To the Edge of the World: The Story of the Trans-Siberian Express, the World's Greatest Railroad
Christian Wolmar
Trains, travel, history
There are books about trains that aren't meant mainly to appeal to train fanatics. It's just that there aren't that many of them. To the Edge of the World, while perfectly decent, doesn't add to their number.
Christian Wolmar really knows his stuff. His stuff is trains. Train transportation, train travel, train infrastructure, train history, train politics, train finance . . . it's all here. He's got a lot of scope, too. The construction of the Trans-Siberian touches everything from the abolition of Russian serfdom to the Russo-Japanese War to the settling of Siberia. All of it finds its way into To the Edge of the World.
There are some writers--John McPhee; Simon Winchester, on his better days; Stephen Johnson, maybe--who could take that material and run with it. They could maybe turn the Trans-Siberian Railway, which is already the spine of a nation, into the spine of a wide-ranging book. That's not Christian Wolmar's way. He sticks to his tracks.
Nor will the writing seduce you; Wolmar's prose is more stately than sparkling. He has a habit, too, of serving up substantial helpings of other authors' writing. Sometimes this works. He's unearthed some accounts from contemporary travelers which are eye-poppingly vivid, for example, and he knows how to use them. All too often, though, he lapses into "As was so ably pointed out by Schmendrickhausenstimpfel, in his classic Geschicte der Rechtsschutzversicherungsgesellschaften . . . " Who's writing this book, anyway?
The thing is, the railway itself really was an astounding achievement. We American train nuts get all het up about our own first transcontinental railroad (completed in 1869). Well, the Trans-Siberian is almost three times as long, and built by a less-developed nation over a much harsher and emptier landscape--using mainly muscle power. It's probably fair to say (and Wolmar says it well) that everything about Russia would be different without the railway. As a book about trains, then, To the Edge of the World is worthy. As a book about anything else, it's a good book about how anything else was affected by trains.
Glorious Misadventures is set well before To the Edge of the World gets underway, but nothing much about the looking-glass world of Russian imperial politics seems to have changed in the meantime.
As Wolmar points out, the best comparison for the Trans-Siberian Railway isn't the United States, but Canada. The Impossible Railway, by Pierre Berton, is an excellent book about the building of the Canadian Pacific. At least, it's excellent for us train fanatics. It's probably very good for the rest of you, too.
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
Monday, January 22, 2018
Book Review: White Pine
White Pine: American History and the Tree that Made a Nation
Andrew Vietze
Nature, history
To be honest, White Pine isn't really a great book. I liked it anyway.
This is the kind of book that you get when you combine an author with a deep, idiosyncratic interest in a subject with a lack of high-powered editing. White Pine isn't about Pinus strobus in general. It's about what interests Andrew Vietze, and what interests Andrew Vietze is (a) New England, and (b) the history of the tree's importance in colonial and revolutionary times. Which, to be fair, is pretty interesting! White pines were the premier trees used for making masts for the Royal Navy, and so they were constant flashpoints for royal decrees and local dissent. The broad arrow used to mark trees reserved for the King became such a hated symbol that many early revolutionary flags bore a pine tree as a mark of defiance.
That history takes up about two-thirds of White Pine. There's then a sort of middle-of-the-book epilogue chapter that drifts lightly across the nineteenth century, a couple of chapters of contemporary reportage, and a summation. An opinionated editor, looking at this, would say that White Pine is either too much or too little concentrated on colonial New England. Too much, if it's intended to be a general biography-of-a-substance book; too little, if it's intended to be about that specific time and place.
And yet the book is kind of charming. It's written in an agreeable, readable tone, with some nice personal touches. The history is genuinely illuminating--it's a great window into a little-known but very evocative microcosm of the tensions that led to the American Revolution. There are some lively characters, some famous names, some natural history.
Andrew Vietze, in short, loves his subject maybe a little too much. There are worse flaws.
Andrew Vietze
Nature, history
To be honest, White Pine isn't really a great book. I liked it anyway.
This is the kind of book that you get when you combine an author with a deep, idiosyncratic interest in a subject with a lack of high-powered editing. White Pine isn't about Pinus strobus in general. It's about what interests Andrew Vietze, and what interests Andrew Vietze is (a) New England, and (b) the history of the tree's importance in colonial and revolutionary times. Which, to be fair, is pretty interesting! White pines were the premier trees used for making masts for the Royal Navy, and so they were constant flashpoints for royal decrees and local dissent. The broad arrow used to mark trees reserved for the King became such a hated symbol that many early revolutionary flags bore a pine tree as a mark of defiance.
That history takes up about two-thirds of White Pine. There's then a sort of middle-of-the-book epilogue chapter that drifts lightly across the nineteenth century, a couple of chapters of contemporary reportage, and a summation. An opinionated editor, looking at this, would say that White Pine is either too much or too little concentrated on colonial New England. Too much, if it's intended to be a general biography-of-a-substance book; too little, if it's intended to be about that specific time and place.
And yet the book is kind of charming. It's written in an agreeable, readable tone, with some nice personal touches. The history is genuinely illuminating--it's a great window into a little-known but very evocative microcosm of the tensions that led to the American Revolution. There are some lively characters, some famous names, some natural history.
