locked into an ugly game of financial chicken with an enemy I can't stand but still have to deal with in at least superficially civil ways way too often
My sympathy, but then again: What better state in which to write about post-war European politics? It's like Method Scholarship.
the various Chinese warlords (which sounds kind of racist; were there European warlords in the 20th century?)
There was at least one - the Kaiser! He liked calling himself "the supreme warlord of the German Empire". And Chinese historians today generally refer to 1911-1949 as the "warlord period" so I guess it's OK.
Very good summary of a pair of absolute beasts of chapters.
Good and funny summary! On the warlords, I think the distinction is that the warlords were essentially military dictators, but instead of dictating to the whole of a sovereign country they were the de facto rulers of areas that de jure belonged to a different, dysfunctional, central government. Which is consistent with usage about civil wars in Africa .
1 is very true and was a thought that provided some dark humor throughout, but may influence my voting when it's time to choose a next book.
For the next book, I suggest Wereworld: Rise of the Wolf since I read parts of it and want others to suffer the same.
5: Oh man, as if Lee weren't bad enough on her own, she bought Marsha Mellow Goes Missing: An Unofficial Story for Shopkins Collectors for me to read aloud to the girls as a bedtime story. So gross.
Japan's early experiments with deflation (which Tooze describes as being three years from 1920-1923 despite saying on the page before that Japan hadn't gone for deflation in 1920, so I'm leaving this here because I can blame this one on him even if I'm just missing the nuance of what counts as deflation)
Don't remember what Tooze says exactly, but Japan did deflate severely in 1920-21 (though less than the US and Britain). What they didn't do was go back on the gold standard, and the deflation at that time came mostly through depression (collapse of the wartime bubble), not government austerity policy.
Not related to books relating to my life, I was fascinated though of course not surprised by how often famine or near-famine was mentioned. I would totally read Famine: People Starving During the Great War and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931 but I have a feeling that book wouldn't sell as well as the ones about how cod is the most important part of history or whatever.
Japan considered a "national humiliation loan" that was presumably intended to be just that
Interestingly, not so much. All the world's central bankers (and J.P. Morgan was effectively the US central bank in this period) knew each other and were often good friends. Everyone involved quite sincerely believed in the gold standard, and if Japan faced stiff interest rates that was because Japan was a risky investment. And there was substantial popular belief in this too:
Arriving in Yokohama on October 3 [1927], Lamont [of Morgan] was welcomed as a hero, greeted by crowds of schoolchildren lining his way and by prints in shop windows calling him the "savior of Japan" for his role in arranging the postearthquake loans.This from Metzler, Lever of Empire, which BTW is as brilliant as Tooze.
Famine: People Starving During the Great War and the Remaking of the Global Order, 1916-1931
This might, for real, be Tooze's next book but one.
7. It's a while ago since I read it, but as far as I remember Japan was the first significant country to go into deflation because its export market was mostly China, and the price of silver, which the Chinese currency (whatever it was called in those days) was linked to, was moving rapidly in whichever direction resulted in Japanese imports dropping sharply. It wasn't a deliberate policy of the Japanese Finance Ministry, like the European and American deflations.
9: Interesting! Maybe we should have gotten someone who actually knows stuff to write the summary, but this way we don't have to!
Tooze talking about interwar agrarian stuff here.
11: All true. Also interestingly, the Chinese tael collapse was triggered by the British Raj debasing the (silver standard) rupee, so collapsing the silver price, and thus the silver tael against the (nominally) gold yen.
If we want to stay with modern history, but also want a complete change of focus, I just finished reading this, and found it as satisfying as the reviewer. The author is more of a journalist than a historian, but he's done his homework. Perhaps we should look for something a little more upbeat, though.
I was idly wondering if "warlord" was a piece of Chinese communist propaganda that stuck.
The Chinese character for "warlord" is the combination of the characters for "threat" and "anti-communist."
BTW, congratulations to Thorn on an excellent and entertaining summary of some of the least excellent or entertaining years in human history.
