A review of “Gandhi” (1982 movie with Ben Kingsley)

“The government of the territories now in the possession or under the government of the [British] East India Company, and all powers in relation to government vested in or exercised by the said Company in trust for Her Majesty [then Queen Victoria], shall cease to be vested in or exercised by the said Company, and all territories in the possession or under the government of the said Company, and all rights vested in or which if this act had not been passed might have been exercised by the said Company in relation to any territories, shall become vested in Her Majesty [Queen Victoria], and be exercised in her name …”

– “Government of India Act 1858,” as passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (incidentally, India had then been ruled by the British East India Company since the 1757 Battle of Plassey – which was more than a century earlier than this act)

India owes its independence from the British Empire to people like Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi was able to free India from British rule, without the nation suffering anything like a full-scale war. There was some amount of violence therein on both sides, but it surely would have been much bloodier without the steadfast efforts of people like Mr. Gandhi. India had actually been ruled by the British since the 1757 Battle of Plassey. Starting in that year, they would now be ruled by a private corporation: the British East India Company. (More about that company in a later post.) But, in 1857 (nearly a century after that battle), the locals had fought a war to free India from the now-notorious rule of that company. This revolt is known by various names – from the Indian Rebellion, to the “Indian Mutiny” (a British name), to the “Sepoy” Rebellion (a local Indian name). Incidentally, the term “Sepoy” refers to a type of Indian infantryman. But, whatever one calls the uprising, the rebellion was soon crushed in 1858. This was more than a decade before Mr. Gandhi’s birth. Thus, that revolt had failed to free India from British rule. But, significantly, the rebellion did change which of the British institutions would now get to control India. That is, control passed from the British East India Company to the British Crown. Thus, Queen Victoria would now have direct control over India. This was the situation in India, when Mr. Gandhi was born there. Specifically, Mohandas K. Gandhi was born in 1869 – the year that the Suez Canal opened in Egypt. The Suez Canal (eventually) would also be controlled by the British Empire, making it easier for the British to send their troops to India. This was because British ships no longer had to go around Africa, but could take a shortcut through the Suez Canal in Egypt. (But that’s a subject for another post.) Regardless, these things would affect the relationship between Britain and its distant colony in India. Gandhi actually spent the earliest years of his life in India. But, in his mid-twenties, he would instead set sail for South Africa in 1893 – which, at that time, was yet another province of the British Empire. This is where the Ben Kingsley movie “Gandhi” begins.

Forgotten battlegrounds of World War One: The Balkans and Eastern Europe

A war that killed at least 15 million people began with two quick gunshots in the Balkans. The fighting of World War One began in the Balkans, and eventually saw some of its greatest bloodshed in this same region. Popular historians often talk about the assassination at Sarajevo, because it sucked in many of the other nations of the world – including, eventually, the United States. But subsequent events in the Balkans tend to be unknown among the general public, even lesser-known than the complex origins of the war that one can find there. Thus, this may be a good time to examine the events of the Balkans and Eastern Europe, and how they engulfed much of the rest of the world when those two fateful gunshots were fired there.

Sarajevo citizens reading a poster with the proclamation of the Austrian annexation in 1908

A review of “Auschwitz: The Nazis and the ‘Final Solution’” (BBC)

Warning: This blog post contains some disturbing pictures, which I simply cannot omit.

By far the most infamous episode of the twentieth century …

The Holocaust is, by far, the most infamous episode of the twentieth century. It was a crucible for Jewish history, claiming the lives of six million Jews in all. But when you add in the other victims of the Holocaust, the death toll goes up even further to ten million. The other victims include Poles, homosexuals, the Romani people, and anyone else that the Nazis disliked. Both numbers are so large as to seem incomprehensible, but they come from the figures of the Nazis themselves. Indeed, the Nazis seemed almost to be proud of the enormity of these numbers. Anti-Semitism, of course, has roots going back far before the twentieth century, and so do pogroms and other violence against Jews. But the Nazi manifestation of it is the most infamous example of this phenomenon, and it is the most widely-known (and widely-condemned) genocide in history. Sadly, there have been other genocides as well, but it would be beyond the scope of this blog post to attempt to list them here. Suffice it to say that the Holocaust is still an important topic, and that the BBC was right to cover it in this series.

