The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited / Benny Morris -- Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004

Thirty years after the 1947-49 War in historic Palestine, the Israeli government began declassifying the archives of the Jewish Agency and the Israeli security forces.  This gave rise to a new understanding of the war.  The Israeli historians who made use of these archives became known as "the New Historians."  This review covers two books by two of them: The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited by Benny Morris and The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe.  (The review is available on this blog under both titles.)   

In reviewing the work of the New Historians, one must first understand the original narrative of the 1947-49 War.  The narrative was virtually unchallenged in Israel and in Western countries until the late 1980s.  It remains widely accepted today, but due to the work of the New Historians, serious scholars no longer accept the narrative. 

Morris and Pappe address three elements of the original narrative:  (1) 1947 Israel was a modern David surrounded by Arab Goliaths, (2) the Arab countries launched the war on May 15 after rejecting the UN Partition Plan, and (3) Palestinians left their homes of their own free will at the behest of Arab leaders.

I. Benny Morris: The Palestinian Refugee Problem 

The first edition of Morris's book was published in 1988.  He began writing it as a history of Haganah, the Jewish militia which later became the Israeli Defense Force.  Morris was given special access to Haganah's archives, but authorities later denied him access when they understood where his work was leading.  At the same time, other Israeli archives from the war period were becoming declassified.  This allowed Morris to continue his work.  

Morris's conclusions are not completely inconsistent with the original narrative.  He accepts that the Israeli leadership at first was not entirely certain of their ability to prevail in a war with the Arabs and that many factors resulted in the depopulation of Arab communities.  Most significantly, he believes the Jewish Agency had no premeditate plans to "transfer" Arabs out of areas under Jewish control. 

According to Morris, the Israeli leadership's initial concern about security was alleviated as they saw near universal success of their military operations.  At first, they sought to secure communication lines between Jewish settlements, especially between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and to provide an adequate defense of the small number of isolated Jewish settlements.  This was accomplished relatively quickly.  In all, only two Jewish settlements were lost during the war.  It quickly became clear to the Jewish Agency that the Arab population in Palestine was no match for the Jewish forces.  

One should distinguish, however, what was known by the leadership from what was believed by the general Jewish population.  Many in the Jewish community had fled, or were descendants of those who had fled, from pogroms in Eastern Europe as well as Shoah survivors.  Living in what was for most of them a foreign land among a suspicious indigenous population, including overtly hostile elements, could not have fostered a sense of security; however, the population's perception of the danger was not in line with the actual relative military capabilities of Arab and Jewish security forces.

Immediately following the UN's adoption of the Partition Plan, a low intensity conflict between Arabs and Jews began.  Arab irregular forces engaged mostly in small skirmishes and sniper attacks on passing Jewish convoys.  Some volunteers from neighboring Arab states, known as the Army of Rescue, also participated in these attacks.  In quick response, Jewish militias (Haganah, Irgun, and the Stern Gang) attacked villages from which they believed the Arab attacks emerged.  Their responses frequently were disproportionate and not always directed against the responsible parties.  An escalating cycle of violence ensued.  This prompted a significant number of Arabs to flee their homes in fear of and in response to Jewish assaults and/or anticipated Jewish political control. 

Among the most significant observations made by the New Historians is the implementation of "Plan Dalet" or "Plan D," by Haganah.  Plan D was composed of 13 specific military operations designed to occupy and exert control over Arab populated regions, both inside and outside the UN boundaries of the prospective Jewish state.  The plan was finalized during the sectarian violence in early March 1948 and was implemented in the first week of April -- six weeks before the British Mandate would end on May 14.  

For the first time since the passage of the UN Partition Plan, significant military assets were mobilized in coordinated attacks against an enemy.  One might identify November 29, 1947 as the start of escalating sectarian violence and the first week of April as when Israel launched a coordinated war against the Palestinians.  May 15, which is considered the start of the war by the original historical narrative, would mark, instead, the date when neighboring Arab countries joined in the defense of the beleaguered Palestinian population. 

Morris's Revisited (2nd) edition was published in 2004.  It was prompted by the release of additional archival material and Morris's desire to respond to criticism that he had not adequately examined the pre-war discussion among the Jewish leadership of transferring the Arab population out of Palestine.  Morris devotes a new chapter on the discussion of transfer.  He concludes that while there was pre-war interest among the leadership in transferring the population, the connection between that interest and what actually happened is "more tenuous than Arab propagandists would allow. "  According to Morris, the flight of refugees was mainly the consequence of local decisions made by specific military commanders in their efforts to secure the territory they were occupying for the Jewish state.  Additionally, some Arab directives to flee and decisions by the Arab upper class to wait out the war abroad played a role in the departure of Palestinians.  In any case, Israel's leaders recognized that their military operations were sparking the unexpected flight of Arabs which would serve the interests of a secure Israeli state.  As in the first edition, Morris continues to argue that the depopulation of Arab communities was a complex event that involved many factors.  

Morris does accept that Israel's military operations were the primary motivating force. He estimates that 600,000-760,000 Palestinian Arabs "departed their homes" between November 1947 and October 1950.  He documents 392 Arab cities, towns, and villages that were "abandoned" by their populations and 186 Israeli settlements that were constructed in their place.  Jewish and Israeli forces variously assisted, encouraged, directed, and forcibly expelled Palestinians from their homes in the course of different military operations. Morris's detailed accounting of this massive demographic shift is perhaps what made his first edition so ground breaking.  

Morris acknowledges that numerous atrocities were committed by Haganah and especially by the dissident Jewish militias, Irgun and the Stern Gang.  These atrocities -- massacres of tens of villagers at a time and sometimes more -- had a significant impact on the decisions of Arabs to flee their homes.  In the context of the war, the Jewish leadership simply allowed the flight of Arabs to unfold as a fortuitous consequence of war.  No official "transfer" policy was needed.  Morris does, however, identify some instances in which the leadership gave explicit expulsion orders.  He also recognizes that the leadership routinely approved expulsions after the fact and directed the destruction of buildings.

According to Morris, the Israeli leadership was surprised to see the mass exodus of Arabs, but they were insistent that very few refugees be allowed to return to their villages, and they made great efforts to ensure "infiltrators" would not return to their homes.  Even reluctant members of the leadership -- members of the more dovish party, Mapam -- eventually came around to accept the "transfer" of the population and the prohibition of its return. 

With regard to the three elements of the original narrative under discussion, Morris (1) rejects the claim that Israel was a modern David surrounded by Goliaths, (2) makes no real claim about what should be considered the start of the war, and (3) ambiguously assesses the motives for the flight of the Palestinians.  His work is noteworthy in that it broke the taboo that prevented an honest examination of Israel's origins.  Morris remains a Zionist, however, and rests his moral conclusions on the legitimacy of the foundation of Israel and the consequent need to secure the state through force, even if this involved producing hundreds of thousands of refugees and inflicting tens of thousands of casualties.

II. Ilan Pappe: The Ethnic Cleansing

The primary sources used by Morris are almost exclusively drawn from the Israeli archives.  His secondary sources are overwhelmingly in Hebrew.  This has lead to criticisms that he overlooks some important perspectives on and information about what was taking place.  Morris argues that these other perspectives are based largely on interviews and oral histories conducted too long after the events to be reliable.  In contrast, Ilan Pappe's work, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine makes use of these additional sources, along with many of the same archival sources used by Morris.  Pappe even makes use of both editions of Morris's work. 

Pappe's conclusions about Israeli actions and intentions are much more critical.  In his first chapter, he discusses the history and definition of the term "ethnic cleansing."  The reminder of the book is essentially an effort to show that while the expulsion of the Palestinians is a textbook case of ethnic cleansing, it has been ignored in discussions of past ethnic cleansings.  He often quotes the use of the term "cleanse" and its derivatives in Jewish documents and diaries that describe the expulsion of Palestinians.  

Pappe writes of the compilation of the "Village Files" by Jewish Arabists in the 1930s.  The files were a comprehensive registry of all the Arab villages in Palestine with details about their geography, economy, populations, leadership, and their relations with their Jewish neighbors.  The Files' main proponent in the Jewish Agency thought the creation of the registry would "greatly help the redemption of the land." As Jewish forces moved against Arab villages, the Village Files were invaluable, giving them detailed intelligence about their targets and even allowing them to identify specific individuals for assassination.

Pappe directly implicates the head of the Jewish Agency and first Prime Minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion as the primary directing force in planning and approving the expulsions.  A small group of advisors called the "Consultant Committee" or simply the "Consultancy" was formed in February 1947, months prior to the passage of the Partition Plan. It became Ben-Gurion's most important advisory group.  He and members of the Consultancy recognized the need to ensure a majority Jewish population of 70-80% inside the Jewish state.  Consequently, they would need to transfer Arabs out of Jewish controlled areas, including to neighboring states.  The tactics they adopted for expelling the population began with forceful "retaliation" against Arab violence, mainly against snipers shooting at Jewish convoys, but as early as in December 1947, this evolved into a more pro-active "engagement" or "violent reconnaissance" which did not require a pretext.  The aim was to intimidate the population and encourage flight.

Between the assembly and use of the Village Files and the proceedings and diaries of the Consultancy, Pappe's case for the premeditated expulsion of Palestinians is strong.  Certainly, Morris and Pappe agree that the Israeli leadership made a conscious decision to prevent displaced people from returning to their homes.  This confirms either the leadership's intentions to expel the population or its legitimation of expulsion after the fact.  In any case, Morris and Pappe together provide sufficient evidence that the flight of Palestinians from Israeli controlled areas was not mainly a function of Arab directives to leave.

