Category: History

Summer Viewing – Albert Speer

It’s summer and I have no urge to undertake any serious reading or writing. But one interesting TV programme I happened to watch was an interview on the BBC by three historians with Albert Speer in 1971 – see https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m002fmbs/albert-speer . This was quite interesting as he was the German arms minister during the second world war and someone who kept the Nazi regime in power for far longer than it should have lived.

Speer has always been a fascinating character. How could someone who was clearly very intelligent manage to get involved in the regime of Adolf Hitler, and supported him almost to the end? It is still a puzzle which his interview does not altogether explain.

He did get convicted in the Nuremberg trials but only received a 20-year prison sentence when most of other leading Nazis were hanged. His escape can probably be put down to him admitting guilt and apologising for the nazi regime although he also denied knowledge of the holocaust.

He died of a stroke in London in 1981, allegedly in bed with a lady friend. There is a good biography of Speer on Wikipedia.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://x.com/RogerWLawson  )

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Andrew Carnegie Biography

If you want some easy summer reading, here is a book I have been reading and can recommend. It’s the Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie. He was born in Scotland but emigrated to the USA at the age of 12. Starting at the bottom as a poor immigrant he became one of the richest men in the world – emulating John D. Rockefeller in the same era.  

He developed the US steel industry but effectively retired at a young age and devoted himself to philanthropic works. In particular the establishment of libraries of which there are several thousand in the USA and UK. He also endowed many educational institutions.

His management style is particularly interesting and he believed in giving way to the demands of workers for higher pay. Better to have well-paid and well-motivated employees than disgruntled ones he believed. By this approach he avoided union disputes and strikes that disrupted production – an essential aspect of running blast furnaces and steel rolling mills at the time.

The only negative episode that affected his reputation was the Homestead Strike where 10 men were killed after the State Militia were called out to break a strike at a Carnegie owned plant. Carnegie was out of the country at the critical time so can hardly be blamed for what happened.

The book is an easy read and very enlightening on how to manage employees.  

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://x.com/RogerWLawson  )

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Covid-19 Pandemic Five Year Anniversary

The BBC broadcast a documentary this week commemorating the five-year anniversary of the start of the Covid-19 epidemic. It is entitled “Love and Loss – The Pandemic: Five Years On”.

I watched it because I thought it might be of interest but it mainly consisted of individual sob stories. It didn’t attempt to trace the cause of the epidemic or the Government’s reaction to it. You can find the programme on BBC’s I-Player.

If you wish to trace the track of the epidemic and the prevention measures taken in the UK you might do better to read the diary I started in 2020 which was later published on Amazon under the title “A Journal of the Coronavirus Year”. See https://www.roliscon.com/journal-of-coronavirus-year for more details.

I started it because I thought I had little chance of surviving as I have a suppressed immune system but I never got the infection. That may be because I had numerous vaccinations for the disease and was careful to avoid crowds and public transport.

Some members of my family did seem to get infected but with relatively mild symptoms.

It is still unclear exactly where the disease originated from but it now seems likely that it escaped from a laboratory in China that were experimenting on viruses. The latest death toll from the disease is reported to be over 7 million worldwide.  

The cost of the epidemic had a major impact on the UK Government’s finances and we will learn the latest bad news on that later today when the Chancellor gives her spring statement.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://x.com/RogerWLawson  )

You can obtain notifications of new posts in future by following me on Twitter (now “X”) – see https://x.com/RogerWLawson where new blog posts are usually mentioned.

Book Reviews – J.D.Rockefeller and Ed Conway

I am currently reading a couple of books. The first is “Letters from J.D. Rockefeller to His Son”. These were written in the years around 1900 when Rockefeller was probably the richest person in the world.

He built Standard Oil into a virtual monopoly in oil production, refining and storage and also owned major parts of the US rail transportation industry. If you wish to learn how to build an industrial monopoly this is a good book to read. Taking over weaker competitors is one tactic to follow.

There are a couple of good letters on the benefit of borrowing money to finance expansion (so long as you never default on the loans), and what you can gain from business failures. As one letter says “Failure is a good thing as long as it does not become a habit”. But you can gain much from failures. He says “Once avoiding failure becomes your motivation to do things, you have embarked on a path of laziness and powerlessness”.

This is a good paragraph: “If you are afraid of failure, you will not dare to take risks and then lose the opportunities that are placed right in front of you. Therefore, my son, in order to avoid losing opportunities and retain your qualifications for competition, it is worthwhile to pay for our failures and setbacks!”

