Washington Post Book Reviews
For You
Saturday September 4, 2010
|
THE WORLD THAT NEVER WAS: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists and Secret Agents
Alex Butterworth
Pantheon
ISBN 978-0375425110
482 pages
$30
Reviewed by John Smolens
Arguably, no single act produces a more immediate and lasting effect upon history than political assassination. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, such deeds were frequently the work of the anarchist movement, which rose from the anger and frustration of the working class. However, as British historian Alex Butterworth demonstrates in "The World That Never Was," too seldom was it acknowledged that these killers were also moved by the highest ideals and dreams of utopia.
Beginning in 1871 with a popular uprising known as the Paris Commune and ending with the Bolshevik Revolution nearly a half-century later, Butterworth depicts the relentless war that anarchists waged against the ruling hierarchies in Russia, Europe and the United States. Their weaponry included guns, knives, poison and dynamite; their campaigns were spectacularly sudden and violent. As a means of defense, governments wielded the force of their secret service agencies, but anarchists frequently proved to be as elusive as they were determined, their mission as lethal as it was simple: Kill the elite and you liberate the oppressed.
Anarchism's leaders repeatedly defined their attacks as "propaganda by deed," and many among the desperately impoverished working class deemed their cause necessary and courageous. Anarchists were often well educated and, at times, well-to-do, as in the case of Prince Peter Kropotkin, one of "Russia's most eminent young scientists." In books, articles, pamphlets and manifestos, they proclaimed their "right to flaunt the rules of a corrupt society, despite causing injury to others." French anarchist Louise Michel's speeches were often punctuated by the audience shouting "Long live dynamite!"; one essayist asked, "What do a few human deaths matter if the gesture is beautiful?"
Anarchy had dozens of patron saints -- Michael Bakunin, Johann Most and Errico Malatesta, to name a few -- who were constantly engaged in an elaborate cat-and-mouse game with the governments they wished to overthrow. Russia's secret service, Okhrana, and its U.S. counterpart, the Pinkerton Agency, were every bit as devious and brutal as their revolutionary quarry. They used every legal (and often illegal) means of eliminating anarchists. Both sides employed agents and double agents, and not a few duplicitous mistresses. Anarchists were notoriously bad shots, and they were often killed (not infrequently by their own clumsiness with a bomb). If captured, they were imprisoned, executed or shipped off to languish for years on remote islands in the South Pacific. Despite the diligence of spymasters such as Germany's Wilhelm Stieber and Russia's Peter Rachkovsky, not to mention all the botched attempts, anarchists still succeeded in assassinating an alarming number of heads of state and industrial leaders, including Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the event that sparked World War I.
Butterworth argues that it would be a mistake to say that anarchism and today's terrorism are one and the same. Anarchists were stirred not by religious or nationalistic conviction, but by a fervent belief in utopia, which could only be achieved after all established institutions had been destroyed -- their dreams were as romantic as their acts were deadly. He recounts in exhaustive detail the nefarious plots and schemes of both the anarchists and the spies who were determined to stop them. At times, his attention tends to flit about nervously, yet he also writes vivid, sustained passages that render the desperation behind such incidents as Alexander Berkman's failed attack on American industrialist Henry Clay Frick, as well as the successful assassination of Italy's King Umberto I by Gaetano Bresci, which in turn inspired Leon Czolgosz to murder President McKinley a year later.
In its thorough, compelling examination of anarchism, "The World That Never Was" is not a chronicle of isolated violent acts committed by deranged individuals; rather, it convincingly portrays anarchism as the product of an inexorable human impulse. And it leads one to ask if anarchism might again (or, perhaps, still) be lurking at the fringes of society. Frequently, the author notes the tendency of anarchists to view themselves as martyrs and heroes, words we hear all too often today, overwhelmed with CNN's Situation Room angst. Is there any doubt that there are those among us who subscribe to the perverse logic that we may be just one assassination away from our dreams? Butterworth illustrates that anarchists and terrorists do have one essential trait in common: They are willing to kill -- and to die, if necessary -- for their convictions.
John Smolens teaches at Northern Michigan University. His most recent novel is "The Anarchist."
