We invited several columnists to share with us their "reading stories" from the previous year: What kind of books did they read? What kind of thinking have you thought? How do reading and books resonate with their lives?
In this book list, columnist Lu Dapeng takes us into the history of Germany, France, Spain and other places, under the epidemic, he also shared his thoughts on "global history".
Welcome to Lu Dapeng's column "Travel Between Papers", and we enter the fascinating historical world together.
We also invite you to join our columnists in sharing what you have seen and thought about this year.
Author | Lu Dapeng
Edit | Cheng late
In 2021, the books I read are still dominated by world history and foreign literature. It may be that the threshold increases with the increase of age and reading experience, or it may be because more and more swallow dates and do not seek to understand, in short, I think that when reading books, the feeling of "eyes lighting up" is less and less, and it is less and less moved and shocked.
But there are always good books. Let's talk about the books I read last year and think are worth recommending.
Rich in history: Germany
Richard M. J. Evans's Third Reich Trilogy, which I have recommended many times on different occasions, is such a wonderful set of books that can be read in general or as a reference book, so I recommend it again.
The Arrival of the Third Reich
By Richard J. Evans, translated by Lai Liwei
Ideal country | Kyushu Publishing Co., Ltd., 2020-2
There are many general histories of Nazi Germany, and many have been translated into Chinese, but I think that at present, the Third Reich Trilogy is the best, most comprehensive, most profound, academically newest, but still highly readable general history. After all, it is the work of a master. In particular, the first "The Arrival of the Third Reich" and the second "The Third Reich in Power" depict the rise and rise of the Nazis to power, and have a good introduction to all aspects of German society (including literature and art, sexual concepts, etc.). To put it bluntly, other general histories of Nazi Germany that are common on the market are eclipsed by Evans's trilogy.
The Third Reich in Power
By Richard J. Evans, translated by Philosopher's
But because it is written in a bias toward social history, the third part of the trilogy, The Third Reich in Wartime, may be different from everyone's psychological expectations, which is less about the military and mainly about the economy, society, and the Holocaust. If you're interested in the military aspects of World War II, Evans' book isn't a good choice. Military history was not his domain after all. A relatively new, comprehensive, moderately difficult, and well-written military history of World War II is Anthony Beaver's The Second World War, but there is no Chinese translation yet available.
The Wartime Third Reich
By Richard J. Evans, translated by Chen Zhuang and Zhao Ding
Ideal country | Kyushu Publishing Co., Ltd., 2020-8
Speaking of Nazi Germany, I read a German historical book, Das Buch Alice, last year, which I thought was interesting, but I haven't seen a Chinese translation yet. The book's author, Karina Urbach, is a German historian who has studied mainly in Britain and the United States.
Alice, her grandmother, was a Viennese Jew who wrote a best-selling cookbook on Viennese specialties in the 1930s. After the Nazis came to power, her recipe was "Aryanized." In other words, the publisher changed the title of the book, republished it, and changed the author's name to a person of German descent. As a result, the author of the original book was completely obliterated because he was Jewish.
From this family history, Urbach found that this phenomenon is by no means an isolated case. The intellectual property rights of a large number of Jewish authors were infringed upon by The German press during the Nazi era, and the same book was republished with a new title and author name. So far, many large publishing houses in Germany (such as the flagship Taisha C.H. Baker) are still secretive about this phenomenon, refusing to apologize and "return things to their original owners". Alice's Book is a rigorous academic work, interestingly written, and on a relatively new topic.
Two other German history books that I think are great but have not yet been translated in Chinese are Stephan Malinowski's Vom K nig zum Führer and Die Hohenzollern und die Nazis.
Stills from the movie Schindler's List
From King to Fuehrer is a famous study of the relationship between the nobility and the Nazis. The author excavates a large number of private correspondence, diaries, and memoirs of the nobility during this period, giving a very negative assessment of the role played by the nobility in Germany's transition to Nazi rule.
He believed that the aristocracy, which was hostile to the bourgeoisie, urban culture, liberalism, parliamentarism, and the various "New Right" (or conservative revolutions) that had arisen between the two world wars, were immediately matched and used to pave the way for the Nazis to come to power, and even a large number of aristocrats went shirtless and directly served the Nazis.
Malinowski pointed out that the aristocrats of eastern and northern Germany were more inclined to nazis than the nobles of the west and south, the Protestant aristocracy was more inclined to the Nazis than the Catholic aristocracy, the poor nobles were more inclined to the Nazis than the rich nobles, and the younger nobles were more inclined to the Nazis than the older nobles.
