A time capsule view of left revival

I liked Socialism: Past and Future so I figured I'd read some earlier Harrington. Selections at the BPL are limited, so I ended up reading Toward a Democratic Left, written in 1968. 1968 was around the time all the hopeful energy of the earlier '60s protest movements was souring into the weirdo hellscape that was the '70s, and Toward a Democratic Left represents an attempt to turn that sour turn around and channel it into something constructive. As with much of the Harrington I've read, there are certainly criticisms one can make, but it's hard to argue that wouldn't be much better off as a society if we'd collectively decided to take his suggestions instead of the Reaganites that we went with. 
 

A lot of the content is hugely dated, making the work an interesting time capsule if you're interested in the state of the 1960s urban housing crisis and how it differs from today's urban housing crisis. It's easy enough to see how the roots of many of our current political problems have roots in the failures to solve the last round of political problems, and in such detrimental developments as the rise of what Harrington calls the social-industrial complex, which is basically when big businesses decide they're going to fix all the social problems now because they're smart and successful, and we're all supposed to ignore that they're also the ones who got us into many of our current messes. It'd be interesting to do a side-by-side comparison of Harrington's predictions about the social-industrial complex and Anand Giridharadas' documentation of how it actually panned out, but I will have to give Toward a Democratic Left back to the library before Winners Take All comes in (there are like, 50 people ahead of me in the queue). 
 

Notably, Harrington did not predict the fall of the Soviet Union or the end of the Cold War, but he did predict that the main axis of world geopolitical conflict would pivot away from East vs West and mainly be about North versus South, with rich countries fucking up poor postcolonial countries in the name of aid and development. And lo, that trend did indeed continue. 
 

I do not get the sense from reading this that Harrington's predictions are genius works of fortune-telling, nor that they are particularly unique to Harrington. If you have a generally left worldview and do your homework, it is rarely shocking to conclude that the rich are behaving self-interestedly, and letting them throw their weight around is unlikely to do a whole lot to help anyone besides other rich people. Still, I think it's helpful to know that some of our current political woes are not surprises.

 

Ghost spies and Germans

For my first non-YA fiction of the year... oh, god, it's mid-February already. This probably explains a lot about how I've been feeling lately, yikes.

Anyway. Trying again.

For the BSpec book club (whew, that's better), we decided on reading Mary Robinette Kowal's World War One spiritualist fantasy Ghost Talkers. I liked her Glamourist Histories books, and I also love me some World War One content, and who doesn't like wacky shit about spiritualism? And the best part is that as of right now it's a standalone, so I don't have to worry about getting hooked on another whole-ass series.

The premise, more specifically than "omg World War One and spiritualism," is thus: Our protagonist Ginger is an American heiress who is engaged to a British intelligence officer, and she is working on a very secret project for the British military called the Spirit Corps. The Spirit Corps is basically a bunch of mediums who gather intelligence by interviewing the ghosts of dead soldiers, who are trained on how to report in to the mediums at Le Havre before they go off to get shot at. Shortly into the plot it becomes clear that there is a spy in their midst who is leaking information about the Spirit Corps to the Germans, and also murdering people but making it look like an accident. Ginger, along with some other mediums and Ben, who has been murdered into becoming her Trust Ghost Sidekick a la Jemima Rooper in Hex, must now run around northern France trying to figure out who is the spy (or spies) while being alternately threatened and ignored by military dudes of assorted nationalities.

The way spiritualism is developed and applied in this book is a really big strength, which should be unsurprising if you've read the Glamourist History books. In this case, mediums can sense ghosts and people's auras, if they are touching them or projecting their soul out of their body enough to get it into their range. It's all described very physically -- the auras turn different colors and shapes like a light show, and the whole business of loosening up your soul and letting it outside of your skin sounds genuinely exhausting. But as a reader I found it very easy to acclimate to how this whole sixth sense was portrayed. It doesn't read as cartoonish in the book but would definitely make a great animated movie.

Kowal also has a great feel for witty banter, which makes her work always a delightful read even when she's dealing with heavier issues like the incredible pointless mustard-gas-ridden death toll of World War One. Also also, there is a brief celebrity cameo by one bookish young Lieutenant Tolkien, which might be the most obvious Easter egg in the history of fantasy Easter eggs but I still loved it. (I used to be a really big Lord of the Rings dork, OK?)

Anyway. It was fun, I liked it, World War One was a giant shitshow, and I will certainly read whatever Kowal comes out with next.