By May 15, 1947, or soon after, most of the largest cities with Arab populations were occupied by Jewish forces and virtually emptied of their Arab inhabitants.  Haifa, Tiberias, Safad, and Baysan lay in regions designated for a Jewish state. Jaffa and Acre lay in regions designated for the Arabs.  West Jerusalem was to be governed by an international administration.  Pappe refers to the expulsion of inhabitants from these cities as "urbicide" to distinguish it from (on his accounting) the more than 500 Arab villages that Jewish and Israeli forces ultimately destroyed or converted into Jewish settlements.  

This demographic change began shortly after the UN adopted the Partition Plan.  The only significant disagreement between Morris and Pappe is whether the Jewish Agency consciously planned the expulsion or merely raised no meaningful objection to it and retroactively approved it.  From the point of view of the refugees, the distinction is unimportant.

Plans for the expulsion of the Arab population could be made confidently because of the known military and political weakness of the Arab population.  According to Pappe, Jewish Arabists were reporting to the Consultancy that there was virtually no interest in war among ordinary Palestinians.  Many Arab villages reached peace agreements with neighboring Jewish settlements to stay out of the impending conflict.  Furthermore, the British Mandatory Force effectively disarmed the Arab population in a crushing counter-insurgency campaign between 1936 and 1939.  The Arab leadership was exiled to the Seychelles for years after.  In any case, political authority among Palestinians historically did not extend far beyond the village leadership, making the coordination of defensive measures nearly impossible.  In general, the Arab population of Palestine was uninterested in war and extremely vulnerable.

Pappe argues that the armies of neighboring Arab states were not nearly as threating as the original narrative would have it.  The combined number of Arab forces were roughly similar to the number of the Jewish forces, but were less well-equipped and lacked an effective single command structure.  There was competition, suspicion, even animosity, between the Arab states, particularly between Egypt and Jordan and between Syria and Jordan.  

The Jordanian army was the most well-equipped and well-organized; however, Jordan's King Abdullah and David Ben-Gurion came to an agreement before May15th in which Jordan would control the West Bank (at least that part the Israelis would not conquer).  Abdullah publicly announced that his forces would not invade the region set aside for the Jewish state, but would only occupy the Arab region.  This alleviated Israel's greatest concern.  The disposition of Jerusalem, however, was not agreed upon by Abdullah and Ben-Gurion.  It was here that the most significant fighting took place between the Jordanians and the Israelis.

Egypt was potentially a significant force.  Yet according to Pappe, it mobilized only 10,000 soldiers, 5,000 of which were untrained members of the Muslim Brotherhood that were released from prison to fight in Palestine.  Initially, Egypt made progress by occupying territory populated almost exclusively by Arabs or that was virtually uninhabited.  For a time, they were able to isolate a small number of Jewish settlements in the Negev, but their advance into Palestine was halted after just one week.  Israeli forces then steadily drove them back to Egypt, leaving them to occupy only the Gaza Strip.

Syrian forces amounted to only a few thousand fighters.  They managed to capture a kibbutz just across the border, but did little more after that.  Syria's participation in the war was mostly token.  Lebanese forces operated by and large defensively in Western Galilee, a region that had been allocated for the Arab state.  By the end of the war, Israel had completely expelled Lebanese forces from historic Palestine.  Iraq provided a small number of fighters who were relatively effective in defending a number of villages in the northern region of the West Bank.

Pappe concludes -- and the outcome of the conflict confirms -- that Israel was not only well-equipped to defend itself from its Arab neighbors, its forces were simultaneously able to expel and prevent the return of the great majority of the Palestinian population from areas they captured.

With regard to the three elements of the original narrative, Pappe concludes that all of them are entirely false.  (1) Israel was not a modern David surrounded by Goliaths, (2) the war was launched by Israeli forces and was well-underway before the Arab armies joined the fight, and (3) not only were Arab directives not responsible for the flight of the Palestinians, but the Israeli leadership had a long, well-established plan to expel as many Arabs from the prospective Jewish state as they possibly could.  Israel executed that plan diligently.  

Pappe's penultimate chapter is titled, "The Memoricide of the Nakba."  "Nakba" is the Arabic word for catastrophe, which is how the Palestinians refer to the 1947-49 War.  He argues that the memory of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine has been consciously erased.  In years just after the 1967 War, Israel's Ministry of Information was especially active in creating the narrative that helped erase the memory of the Nakba.  In a speech in 1969 to students at the Technical University in Haifa, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan said, "Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages.  You don't know the names of these villages,...because these geography books no longer exist....There is not one single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population."  Pappe describes how the Naming Committee of the Jewish National Fund renamed places under Jewish control which explains why they are missing from the geography books.

And they are not just missing from the written record.  They are gone entirely, often covered over by new settlements or national forests planted by the Jewish National Fund.  The Fund has also been responsible for the creation of parks and resorts in place of destroyed Arab villages.  Many new Jewish developments have "green lungs," i.e., wooded areas that once were neighboring Arab villages.  The erasure of the evidence of a previous Arab population continues today.

One final point regarding the original narrative deserves attention.  The narrative also asserts that the Jewish Agency accepted the Partition Plan while the Arab leadership rejected it.  The latter is certainly true.  The Arab population had been struggling for self-determination as early as the mid-19th century.  They allied with the British in the First World War on the promise that Britain would support their independence after victory.  Much of the British controlled territory was granted independence (Iraq in 1932 and Jordan in 1946), but Palestine remained under British control.  

Through the 1920s and 1930s, Britain facilitated the colonization of Palestine by mostly European Jewish colonists.  By 1947, the Jewish population of Palestine reached roughly one third of the whole and they owned roughly only 7% of the land.  Nonetheless, the Partition Plan designated 55% of land and most of the best land to the Jewish state.  The Arabs had no formal role in ratifying the plan. In essence, the Partition Plan was the culmination of a decades-long colonial enterprise.  In this context, it's quite natural that the Arabs would not accept it.

The Jewish Agency's "acceptance" of the plan, however, was significantly qualified in that they did not accept the plan's borders.  Announcing the acceptance of the plan was a strategic decision that would provide the State of Israel international recognition.  At the same time, the Agency declared its intention to set its own borders.  Its early invasion of regions designated for the Arab state demonstrated that the Jewish Agency also rejected the plan's agreed upon borders.  Furthermore, a significant segment of the Jewish leadership of the time desired all of historic Palestine for the Jewish state, rejecting a two state solution entirely.  The 1967 War was in part motivated by this desire.  That war completed Israel's occupation of all of historic Palestine and produced hundreds of thousands of additional Palestinian refugees.  Nearly a quarter of a million people were force out of the West Bank, unable to return.  

Two years after the 1967 War, the Times of London reported Defense Minister Moshe Dayan as writing, "Our fathers had reached the frontiers which were recognized in the Partition Plan.  Our generation reached the frontiers of 1949.  Now the six-day generation has managed to reach Suez, Jordan and the Golan Heights.  That is not the end.  After the present cease-fire lines, there will be new ones.  They will extend beyond Jordan -- perhaps to Lebanon and perhaps to central Syria as well."  Whether there remains interest among the Israeli leadership of expanding Israel further is an open question.  There has always been talk of expanding north to the Litani River in Lebanon and the Jewish settlement of the West Bank appears to be leading to eventual annexation. 

What distinguishes Morris's and Pappe's views is their attitudes toward the goals of Zionism.  For Morris, they are fundamentally sound.  What is at issue is how those goals are to be accomplished and perhaps the final borders of Israel.  For Pappe, Zionism is a colonial-settler enterprise that has committed horrendous atrocities and denied Palestinians the fundament rights due any people.  But the facts of the stories they tell are largely the same.  It is these facts that the New Historians finally brought to light, regardless of how those facts are judged.  

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine / Ilan Pappe -- Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2006.

Thirty years after the 1947-49 War in historic Palestine, the Israeli government began declassifying the archives of the Jewish Agency and the Israeli security forces.  This gave rise to a new understanding of the war.  The Israeli historians who made use of these archives became known as "the New Historians."  This review covers two books by two of them: The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited by Benny Morris and The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe.  (The review is available on this blog under both titles.)   

In reviewing the work of the New Historians, one must first understand the original narrative of the 1947-49 War.  The narrative was virtually unchallenged in Israel and in Western countries until the late 1980s.  It remains widely accepted today, but due to the work of the New Historians, serious scholars no longer accept the narrative. 

Morris and Pappe address three elements of the original narrative:  (1) 1947 Israel was a modern David surrounded by Arab Goliaths, (2) the Arab countries launched the war on May 15 after rejecting the UN Partition Plan, and (3) Palestinians left their homes of their own free will at the behest of Arab leaders.

I. Benny Morris: The Palestinian Refugee Problem 

The first edition of Morris's book was published in 1988.  He began writing it as a history of Haganah, the Jewish militia which later became the Israeli Defense Force.  Morris was given special access to Haganah's archives, but authorities later denied him access when they understood where his work was leading.  At the same time, other Israeli archives from the war period were becoming declassified.  This allowed Morris to continue his work.  

Morris's conclusions are not completely inconsistent with the original narrative.  He accepts that the Israeli leadership at first was not entirely certain of their ability to prevail in a war with the Arabs and that many factors resulted in the depopulation of Arab communities.  Most significantly, he believes the Jewish Agency had no premeditate plans to "transfer" Arabs out of areas under Jewish control. 