Stills from the film "Our Fathers" about World War II from the perspective of individual Germans
From King to Fuehrer is highly scholarly and long, while another book, The Hohenzollern Family and the Nazis, I find the difficulty more moderate and more suitable for a general audience.
After the abdication of the German Emperor, the Hohenzollern family actually had many hook-ups with the Nazis, and after the war, they tried their best to cover up, especially the contemporary Hohenzollern patriarch tried to whitewash the family, inviting a large number of famous historians (including Christopher Clark, the author of "Sleepwalker" and "The Iron Empire") to defend the Hohenzollern family and strive to recover the property that had been confiscated in the past from the German government.
Malinowski, on the other hand, vigorously criticized and exposed the historical role of the Hohenzollern family, so he had a fierce conflict with Clark and others. This incident has become a sensation in Germany in recent years, and it is a "grand event" in the history of media communication and scholarship.
Sleepwalker
By Christopher Clarke, translated by Dong Ying and Xiao Xiao
CITIC Press, 2014-9
Alfred Deblin's Berlin, Alexanderplatz is a masterpiece of German literature. Although I have always been interested in German literature, I have not dared to read this novel because it is labeled "expressionism" and "stream of consciousness". Last year, I plucked up the courage to read professor Luo Wei's Chinese translation at Peking University and felt that my worries were unreasonable. This book is not difficult to read. If you are interested in German (especially Berlin) society in weimar, be sure to read this book.
Berlin, Alexanderplatz
[Germany] by Alfred Deblin, translated by Luo Wei
Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 2008-7
The plot is very simple, it is a story of a person who has been released from prison who wants to "behave in a disciplined manner", but society does not allow it, and as a result, he falls back into the criminal world step by step, and after several tragic blows, he awakens again. Many of the novel's plots and imagery have deep and complex religious metaphorical significance that deserve careful consideration. But what is particularly interesting for history buffs is that Berlin, Alexanderplatz vividly depicts The 1920s society in ukiyo-e style, especially its depiction of the life of the underclass and the world of crime, which will surely attract the attention of historians.
Professor Luo Wei's Chinese translation is fluent and beautiful, and it is very comfortable to read. Although there are a few details of errors, such as "Hannibal", "Carthage", "Nebuchadnezzar" and other common historical terms fail to use the translation, the name of the famous Serial Killer Kharman of the 1920s in Germany is transliterated as "long-haired man", and the Weimar period should not be called "Imperial Prime Minister" but "National Prime Minister", etc., but the flaws are not hidden.
In the era of globalization, the sorrow and glory of civilization
Several of the books mentioned above are related to Germany. The following book is related to France. Natalie Zemun Davis's famous historiography", "The Return of Martin Gail", I only read it last year, and it is a shame to say it. I can't say much about the content of this book, because there are absolutely no spoilers. Please read it yourself, and if you have the opportunity, you can also find a movie of the same name to watch.
The Return of Martin Gayle
By Natalie Zemun Davis, translated by Liu Yonghua
Peking University Publishers, 2015-3
Just one sentence: the small rural people who were originally lost in the long river of history suddenly became flesh and blood through the clever pen of historians; the French countryside during the Reformation, which was very far away from us in time and space, and its hustle and bustle, because of the historian's detective tracking, suddenly jumped on the paper.
I think Professor Wang Di's "Brother Robe: Violence and Order in the Rural Areas of Western Sichuan in the 1940s" is written very similarly to "The Return of Martin Gale", and I recommend it together.
Brother Robe: Violence and Order in the Rural Areas of Western Sichuan in the 1940s
Wang Di
Peking University Publishers, 2018-10
John Crowe's Soul of Spain: The Sorrow and Glory of a Civilization is a good general history of Spain. Crowe is not a historian, but a literary scholar who was a professor of Spanish literature at the University of California, Los Angeles.
His focus and entry points are mainly literature and culture, and he does not talk much about the succession to the throne, the change of power, etc., nor does he describe the "high-level" history favored by traditional historiography such as war and diplomacy. Crowe was an accomplished literary scholar, so he must have been a trusted literary "guide." But he also did not give literature lessons to everyone in a serious and scripted manner, but poured out a lot of his enthusiasm and personal experience. It is no wonder that, after all, he himself is a footnote to Spanish modern and contemporary literature.
