NYTimes Interview With Myself

Historiann has posted a self interview inspired by the James McPherson Interview in the NYTimes Book Review. Historianns' interview can be found on her blog here: Historiann the New York Times Book Review Interview

See her scathing review of that interview here whered-ya-go-chip-hilton-our-historical-imagination-turns-its-lonely-eyes-to-you

I've accepted her challenge and decided to dust off the old blog. Here is the AFFOP NYTimes Book Review Interview in all its glory. 


--> What books are currently on your night stand?
Stanislaw Lem, Tales of Pirx the Pilot; Karl Marx, Capital vol 1, and David Harvey’s Guide to Reading Marx’s Capital. Marx is my breviary if you will. 

What was the last truly great book you read?
For my area specialization in history, Modern Central and Eastern Europe, its got to be Martin Mevius, Agents of Moscow: The Hungarian Communist Party and the Origins of Socialist Patriotism 1941-1953 (oxford 2005). The book really changed how I understood the wartime and late Stalinist communist parties of Eastern Europe. A revelation. Those bastards at Oxford only have it as a print on demand hardback for 117 quid.

Another book I stand in awe of is Derluguian, Georgi M. Bourdieu’s Secret Admirer in the Caucasus: A World-System Biography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. Totally mind blowing. It canvases everything from the collapse of the Soviet Union, the wars in the Caucasus, to late Soviet politics on the regional level. The interpretive framework is unique. The sources and fieldwork are incredible. A unique book. 

Who are the best historians writing today?
In my specialization, Holly Case, Nancy Wingfield, Katherine Verdery, Tara Zahra, Larry Wolff, Keely Stauter-Halsted, Michael Palairet, John Lampe, and Mary Gluck among others. 

What’s the best book ever written about American history?

I have no clue about American history. My knowledge does not go beyond the anecdotal and trivial.

The best book in my field is really hard to say. I think Robin Okey has written the best survey history of the Habsburg Monarchy, but it isn’t exactly Friday night pleasure reading.

Okey, Robin. The Habsburg Monarchy: From Enlightenment to Eclipse. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001.

Sorry–I didn’t realize.  Maybe I should ask if you have a favorite biography?

How about Litván, György. A Twentieth-Century Prophet: Oscár Jászi, 1875-1957. Budapest ; New York: Central European University Press, 2006? It’s a nice look at an intellectual whose career spanned three states and both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Plus I reviewed it for H-net. 

What are the best military histories?
Most Americans are woefully ignorant of World War Two as it was fought on the Eastern Front and in China. I can’t recommend any off the top of my head about the later, but for the former everyone should read: Bartov, Omer. The Eastern Front, 1941-45: German Troops and the Barbarisation of Warfare. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986. I hear that Timothy Snyder fellow wrote a good book about Eastern Front as well. 

During your many years of teaching, did you find that students responded differently over time to the history books you assigned?
Marx and the Communist Manifesto. When I started teaching we were in the throws of Post-Cold War Triumphalism. My students were very dismissive of Marx and I had to work hard to make a case for why he was still relevant for understanding contemporary European politics. After the 2007-2008 recession, I find students somewhat more receptive, but he is totally alien to their mode of thought. 

What kind of reader were you as a child?
A voracious one but almost exclusively non-fiction. My best remembered summer was in middle school when I would bicycle down to the public library every other day and check out as many books as I could fit in my book bag. I would read them, sometimes two or three a day, until I ran out. Then I would go back to the library and get some more. I read the requisite (for young males) American Heritage History series on the Civil War and everything on World War Two. My favorite book was about the history and technical development of Dutch windmills. I wish I could find that book today.
The only fiction I read outside of the required readings for high school was Alistair McLean novels, Sci Fi (especially Isaac Asimov), Tolkien, and the Encyclopedia Brown mystery series. 