According to Morris, the Israeli leadership's initial concern about security was alleviated as they saw near universal success of their military operations.  At first, they sought to secure communication lines between Jewish settlements, especially between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and to provide an adequate defense of the small number of isolated Jewish settlements.  This was accomplished relatively quickly.  In all, only two Jewish settlements were lost during the war.  It quickly became clear to the Jewish Agency that the Arab population in Palestine was no match for the Jewish forces.  

One should distinguish, however, what was known by the leadership from what was believed by the general Jewish population.  Many in the Jewish community had fled, or were descendants of those who had fled, from pogroms in Eastern Europe as well as Shoah survivors.  Living in what was for most of them a foreign land among a suspicious indigenous population, including overtly hostile elements, could not have fostered a sense of security; however, the population's perception of the danger was not in line with the actual relative military capabilities of Arab and Jewish security forces.

Immediately following the UN's adoption of the Partition Plan, a low intensity conflict between Arabs and Jews began.  Arab irregular forces engaged mostly in small skirmishes and sniper attacks on passing Jewish convoys.  Some volunteers from neighboring Arab states, known as the Army of Rescue, also participated in these attacks.  In quick response, Jewish militias (Haganah, Irgun, and the Stern Gang) attacked villages from which they believed the Arab attacks emerged.  Their responses frequently were disproportionate and not always directed against the responsible parties.  An escalating cycle of violence ensued.  This prompted a significant number of Arabs to flee their homes in fear of and in response to Jewish assaults and/or anticipated Jewish political control. 

Among the most significant observations made by the New Historians is the implementation of "Plan Dalet" or "Plan D," by Haganah.  Plan D was composed of 13 specific military operations designed to occupy and exert control over Arab populated regions, both inside and outside the UN boundaries of the prospective Jewish state.  The plan was finalized during the sectarian violence in early March 1948 and was implemented in the first week of April -- six weeks before the British Mandate would end on May 14.  

For the first time since the passage of the UN Partition Plan, significant military assets were mobilized in coordinated attacks against an enemy.  One might identify November 29, 1947 as the start of escalating sectarian violence and the first week of April as when Israel launched a coordinated war against the Palestinians.  May 15, which is considered the start of the war by the original historical narrative, would mark, instead, the date when neighboring Arab countries joined in the defense of the beleaguered Palestinian population. 

Morris's Revisited (2nd) edition was published in 2004.  It was prompted by the release of additional archival material and Morris's desire to respond to criticism that he had not adequately examined the pre-war discussion among the Jewish leadership of transferring the Arab population out of Palestine.  Morris devotes a new chapter on the discussion of transfer.  He concludes that while there was pre-war interest among the leadership in transferring the population, the connection between that interest and what actually happened is "more tenuous than Arab propagandists would allow. "  According to Morris, the flight of refugees was mainly the consequence of local decisions made by specific military commanders in their efforts to secure the territory they were occupying for the Jewish state.  Additionally, some Arab directives to flee and decisions by the Arab upper class to wait out the war abroad played a role in the departure of Palestinians.  In any case, Israel's leaders recognized that their military operations were sparking the unexpected flight of Arabs which would serve the interests of a secure Israeli state.  As in the first edition, Morris continues to argue that the depopulation of Arab communities was a complex event that involved many factors.  

Morris does accept that Israel's military operations were the primary motivating force. He estimates that 600,000-760,000 Palestinian Arabs "departed their homes" between November 1947 and October 1950.  He documents 392 Arab cities, towns, and villages that were "abandoned" by their populations and 186 Israeli settlements that were constructed in their place.  Jewish and Israeli forces variously assisted, encouraged, directed, and forcibly expelled Palestinians from their homes in the course of different military operations. Morris's detailed accounting of this massive demographic shift is perhaps what made his first edition so ground breaking.  

Morris acknowledges that numerous atrocities were committed by Haganah and especially by the dissident Jewish militias, Irgun and the Stern Gang.  These atrocities -- massacres of tens of villagers at a time and sometimes more -- had a significant impact on the decisions of Arabs to flee their homes.  In the context of the war, the Jewish leadership simply allowed the flight of Arabs to unfold as a fortuitous consequence of war.  No official "transfer" policy was needed.  Morris does, however, identify some instances in which the leadership gave explicit expulsion orders.  He also recognizes that the leadership routinely approved expulsions after the fact and directed the destruction of buildings.

According to Morris, the Israeli leadership was surprised to see the mass exodus of Arabs, but they were insistent that very few refugees be allowed to return to their villages, and they made great efforts to ensure "infiltrators" would not return to their homes.  Even reluctant members of the leadership -- members of the more dovish party, Mapam -- eventually came around to accept the "transfer" of the population and the prohibition of its return. 

With regard to the three elements of the original narrative under discussion, Morris (1) rejects the claim that Israel was a modern David surrounded by Goliaths, (2) makes no real claim about what should be considered the start of the war, and (3) ambiguously assesses the motives for the flight of the Palestinians.  His work is noteworthy in that it broke the taboo that prevented an honest examination of Israel's origins.  Morris remains a Zionist, however, and rests his moral conclusions on the legitimacy of the foundation of Israel and the consequent need to secure the state through force, even if this involved producing hundreds of thousands of refugees and inflicting tens of thousands of casualties.

II. Ilan Pappe: The Ethnic Cleansing

The primary sources used by Morris are almost exclusively drawn from the Israeli archives.  His secondary sources are overwhelmingly in Hebrew.  This has lead to criticisms that he overlooks some important perspectives on and information about what was taking place.  Morris argues that these other perspectives are based largely on interviews and oral histories conducted too long after the events to be reliable.  In contrast, Ilan Pappe's work, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine makes use of these additional sources, along with many of the same archival sources used by Morris.  Pappe even makes use of both editions of Morris's work. 

Pappe's conclusions about Israeli actions and intentions are much more critical.  In his first chapter, he discusses the history and definition of the term "ethnic cleansing."  The reminder of the book is essentially an effort to show that while the expulsion of the Palestinians is a textbook case of ethnic cleansing, it has been ignored in discussions of past ethnic cleansings.  He often quotes the use of the term "cleanse" and its derivatives in Jewish documents and diaries that describe the expulsion of Palestinians.  

Pappe writes of the compilation of the "Village Files" by Jewish Arabists in the 1930s.  The files were a comprehensive registry of all the Arab villages in Palestine with details about their geography, economy, populations, leadership, and their relations with their Jewish neighbors.  The Files' main proponent in the Jewish Agency thought the creation of the registry would "greatly help the redemption of the land." As Jewish forces moved against Arab villages, the Village Files were invaluable, giving them detailed intelligence about their targets and even allowing them to identify specific individuals for assassination.

Pappe directly implicates the head of the Jewish Agency and first Prime Minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion as the primary directing force in planning and approving the expulsions.  A small group of advisors called the "Consultant Committee" or simply the "Consultancy" was formed in February 1947, months prior to the passage of the Partition Plan. It became Ben-Gurion's most important advisory group.  He and members of the Consultancy recognized the need to ensure a majority Jewish population of 70-80% inside the Jewish state.  Consequently, they would need to transfer Arabs out of Jewish controlled areas, including to neighboring states.  The tactics they adopted for expelling the population began with forceful "retaliation" against Arab violence, mainly against snipers shooting at Jewish convoys, but as early as in December 1947, this evolved into a more pro-active "engagement" or "violent reconnaissance" which did not require a pretext.  The aim was to intimidate the population and encourage flight.

Between the assembly and use of the Village Files and the proceedings and diaries of the Consultancy, Pappe's case for the premeditated expulsion of Palestinians is strong.  Certainly, Morris and Pappe agree that the Israeli leadership made a conscious decision to prevent displaced people from returning to their homes.  This confirms either the leadership's intentions to expel the population or its legitimation of expulsion after the fact.  In any case, Morris and Pappe together provide sufficient evidence that the flight of Palestinians from Israeli controlled areas was not mainly a function of Arab directives to leave.

By May 15, 1947, or soon after, most of the largest cities with Arab populations were occupied by Jewish forces and virtually emptied of their Arab inhabitants.  Haifa, Tiberias, Safad, and Baysan lay in regions designated for a Jewish state. Jaffa and Acre lay in regions designated for the Arabs.  West Jerusalem was to be governed by an international administration.  Pappe refers to the expulsion of inhabitants from these cities as "urbicide" to distinguish it from (on his accounting) the more than 500 Arab villages that Jewish and Israeli forces ultimately destroyed or converted into Jewish settlements.  

This demographic change began shortly after the UN adopted the Partition Plan.  The only significant disagreement between Morris and Pappe is whether the Jewish Agency consciously planned the expulsion or merely raised no meaningful objection to it and retroactively approved it.  From the point of view of the refugees, the distinction is unimportant.

Plans for the expulsion of the Arab population could be made confidently because of the known military and political weakness of the Arab population.  According to Pappe, Jewish Arabists were reporting to the Consultancy that there was virtually no interest in war among ordinary Palestinians.  Many Arab villages reached peace agreements with neighboring Jewish settlements to stay out of the impending conflict.  Furthermore, the British Mandatory Force effectively disarmed the Arab population in a crushing counter-insurgency campaign between 1936 and 1939.  The Arab leadership was exiled to the Seychelles for years after.  In any case, political authority among Palestinians historically did not extend far beyond the village leadership, making the coordination of defensive measures nearly impossible.  In general, the Arab population of Palestine was uninterested in war and extremely vulnerable.

Pappe argues that the armies of neighboring Arab states were not nearly as threating as the original narrative would have it.  The combined number of Arab forces were roughly similar to the number of the Jewish forces, but were less well-equipped and lacked an effective single command structure.  There was competition, suspicion, even animosity, between the Arab states, particularly between Egypt and Jordan and between Syria and Jordan.  