An aerial reconnaissance photograph of the Auschwitz concentration camp, 1944

There were several Nazi concentration camps, of which Auschwitz was the biggest

The series is usually called “Auschwitz: The Nazis and the ‘Final Solution.’” This is because the Nazis chillingly referred to this genocide as the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question.” But this documentary has also been titled “Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State.” It is six episodes long, and may be the most in-depth documentary on this tragic episode. You might already know that there were many Nazi concentration camps, of which Auschwitz was the biggest. This series is focused specifically on Auschwitz, mentioning other camps (such as Treblinka) only as context for what happened at Auschwitz. Nonetheless, one could see Auschwitz as the Holocaust in microcosm, even though it was a disproportionately large number of the deaths. In the Nuremberg trials, the longest-reigning commandant of Auschwitz (Rudolf Höss) was accused of murdering three and a half million people. He replied: “No. Only two and one half million—the rest died from disease and starvation.” This confession, along with the callous (and flippant) way in which it was delivered, led to his later execution in 1947 – one of the healing positives of the Nuremberg verdicts. But that’s a subject for another post. Here, let me dive into the story of the Holocaust itself, and how this disturbing episode began.

A review of “Horror in the East: Japan and the Atrocities of World War II” (BBC)

Warning: This blog post contains several disturbing pictures. One of them shows the body of a child.

The Japanese were racist against other Asians and Pacific Islanders, not just Whites …

Apologists for the Imperial Japanese seem to have multiplied in recent years, even in the West. They do have some valid points, including that there was some real racism against the Japanese in the West – including in my home country of the United States. But there was also racism in Japan as well, and not just against the “White Westerners.” They were racist against anyone who was not Japanese – including the Chinese and other fellow Asians and Pacific Islanders, whose countries the Japanese would soon be invading. Some of the Japanese officers interviewed on camera here admit to such racism, as do some of the Western officers fighting against them. Japanese propagandists used the slogans of “Asia for the Asians,” and a “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.” But the truth was far different from these grossly misleading slogans, because they wanted an Asia exclusively for the Japanese. No other Asian groups benefited from Japanese imperialism, as the record shows.

A review of “War of the Century: When Hitler Fought Stalin” (BBC)

Note: The Russians usually refer to their own part of World War II as the “Great Patriotic War.” Some Eastern European countries use this same term. But in Germany (and in most other Western countries), it is known as the “Eastern front” – or, more informally, the “Russian front.”

They call it the “War of the Century” here – the massive conflict between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. To me, World War II as a whole is better-deserving of this title than any one of its parts, even this part. Nonetheless, I should acknowledge that the Russian front really was quite massive, and was cataclysmic for both sides. It is a war between two of the cruelest superpowers of the twentieth century. There were innocent victims on both sides, and there were cold-blooded murderers on both sides – with both sides having plenty of each. To me, this documentary seems to cover them in the right proportions, by painting both sides in a negative light. The war was a vicious and brutal conflict which lasted for nearly four years. Thus, it seems to make for great television, particularly with the moving way that the BBC covers it here. They show the human drama of the story, and tell it with a flourish.

A review of PBS’s “Lawrence of Arabia: The Battle for the Arab World”

The Arab Revolt against the rule of the Ottoman Turks …

When people hear the phrase “World War One,” they usually think of Europe. But it was also fought in the Middle East, by people like “Lawrence of Arabia.” During the war, the Arabs revolted against the rule of the Ottoman Turks. They had been ruled by the Ottoman Empire for centuries, and they didn’t like it. Thus, the British were able to convince them to revolt near the beginning of World War One. They sent a man named T. E. Lawrence to promise both British support and Arab independence. He is now known as “Lawrence of Arabia,” and he would later be famous for his role in the Arab Revolt. But he would also feel some guilt over how the revolt later turned out.