If you had to name one book that made you who you are today, what would it be?
One book is tough. I guess it would be Carl Schorske, Fin-de-Siècle Vienna. New York: Vintage books, 1981. Walter Benjamin’s essay, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction is another influence. I am ashamed to admit it, but everything I wrote starting out as a graduate student was a pale and failed imitation of either Carl Schorske or Walter Benjamin. You are what you eat, or read, in this case. Fortunately, I learned not to be an imitator of Schorske. The Benjamin habit is proving harder to kick. It remains mostly in remission. 

If you could require the president to read one book, what would it be?
???Mine, if I finish it???

You’re hosting a literary dinner party. Which three writers are invited?
Since this is imaginary, its OK that they are all dead, right? Richard Kapuczinsky, Stanislaw Lem, and Doris Lessing. These writers have all made me weep when I didn’t want to. 

Disappointing, overrated, just not good: What book did you feel as if you were supposed to like, and didn’t? Do you remember the last book you put down without finishing?
I refuse to say that a book is not any good. That is such a gossipy question, asking someone to dish like that. But there is a book I haven’t been able to finish it since I started reading it this summer. Edwards, Elizabeth. The Camera as Historian: Amateur Photographers and Historical Imagination, 1885-1918. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012. It’s a shame, because this book is in my wheelhouse in terms of time period and subject matter. I have not been able to get a handle on it.  I’d say that just because a book is hard to read or demands our undivided attention or stretches us in an unexpected way, that doesn’t mean that it is automatically bad. We might just be bad readers.  

What books are you embarrassed not to have read yet?
Lieberman, Alicia F. The Emotional Life of the Toddler. New York : Free Press, 1993.
My kid has just moved from toddlerhood to preschool and I have not been able to keep up with the relevant literature. In terms of the history books I should be reading, I suppose I’ll get around to those when I need to for a paper or for a class. 

What do you plan to read next?
I don’t know.

Book Review!

This is just a quick post, to a book review I did for H-net.

György Litván. A Twentieth-Century Prophet: Oscár Jászi, 1875-1957. New York: Central European University Press, 2006. 570 pp. $59.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-963-7326-42-4.

A small success. I will post more once I have my journal article done and in print.

This blog is on hiatus

In case you haven't noticed, there has been precious little activity on this blog in the past few months. I have drafted some entries, but then failed to post them for a variety of reasons. The main one being forgetfulness but the second is more philosophical: I am afraid this blog has veered from its intended beat. I have posted on history, politics and other topics of the moment, but I have relatively few on the themes I set out to explore, namely food, travel and the life of the bon vivant scholar.

So, I will require some time to put things back on track. I anticipate a pork related posting in a couple of weeks. I am getting ready to make homemade tacos al pastor this weekend. I hope to post the results shortly thereafter. Ideally with photos and a recipe.

At some point, I'd like to inaugurate a different blog, dedicated to politics and the practice of history, but my cyber publishing will be limited until I publish more history between the covers of a peer reviewed journal. That will not happen until this summer.

On the Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day... 2008

Its the ninetieth anniversary of the Armistice that ended World War One. The peace process would spin itself out into the summer of 1919, but November 11th became the day Europeans use to commemorate the end of the war. Americans used to celebrate Armistice day to, but in 1954 it became Veterans Day to honor all those who had served in the US military. In a sense, the American social memory of World War Two has eclipsed that of the Great War.

What is interesting is that the Europeans still choose to commemorate the First World War as a separate event. Arguably World War Two was a disaster of greater magnitude in terms of military and civilian casualties. Certainly, European social memory would be justified in reducing WWI to the status of a prologue or preview of WWII. But this is not the case. Instead, World War One has served to delineate the end of one era and the beginning of another. The 'long nineteenth century' begins in Paris in 1789 and ends on the Somme in 1914.