The Jordanian army was the most well-equipped and well-organized; however, Jordan's King Abdullah and David Ben-Gurion came to an agreement before May15th in which Jordan would control the West Bank (at least that part the Israelis would not conquer).  Abdullah publicly announced that his forces would not invade the region set aside for the Jewish state, but would only occupy the Arab region.  This alleviated Israel's greatest concern.  The disposition of Jerusalem, however, was not agreed upon by Abdullah and Ben-Gurion.  It was here that the most significant fighting took place between the Jordanians and the Israelis.

Egypt was potentially a significant force.  Yet according to Pappe, it mobilized only 10,000 soldiers, 5,000 of which were untrained members of the Muslim Brotherhood that were released from prison to fight in Palestine.  Initially, Egypt made progress by occupying territory populated almost exclusively by Arabs or that was virtually uninhabited.  For a time, they were able to isolate a small number of Jewish settlements in the Negev, but their advance into Palestine was halted after just one week.  Israeli forces then steadily drove them back to Egypt, leaving them to occupy only the Gaza Strip.

Syrian forces amounted to only a few thousand fighters.  They managed to capture a kibbutz just across the border, but did little more after that.  Syria's participation in the war was mostly token.  Lebanese forces operated by and large defensively in Western Galilee, a region that had been allocated for the Arab state.  By the end of the war, Israel had completely expelled Lebanese forces from historic Palestine.  Iraq provided a small number of fighters who were relatively effective in defending a number of villages in the northern region of the West Bank.

Pappe concludes -- and the outcome of the conflict confirms -- that Israel was not only well-equipped to defend itself from its Arab neighbors, its forces were simultaneously able to expel and prevent the return of the great majority of the Palestinian population from areas they captured.

With regard to the three elements of the original narrative, Pappe concludes that all of them are entirely false.  (1) Israel was not a modern David surrounded by Goliaths, (2) the war was launched by Israeli forces and was well-underway before the Arab armies joined the fight, and (3) not only were Arab directives not responsible for the flight of the Palestinians, but the Israeli leadership had a long, well-established plan to expel as many Arabs from the prospective Jewish state as they possibly could.  Israel executed that plan diligently.  

Pappe's penultimate chapter is titled, "The Memoricide of the Nakba."  "Nakba" is the Arabic word for catastrophe, which is how the Palestinians refer to the 1947-49 War.  He argues that the memory of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine has been consciously erased.  In years just after the 1967 War, Israel's Ministry of Information was especially active in creating the narrative that helped erase the memory of the Nakba.  In a speech in 1969 to students at the Technical University in Haifa, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan said, "Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages.  You don't know the names of these villages,...because these geography books no longer exist....There is not one single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population."  Pappe describes how the Naming Committee of the Jewish National Fund renamed places under Jewish control which explains why they are missing from the geography books.

And they are not just missing from the written record.  They are gone entirely, often covered over by new settlements or national forests planted by the Jewish National Fund.  The Fund has also been responsible for the creation of parks and resorts in place of destroyed Arab villages.  Many new Jewish developments have "green lungs," i.e., wooded areas that once were neighboring Arab villages.  The erasure of the evidence of a previous Arab population continues today.

One final point regarding the original narrative deserves attention.  The narrative also asserts that the Jewish Agency accepted the Partition Plan while the Arab leadership rejected it.  The latter is certainly true.  The Arab population had been struggling for self-determination as early as the mid-19th century.  They allied with the British in the First World War on the promise that Britain would support their independence after victory.  Much of the British controlled territory was granted independence (Iraq in 1932 and Jordan in 1946), but Palestine remained under British control.  

Through the 1920s and 1930s, Britain facilitated the colonization of Palestine by mostly European Jewish colonists.  By 1947, the Jewish population of Palestine reached roughly one third of the whole and they owned roughly only 7% of the land.  Nonetheless, the Partition Plan designated 55% of land and most of the best land to the Jewish state.  The Arabs had no formal role in ratifying the plan. In essence, the Partition Plan was the culmination of a decades-long colonial enterprise.  In this context, it's quite natural that the Arabs would not accept it.

The Jewish Agency's "acceptance" of the plan, however, was significantly qualified in that they did not accept the plan's borders.  Announcing the acceptance of the plan was a strategic decision that would provide the State of Israel international recognition.  At the same time, the Agency declared its intention to set its own borders.  Its early invasion of regions designated for the Arab state demonstrated that the Jewish Agency also rejected the plan's agreed upon borders.  Furthermore, a significant segment of the Jewish leadership of the time desired all of historic Palestine for the Jewish state, rejecting a two state solution entirely.  The 1967 War was in part motivated by this desire.  That war completed Israel's occupation of all of historic Palestine and produced hundreds of thousands of additional Palestinian refugees.  Nearly a quarter of a million people were force out of the West Bank, unable to return.  

Two years after the 1967 War, the Times of London reported Defense Minister Moshe Dayan as writing, "Our fathers had reached the frontiers which were recognized in the Partition Plan.  Our generation reached the frontiers of 1949.  Now the six-day generation has managed to reach Suez, Jordan and the Golan Heights.  That is not the end.  After the present cease-fire lines, there will be new ones.  They will extend beyond Jordan -- perhaps to Lebanon and perhaps to central Syria as well."  Whether there remains interest among the Israeli leadership of expanding Israel further is an open question.  There has always been talk of expanding north to the Litani River in Lebanon and the Jewish settlement of the West Bank appears to be leading to eventual annexation. 

What distinguishes Morris's and Pappe's views is their attitudes toward the goals of Zionism.  For Morris, they are fundamentally sound.  What is at issue is how those goals are to be accomplished and perhaps the final borders of Israel.  For Pappe, Zionism is a colonial-settler enterprise that has committed horrendous atrocities and denied Palestinians the fundament rights due any people.  But the facts of the stories they tell are largely the same.  It is these facts that the New Historians finally brought to light, regardless of how those facts are judged.  

The Republican National Convention (Day One)

The Republican Convention was both an embarrassment and a bit frightening.  Donald Trump told us that he would be putting on a more “entertaining” convention than past conventions.  I can’t say that was true for me.  At the same time, it wasn't any less entertaining than conventions of the past that I have seen.  It was embarrassing, however, to see that one of our two major political parties can’t offer us an evening in which the issues of domestic safety and national security can be discussed in an intelligent way.  The speeches offered little more than a partisan focus on a unique event (the mayhem in Benghazi) and indignant calls for retribution against inflated enemies, foreign and domestic.  It was frightening to hear rhetoric in speech after speech that seemed at very least jingoistic and sometimes fascistic – and I don’t use that term lightly.  One of the more chilling moments was when a speaker called upon a new generation of patriots to recognize that the arena of war was here in America.  It was not clear whether his perceived enemy was foreign fighters infiltrating America or American citizens not conforming to his ideology. 

The theme of the evening was “Make America Safe Again.”  So one should not be surprised that speech after speech stressed that America is unsafe, despite the decline in the crime rate and the paucity of terrorist attacks in comparison to other countries.   Terror attacks were a persistent theme in the speeches, along with insecure borders.  Of course objectively speaking, if they were serious about making America safe again, they would be talking about auto safety and public health, but politics is about who controls sovereign power.  So terrorism -- which is mainly a political threat to those in power -- is more important to the politically powerful than are the real dangers to Americans.  Those who hold power will always decry terrorism first and foremost and inflate its significance as a danger to citizens. 

Speech after speech was written to promote fear and to uncritically extol the valor of the police and the armed forces.  I do not doubt and I deeply respect the individual valor and self-sacrifice of law-abiding police officers and conscientious members of the armed forces.  So it saddens me to see their dedication to ideals greater than themselves used all too often to prop up injustice.   Even more worrying is that the convention's speeches frequently identified a wide spectrum of people as enemies.  They usually were not named explicitly, but by implication they included “illegal aliens,” Black Lives Matter activists, and of course, Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton.  Explicitly naming “our enemies” as “radical Muslim terrorists” also was a persistent theme, and while Rudy Giuliani was at pains to distinguish this group from all Muslims, Trump’s previous statements give one little confidence that his supporters agree with Giuliani in practice.  The main prescription for “making America safe again” was “strength” as opposed to the "weakness" that was said to be the hallmark of the Obama administration and which could be expected of a Clinton administration.

The idea that the Obama administration and a prospective Clinton administration would be weak or too reticent to employ violence against enemies should be astonishing to anyone but proponents of the most violent response to social and political conflict.  To name only the most prominent uses of force by the Obama administration:  the administration was painfully slow to de-escalate the war in Iraq and periodically re-escalated that war.  It conducted an air war against Muammar Gaddafi's forces in Libya.  It is participating in the war in Syria, both directly and through proxies.  It expanded the war in Afghanistan and it has escalated drone strikes around the world.  Hillary Clinton has strongly supported all of these efforts and shows a strong willingness, even a commitment, to engage in additional war and violence.  But the "weakness" of Obama and Clinton was a major theme tonight.  It is clear that the convention speakers selected by Trump were pleased that he would be yet more belligerent than Obama and Clinton.  The obvious conclusion is that in this election cycle, the Republican Party has been taken over by a more extreme group of jingoists and militarists than have been seen on the political stage since at least the 1960s.

