Asheville Citizen-Times, NC
May 13 2007
Neufeld’s column: Books explore battle between good and evil
by Rob Neufeld, Citizen-Times Correspondent
published May 13, 2007 12:15 am
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Imagine a middle school history teacher beginning the year with the
statement, `Students, we’re going to study one main topic, and that
is: How can good win over evil?’ The first task would be to name the
good and evil.
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Pick a critical year
`Hope and Fear in America, 1919′ – that’s the subtitle of Ann
Hagedorn’s new book, `Savage Peace.’ 1919 is her pick for a horrible
year. Lynchings, deportations, plague, riots, fear mongering and
domestic spying followed in the wake of the WWI Armistice.
On Christmas Day 1918, then-journalist Carl Sandburg was arrested and
interrogated in New York for bringing his Russian research home from
Sweden. His name was spelled `Sandberg,’ which made him sound German
or Jewish.
Fear of Germans (there were more than 8 million people of German
descent in the United States in 1910) and of Bolsheviks continued
after the war with the extension of the Alien and Sedition Acts. It
became legal to arrest people for criticizing the government, even
off-handedly. And your neighbor might report you.
The Justice Department enlisted volunteer spies from patriotic
organizations and created the largest unofficial espionage network in
history, states Hagedorn. The major volunteer spy group, the American
Protective League, went underground in 1921 when the hysteria died
down, but its members were recruited into the Ku Klux Klan in the
1920s and the FBI in 1935.
Murder, Inc.
Paranoia and propaganda seem to be ingredients in an evil-doing brew.
But that isn’t explanation enough. So, we turn to a new book about
World War I, `A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to
1918′ by G.J. Meyer. The world that had been undone was one in which
people were high on optimism about worldwide peace.
The tipping point, every basic text tells, was an assassination – of
Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife. `The murders aroused
little interest’ in Europe, Meyer writes. `In the two decades before
1914, presidents of the United States, France, Mexico, Guatemala,
Uruguay, and the Dominican Republic had been murdered. So had prime
ministers of Russia, Spain, Greece, Bulgaria, Persia, and Egypt, and
kings, queens, and empresses of Austria, Italy, Serbia, Portugal, and
Greece.’
No wonder kids turn off to history. It’s not just the `Decline and
Fall’ litany, it’s also the cynicism. And the confusion – where was
the worldwide peace?
When you try to locate the bad seed of 1914, you first come to The
Black Hand, the Serbian nationalist group to which the assassins had
belonged. The assassins, as it turns out, had been riff-raff, whom
some powerful people had engaged to redress some old, old hurts over
economic prizes – namely, Constantinople.
Nationalism, Meyer demonstrates, becomes a tool for getting popular
support for a few big players’ private aims. Then history students –
people like you and me – are sucked into wars that warp our minds and
make us into mirror images of our enemy. Just look at the way the
multicultural Young Turks became the Turks who committed sadistic
genocide against the Armenians in 1915, as Meyer relates.
It’s not a pretty fairy tale.
Fairy tales
Our historical fantasies (books and movies) glorify in heroism and
slaughter. There’s no doubt who the good guys are: us, the ones who
don’t look like monsters.
`The Lord of the Rings’ is more sophisticated than most fantasies.
Power – via the ring – corrupts anybody, Tolkien shows. But it is not
sophisticated enough. Common life is lacking except in idylls. HBO
dramas come closer to the mark, though they’re too dark.
Two great contemporary authors – John Updike and Ward Just – have
attempted to come to human terms with terrorism in their 2006 novels,
`The Terrorist’ and `Forgetfulness.’ But they have not hit the mark
in terms of popularity.
Best-selling British historical suspense writer Anne Perry has just
completed her five-novel saga about World War I with `We Shall Not
Sleep.’ Throughout the series, her characters have sought out a
mysterious English traitor, nicknamed `The Peacemaker,’ and in the
process have become complicit in war crimes.
OK, we’re ill at ease. But we still don’t have the story that has the
resonance of a fairy tale, the substance of history and the clarity
of a confession. I rejoiced when I put my hands on Zachary Karabell’s
new book, `Peace Be Upon You: The Story of Muslim, Christian, and
Jewish Coexistence.’ It’s must reading for scholars, who might then
take the message of hope – told through specific historical episodes
– to us readers who like to be entertained as well as edified.
Rob Neufeld writes about books for The Citizen-Times. Contact him at
768-BOOK or RNeufeld@ charter.net. Visit his blog, `The World and
Books,’ at CITIZEN-TIMES.com./booksblog.
BOOKS REVIEWED
– `Savage Peace: Hope and Fear in America, 1919′ by Ann Hagedorn
(Simon & Schuster hardcover, 2007, 553 pages, $30).
– `A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918′ by G.J.
Meyer (Delacorte trade paperback, 2007, 816 pages, $20).
– `We Shall Not Sleep’ by Anne Perry (Ballantine hardcover, 2007, 304
pages, $21.95).
– `Peace Be Upon You: The Story of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish
Coexistence’ by Zachary Karabell (Knopf hardcover, 2007, 347 pages,
$26.95).
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