Due to World War One's status as a historical turning point, there are still scholarly debates about who started the war. It seems like the arguments boil down to the same propositions. One side suggests that a general European war was an accident sparked by nationalism in the Balkans facilitated by an interlocking system of alliances. In this explanation, a regional conflict between Serbia and Austria Hungary becomes exacerbated by a system of alliances that tied the diplomatic hands of the great powers. After 1918 some statesmen from both sides made this argument in their memoirs, perhaps because they were anxious to wash their hands of any responsibility for the preceding four years of indiscriminate slaughter. If you spread the guilt around nobody has to take too many lumps.

The other proposition is more straightforward and in a way its more emotionally satisfying in the Anglo-Saxon world: the Germans did it. This argument goes something like this: the Austrians would have never fought a preemptive war without the explicit backing of the German government. Kaiser Wilhelm II could have restrained Franz Joseph by refusing to declare war on Russia and her ally France. Instead the German government gave the Austrians a blank check. This version of history was written into the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. Again, this explanation avoids examining the culpability of allied statesmen like Lloyd George and Clemenceau while dumping the problem in the lap of the fledgling Weimar Republic.

This question of World War One war guilt was even more important after WWII. It shaped the allied response to a defeated Nazi Germany and its allies. For example, the Moscow Declaration of 1943 declared that Austria was the first free country to fall to Nazi aggression and voided the Anschluss of 1938. This partially exonerated Austria of its participation in the war. The idea was to encourage the Austrians to throw off the Nazi yoke by promising them different treatment after the war. Similarly the allies planned on treating Italy differently after Mussolini had been overthrown in a coup. The assumption here was that the Germans were the main aggressors and that their partners in crime could be peeled off if given the right incentives.

The 4 D's (Denazification, Decartelization, Demilitarization and Democratization) of the German Occupation also reflected the Versailles interpretation of World War One. These policies placed an emphasis on curing the Germans of their autocratic and militaristic habits. The allies saw a continuity between Nazi and Wilhelmine war aims. Later, in the 1960s, a German historian named Fritz Fischer would develop this tacit assumption into a fully articulated historiographic argument in his book, Germany's Aims in the First World War. Fischer's book was revolutionary and provided an important jumping off point for a reinvigorated and more rigorous reappraisal of the Kaiserreich era (1870-1918).

There is a pretty good recapitulation of the "Germany Did It" argument to be found in a November 8th Guardian article by the British military historian, Gary Sheffield. Personally, there is a lot I like about the Sheffield article and his interpretation. But as a historian of the Habsburg Monarchy, I can't help but think blame should be allocated elsewhere. I have some sympathy for the 'accident thesis.' The system of alliances and the general atmosphere of competition between the great powers provided ample tinder for a general European conflagration, but it was the choice of Franz Joseph, the Austrian General Staff and the political leaders of the Dual Monarchy to wage a preemptive war on Serbia. Kaiser Wilhelm did not push the Austrians into war, they went there of their own accord. But frankly, that's another post for another day...

Pancetta

A few weeks ago, well back in October, I went over to my friend's Matt & Jeniffer's house to partake in bacon smoking and pancetta rolling. She has posted the results on her blog: Sew and Slow.

I got to take the bacon home that day, but the pancetta had to air cure for about four weeks, so the Sunday before the election, Jennifer stopped by and dropped off a hunk of the rolled porky goodness at the house. So far I have used it to make and omelet, pasta carbonara, and a BLT. The results were fantastic and rolling your own pancetta is pretty satisfying!

In lieu of content: a map of my travels

visited 13 states (5.77%)
Create your own visited map of The World

Surprise! The World Didn't End, but ...

It looks like the better part of Eastern Europe is going into IMF receivership. On Monday Hungary put in a request for financing with the IMF, followed by the Ukraine, Serbia and possibly the Baltic states in the last few days.

According to the Daily Telegraph, Iceland made a request to the IMF board for help in the financial crisis, over the weekend. A week earlier Iceland said it would seek a loan from Russia, but perhaps the terms were not so favorable. (I can imagine Putin/Medvedev demanding the air base at Keflavik and an annual tribute of sacrificial virgins.)