14 looks interesting. Though it breaks Thorn's Injunction, I found Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs totally fascinating, and think it would be even if one has little interest in the tech industry.
Second 17.
there were 60 signatories committed to peace, many of whom of course transitioned from that goal into world war again
Is one of my favorite sentences ever.
19: yes indeed. It's up there with "Not until evening did Model return to his headquarters, to begin planning what became the next day's mistake ".
19: Ugh, I think it's still too clunky and awkward, but I didn't bother editing any of this after writing. I thought about looking up exact numbers, but that seemed like too much work even though it would be interesting.
But thanks! I'm glad it worked. There were moments I wasn't sure I'd get through, especially once I started having a response to "gold standard" where my eyes rolled up into my head and I couldn't retrieve them.
Ok, Thorn's eyes mustn't read this comment:
Because it had spent the 1920s buying up gold as more and more countries tied their currencies to the gold standard, France now held about a quarter of the world's gold reserves
Nitpicking: France wasn't buying gold as such. What they did was return to gold far below the prewar exchange rate, which made their exports competitive, and left them with a trade surplus, and so a net inflow of gold. France then and now gets flak for hoarding that gold rather than respending it on imports, so worsening the Depression.
But they were hoarding to protect themselves against US financial leverage, which had fucked them over in 1923. This is a whole set of things I'd never even heard of before.
20: Where is that from? Lazy googling doesn't show it.
It's from a book about the battle of Kursk. The title escapes me but I think the author's called Eric Showalter.
Armor and Blood? Interesting?
Dennis Showalter according to Google. Sounds like a meaty read.
Somewhat on topic: A few days ago I ran into the ~97-year-old Holocaust survivor who built my house and is my neighbor's landlord. Not sure how we got onto it, but he was very quick to blame the Holocaust on America because we helped Hitler get into power to keep the Communists down. Also, maybe Hitler only declared war on the Soviets because he was egged on by us? Kind of hard to follow. He's a historian, you see. Nice guy.
Weirdly, all kind of true per Tooze. America did indeed promote deflation in Germany which did indeed help get Hitler into power; and said deflation was indeed also anti-communist, by bleeding labor. And per Wages of Destruction Hitler's invasions were indeed egged on by America, in the sense he was fucking scared of you.
I was reading the way that he presented it as more conspiratorial h structural, but fair enough. It did go well with Tooze's thesis of America being the prime mover.
I was assuming it was conspiratorial. That, or Tooze is a very well-preserved 97.
France then and now gets flak for hoarding that gold rather than respending it on imports, so worsening the Depression.
Is hoarding gold in the French national character? I'm thinking of how, in the 1960s, they emptied out Fort Knox by trading in all their greenbacks, causing the collapse of the Bretton Woods system.
I finally got to reading the post. It's very good and I'm glad I didn't waste time reading the actual chapters when I have a good summary to read. I think I made it to 21 before quitting.
33: I've no idea! And know nothing about Bretton Woods. But I wouldn't at all be surprised to find that French policy there had roots in this period.
Both Tooze books seem like useful background for understanding Bretton Woods and its collapse. Not that I have any significant personal understanding of any of this beyond what I've gleaned from this reading group.
They seem increasingly to be useful background for everything, especially as I dig deeper into the bibliography.
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Today is the 95th anniversary of the execution of Baron von Ungern-Sternberg, one of the most colourful villains of this or any period.
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Long may he gaze upon the sleeper in the pyramid.
If we want Tigre to do recaps, 38 may be the way to go!
That's a great book Chris linked in 38.
Rauchway's book on the US going off the gold standard goes up through Bretton Woods. It is very readable. I found myself pulling up short now and then in surprise at how readable it was.
44: Thanks, that looks interesting. Metzler also is surprisingly readable.
44 is a great recommendation, thanks! I'm sure I could handle the phrase from him.
Well of course you can, but will your eyes stand their ground?
That was what I meant! I'm trying to cut down on my dualism to see if it helps me lose weight.
40: you're just saying that because you're in the acknowledgements. (As indeed am I.)