There were occasional references to Jesus, Christianity, and “our Judeo-Christian tradition.”  I am not a Christian as most people would understand that description, but I was pained for the Christians I know and respect that their religion would be appropriated by people who seem so opposed to the beautiful ideals and teaching of Christ.  How vengeance and violence could be associated with a religion whose most edifying tenets are love, peace, and non-violence has always baffled me.  Has Christianity in America really become merely a tribal affiliation of American chauvinists with no relation to the universal love espoused by Christ?  If the Republican Party convention is our authority, then the answer is yes, most definitely.  The phrases “America first,” “American exceptionalism,” and “the greatest country God ever created” (as if God might have bungled the creation of other countries), was heard in the convention speeches.  There seemed no question in the minds of the speakers that this ancient religion that proclaims a message of universal, impartial love and respect held a special place for America and that it justified brutal assaults on its enemies.  For many Republican Convention speakers, God was clearly on the side of the American Christian soldier marching to war, a song which I don’t think Jesus of Nazareth ever would have sung. 

I am still convinced that Donald Trump will not be elected president, but one should not be complacent about our long-term political future when, in the most powerful country in the world, a faction so belligerent and convinced of its divine righteousness takes control of one of the country's two political parties.  I expect women, with the help of Latinos in Florida, New Mexico, Colorado, and Nevada and blacks in Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, will sweep Hillary Clinton into the White House, but that won’t make the angry, hostile members of this subculture change the way they think.  We must find ways to bring people toward the conviction that national and international disagreements must be resolved peacefully though political agreements or everyone will suffer.

The Raft Is Not the Shore: Conversations toward a Buddhist/Christian Awareness / Daniel Berrigan and Thich Nhat Hanh -- Boston: Beacon Press, 1975

Daniel Berrigan and Thich Nhat Hanh are among the most important peace activists working during the Vietnam War.  Daniel Berrigan is a Catholic priest who was often at odds with the Catholic Church.  Among Berrigan's most influential actions were his reception of three American airmen released by the North Vietnamese and his destruction of draft files using homemade napalm.  For the latter action, he and eight other peace activists were jailed.  Thich Nhat Hanh is a Buddhist monk who worked to bring peace to Vietnam, particularly during the American phase of the war.  He was refused re-entry into Vietnam by the South Vietnamese government in 1973 after the Paris Peace Accord was signed.  

The Raft Is Not the Shore is the transcript of conversations between Berrigan and Nhat Hanh that took place in France at the close of the Vietnam War.  The topics of conversation include the role of religion in the world, the responsibilities of priests and monks, the relationships between government, economics, and religion and the importance of forming "communities of resistance" that will work against forces of violence and in favor of human rights and the dignity of all people.  There is a healthy dose of comparative religion in their conversations -- comparing, of course, Christianity and Buddhism, but not as much as one might have thought.  It is, by and large, a discussion between two peace activists about their experiences, their attempts to deal with the obstacles they faced, and their strategies for effective actions for peace.  In the course of their conversation, one can clearly distinguish their different dispositions.  Berrigan appears to be more strident and angry, while Nhat Hanh appears more patient and forgiving.  One might speculate about the reason for these different attitudes.  Are they a function of the religious background of the two men or are they simply a reflection of their individual temperaments?  In any case, it is clear that both men have a profound and sincere sense of justice and a commitment to peace that transcends their self-interests.

The work is worth reading whether you are looking for insight into these two important historical figures, insight into the Vietnam War, or insight into peace activism.  

Following Gandalf: Epic Battles and Moral Victory in The Lord of the Rings / Matthew Dickerson -- Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos Press, 2003

A common criticism of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is that it glorifies war and violence.  It is not hard to draw this conclusion in light of the numerous battle scenes depicted in the work and the military heroism of many of its main characters.  According to Matthew Dickerson, such a reading is superficial and a more discerning reader will see exactly the reverse.  War and violence are not glorified.  They are portrayed as the horrible acts of evil forces.  The wisest of the characters are repelled by war and violence and only resort to it out of desperate necessity.

Central to Dickerson's argument is an examination of the words, actions, and motivations of Gandalf, Aragorn, Elrond, Frodo, and Faramir.  Dickerson rightly observes that the most thoughtful and insightful commentary about war and violence come from these "wisest" characters.  Each exhibits a deep reluctance to engage in violence and in the case of Gandalf, Faramir, and Frodo, the characters overtly recognize the moral  value of their adversaries. Gandalf is noted as saying, "Many that live deserve death.  And some that die deserve life.  Can you give it to them?  Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.  For even the very wise cannot see all ends."  Gandalf pities Sauron's slaves, Faramir regrets the death of a man deceived by Sauron to fight against Gondor, and Frodo shows mercy, time again, to Gollum.

One of the most telling passages in condemnation of war comes from Faramir:  "War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory.  I love only that which they defend: the city of the Men of Numenor; and I would have her loved for her memory, her ancientry, her beauty, and her present wisdom.  Not feared, save as men may fear the dignity of a man, old and wise."  And against violence, Frodo is noted as saying, "Fight?" said Frodo.  "Well I suppose it may come to that.  But remember: there is to be no slaying of hobbits, not even if they have gone over to the other side.  Really gone over, I mean; not just obeying ruffians' orders because they are frightened....And nobody is to be killed at all, if it can be helped.  Keep your tempers and hold your hands to the last possible moment!"

One might wonder if these statements by characters that are certainly portrayed as wise by Tolkien are enough to contradict the general martial tone of much of the story, but Dickerson does an admirable job revealing nuances in the story and its telling that strengthen his conclusions.  After reading Following Gandalf one understands how The Lord of the Rings became so popular among the anti-war college students of the 1960s and 1970s.   War was upon us.  What was morally significant was how we dealt with it.

There is much more in Following Gandalf that deserves attention:  the importance of moral victory as opposed to military victory, mediation on freedom and creativity, power, hope and despair, and the Christian elements in the work.  There is, however, at least one current in Tolkien's work that is overlooked (or at least under-examined and that is what Tolkien thought of as the a great virtue of Northern European peoples: the willingness to remain true to one's duty in the face of certain defeat.  Certainly this virtue is most clearly revealed in times of war, but it is by no means inapplicable in other circumstances.  So too the nearly pacifist wisdom of many of Tolkien's characters hold lessons for us beyond the obvious circumstances of the novel.

Maryland Women in the Civil War: Unionists, Rebels, Slaves, & Spies / Claudia Floyd -- Charleston, S.C.: The History Press, 2013

Most histories of the Civil War have approached the topic either from the perspective of a limited military campaign or battle or from a national military-political perspective.  Some, of course, examine specific themes related to the war, e.g., the emancipation of slaves, international relations, or political intrigue.  Others focus on the biographies of key historic figures.  Many of these approaches overlook how different the war seemed to people in different states.  The people of Virginia experienced the war quite differently, of course, from how it was experienced by the people of Wisconsin.  Ohio University Press has begun a very interesting series of Civil War histories that recognize the importance of these state differences.  Included in their offerings are Ohio's War, Indiana's War, Illinois's War
, Missouri's War (reviewed in this blog), and Kansas's War.
In this vein, The History Press has published Maryland Women in the Civil War by Claudia Floyd.  The work treats exactly what you would expect from the title.  Examining the role of women in Maryland's war is particularly interesting, in that the Maryland was a slave state that was secured by the Union in the early months of the war.  Consequently, a large number of southern sympathizers found themselves going about their normal domestic lives under what they perceived as a hostile occupation and resisting that occupation or supporting the southern cause often involved covert activities and not open, armed Resistance.  Both men and women could and were fully engaged in these activities.

By and large, Floyd's book examines the roles of a handful of women who we might assume are representative of larger groups of women.  We learn about Anna Ella Carroll, a prolific pro-Union propagandist; Elizabeth Phoebe Key Howard, a member of a prominent Baltimore pro-secession family; Madge Preston, a diarist and southern supporter living outside Baltimore; and perhaps the most famous woman from Maryland during the Civil War era, Harriet Tubman; but there are a host of other women who's lives and views make brief appearances in the work.

Floyd does an admirable job of illustrating how different women reacted differently to the war, not just based on their sympathies for the Union or Confederacy, but due to their station in society and particularly due to the effects that the war had on their families.  One gets the sense that more than in many other states, the women of Maryland were driven to engage in politics because of the high stakes that existed for families living in a slave state, that bordered the nation's capital and separated free states from slave states.  The controversial suspension of habeas corpus by the Lincoln administration mostly affected men living in Maryland, Maryland's geographic location made it particularly important to the underground railroad, and Baltimore's large free black population complicated race relations in ways that the rest of country did not experience.  Again, elements of this sort meant that the war reached into domestic life in a way that was not common in other states.

If there is a weakness in the work, it is that it appears to rely too completely on diaries and letters.  While this gives the work an admirable immediacy, it is not clear how much the experiences of the women who are the subjects of the book can be generalized to the rest of the women in Maryland.  Many of Floyd's women are socially prominent, making it less clear that working class women experienced the war in the same way.   For what it is, though, Maryland Women in the Civil War is an engaging and informative work.

Mr. Lincoln Goes to War / William Marvel -- Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006

In Mr. Lincoln Goes to War William Marvel makes a strenuous case against Lincoln's actions in the first year of the war.  Marvel's Lincoln appears to be eager for war and quite unconcerned about basic civil liberties enshrined in the Constitution.  Among the earliest and most famous violations of civil liberties came in the case of John Merryman, a prominent Maryland resident.  Well-know for his sympathies for secession, Merryman was arrested in May 1861and held without access to the courts until he was released in July.  Merryman's arrest occurred during the most systematic violations of the right to habeas corpus which continued through the first year of the war.  During that time, Lincoln authorized the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in the region between Washington D.C. and Philadelphia and later extended the region to New York City. 