Copyright 2010 Washington Post Writers Group
|
| Comment on this Story | Printer Friendly | Share | Top |
THREE BOOKS ABOUT BASEBALL
NA
NA
ISBN NA
NA pages
$NA
Reviewed by Sean Callahan
1. "Fifty-nine in '84: (Harper, $25.99) is an astonishing book about 19th-century baseball. At first glance, it seems the kind of work a man might dedicate to the commissioner of his fantasy baseball league. But Edward Achorn instead dedicated the book to his wife, Valerie. That's because "Fifty-nine in '84" is a romantic book, equal parts heroic quest, tragic tale and doomed love story. Achorn tells the tale of Charlie Radbourn's 1884 season, when the Hall of Fame pitcher won a record 59 games for the Providence Grays. In that year's pennant race, the Grays relied almost exclusively on Radbourn during the season's second half. He was a tough man playing a hard, barehanded game in which a misplayed ball could result in the amputation of fingers. Achorn calls Radbourn a "whiskey-slugging son of a butcher" and speculates that he was the first in history to flip the bird in a photograph. During one stretch, the pitcher started and completed 22 consecutive games. In the season's pivotal series, he pitched every inning and won all four games without allowing an earned run. The tragedy of Radbourn's heroics was that, once that season ended, he never possessed the same dominance again. Off the field, however, Radbourn's pitching performance may have won him the heart of Carrie Stanhope, a woman who, Achorn argues in the most gentlemanly way possible, was a prostitute or perhaps a madam in Providence. The pair eventually married, but Achorn makes the case that they were star-crossed lovers from the start.
2. "High Heat" (Da Capo, $25) also delves into baseball's past as Tim Wendel chronicles his quest to explore the "mysterious, downright mystical" fastball. In this book of delightful digressions, he tells the tale of many hard-luck fastball pitchers who flamed out early, like Houston Astros power pitcher J.R. Richard, who suffered a stroke at the peak of his career. But the heart of the book is a comparison between Steve Dalkowski, a flamethrower from the 1950s and '60s who often walked as many batters as he struck out, and Nolan Ryan, a power pitcher who struggled early in his career before finding the magic that led to a major league record seven no-hitters. Wendel ponders why Ryan succeeded while Dalkowski, who was the model for "Nuke" LaLoosh, the goofy fireballer in the movie "Bull Durham," and so many others failed. Though a good fastball is coveted, few of those who develop one have the mix of speed and control necessary to excel in the majors. Of the 102 pitchers taken in the top five of baseball's draft between 1965 and 2008, only Kevin Brown has won more than 200 games. Wendel concludes that what truly separates the greats with the gift of a fastball "is the ability to harness and to honor it."
3. "The Eastern Stars" (Riverhead, $25.95) tells the story of one poor small port city in the Dominican Republic, San Pedro de Macoris, and how it has produced 79 major leaguers, a list that includes Robinson Cano, Sammy Sosa and Alfonso Soriano. Mark Kurlansky, author of "Cod" and "Salt," wrote this ambitious book, which at times feels too much like three separate projects cobbled together. First, there's the history of the Dominican Republic's sugar industry, which dominated the country in the early 1900s, when World War I destroyed beet sugar production in Europe. Then there's the story of San Pedro's hard-luck baseball team, the Estrellas Orientales (the "Eastern Stars" of the book's title). And, at the book's sweet spot, there is the growth of the Dominican Republic as a cradle of shortstops. Major league teams such as the Atlanta Braves have established baseball academies in the Dominican Republic that hone the baseball skills of about 50 prospects at a time and serve as feeder programs for the minor leagues in the United States. In the end, though, the sport doesn't get the attention it deserves in these pages. Kurlansky's meditations on baseball might have been better as a digression in a book about the history of sugar.
Sean Callahan is an editor at Crain Communications and the author of "A Is for Ara" and four other children's books.
Copyright 2010 Washington Post Writers Group
|
| Comment on this Story | Printer Friendly | Share | Top |
|
|
 |
|
| Recent Stories |
 MY HOLLYWOOD
AH-CHOO!: The Uncommon Life of Your Common Cold
THE GREAT LOVER
BROKEN
CROSSFIRE |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