There is a lot of business wisdom in this book which is as relevant today as it was over 100 years ago. I therefore recommend this book to all budding entrepreneurs.

The books cover photo is of Rockefeller probably wearing a wig. He suffered from alopecia totalis like me so I have always felt some sympathy for him.

The other book I have been reading is “The Summit” by Ed Conway. It is a history of the Bretton Woods conference attended by all the major powers in 1944 which set out the economic framework we have been living in since then. It established a new monetary system and subsequently helped form the United Nations organisation.

A big influence on the outcome was John Maynard Keynes and the book covers his background at some length. You can understand how he came to influence economic policy in many countries.

At 454 pages the book is rather long for my liking but it certainly helps one to understand the influences that have formed the economic and monetary policies of the current world.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://x.com/RogerWLawson  )

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Book Review:  Money – A Story of Humanity

I am currently reading the recently published book entitled “Money: A Story of Humanity”by David McWilliams. It could be a very dry subject but this is an eminently readable tome on not just how money in the form of coin came into use but the way credit developed to finance commerce.

It is particularly good on how the Roman empire developed due to financial innovation but how it later proved to be one of the causes of its downfall. An eminently readable book and a subject worth understanding for anyone who has financial investments.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson  )

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More Summer Reading

Back in July I recommended a couple of books covering the Indian wars in North America for reading in the summer – see https://roliscon.blog/2024/07/13/summer-reading-recommendations-and-tidying-up-favorites/ . Here’s another one on a similar subject you may find interesting:  The Life of Buffalo Bill by William F. Cody.

It’s an autobiography covering the younger years of the authors life. He had an interesting career as Pony Express rider, buffalo hunter and U.S. Army scout on the great plains. That included numerous Indian fights. It does not cover his later life as promoter of wild west shows but it’s a very good evocation of the time in the 1800s when the western states of the USA were settled and developed, much to the prejudice of the native Indians. Cody killed a number of them and certainly contributed to the near extinction of the buffalo on which the Indians relied but later supported the Indians in many ways.

The book is an easy read even at 365 pages.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson  )

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Summer Reading Recommendations and Tidying Up Favorites

It’s time to get away from the financial markets which are in the doldrums anyway and get down to more serious reading of history.

I am currently reading a book entitled “A Good Year to Die” by Charles M. Robinson which is a history of the Great Sioux War on the Great Plains of North America. It was in one of my bookshelves but I don’t recall reading it before. It’s a detailed and no doubt accurate history of the inevitable victory of the U.S. Army over the Indians after the treachery of broken treaties and simple misunderstandings. The way of life of the Indians was bound to be incompatible with the influx of European settlers and miners to the area so it can be seen as a tragedy brought on my circumstance.

But as in any war, mistakes abounded on both sides and the U.S. Army certainly did not have unbounded success. The death of Colonel Custer at the Little Big Horn was one disaster brought on by over-confidence.

As the author of the book points out, the Sioux War was one of the best documented of any war as there were numerous newspaper correspondents with the troops who were not censored. In addition both staff and ordinary soldiers could keep diaries and publish them.

Another very good book which highlights the cultural differences between the whites and Indians is called “Crazy Horse and Custer” by Stephen Ambrose. A comparative biography of both leaders.  I would recommend most of the books by that American historian. His biographies of Nixon and Eisenhower are good general reading for those interested in US politics and history.

One of the projects I am commencing on for the summer is to tidy up all my web “Favorites” (aka Bookmarks). After 25 years of using the web I have many hundreds of saved bookmarks. About a quarter are no longer functional as the producers have either gone out of business or have changed their page addresses.  The rest are categorised but not very well so need a lot of tidying up. It should take me most of the summer I reckon at the current rate of progress.  

There is clearly a major turnover of web sites although I recall seeing a project to archive them so as to preserve history. I hope some of my writing will be preserved for posterity but I fear the only certainty is my published books which are deposited at the British Library as all books have to be.  

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson  )

Assisted Dying Debate, London Elections and Book Review

On Monday there was a debate in Parliament on assisted dying – see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5wPhNupqXc . I have been a long- standing supporter of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society – now called Dignity in Dying. It is long overdue for Parliament to change the law so it’s worth listening to the debate. One speaker argued that not only might some people be persuaded to kill themselves by others but they may persuade themselves. That is a most peculiar argument. There was the usual call for palliative care to be improved but relying on that is problematic. When I want to leave this world I don’t want to be blocked by complex rules or laws.

