Blogging Cross-Pollination Redux

Late to report this, of course, but last Wednesday I woke up to find on Leiter Reports a link to my parody poem "The Second Don-ing," which I had posted back in 2017.  As a result, I have had more than 1500 visits since October 9.  That, of course, moves my Google earnings up only a few pennies, but the psychic income was nice.  I actually received a Real Life Comment noting a typo, so I fixed that and now the date of "The Second Don-ing" is moved up to last week (see immediately below) - I don't know how that works, being a Techno-Rube, but that's okay.  Anyway, thank to all.   

The Second Don-ing (with apologies to the shade of W.B. Yeats, as well as to my fellow Americans)

              

               Twisting and turning to alternative facts

               The viewer cannot bear to read Twitter;
           The swamp remains un-drained;

               Mere commentary is loosed upon the world,
           The Putin tide is loosed, and everywhere
           Millennial innocence is drowned;
           The 'best' lack all connection, while the worst
           Are full of passionate insecurity.

               Surely some new leak is at hand;
           Surely the Second Don-ing is at hand.

               The Second Don-ing!  Hardly are those words out

               When a vast image from Art of the Deal

               Troubles my sight: somewhere in a sand trap

               A shape with growing gut and small hands,

               A gaze blank and moronic as can be,

               Is turning its slow thoughts, while all about it

               Reel law suits by indignant human beings.

               The screen goes blank; but now I know

               That umpteen news cycles

               Were vexed to nightmare by some Russian agents,

               And what orange beast, his hour come round at last,

               Slouches towards Babylon to resign?   

Martin Mayer (RIP)

Once more, a significant death to
note.  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/01/books/martin-mayer-dead.html.  My apologies for being late with this one.  This was one of the few obits I could find for this very important author, who in his time, and ours, was celebrated for his long journalistic march through the institutions.  All I can say now is what a tragedy that his prophetic work, The Bankers (1974, updated 1997) went largely unheeded.  Another misfortune is that age and illness kept him from being able to do more than make the occasional comment about the financial crisis of 2008 and its aftermath, and that he was also not able to complete his biography of the very important economist Hyman Minksy (1919-1996).  

יהי רצון שהוא ייקלט בכבלי חיי הנצח.  

John Lukacs redux

Per what I wrote the other day, here are some very selective pointers to a few of the works of John Lukacs.

His great work, Historical Consciousness: The Remembered Past, was first published in 1968, re-issued with new material by Schocken Books in 1985.  That is the edition to get if you can.  (Transaction Books re-issued that one in, I believe, in 2002, with a characteristically useless introduction by Russell Kirk.)  This book is seminal to understanding Lukacs' historical philosophy (precisely NOT a "philosophy of history") and toward developing one's own.

The Last European War: September 1939-December 1941 was published in 1976.  This was, apart from Historical Consciousness, Lukacs' magnum opus, full of insights about this turning point in the history of the world.  It should be read in conjunction with The Hitler of History (1997) - not a biography of Hitler, but a profound consideration of how Hitler has and is being dealt with by historians and the world generally - and also how (counter-intuitive as it seems) a full reckoning with Hitler's massive significance is still to come.

Three articles are especially important to read these days.  "The Universality of National Socialism (The Mistaken Category of 'Fascism')" is full of insights about the endurance of ideological appeal across borders and through time, very much including our time.  "Happy Birthday, Benito" (yes, dear reader, the title and article are chock full of ironies) is a great examination of the dictator Mussolini.  Finally, "Our Enemy, the State?"  is a clear-eyed essay about the proper view of government, the state, and civilization at this time.

The auto-historical John Lukacs can be discovered best in these volumes: Confessions of an Original Sinner (1990), A Thread of Years (1997), and Last Rites (2009).  Finally (I write this as I think of so many writings I would like to recommend by name) Remembered Past: John Lukacs on History, Historians,and Historical Knowledge (2005) is an excellent anthology, with a bibliography of his work going up to about 2003.

Lux perpetua luceat eis.

RIP John Lukacs (1924-2019)

A great historian, and more than "just an historian," died on May 6.  Here are links to a couple  inadequate notices of his life and death:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/john-lukacs-iconoclastic-historian-and-holocaust-survivor-dies-at-95/ 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lukacs

In a few days, I will write more, not presuming to make a grand survey of his life and works and significance (tempting as that is) but rather highlighting some of his writing which are especially important, both for their enduring value and their massive pertinence to our current crises.