The Soul of Spain: The Sorrow and Glory of a Civilization
By John Crowe, translated by Zhuang Anqi
Synopsys Culture | CITIC Publishing Group, 2021-7
During the Spanish Second Republic, he studied at the University of Madrid on the eve of the Civil War, where he received his doctorate, during which time he had a conversation with the best contemporary writers in Spain, such as Lorca, Machado, Juan Ramón Jimenez (Nobel Laureate), and met masters such as Unammuno.
Therefore, the Spanish literature that we learn from Crowe is flesh and blood, subjective, private, and intimate. Many of his passages, which he had heard and witnessed, probably would not have appeared in a serious literary history, such as the literary critic Damaso Alonso who liked to sleep naked, and whose students mischievously sprinkled salt on his bed.
Clovin is brilliant, many of the descriptions are poetic, immersive, and the atmosphere is excellent. So this is both a history book and an excellent literary work. The author himself appears in the book as a tourist and observer, and many of the chapters are quite travelogue-flavored.
Crowe's Spain is reminiscent of William Darlingpur's India. Academic history books will certainly not be written this way, and Crowe's approach will seem very subjective and "unscientific", but for the reader, poetic depictions and lyricism are certainly more attractive and more impressive than academic charts and data.
The Chinese title of the book, The Soul of Spain: The Sorrow and Glory of a Civilization, is not faithful to the English title Spain: The Root and the Flower: AnInterpretation of Spain and the Spanish People, but I think the title of the Chinese edition is very appropriate and appropriate. The author is not very concerned about the traditional topics of history such as imperial generals and military diplomacy, but pays more attention to the "soul" of this nation. It's a bit like Orlando Feggis's The Dance of Natasha, which seeks and seeks the "soul" of the Russian nation.
Natasha's Dance
[British] by Orlando Figis, translated by Zeng Xiaochu and Guo Danjie
Republic of | Sichuan People's Publishing House, 2018-3
However, Crowe clearly discusses "grief" more than "glory", and criticizes Spain quite a bit, and is quite harsh. From "The Soul of Spain: The Sorrow and Glory of a Civilization", Crowe's love for Spain, an American, can be truly felt, although Crowe does not shy away from exposing and criticizing the dark side of Spanish history (authoritarian traditions, religious shackles, closed ideas, etc.), as well as the ugly side of Spanish nationality (if there is such a thing as "nationality") (braggart, laziness, idleness, intoxication with "ancestral excesses", etc.).
But I can feel the author's good intentions. Crowe is by no means a condescending critic of poor and backward Spain as a "foreigner" from an advanced country with a rich civilization. His attitude toward Spain was more like "mourning its misfortune and angering it". I would like to remind you that such a general history of "literary and philosophical" is very subjective and very concentrated on private experiences and praises. But I'd still love to recommend this book to anyone wishing to have an initial understanding of Spanish history.
"Globalization" is a well-known word, but there is much debate about what globalization means and when it began, not to mention the general public, even in academia. Many of the fascinating debates about globalization are confined to academia, and we lack a book that offers a new perspective on globalization in layman's terms. This new book, 1000 A.D.: The Beginning of Globalization, by Valerie Hansen, a professor of history at Yale University, does a good job of this mission.
1000 A.D.: The Beginning of Globalization
[American] han sen, translated by Liu Yunjun
Reader culture | Reader/Beijing Daily Press, 2021-8
By looking at the world in 1000 AD, the book connects many seemingly unrelated regions and cultures, which is refreshing and encourages us to think outside the box and look at the past with a "global history" perspective that transcends national and cultural boundaries. While reading this book, I gained a lot of unexpected new knowledge and some surprises.
Finally, to put it mildly, recommend a set of fantasy novels, Robin Hobbe's The Magic Liveship Trilogy. Although I am a fantasy fan, frankly speaking, fantasy literature is a type of literature, most of which is a "just meal" that caters to the market, and there are very few high levels.
"Magic Live Ship" trilogy, I think it belongs to the top level of fantasy. When it comes to fantasy, the stereotype is elves, dwarves, magic, and the battle between good and evil, but "Magic Live Ship" is extremely creative, writing about sailing adventures and the rise and fall of a sea merchant family, a bit like the fantasy version of "Buddenbrooks". Hobbe's character portrayal is very high-level, and the difficult growth of several characters is lamentable.
Magic Live Ship 1 Magic Ship (Upper and Lower)
Robin Hobbe, translated by Mai Quan
Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press, 2015-5
These are the books I read in 2021 that I think are good. Thank you for your tolerance of my nagging, and I hope that these books will bring you the pleasure of reading.
· END ·
Author 丨 Lu Dapeng
Editor 丨Cheng late
Proofreading | Morning
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