So the financial meltdown won't be a dramatic apocalypse, but rather a long, drawn-out, slide into austerity for the US and Western Europe. Eastern Europe and the rest of the semi-periphery will take it in the shorts in the form of lower consumption, lower pay and the drive to produce more exports to pay off the latest round of loans. The social safety net will also take another beating in the interest of cutting government debt at the behest of the IMF.

And I promise that the next post will be about food. Honest.

Is Rome Burning?

Well, yesterday I received my TIAA-Creff quarterly report. I haven't opened it yet. I am not so sure I want to. Granted, I have twenty-five or thirty years before I need to retire, but still its really disappointing to see my retirement savings take such a merciless shellacking. Worse still I am not sure what this means for my parents and their financial future. How are they supposed to get along?

What is more disappointing, and even downright alarming is that the response by the Bush Administration and even the states of the European Union, has been so disjointed. Check out the Paul Krugman editorial for thursday if you can stomach it. I suspect that this is one of those moments in History when the events make the men.

For months now the mainstream media has told us two things. One, that Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson are really smart. They have the technical knowledge and professional expertise to fend off financial catastrophe. (Recall the countless stories about Bernanke's academic credentials and expertise on the History of the Great Depression). If there is a problem, we were told, these men will know what to do and when to do it.

The second trope was that the next intervention will solve the problem. Think back to the fed sponsored buyout of Bear Sterns, the nationalization of Freddy Mac and Salley Mae, or the Bush plan to help home owners refinance their subprime mortgages. These interventions were supposed to stop the slide into a global financial crisis. The interventions may have slowed or deflected the slide, but it looks like we are in a global financial crisis and probably a deep recession.

The failure of these earlier interventions suggests that expertise of Bernanke and Paulson are proving irrelevant to the course of events. Whatever is decided by 'the wise men' from North America and Europe this weekend in Washington DC, it might all be too little too late.

Snark: Out of their Historiographic Depth

Go check out this post over on Edge of the American West about Niall Ferguson's comparison of Nazi and American laws on race and eugenics.

See the monster of American exceptionalism raise its ugly head!!!

Watch as Eric and the other Historians from the Edge walk a methodological tightrope... while blindfolded by an ignorance of German historiography ...without the benefit of a safety net or comparative framework!!!

Warning: This post might not be suitable for all audiences. Beware of flailing academics and parochial historiographic traditions.

Wordle

OK, so its a silly internet trick, but you can create a word picture of you blog, or just about any other text by using Wordle. Here is one for affop.

Egy francia krémes kérek szépen...

There are many fine cakes to be eaten in Hungary. Pastry shops offer many delicious deserts, treats and ice cream cones. But nothing compares to the francia krémes. Essentially it is a wonderful vanilla custard sandwiched between crispy sheets of flaky pastry dough. If there is one thing I would like to learn how to bake, it is the francia krémes from Auguszt cukrászda.

Remembering WWI in Budapest

Over Memorial Day weekend, I read a post over at Crooked Timber called, "The Great and Unremembered War,"about the different ways World War One is remembered in the United States and Europe. I think the World War One memorial around the corner from Yusaf's flat is a pretty good example of the way war is remembered here. So here are a couple of pictures and I'll post more on the flickr site later.

The history of Hungary in the twentieth century is pretty traumatic. Between 1867 and 1914, the Kingdom of Hungary had achieved a notable measure of political autonomy and economic growth, but things went down hill with WWI. The war itself was brutal, with over 2 million casualties out of 3.6 million Hungarian soldiers. After the war, between October 1918 and November 1919, the country underwent two revolutions, Romanian occupation and a right-wing counterrevolution. In the course of the peace negotiations Hungary lost significant territory to its neighbor Romania and the newly created Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.