While the right of habeas corpus is fundamental to a free society, Lincoln faced uncertain circumstances that threatened the federal government and potentially the rule of law throughout the country.  In the early days of secession, it was not clear what path Maryland would take.  Furthermore, rumors were rife within Washington D.C. that the Confederates were amassing an army to capture the city.  Indeed, in early March 1861, the Confederate Congress called for 100,000 soldiers to volunteer for a one-year tour of duty.   Given significant support for the southern cause within the city and in the state of Maryland, one could make a case for unprecedented police actions.  As the threat to the capital subsided, Lincoln released all political prisoners (with some exceptions) on Feb. 14, 1862; however, following the imposition of a draft in the summer of 1863, Lincoln again suspended the writ of habeas corpus.  It appears that Lincoln exercised this power for specific purposes at specific times.  

Clearly, the Lincoln administration's record regarding civil liberties is at very least questionable, but Marvel's description of it as "arbitrary" seems too harsh under the circumstance.  Marvel does little to credit these circumstances.  In the case of civil war, one's mortal enemies are fellow citizens and so the protections of citizenship obviously will be strained. Indeed, the gravity of the conflict is illustrated by the violations of civil liberties on both sides, but Marvel makes no mention of the violations perpetrated by the Confederate government.  The Confederate Congress authorized the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in 1862, passed the Alien Enemies Act which authorized the arrest of anyone in the Confederate states who did not acknowledge Confederate citizenship, and passed the Sequestration Act which authorized the permanent confiscation of the property of Union sympathizers.  These actions, along with formation of a hostile army demonstrate the gravity of the threat posed to federal authority and the government itself.  

Marvel makes much of the fact that many Union soldiers joined the army not out of a moral or nationalist impulse, but because of economic need.  He furthermore notes that a draft was required to sustain the Union war effort.  The conclusion Marvel is leading us to is that the war was -- from the beginning -- foisted upon the people of the country by an aggressive president.  It should come as no surprise that those signing up to military service would be disproportionately poor and unemployed, but some degree of allegiance to the cause is likely to part of the decision to enlist, particularly as the horror of the war became better known.  It is noteworthy that less than 20% of the Union forces were enlisted due to the draft.  Marvel does not mention that southerners also joined the Confederate army for economic reasons and that a Confederate draft was required a year prior to the Union draft.  Soft popular support for the Confederate cause lends credence to the view that the secession of southern states was in fact a rebellion by a privileged southern elite, not an act of northern aggression.  

Marvel also describes the suppression of the press in the North, but again, the exigencies of civil war are not recognized and little mention is made of the state of the press in the South.  Marvel does acknowledge that pro-union presses were closed by the Confederacy, but writes that presses in the South practiced "voluntary restraint" and that the infrequency of attacks on the press could be explained by the fact that in the South "the dominant slave culture had long repressed divergent opinion."  Time and time again, Marvel provides excuses for Confederate violations of basic liberties, but excoriates the Lincoln administration for similar violations.  

Lincoln is not the only object of Marvel's criticism.  In a chapter entitled, "The Crimson Corse of Lyon," Marvel describes the Union campaign to control Missouri.  For Marvel it is a rebellion against the authorized government of the state of Missouri.  Lyon is called "an insubordinate, self-righteous psychopath" who "would not hear of peace when he saw so rare and opportunity to fulfill his apocalyptic personal destiny."  It is remarkable that Marvel could diagnosis a personality disorder in Lyon one hundred and fifty years after Lyon's death, when it is difficult for qualified psychiatrists to make such diagnoses for their contemporary patients.  It says more about Marvel's polemical intent than Lyon's personality.  Marvel writes that Lyon's "unstable temperament" is revealed by his providing intelligence to McClellan that turned out to be incorrect.  The connection is so unclear that it borders on being a non sequitur, and in fact, in one case, the "incorrect intelligence" was not really off the mark at all.  Confederate forces really were assembling in Arkansas in preparation for an invasion of Missouri. 

For a revealing portrait of Lyon, Marvel credits Christopher Phillips's harsh 1990 biography of Lyon, entitled Damned Yankee.  I have not read Damned Yankee, but its initial paragraphs read less like history and more like an historical novel.  Phillips describes dramatic details that he could not possible know took place.  He does so clearly for literary effect.  "Pulling pensively at his unruly red beard, forty-three-year-old Brig. Gen. Nathaniel Lyon watched the commotion in the street....His features hardened, the wrinkles at the top of his hooked nose deepened, and his small mouth clenched his cigar as tightly as his false teeth would allow."  Prose of this sort hardly engenders confidence in the accuracy of Phillips's accounts.  

This is not to say that Marvel's work is credulous.  His bibliography reveals the serious research that lies behind his work, but it is not exceptional by professional standards.  Marvel makes good use of primary sources, particularly letters and newspaper accounts.  He also makes heavy use of The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, but any number of historians have done as well and have not drawn the starkly critical conclusions that Marvel draws.  The scrupulous detail tends, however, to ocur in the passages which provide rather tedious accounts of troop movements.  Such passages make up a substantial portion of Marvel's work.

At times Marvel's polemics clearly get the best of historical accuracy.  At one point he writes of "Lincoln's expedition against Ft. Sumter."  Here he is referring to a flotilla of ships that Lincoln ordered to deliver food and water to the besieged Union garrison.  Marvel has turned a defensive, holding action into aggression.  This may be a simple editorial oversight, but it reveals the lens through which Marvel views history and the extent to which it distorts his vision.  The actions "against" Ft. Sumter in 1861 were all perpetrated by the Confederacy -- first a siege and then a potentially murderous bombardment.  

Lying behind Marvel's work is the view that Lincoln's defense of federal property and willingness to engage in war was illegal, immoral, and unnecessary.  The best defense of this view that I have read is in Democracy in the United States by Ransom H. Gillet, published in 1868.  Prior to the war, Gillet was a member of the Democratic Party and a U.S. Representative from New York.  His book attempts to resurrect the much-tarnished reputation of the Democratic Party.  It is a scathing, partisan attack on the Lincoln administration.  Were Marvel to comment on Gillet's work, I suspect he would find Gillet the most accurate and astute observer of the times.  

We Have the War Upon Us: The Onset of the Civil War, November 1860-April 1861 / William J. Cooper -- N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012

The American Civil War was long in coming.  As early as the founding of the country, pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces struggled over slavery.  At various times in the first half of the 18th century, the political conflict threatened to lead to secession, and of course secession and war finally did come following the election of Abraham Lincoln in November 1860.

The main questions at issue were whether or not slavery would be permitted in the U.S. territories and in the states to be created out of those territories.  The Republican platform ratified at the 1860 convention in Chicago called for the complete prohibition of slavery in the territories.  The Democratic Party was, however, divided.  Under the banner of "popular sovereignty," the northern faction supported the right of territorial governments to prohibit slavery.  The southern faction held that only state constitutions could establish such prohibitions.  Unable to resolve their differences, the Democratic Party split and ran two candidates:  Steven A. Douglas and John C. Breckinridge. 

Lincoln's election is often thought of as being a result of the split in the Democratic Party.  He certainly failed to receive a majority of the popular vote nation-wide and he received virtually no votes in the southern states. His victories in the northern states, however, gave him the electoral votes necessary to win the election, but even if Democratic Party voters had not split their votes, Lincoln's majorities in the northern states would have put him in the White House.  State by state popular vote totals demonstrate just how divided the country was on the issue of slavery, particularly the extension of slavery into the territories.

In the weeks following Lincoln's election, seven states seceded from the Union (South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, and Texas).  These states established the Confederate States of America.  Its constitution guaranteed slavery in all its states and territories.  The movement toward secession was unable to reach beyond the the deep south, though, until after the fall of Ft. Sumter on April 13 and Lincoln's subsequent call for 75,000 troops to defend the Union.  The prospect that federal troops would be used to occupy and "reconstruct" the seceded states led to the secession of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas.  The Kentucky legislature declared Kentucky neutral in the conflict, while the federal occupation of Maryland and Missouri precluded secession in those states.

William Cooper's We Have the War Upon Us provides a close account of events between the election of Lincoln and the fall of Ft. Sumter.  He especially examines the negotiations between Republicans and conditional unionists who sought to avoid the secession of the upper southern and border states.  His treatment is careful and generally even-handed, relying on both primary and secondary sources.  The actions (and non-actions) of William Seward and Abraham Lincoln play a central role in Cooper's account -- Seward working hard to accommodate the interests of the conditional unionists and Lincoln remaining largely silent on what his approach to the crisis would be upon his inauguration.  The out-going president James Buchanan also played an important role in the unfolding events.  Buchanan's view was that while states did not have the legal authority to leave the Union, the federal government did not have the authority to defend its sovereignty over the seceded states.  One might argue that his inactivity to address secession forcefully at an early stage left the new Republican administration with a irremediable problem.

The greatest weakness in Cooper's account of the events leading to war is his short treatment of the actions of southern "fire-eaters," i.e., southerners dedicated to secession and the defense of slavery without compromise.  By emphasizing the negotiations between the hard line Republicans and the conditional unionists, one is left with the impression that the intransigence of the hard line Republicans was more responsible for the coming of war than is justified.  Cooper does not, for example, give much time to discussing the call by the Confederate Congress for 100,000 troops to serve for one year.  This call was made more than a month before Lincoln's call for 75,000 troops to serve for 90 days.  To keep these numbers in perspective, the federal army was composed of only 16,000 troops prior to 1861, most of whom were stationed in the South and in the territories.  Many of these soldiers -- and most of the officers -- resigned from the federal army and joined the Confederate forces.  Under these circumstances, the rumors of threats to Washington D.C. could not be ignored and the vulnerability of the territories to Confederate annexation was significant.  In the end, it is not unreasonable to conclude that Lincoln followed the least belligerent course possible that still adhered to his responsibility to defend federal property.