T. E. Lawrence, the man now known as “Lawrence of Arabia”

Forgotten battlegrounds of the Cold War: South Asia and Indonesia

“We the people of Indonesia hereby declare the independence of Indonesia. Matters which concern the transfer of power and other things will be executed by careful means and in the shortest possible time … In the name of the people of Indonesia …”

– Indonesian Declaration of Independence (from the Dutch Empire), Djakarta, 17 August 1945

Few parts of the Cold War are more forgotten than this …

Asia was one of the biggest battlegrounds of the Cold War. Two of the biggest of the aptly-named “hot wars” within the Cold War were both fought in East Asia, which were the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Many Cold War conflicts were likewise fought in the Middle East (which is part of Asia), and the Soviets fought their war in Afghanistan in central Asia. In addition, communist China was located in East Asia, and much of the Soviet Union was located in North Asia. But the Cold War events of South Asia are often forgotten, and were not covered in CNN's 18-hour television history of the Cold War (one of the few major omissions on CNN's part there). Thus, an examination of some of these events would seem to be in order here. Some would consider Indonesia to be a part of Southeast Asia, while others would instead consider it to be a part of the region known as Oceania. But since the Cold War events of Indonesia are often forgotten as well, I would like to cover some of them, and this actually seems a convenient place to do so. Like South Asia, Indonesia is a part of the Indian Ocean region, and was a major battleground in the Cold War. Thus, I will combine some of these things together into one post, and show how the Cold War affected the general Indian Ocean region (a forgotten battleground of the Cold War).

Bendera Pusaka, the first Indonesian flag, is raised on 17 August 1945

In defense of Ronald Reagan: Helping the mujahideen in the Soviet-Afghan War

During the Reagan administration, we were allied with both Iraq and Afghanistan …

In the Ronald Reagan era, America had two allies that seem somewhat ironic today: Iraq and Afghanistan. In the twenty-first century, America would later go to war with both of these countries. Thus, some have perceived a contradiction between the earlier alliance and the later hostilities. But to me, it would seem that there is a common theme running through both of these policies, which is American national interest. I will attempt to explain this interest in this post, and show why Reagan's support for the mujahideen was both justified and worthwhile.

Three “mujahideen”  in Asmar – Afghanistan, 1985

Forgotten battlegrounds of the Cold War: Latin America

If the Cold War were a chess game, Latin Americans were often the pawns …

Long before the Cold War began, American president James Monroe had introduced the now-famous “Monroe Doctrine” in 1823. This doctrine said, in essence, that “the American continents … are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.” (Source: Monroe Doctrine, 1823) Theodore Roosevelt later added a corollary of his own to this doctrine in 1904, in response to the Venezuelan Crisis of 1902-1903. This “Roosevelt Corollary” basically said that “Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may in America, as elsewhere, ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrongdoing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.” (Source: Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, 1904)

Fidel Castro visits United States, 1959

Keeping European powers (like the Soviet Union) out of the New World …

The United States has not always adhered to this doctrine, but it has often been involved in Latin American politics under the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine (and the original, for that matter). During the Cold War, the Soviet Union actually supported left-wing regimes throughout Latin America, and were thus interfering in the Americas. True adherence to the Monroe Doctrine thus required that we try to keep them out of the Americas, and prevent communism from gaining a foothold in our own “backyard.”

Map of Latin America

Forgotten battlegrounds of the Cold War: Angola

The United States actually considered intervening in an African country called “Angola” …

During the Cold War, the United States actually considered intervening in an African country called “Angola.” Few Americans have ever heard of it, and few had heard of it at the time. But it was a battleground in the Cold War, where the local Africans were pawns in a great superpower chess game. The conflicts would eventually involve South Africa as well, and a region trying to become independent from South Africa. My primary topic will be Angola, but this will also involve (among other things) an examination of a different conflict in South Africa. These conflicts would start out as unrelated to each other, but they would eventually be joined together. Just as a Japanese war with China had earlier become joined with the European part of World War II, so did these conflicts become joined with each other. They would eventually become part of a larger worldwide conflict – namely, the Cold War. These conflicts would eventually involve the support of foreign superpowers, troops from overseas nations, and thousands of deaths in seemingly endless combat. They involved some of the largest battles on the African continent since World War II.

South African troops on patrol near the border, early 1980s

Forgotten battlegrounds of the Cold War: North Africa and the Middle East

If there's ever been a peaceful period in Muslim history, the Cold War was not that period …

If there's ever been a peaceful period in Muslim history, the Cold War was not that period. During this period, the Muslim world was something of a battleground, in which the Islamic countries were pawns in a great superpower chess game. The Muslim world encompasses many places – among them South Asia, which actually has more Muslims than North Africa and the Middle East combined. But they do not form a majority in this broader region of South Asia. By contrast, around 90% of North Africa and the Middle East are Muslims, and the same is actually true of Central Asia as well. Since I discuss Central Asia in another blog post about the Soviet war in Afghanistan, I will not do so here. And since I have discussed the South Asian part of the Cold War in another blog post, I will not do that here, either. Here, I will just discuss the traditional power centers of the Muslim world, which are North Africa and the Middle East. Many (but not all) of these conflicts would involve the new state of Israel as well.

