy (auto)biographies.

The book presents an honest picture of Richard Feynman, based mainly on taped conversations with a friend. This means that his personality comes through strongly, showing both the admirable traits and the less than admirable traits. I didn't like Richard Feynman practical joker, but found Richard Feynman indefatigable science educator more to my taste. (I particularly enjoyed the story of his evaluations of school physics textbooks for the state of California.)

As well as thinking that people in general could benefit by better understanding of science (and better science education), I also think that many scientists would benefit from being able to write as well as Feynman, and the public would probably have a better understanding of science if they did!