Reviewing the efforts to negotiate an agreement that would prevent secession and war, leads the reader to conclude that Seward was correct in his assessment that the war was "irrepressible."  Efforts by Congress as a whole, the House of Representative's Committee of Thirty-three, the Senate's Committee of Thirteen, the non-governmental Peace Convention, and the Confederate commissioners who came to Washington to negotiate a peaceful separation all appeared to be futile exercises in the face of long entrenched, partisan commitments to an uncompromising resolution to the nation's problem.  In that sense, Cooper's title, We Have the War Upon Us is most certainly apt.

Climate Coup: Global Warming's Invasion of Our Government and Our Lives / Patrick J. Michaels, ed. -- Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 2011

In the Introduction to Climate Coup, the volume's editor Patrick Michaels describes how he leads his students through an dialog in which he links climate change to any subject of public significance that his students can name. Furthermore, he claims that the effects that it is having are in general deleterious. He writes that this "game" is enjoyable, but rather than giving "glib answers to insouciant students," Michaels decided "to consult some experts" regarding his views. The result is Climate Coup, a volume containing eight papers discussing law, politics, defense, peer-review, trade, economic development, health, and education and their relationship to climate change.

Of Michaels's eight experts, five have positions (along with Michaels) with the Cato Institute, a sixth has been frequently published by the Cato Institute, a seventh works (along with Michaels) at the University of Virginia, and an eighth is a co-author with Michaels. This is not to say that none of the authors is well-regarded or does not have views worth serious consideration, but merely that by selecting these authors, Michaels is not really testing his hypothesis. The volume is, instead, an effort to make his case by employing his ideological allies, In general, the wider community of experts does not support his case.

Broadly put, Michaels and his co-authors argue that the dangers posed by climate change are overstated and that continued economic development is our best remedy for the harms it poses, even if that means continuing to emit carbon into the atmosphere.

The first chapter on law by Roger Pilon and Evan Turgeon is among the best. It lays out the legislative and legal history of environmental regulation, arguing that the executive branch is relatively free to implement whatever regulations it deems appropriate to protect us from climate change. This is judged to be overweening state power that is in conflict with the principles of limited government established by the Constitution. The value of this chapter lies in its legal brief related to the executive's regulatory power. It does not, however, make a particularly strong case that these powers are unconstitutional nor does it address the argument that the Constitution is an evolving document to be interpreted differently by different generations. In the late 18th century, limiting the power of the Crown may well have been a necessary political goal to provide the benefits described in the Constitution's Preamble, but limiting the power of a more democratic government may not be so critical in the early 21st century, particularly as we now understand how common market failures are and how disasterous they can be.

The second chapter is written by Michaels himself. It is among the weakest. He attempts to describe the recent political circumstance related to climate change policies and regulations, but fails to provide any coherent story that sheds light on our politics. It is instead, a hodge podge of disjointed observations related to cap and trade legislation, the "climategate" emails, the 2009 Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The third chapter, by Ross McKitrick, is a critique of the peer review process used by scientific journals. This is something that climate change "skeptics" have been complaining about for quite some time. They argue that the peer review process is controlled by a small group of editors who dismiss any findings that contradict the editors' views about climate change. Consequently, the appearance of a consensus has formed around specific climate change hypotheses, when in fact many scientists disagree with the received opinions.

It is interesting to note that the hypotheses that journal editors have been said to have summarily dismissed have changed. At first, the skeptics asserted that there was no real consensus that the planet is warming, but such views could not be published. Eventually, they began accepting that the planet is warming, but that the warming was not a product of human actions. Today, they appear to be coming around to accepting that human actions -- at least in part -- is warming the planet, but that the consequences of this are not as grave as is being asserted by the experts. The only consistency in the skeptics' position is that we shouldn't worry about climate change and that we should continue to emit carbon at the rates we have been, lest our economy suffer.

It is hard not to read McKitrick's complaints about the peer review process as so much sour grapes for not seeing his and his ideological friends' papers accepted for publication. If their arguments were genuinely strong, a cabal of editors could not keep them from the scientific community. Today, science employs "pre-publication" databases; the most prominent of which is arXiv (see arXiv.org) which permits any academic or person sponsored by someone with posting privileges to post papers to the arXiv database. In many fields, particularly physics, publication in a peer reviewed journal will only occur after the paper has been posted to arXiv and has been favorably cited in arXiv by other researchers. Publication in a peer reviewed journal is becoming a way of archiving a finalized version of already well-received research. Pre-publication databases and other open source venues are eroding, if not destroying, the power of journal editors as gatekeepers of scientific research.

Ivan Eland's chapter is on U.S. security. Eland argues that the recent evaluations by the Defense Department overstate the dangers that climate change poses to U.S. strategic interests. His arguments are better than most in Climate Coup. Eland acknowledges that the most egregious effects of climate change are likely to affect Africa and southern Asia, but these regions historically have not been seen to be vital to US interests and, according to Eland, are not likely to be so in the future. More realistic threats to U.S. interests stem from the stationing of U.S. forces around the world. If these forces were brought home, the U.S. would not be blamed for the suffering that climate change might cause. Furthermore, the oceanic barriers that the U.S. enjoys will be sufficient to insulate the country from social and political upheavals in the rest of the world.

Eland's analysis is consistent with the growing isolationist tendency among libertarians and is compatible with the views of the peace movement of the American left. Furthermore, he indicts the Pentagon for exaggerating the security threat posed by climate change. Its motive is to justify continued or increased defense appropriations.

Among the better chapters in Climate Coup is Sallie James's article on international trade. James argues that any country that would unilaterally implement a policy to reduce carbon emissions will place itself in a competitive disadvantage vis-a-vis countries that do not implement comparable policies. In this respect, she particularly criticizes cap and trade policies. In principle, this sounds right; however, it isn't clear how significant the disadvantage would be nor whether a cap and trade policy might not stimulate the creation of alternative industries that would in the long run provide an economic advantage to a carbon regulating country. Furthermore, she does not entertain the possibility that were the United States to show international leadership by passing a meaningful carbon tax, this would create an economic climate that would allow others to follow suit without economic disadvantage.

James also considers the possible equalizing effective of a tariff placed on goods coming from countries that do not take measures to reduce their carbon emissions. She concludes that either these countries would merely take their business elsewhere or the tariffs would ignite retaliatory measure that would destroy the possibility for international cooperation which is necessary to tackle a global problem like climate change.

While one might take issue with some of James's conclusions, one must acknowledge the expertise of neo-liberals regarding the dynamics of international trade. The dangers, however, must be weighed against the costs (often externalized) of continuing to emit carbon.

In the sixth chapter, Indur M. Goklony addresses the consequences of climate change on developing nations. It is widely believed that developing nations are most vulnerable to the harms that climate change threatens, both because of their geographies and their poverty. Goklony argues that imposing emission controls on developing nations will cripple their economic growth which will be necessary for mitigating or adapting to the harms of climate change.

Goklony's arguments are reprised in Robert E. Davis's chapter on health. Davis challenges the claim that climate change has caused significant health problems and will in the future cause significant health problems; however, the claim about the interaction of climate change and health in the past is of little consequence as few people argue that climate change has yet had a significant effect on public health. Regarding future health threats, it is hard to believe that the dislocation of coastal populations, droughts, floods, wildfires, and transformed ecosystems will not have significant effects on human health. Davis argues that populations have dealt with all of these kinds of problems in the past and with continued economic growth, health indicators will continue to improve even in the face of climate change.

The final chapter by Neal McCluskey examines how climate change is portrayed in primary and secondary schools. It is so riddled with elementary fallacies that it is not really worth reviewing.

The recurrent appeal to the importance of economic growth for addressing climate change is at the heart of Climate Coup. As climate skeptics have progressively abandoned positions that they have held previously, their arguments are crystallizing around the view that the dangers of climate change are too slight to justify public regulation of the industry. This should come as no surprise as the skeptics rarely are climate scientists, but are more often economists, businessmen, and politicians. Their stake in the carbon industry has been revealed by many including Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway in their excellent book, Merchants of Doubt, reviewed in this blog.

What is most worrying about the skeptics' public relations campaigns to stave off action to protect the planet is that as green house gases accumulate in the atmosphere, we genuinely risk reaching a tipping point that will propel the planet into a new stable state that makes civilization as we know it or even life itself impossible on the planet. To argue that we must continue down this path as the most effective way of escaping its dangers is a kind of brinksmanship that risks everything and it is based on scientific heterodoxy and a dubious economic theory.

At the same time, it is important to accurately assess the genuine dangers that climate change possess and not to overstate them, particularly as geo-engineering proposals are being seriously discussed. Geo-engineering would be enormously risky in that the unintended consequences of deliberately modifying the ecosystem to the extent that unprecedented climate change might be halted may cause greater problems still.

War Dance: a film directed by Sean Fine and Andrea Nix (2007)

In the early 1980s, a rebel group known as the Holy Spirit Movement formed in Northern Uganda with the aim of overthrowing the Ugandan government. The movement was largely fighting for the interests of the Acholi tribe; however, when the movement's leader fled to Kenya, Joseph Kony gained control of the movement and renamed it the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). The LRA quickly became one of the most notorious militias in Africa, murdering, raping, looting, and kidnapping adults and children in order to force them to fight against the Ugandan army. It is in the context of this conflict that the documentary "War Dance" was conceived.