An Egyptian artillery piece captured in the First Arab-Israeli War, 1948

A review of PBS's “Citizen King” (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

– Martin Luther King's “I Have A Dream” speech (August 28, 1963)

This program about Martin Luther King doesn't do justice to the great civil rights leader …

This program has many of the ingredients needed for a great film about the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. It has photographs, newspaper headlines, and even actual footage of the period being depicted. It interviews people who knew him, and many others who lived through these times. These interviews are compelling, and have a great potential to tell the story. But this film is also missing some essential elements needed for a good documentary. Most importantly, it is missing any kind of narration; and thus has no narrative to hold the story together. They have to make some awkward transitions from one interview clip into another, without any narrations to ease these transitions. This is a major weakness in a documentary about history, and it is more the sort of thing that I would expect from a news network than from an educational network like PBS. Indeed, this program feels more journalistic than historical; and lacks the epic scale needed in a history film.

Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

A review of Ken Burns’ “Baseball” (PBS)

“♪ Katie Casey was baseball mad,
Had the fever and had it bad.
Just to root for the home town crew,
Ev'ry sou
Katie blew. ♪

♪ On a Saturday her young beau
Called to see if she'd like to go
To see a show, but Miss Kate said 'No,
I'll tell you what you can do:' ♪ ”

– The unknown first verse of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” (1908)

When Ken Burns' “The Civil War” came out in 1990, it was the most popular program in PBS history; and it still holds that record today. This program received significant critical acclaim, and it certainly deserved this acclaim. But when Ken Burns was asked what he was going to do next, he was met with raised eyebrows when he said “baseball.” For many people, baseball seems like something less than a “serious” historical topic; and probably seemed like a waste of Ken Burns' talent to boot. But to me, this is no “anticlimax” – this is a legitimate historical topic in its own right. You can learn a lot about the history of America by studying the history of its baseball, I think – at least, for the periods after baseball was invented. I will return to this theme multiple times in this post, as I give some related anecdotes from baseball history. Suffice it to say for now that it gives some great insights into this country; and that if you really want to understand America, you would do well to study this game in detail.

National League Baltimore Orioles, 1896

Christy Mathewson, known as “The Christian Gentleman”

Spying during the Cold War was a risky business

“Bond … JAMES Bond.”

In May 1960, an American U-2 spy plane was shot down by the Russians over Soviet territory, which caused something of a crisis in the free world at that time. Francis Gary Powers (the pilot) bailed out of the plane safely, but was quickly captured by the Russians, and forced to admit that he was a spy for the CIA (which he really was). The Soviets had all that was left of the crashed aircraft, along with the spying technology that had survived the crash. They also had actual photos of the Russian military bases that the cameras from on board the plane had taken. After denying the military nature of the plane's mission, the United States eventually admitted that the aircraft was a spy plane; and not out on a “weather research mission” as it had originally claimed.

American pilot Francis Gary Powers, in a special pressure suit for stratospheric flying

What happened to the pilot of the U-2 spy plane shot down in 1960?

Unfortunately for Mr. Powers, the Soviets actually convicted him of espionage three months later. They thus sentenced him to a full three years' imprisonment and seven years' hard labor. Fortunately for Powers, though, his country had already captured Soviet agent Rudolf Abel for a like offense; and exchanged him for both Powers and an American student named Frederic Pryor in 1962. Powers was thus able to go home as a free man at that time, and thus got off relatively easily – after only serving two years of his sentence from the Soviets. But many other spies were not so lucky, and some were killed when the Russians discovered them. The Americans, too, engaged in some executions of convicted spies, of course; as did most other countries that participated in the Cold War. But the Soviet executions had a particular reputation for brutality (and wanton cruelty), and they could get away with sentencing more people because of their standards of evidence being somewhat lower than in the free world. Being a spy was not a “glamorous thing” like in the movies for most agents, it would seem. Thus, the casualties of the Cold War were not limited to actual “shooting wars” between the two sides.

American pilot Francis Gary Powers, when he was in Soviet custody

Chaos in Cuba: Communist revolution, Bay of Pigs, and a close call with nuclear disaster

"That all Acts of the United States in Cuba during its military occupancy thereof are ratified and validated, and all lawful rights acquired thereunder shall be maintained and protected."