The trauma of the First World War is reflected in local monuments all around Hungary. This one, near the corner of Baross utca and József körút, is a pretty typical example. It both shows the heroic, yet generic stern-faced Hungarian soldier advancing on the enemy trench, but the pedestal has a frieze showing the soldiers marching off to war and leaving behind loved ones. I am not sure about the exact history of this monument, but from what I understand some of these monuments were erected in the Horthy era and others were built under the Socialists, but I need to do more research on this.

After the 1989 Revolution, lots of monuments, especially those associated with World War Two and State Socialism were removed or repurposed (The Gellert Hill Freedom monument is a great example of this kind of landmark recycling). But the World War One monuments have remained, perhaps because there is some consensus on this part of twentieth century Hungarian history. It was downright awful and there is no political capital to be gained from removing or redecorating them, unlike say some of the commemorations of the 1956 Revolutions or World War Two.

One last Vienna post

hmm. Its been a while since I posted and I probably should be putting more stuff up about Budapest, since I leave in a week...

But I wanted to put up one last picture from Vienna. This is a place called Cafe Drexler and its across the street from the Nashmarkt, a open air food market during the week plus a flea market on the weekends. Last time I visited Vienna (seven years ago!) I had the afore mentioned Marillen Knödeln at the Drexler. It was the kind of place where the truck drivers would eat their breakfast after making the 4am delivery at the Nashmarkt. When I poked my head in this time, it looked like it had been refurbished and now the menu is kind of yuppiefied. Or at least they did not have any doughy-deep-fried-apricot-powdered-sugar goodness.

Obama has a posse in Vienna

I saw this poster on a street in Vienna near my hotel. It looks like a straight black and white copy of a poster Shepard Fairey did for Obama before Super Tuesday. He is the graffiti/street artist who created the "obey giant" stickers and posters that have been floating around the North American streetscape since the late 1990s.

When I first saw the Obama poster, I was kind of startled. I know people around the world follow US elections, especially Presidential elections with great interest. I was surprised that anyone would feel like they had to go put up posters in support of a candidate that they will never get a chance to vote for and not many American voters will see. I suppose this could be the work of American expats in Vienna, but I doubt it. Covering the hoardings with posters isn't typical expat political activity. Also, considering that the Neubau and Mariahilfer districts are near the Museums Quartier and the Art School I am guessing its the work of some of the art students.

This election means a lot to people both inside and outside the US. There are a lot of expectations for the next president of the United States to repair the failures of the last eight years. People in Europe and elsewhere expect a lot of the American voter, Obama and the Democratic Party in November 2008. I think those hopes are justified, but Obama and his supporters in the Democratic Party will not be able to deliver on everything. For example, ending the war in Iraq might very well destroy whatever chance we have of fixing health care and social security. It will be interesting to see if Obama can still be inspiring after he has lost a couple battles and made some tough compromises. I know he can do these things, he is a politician after all. But we'll see how long he will retain his status as a pop icon.

Amerlingbeisl

I had a couple of good meals while I was in Vienna. The place I liked the most, in terms of atmosphere and cuisine was Amerlingbeisl. It had a fantastic courtyard seating area with a really beautiful arbor of hops (or some such vine). It was quiet and charming. The waitress was really nice and recommended a great glass of wine with the meal: asparagus wrapped in a farmers ham, and spuds swimming in butter( hell, I'd bet the potatoes were marinaded in butter the night before).

The best part is that this is all squirreled away in a two story Biedermeier style building in the heart of Vienna (probably from the early 1800s or late 1700s). The building also serves as a cultural center for the Spittelberg neighborhood. But the cultural center was a product of the 1970s, not the 1800s. Check out the pictures from the 1970s. Check out the courtyard panorama on the restaurant's home page too.

Vienna Municipal and State Archives

So the Vienna City Archives are just one metro stop further down the U3 than the National Archives. And they are housed in a much more interesting building. At the turn of the nineteenth century (you know, the other Fin-de-Siècle, 1900) the city of Vienna produced its own gas from coal. They stored it in four Gasometers near the town of Simmering. Liquid natural gas made them obsolete and the city government stopped using them in the 1980s. In 1995 it was decided to convert the historic landmark into multi-use buildings. They now contain a shopping mall, offices for city and government services, apartments and... the Vienna City Archives!