Today we have the elections in London and other regions.   In London other contenders have been catching up on Sadiq Khan according to the latest opinion polls. But he is still likely to win the vote for Mayor as the opposition is split and so many people don’t vote.

So it is extremely important to get out there and vote today!

Personally I have voted for Susan Hall as the only person with a real chance of ousting the liar Sadiq Khan, the destroyer of London’s transport network with his Transport Strategy. But I voted for Reform Party candidates for the other positions. Some tactical voting is the order of the day.

For lighter entertainment, I have just finished reading the book Brazilian Adventure by Peter Fleming (brother of James Bond author Ian Fleming). This is was first published in 1933 and is ostensibly the story of a search for Colonel Fawcett who disappeared in the Amazon jungle 7 years previously. But in reality it’s the ripping yarn of a few young and inexperienced men seeking adventure.

It’s well written, brings the milieu to life and therefore is recommended. Here’s one sentence from it: “The sun had just risen. It’s light no more than grazed the world, gilding the crests of ridges, from the blue hollows between them picking our little save the tallest trees and the wisps of vapour which hung wherever there was water.”  

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson  )

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Books by Ian and Peter Fleming, and Comments on Sadiq Khan

As I mentioned in my Christmas blog post, I bought a boxed set of all the James Bond books and also a biography of author Ian Fleming by Nicholas Shakespeare. I have now finished reading all of them, which is no mean feat as the latter book alone is over 800 pages long.

I can recommend all the books. The biography is interesting in many ways for anyone who lived through the 1950s and 60s. Ian Fleming was active in naval intelligence during the second world war (as Commander Fleming R.N.V.R.) and had a big hand in the development of both the UK’s and USA’s intelligence services after the war.

Ian was a charismatic character who attracted many admirers. But he smoked 70 cigarettes per day and drank heavily also. This no doubt contributed to his early death from heart disease. His family life was a mess and anyone who thinks their family is less than perfect should read his biography. James Bond was his alter ego in many ways. Hard drinking, fast driving and with numerous love affairs.

Peter Fleming was his brother and wrote several popular travel books which are more dated when the Bond books have kept their topicality – particularly of late as we are back in a war with Russia. I am reading One’s Company at present which is a report on a train journey to China in 1933 through Russia and Manchuria. It’s a light read.

I find it necessary to comment on the latest political disruption. Lee Anderson M.P. has had the Conservative whip withdrawn after he criticised Sadiq Khan for supporting Islamists. In reality Khan as head of the Metropolitan Police has allowed Palestinian slogans to be projected onto Parliament and the closure of Tower Bridge by demonstrators. Neither should have been permitted. Sadiq Khan should resign, not Lee Anderson.  

We should not allow religious factions to take over London, whatever their complexion. There should be no place for religion in politics. Sadiq Khan has been expert at turning populist issues with Muslim support into political capital. I hope people will vote him out of office in May. Hamas is a vile terrorist organisation and the actions of Israel have been justified.

Roger Lawson (Twitter: https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson  )

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How Did Silicon Valley Come to Dominate?

Many people have wondered how and why Silicon Valley companies came to dominate several sectors of the modern technology world. Companies such as Google, Oracle, Intel, HP and Apple were all founded in the valley south of San Francisco.

I have just finished reading a book by Ashlee Vance entitled Geek Silicon Valley and it gives you some of the answers. It’s primarily a tourist guide to the sights but it also covers the company buildings and the history of the companies that have built the modern economy in the towns of Palo Alto, Stanford, Menlo Park, Mountain View, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale and San Jose.

I formerly spent some time in the area and the author clearly knows the valley well and its history. If you are visiting the area on business this book is highly recommended and there is more to see in the area than most tourists will know about. Most visitors to the area may stay in San Francisco but that would be a mistake.

The author amusingly points out that some people attribute the success of silicon valley to the fact that William Shockley’s mother lived in Palo Alto near Stanford University. Shockley moved back there when he founded a semiconductor business. Spin-offs from that business were Fairchild and subsequently Intel and it was those offspring that made the area the base for new technology companies.

But it was the development of venture capital businesses that funded, and continue to do so, these new world-beating companies that were the real innovation. This book gives you a good idea of the culture that has made silicon valley such a success.

The presence of Stanford University and the attraction of a good climate and relatively low land and housing cost (at least early on) no doubt helped but there have been a number of factors that helped make silicon valley so successful, as the book helps to explain.

Roger Lawson (Twitter https://twitter.com/RogerWLawson  )

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