- The "Platt Amendment," passed by the United States Congress as part of the Army Appropriations Act of 1901 (and forcibly added to the 1901 Constitution of Cuba by a constitutional amendment that same year)

Historians have dedicated much attention to the Cuban Missile Crisis of the early sixties, and for good reason - it was the time in our history when the world came closest to nuclear war. It was a dramatic event worthy of serious attention from both historians and the general public. Less visible, however, is the communist revolution that rocked Cuba during most of the fifties; and the "Bay of Pigs" incident that was fairly prominent in the minds of both sides during the later crisis. It is not often that these events are covered together, since any one of these things is a complex topic in its own right. But these events in Cuba would nonetheless seem to be linked together (at least somewhat); and by more than just their closeness in time and place. The common theme running through all of them would seem to be the great worldwide struggle known as the "Cold War" - a war that was fought in Cuba ferociously during these tumultuous times, and which had importance far beyond the island itself on more than one occasion.

Picture from the Cuban War of Independence, 1898

A review of Ken Burns’ “Jazz” (PBS series)

"Jazz is the assassination, the murdering, the slaying of syncopation. I would even go so far as to confess that we are musical anarchists."

- Nick La Rocca, leader of the first jazz band to make a record

An opinion from a longtime fan and (amateur) musician ...

I should preface this review by saying that I am a longtime fan of jazz music, as well as a longtime fan of both history and the Ken Burns documentaries about it. I freely acknowledge that I am not an expert on music history (jazz or otherwise), and do not consider myself to be a true musician - much as I would like to call myself by this distinguished title. I have played piano for a long time, it is true, and I have played jazz (and other styles) by ear. But I am neither a professional musician nor particularly talented in my performance, and consider myself only an enthusiastic fan with a sometime musical hobby. That being said, I am entitled to my opinion about it as much as anyone else, and so offer this review to any who might enjoy it.

A review of Andrew Marr’s “Modern Britain” series (1901-2007)

I should preface this review with an up-front disclaimer, which is that I am not a citizen of Britain. I am an American citizen who has never been to the British Isles, and my ancestors haven't lived in Britain for more than a hundred years. Although I do have ancestors from various parts of the British Isles, who emigrated to the United States over a period of centuries (with some branches arriving at one time, and some branches at another). Thus, I have often felt rather British in my heritage; and this feeling is shared by many Americans of all ethnic origins, because of the cultural similarity between our two countries. (And I'm not just talking about our speaking the same language, although that does help. As George Bernard Shaw once joked, we are two countries "separated by a common language.")

Winston Churchill

Why Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan didn't go communist (like mainland China did)

One of the basic facts about China today is that most of it is communist - the part that most of us hear about. Thus, it surprises some people to know that some parts of it are not communist at all; but have free-market capitalist systems like those found in the West. Why is this, you might ask? Why did these parts not go communist, when the rest of China did?

Flag of the People's Republic of China

China has two "Special Administrative Regions," which are Hong Kong and Macau

To answer that, you have to examine a little of the history; which explains why the country has two "Special Administrative Regions" (which are Hong Kong and Macau), and lays claim over still another region which is not communist, which is Taiwan. Why is this, you might ask? Why were these particular regions spared the cataclysmic forces that engulfed the rest of the Chinese-speaking world?

Map of the People's Republic of China

A review of “The Panama Canal” (American Experience)

"The Republic of Panama grants to the United States in perpetuity the use, occupation and control of a zone of land and land under water for the construction maintenance, operation, sanitation and protection of said Canal of the width of ten miles extending to the distance of five miles on each side of the center line of the route of the Canal to be constructed ... "

- "Convention for the Construction of a Ship Canal (Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty)," Article II, 18 November 1903 (with the "perpetuity" part modified by later treaties negotiated by Jimmy Carter)

It allowed ships of all kinds to go from the Atlantic & Caribbean to the Pacific (and vice versa) without having to go around the tip of South America - drastically reducing the time needed to transport goods. The effects of the project were largely economic; but it was completed mainly for military reasons, with the need to move naval ships between oceans, without enormous delays from increased travel time. And it revolutionized the economy and international trade of the world, allowing much trade to be done for significantly lower costs.

Panama Canal in modern times