Here is a spiffy link to the Gasometer Community they have a nice gallery of pictures.

Vienna: the breaded and the fried

Typically, Viennese cuisine involves three things: pork, breading and frying. The famous Wiener schnitzel is nothing but a charming slice of pork, pounded out flat, coated in breadcrumbs and fried. It is typically accompanied by some form of potato and slices of lemon. Sometimes there is a garnish of lettuce or sauerkraut to provide a fig leaf to cover up the utter lack of vegetables. The pleasure of this concept should be self-evident to everyone except the vegetarians.

Like Marxism, however, problems arise in the praxis of the thing: the meat can be overcooked and tough; the breading can be too heavy, and if it dwells too long in the deep fat fryer it tends to be really greasy. So finding a really great Wiener schnitzel is a joy to treasure. I haven't had one on this trip. In part I am afraid I will have a bad one, but also, there are many other things to try that aren't breaded and fried. Although that can surprise you too. The other day I ordered some Chevapi for lunch. Typically this Balkan dish is grilled not fried. But in Vienna, they roll those little guys around in the breadcrumbs and pop them into the fryer!

They also do this with apricots by the way... Marillen Knödeln – These are dumplings stuffed with apricots or maybe an apricot wrapped in dumping. Then they are deep fried and served with apricot jam and powdered sugar. Its Marillen season soon, so maybe I can score some.

A trip to the Archives

Not all archives are created equal, at least not in aesthetic terms. The Hungarian archives are squirreled away in a nice nineteenth century historicist building in the the Buda Castle. Great building, nice reading room, but a bit small, so bits and pieces of the archives are stashed in other parts of the city.

In Vienna, the Austrian State Archives are in a big modern building out near the suburban district of Simmering. The outside of the building is fantastically ugly. Its a terrific example of modernism gone wrong. The building is lumpy and white, and the windows have a gold reflective coating that is particular to Central Europe.

Best of all the reading room of the archive has this terrific institutional furniture made of wood laminate. Its light blond in color and has the same appeal as the "avocado" or "golden rod" colored appliances of the same era.

Of course, what the archives look like is besides the point. True beauty is what lies within. And in that respect the Austrian State Archives are great. The staff are unfailingly kind and helpful. They have graciously put up with my crummy German. Based on the finding aids and their advice, it turns out that there will be plenty of material for my projects. I can't wait until I get to visit again.

My Favorite 'commie modern' building in Bp

To paraphrase P.J. O'Rourke, "Commies love concrete." The era of "Socialist Construction" in Hungary was littered with gobs of prefabricated concrete apartment blocs and monumental office buildings in the 'neo-brutalist' style. But there were a few architectural gems built too. One of them is the central bus station on Elizabeth square (Erzsibet tér).

Here are two pictures of the mildly renovated bus station. There is a little bit of nostalgia involved. I used to take the bus to Vienna a lot back in the 1990s and in 2000-2001. Nowadays the central bus station is out at the Népstadion (People's Stadium) which I think has been renamed after Ferenc Puskás, the soccer player.

A freshly installed hole

One of the ongoing infrastructure projects in Budapest is Metro 4, the new subway line that connects the city center with South Western Buda. This summer I have been spotting various fenced off parts of the city that are part of the project. Here is a picture of the construction near the Freedom bridge and March 15th Square. They have shut down the bridge, part of the street and closed the #2 tram stop.

Budapest has a long history of holes. When I was here in 2000-2001 they were in the middle of the fight over where the national theater would be. So there was a gigantic, incomplete parking structure/hole in between Elizabeth and Déak Squares. The magyars eventually resolved the impasse between the city government (run by MSZP) and the national government (run by FIDESZ at the time... I think) by building a cultural center.