Sean Fine and Andrea Nix take their film crew to a refugee camp in Northern Uganda where they chronicle the efforts of a group of primary school children to compete in Uganda's national music and dance festival. The film focuses on three of the children. The father of one was killed by the LRA and her mother is forced to live in a separate refugee camp to make a living. Another child lost both her parents and is now responsible for her siblings. The third is a boy who was captured by the LRA and made to serve as a child soldier. He escapes the LRA, but not before they force him to kill innocent people.

The first hour of the film is dedicated to telling these tragic stories. The brutalization and suffering of the children is heart breaking, especially as one understands that they are not at all unique among the children affected by the conflict.

The second hour of the film is dedicated to following the children's trip to Kampala and their participation in the national competition. Upon arriving at the festival, the children discover that the other children at the festival distrusted them and believe them to be rebels. The mistaken belief is likely due to the fact that the children themselves are Acholi. Their "outsider" status fuels an already vigorous tribal pride among the children and seems to motivate them to perform well.

"War Dance" is in essence two films: the first tells three brutal stories, while the second is an exuberant celebration of music and dance. Brought together, these two films effectively communicate the horror that so many suffer in Africa's conflicts, while insisting that Africans are not merely two dimensional monsters and victims as they are sometimes portrayed. The pride and excitement of young teenagers participating in a national music and dance competition is deeply endearing and their performances are exhilarating.

As a piece of cinematography, "War Dance" is first rate. The beauty of the land and the people are never lost, the film's pacing is excellent, and the testimony of the children is captured with thoughtful respect. If there is a weakness, it is that the camera does not steadily track the whole of the dance and music performances. The build up to the festival is so effective that one would prefer to simple see a record of the performances and not a montage of dramatic angles and audience reactions.

"War Dance" is both heart breaking and life affirming. It's a real triumph.

The Kingdom of God Is Within You: Christianity Not as a Mysitical Teaching But as a New Concept of Life / Leo Tolstoy -- Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1961

Leo Tolstoy's reputation as a novelist much overshadows his reputation as an author of non-fiction, but a great deal of his literary output is non-fictional. He was particularly concerned in the later stages of his career to express his views on religion and non-violence. His two most important works in this regard are My Religion also known as What I Believe and The Kingdom of God Is Within You. What he attacks in Kingdom gives ample reason for understanding why his views have been dismissed.

The work begins with an exposition of what Tolstoy thought was the central philosophy of Christ, expressed in Mathew 5:39, "I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also" (KJV). From this, Tolstoy constructs the moral philosophy of "non-resistance to evil:" a radical rejection of violence in all of its forms. Not only does this imperative proscribe serving in the army, it rejects serving as a police officer, and enacting punishments of any kind.

Tolstoy recognizes that all governments depend upon the threat of punishment and so consequently, he rejects government. Equally, he criticizes revolutionists inspired by a sense of justice to commit acts of violence, but he saves his deepest scorn for leaders of the Christian churches, who he sees as distorting and rejecting true Christianity. As worldly powers, Christian churches have made accommodations with secular powers and even vigorously endorsed various forms of violence at least since Constantine. His criticisms go beyond established institutions and their leaders as Tolstoy hold accountable upper and middle class individuals who accept the benefits of violent economic, social, and political arrangements.

With the depth and breadth of his critique, it is no wonder that his books were banned by Czarist Russia, and that he found no meaningful support from other governments, revolutionary socialist parties, the Christian church, or many people in the literate classes. His reputation as a "crank" was all but assured by his uncompromising attachment to the principle of non-violence.

Nonetheless, it is difficult to find fault with the basic thrust of his arguments. If we are to understand the message of Christ to be of historical significance, it must depart from the political and moral compromises that putatively Christian institutions have made. Such institutions could have engaged in exactly the same behavior as they have while embracing any number of secular ideologies, and had Christ's message been consistent with these actions and arguments, his contribution to the history of moral ideas would not be noteworthy.

If there is a weakness in Tolstoy's critique of law and punishment, it lies in his failure to recognize the possibility that self-imposed laws can be legitimately enforced by self-imposed punishments. A truly democratic society may adopt rules for behavior and employ punishments to guard against the weakness of will that characterizes us all, though one might argue that each person must willingly accept the legitimacy of the governing institution.

In defense of Tolstoy's critique of even ostensibly democratic governments, one can point out that no actual government is born of institutions that can confer truly democratic legitimacy, certainly not the U.S. government with its plutocratic electoral system. Consequently, the legitimate use of violence by a government can only occur under hypothetical circumstances.

Tolstoy's moral demands are strict, but they establish an ideal that deserves the deepest respect.

Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Castastrope / Gerard Prunier -- Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2009.

Beginning in September 1996, a massive and complex six-year war engulfed the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and neighboring countries. At least seven countries were direct combatants and several others were more or less indirectly involved. At its height, the war threatened to involve nearly every African nation. Almost 4 million Africans died in the conflict.

Despite the enormity of the violence, few Americans know much at all about the war. Our ignorance is largely a product of our news media's neglect of Africa in general or its fixation on specific events in Africa. During the war in the DRC, Sudanese Darfur monopolized media attention, though as a humanitarian disaster, Darfur did not equal the war in the Congo basin. For anyone interested in learning about the war, Gerard Prunier's recent book, Africa's World War provides an excellent starting point.

Prunier concentrates his attention on political and military events, giving a detailed account of the state and non-state militias, political parties, and politicians. The story is so complex that the reader would do well to take careful notes along the way just to keep the changing alliances straight. The primary combatants were the Rwandese Patriot Army (RPA) and successive governments in Kinshasa, Zaire (later the DRC). Each side was allied with rebel groups and other local militias in the Congo basin. Other direct state actors included Uganda, Burundi, Angola, Zimbabwe, and Namibia. As the conflict expanded, Sudan, Chad, the Central African Republic, Libya, the Republic of the Congo, Zambia, and South Africa also became more or less involved. At various stages, the United Nations attempted to intervene, bring in troops from outside of Africa.

Prunier aptly describes how the decline and death of Zairean President Mobutu led to a power vacuum in the Congo basin, prompting opportunistic military actions by neighboring countries. The spark which ignited the war were conflicts in the aftermath of the genocide in Rwanda. Following the conquest of Rwanda by the Rwandese Patriotic Front, the new largely Tutsi government in Kigali, Rwanda mounted assaults against the Hutu refugees that it accused of having participated in the genocide and of working to destabilize the Kigali government. These assaults led in September 1996 to the invasion of the Zairean states of North and South Kivu and to a military campaign to depose Mobutu, who was supporting the Hutu refugees.

During the war against Mobutu, nearly every African country supported Rwanda; however, once Rwanda was able to place Laurent-Desire Kabila in power in Kinshasa, alliances broke down. After a period of some confusion, Kabila broke from his Rwandese patrons and sought to drive the RPA out of his newly renamed Democratic Republic of the Congo. Angola became Kabila's main supporter along with Zimbabwe and Namibia. The Angolan government's interest in the Congo was largely related to its ongoing war against its own rebel movement, UNITA, led by Jonas Savimbi. UNITA, having been allied with Mobutu, now became roughly allied with the RPA against Kabila and the Angolan government.

In the north, Uganda had worked in concert with the RPA in the assault against Mobutu and it remained allied with the RPA against Kabila; however, its primary role in the war involved struggles against its own rebel movement the Lord's Resistance Army, which was supported by Kabila and the Sudan. This battle (along with the internal Angolan battles) were played out mostly on Congolese soil.

The third and final stage of the war, began with Kabila's assassination in January of 2001. Kabila's cabinet was largely sympathetic to Angolan interests and might have arranged for an openly pro-Angolan successor, but to avoid dissent, they placed in power Kabila's 29 year old son, Joseph Kabila. Joseph Kabila turned out to be surprisingly politically astute. Without a domestic power base of his own, he cultivated international support, particularly support from outside of Africa. This provided him with just enough security to break from his Angolan cabinet and establish a relatively stable and effective government.

By now, the war's belligerents were becoming exhausted and each gradually accepted peace agreements and over the course of next three years, they withdraw from Congolese soil, though in some cases, particularly Rwanda, they continue to support various Congolese militias. As the war began in the Kivus, it wound down last in the Kivus, but in general, the DRC remains a violent theatre of conflict despite the end of all out war.

Prunier's final chapter, "Groping for Meaning," attempts to provide more than an account of the main political and military events of the war. Along with a summary of U.S. and French involvement in the war, this final chapter underscores the difficulty in understanding African conflicts within a European paradigm of state and national politics. The complexity of the conflict related in the main of the book makes this clear enough. The European state system developed over centuries on a continent with very different economic and social conditions than Africa. Consequently, it provides little to no insight into the actions of the war's belligerents.

To understand the conflict, one must comprehend cross-cutting national, tribal, religious, linguistic, economic, and social identities, all on a continent abused by imperialist exploitation and riven by the cold war. While Prunier recognizes this challenge, his work does little more than expose the difficulty of understanding the war. This does not, however, detract from his excellent political/military account of the war.

Also missing from the account are vivid accounts of the pain and suffering that came to so many combatants and non-combatants in the course of the war. Prunier occasionally mentions deprivation, massacres, rape, and the drafting of child soldiers, but his account is surprisingly antiseptic, which may be a plus for the reader in that any attempt to give a full account of the human suffering may have made the work too painful to read. Nonetheless, a chapter bearing witness to the atrocities of the war from the perspective of its victims would have given the work more than academic value.