Kurt Reichenbaugh > Recent Status Updates

"In other words, literacy rates in the late 18th century France were much higher than in the late 20th century United States. It was only in the pools of unskilled, day-wage labor (...) that illiteracy predominated. By contrast, domestic servants, who also came from the countryside, were virtually all literate, able to read their contracts of employment." So, this surprised me. Literacy to Revolution? We'll see.

"For a long time now, historians have argued that what ministers of the French crown did or didn't do about the debt is of minor importance. For it was the nature of the old-regime monarchy itself that was the real problem. Hamstrung by privilege, how could a government consisting of men who bought or inherited their offices hope for even a modicum of bureaucratic efficiency?" - um, yeah, it's going to be a long one.

I like grits. There, I said it!

The 70s come to a close, and things aren't really looking up.

As the 70s progress the themes are darker and more cynical. The mirror held up before us refuses to crack, no matter how many attempts are made to shatter the glass.

Three excellent stories in a row; "The Girl Who Was Plugged In" by James Tiptree Jr. (Alice Sheldon), "If Ever I Should Leave You" by Pamela Sargent and "Pale Hands" by Doris Piserchia. All three are versions of a dystopia that in seem amazingly prescient considering they were written in the early 70s. The future was supposed to be fun, right?

Very different than Vol 1 in that there are no "pulp" stories here. All stories were published in the 70s and all of them, so far, firmly in the "New Wave" style of SF from that era. Good background bios on each of the authors.

Volume 1 was excellent. This volume contains SF stories from the 70s.

"...travel to an exotic island for the rich and depraved, where forbidden desires are par for the corpse..." Clever. Very clever.

Halfway through. I used to buy this series regularly back when B&N had a mass market paperback section. That cover! I miss the 90s.

"Soviet export earnings were unhealthily dependent on gold and oil. By the early 1980s the combination of uncontrolled military spending and the diminishing returns of domestic performance spelled the onset of systemic crisis requiring urgent treatment."

"Hitler's democratic triumph exposed the true nature of democracy. Democracy has few values of its own; it is as good, or as bad, as the principles of the people who operate it...In Germany in 1933-4 it produced a Nazi government because the culture of Germany's voters did not give priority to the exclusion of gangsters...[History} has built Hitler up into an 'evil genius'. 'Evil' is accurate, 'genius is doubtful."

The Fuhrerprinzip or "Leader Principle": Totalitarian parties operated on strict hierarchical lines. They exacted slavish obedience from their minions, through the unquestioning cult of the Party Leader, the fount of all wisdom and beneficence - the Fuhrer, the Vozhd, the Duce, the Caudillo, or the "Great Helmsman". Hmmm, I'll just leave it at that.

"Europe was full of war refugees--principally from Belgium, from Galicia, and from Serbia. On top of that came the biggest pandemic visited upon Europe since the Black Death. The 'Spanish Flu' killed more Europeans than the War did."

Now into the later years of the 19th Century and what's going on..."The passions of nationalism inevitably fueled conflict. Almost all parts of Europe contained ethnic minorities whose popular nationalisms were bound to clash with the state-led nationalism of the authorities."

In one year, 1810, Napolean ordered 162 bottles of his favorite neroli-based cologne water from the parfumier Chardin. In a famous letter, he once begged Josephine not to bathe for two weeks before they met, so that he could enjoy all her natural aromas. When she died, he planted violets on her grave, and wore a locket made from them for the rest of his life. He was an unabashed odomane.

"From its high point early in the 1680s...Louis XIV's Great Experiment produced ever diminishing returns. The wars, the religious persecutions, the deaths of all the great personalities, were accompanied by failures of a more deep-seated nature. Both the French state and French society were showing signs of a long wasting disease."

hmmm...wonder what's gonna come of that!

Religious reformation, art, philosophy and syphilis.

I've been reading this on the sly at work over the past couple of weeks. It started out as a fairly "normal" suspense novel, then about a third of the way in became a JCO novel.

Witchcraft developed in parallel to Christian mysticism, and for some of the same reasons. Witches, black and white, were undoubtedly a hangover from the pagan animism of the pre-Christian countryside...What is more, by openly entering into combat with witchcraft, the Church inadvertently fostered the climate of hysteria in which alleged witches and sorcerers thrived. hmmm...How little things have changed.

God save us from the innocent and the good.

There is a sense of fatalism about life in the later Middle Ages. People knew that Christendom was sick; they knew that the ideals of the Gospel of Love were far removed from prevailing reality; but they had little idea of how to cure it...The world was ruled by brigandage, superstition, and the plague.

The Middle Ages: The Christian Empires split into East vs West. Vikings raise hell, the Charlemagne dynasty breaks, and Feudalism takes hold. For most, life is miserable. "One might also presume that a feeling of powerlessness over their personal lives added to medieval people's preoccupation with religion - in particular to their strong belief in the afterlife, and to their morbid cult of death."

Christianity argues with itself. Islam arrives on the scene. Theodora raises eyebrows. Who is wrong, who is right? Rome crumbles.

The Roman Empire succumbs to corruption and barbarians. The birth of Europe approaches.

Reading a chapter a month. Finished Chapter III on Ancient Rome for August. Fantastic chapter, ending with the Empire's fall and the rise of Christianity. Plenty to offend the bible thumpers who believe God is American and Jesus was a blond and blue-eyed patriot. Looking forward to the next chapter in September, ORIGO, the Birth of Europe, AD C. 330 - 800.