Andrew Vietze, in short, loves his subject maybe a little too much. There are worse flaws.
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
Bride of the Special Guest Reviewer!!!
Posts have been unpardonably scarce here of late. I fear that this situation is likely to continue. To assuage the thousands of hundreds of scores of several one or two people who are constantly occasionally possibly clamoring for more content wondering whether I'm still alive, I present to you the fourth in our ongoing series of annual reviews by Mr. Mike Phipps.
Of the books in Mike's list, by the way, I have read these within the last year or three:
Of the books in Mike's list, by the way, I have read these within the last year or three:
- Servants
- Justinian's Flea
- Dynasty
- A History of the World in 100 Objects
- This Is Your Brain on Music
- Catching Fire
- Hero of the Empire
- Iron Dawn
As a rule, my reactions are very similar to Mr. Phipps's.
Monday, January 8, 2018
Book Review: Feathers
Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle
Thor Hanson
Nature
Like The Triumph of Seeds, Feathers is a beautifully-written book about a fascinating, easy-to-overlook subject. Feathers are absurdly, wonderfully complex. Just the description of how they grow--the cells behave like fans in a sports stadium doing the Wave--is mind-boggling. Hanson peels back multiple layers of featherology: evolution, physics, natural history, looks, physics. Woven in and out of this are a nice series of personal touches and anecdotes, anchoring the book in time and place. If you have any interest at all in looking more deeply into nature, this is a book to latch onto.
Like The Triumph of Seeds, Feathers is a beautifully-written book about a fascinating, easy-to-overlook subject. Feathers are absurdly, wonderfully complex. Just the description of how they grow--the cells behave like fans in a sports stadium doing the Wave--is mind-boggling. Hanson peels back multiple layers of featherology: evolution, physics, natural history, looks, physics. Woven in and out of this are a nice series of personal touches and anecdotes, anchoring the book in time and place. If you have any interest at all in looking more deeply into nature, this is a book to latch onto.
Tuesday, January 2, 2018
Book Review: Code Girls
Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Codebreakers Who Helped Win World War II
Liza Mundy
History, biography
You might think that Code Girls would be, basically, Hidden Figures with white women and cryptography. And you would be, basically, correct. If that sounds like the kind of book you'd like, you'll like Code Girls.
Of the two books, Code Girls is better-written. It by no means avoids Hidden Figures's gee-whiz-weren't-these-women-swell approach, but it dials it back considerably. Mundy touches on the lives of many women, but she wisely anchors Code Girls around just one (Dot Braden)--although it's still often hard to remember who was who. She's at her best with vivid biographical details and lively character portraits.
Less happily, Mundy does a poor job of describing what code-breaking actually entailed. She desperately needed at least a few simple examples of the techniques she's describing (there are no examples at all). I could follow along because I'm fairly well versed in basic cryptography and cryptographic history; if you're not, you may find some paragraphs frustratingly vague. In terms of technical detail, Mundy stops at the level of saying "It's amazing what you can do with math," or words to that effect.
It matters. Without these details, Code Girls is reduced to a series of People Magazine-style profiles. Mundy wants to establish, not just that women worked in cryptography, but that their contributions were more than drudge work--that, in fact, they made real intellectual leaps. Without describing the codes, she's reduced to hauling out a few vague anecdotes and telling us they were, like, really important. As with Hidden Figures, I'm ready to admire these women--but I'd like to admire them for what they achieved. Mundy's book is a good quick read, but no more than that.
Two good books about cryptography are David Kahn's classic The Codebreakers and Simon Singh's The Code Book. For an unforgettable portrait of cryptographers at work--and the consequences--see Walter Lord's Incredible Victory.
Liza Mundy
History, biography
You might think that Code Girls would be, basically, Hidden Figures with white women and cryptography. And you would be, basically, correct. If that sounds like the kind of book you'd like, you'll like Code Girls.
Of the two books, Code Girls is better-written. It by no means avoids Hidden Figures's gee-whiz-weren't-these-women-swell approach, but it dials it back considerably. Mundy touches on the lives of many women, but she wisely anchors Code Girls around just one (Dot Braden)--although it's still often hard to remember who was who. She's at her best with vivid biographical details and lively character portraits.
Less happily, Mundy does a poor job of describing what code-breaking actually entailed. She desperately needed at least a few simple examples of the techniques she's describing (there are no examples at all). I could follow along because I'm fairly well versed in basic cryptography and cryptographic history; if you're not, you may find some paragraphs frustratingly vague. In terms of technical detail, Mundy stops at the level of saying "It's amazing what you can do with math," or words to that effect.
It matters. Without these details, Code Girls is reduced to a series of People Magazine-style profiles. Mundy wants to establish, not just that women worked in cryptography, but that their contributions were more than drudge work--that, in fact, they made real intellectual leaps. Without describing the codes, she's reduced to hauling out a few vague anecdotes and telling us they were, like, really important. As with Hidden Figures, I'm ready to admire these women--but I'd like to admire them for what they achieved. Mundy's book is a good quick read, but no more than that.
Two good books about cryptography are David Kahn's classic The Codebreakers and Simon Singh's The Code Book. For an unforgettable portrait of cryptographers at work--and the consequences--see Walter Lord's Incredible Victory.
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