Alan Turing, The Enigma by Andrew Hodges

From The Week of March 28, 2010

To a large extent, Alan Turing is the intellectual father of the personal computer. Though his suicide, shamefully brought about by the prejudice of the British government, kept him from seeing his dream realized, I can hope that, somewhere, Mr. Turing comprehends that few souls have had a more profound impact on their century than he. Mr. Hodges' dry account of Mr. Turing's life is far too long and far too mathematical for my tastes, but his subject is so compelling that obsession with detail does not spoil the experience.

Alan Turing had many of life's advantages. Born in 1912, into a pre-war Britain still encloaked in the trappings of empire, Turing was raised in an intellectual family. He was sent to excellent schools which helped to cultivate his prodigious talent for mathematics. His aptitude was such that, when Britain entered WWII and found itself in need of codebreakers, he was recruited to head an elite team at Bletchley Park tasked by the British government to break German Naval codes at which he, and they, were successful. We'll never know to what extent Mr. Turing helped to win the Second World War, but that he had a major hand in breaking Enigma, and that breaking Enigma gave the British government unfettered access to the German chain of command, surely gave the Allies a hand up over their enemies. In any event, it was after the war that Mr. Turing's contributions to our modern world came to light, when, at the University of Manchester, he predicted, imagined, and planned out a thinking machine, a computer capable of performing calculations on its own complex enough to necessitate that he come up with a Turing test for determining whether or not a computer possessed artificial intelligence. But before his work could advance beyond the preliminary stages, his homosexuality was discovered, a truth which ended his work, had his security clearance revoked, and forced him onto medications that would chemically castrate him. Mr. Turing committed suicide in 1954, not long after his conviction on charges of gross indecency, an injustice the Brown government apologized for on September 10th, 2010.

It may mean nothing that Bill Joy, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, three of the giants of the technological evolution of the last 50 years, were born within 18 months of Mr. Turing's death. Or Perhaps the Second World War did far more to advance the journey of the personal computer than Mr. Turing did; this is yet another thing we may never know. But it was Sir Isaac Newton who said, "If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." War may have provided the necessary funding for the research and development of the technologies we use every day, but those technologies had to be envisioned before they could be realized. They had to be invented. And Mr. Hodges convinces, here, that no one did more to shape our present than the brilliant and wronged Alan Turing. (3/5 Stars)

Life And Death In The Third Reich by Peter Fritzsche

From The Week of March 28, 2010

How do dictatorships take hold in democratic nations? How does a people become so desperate for a solution that they convince themselves to hand over their own inalienable rights in exchange for the promise of a return to glory? Is humanity capable of the kind of self-deception necessary for an entire people to be blind to the games of a man like Hitler? To this last, Mr. Fritzsche seems to answer both yes and no, even while his chilling work speaks to the first two as he chronicles the rise to power of a political system anathema to personal liberty.

There are always those willing to trade liberty for security. Benjamin Franklin deduced that much 240 years ago. So yes, some blinded themselves to the devil in the details of the Nazi regime, choosing to believe that the gains under such a charismatic leader would outweigh the sins he would revisit upon them. But while this is true of some, it's simply wrong to paint all Germans with this brush. Many spoke out, wrote letters, organized marches, established resistances. Proud people do not universally succumb to the snake-oil salesman, not even if he does wrap himself in the flag. But of course, dictatorial regimes do not last long unless they are good at not only crushing dissent, but making the rest believe that the dissent was minor, a silly distraction, a plot by external forces seeking to rob the people of their deserved glory.

How do dictatorships take hold? Fear. Fear of instability, fear of not being able to feed your family, fear of being worthless and useless. How do people convince themselves to hand over their liberties? By telling themselves that this can't possibly be worse than what came before which, when you're starving and miserable, isn't that hard to do. Mr. Fritzsche's ruminations on human nature, in both allowing the Nazis' rise and in protesting its excesses, are fascinating and worthwhile for anyone curious about how they might react in a similar situation to that which confronted the downtrodden Germans of the early 1930s. This is poignant work, particularly in the accounts of those who saw the dark future ahead and were powerless to stop it. (3/5 Stars)

Methland by Nick Reding

From The Week of March 28, 2010

Methland is an exceptional piece of thoughtful journalism, the likes of which comes around only once in a great while. Mr. Reding brings together the micro and the macro views of his subject, linking one, small, Iowan town's struggles with Crystal Meth's impact on its economy and its citizens to the broader, socioeconomic changes in America since the 1980s. And he accomplishes this infusion without overly editorializing, or inserting himself into the narrative. Either this is a credit to the compelling nature of Methland's subject matter or Mr. Reding's own ethics is unclear, but this forceful work is better for letting the powerful pictures Mr. Reding paints speak for themselves.

For nearly 30 years, the landscape of Middle America has been changing for the worse. Since Ronald Reagan's implementation of Trickle-down economics necessitated the weakening of big unions, jobs have been disappearing from small and midtown America, relocating to big cities where city-halls eager to be a destination for jobs and the taxes their holders provide, offered big business tax incentives they couldn't refuse. What jobs remained were bought up and new corporate policies implemented which can be boiled down to, "do this job for crap pay, or we'll bring in illegals to do it for you, or, better yet, we'll just move the factory to Mexico." Under conditions like these, it doesn't take long for poverty to set in as wages decline and jobs evaporate, and where there is poverty there will always be drugs.

This is the grim portrait Mr. Reding paints. But though it's a bleak future for the heartland of America, there is some reason for optimism. In hard times, we fall back upon good people to do good work, to make the hard calls. These are the people Mr. Reding focuses on in his study of Oelwein and the Meth trade: the mayor trying to save his town by revolutionizing it, the prosecutor trying to protect his town by coming after its leeches, and the man of god trying to uplift his town by soothing it. Prosperity eventually begets stagnation. Poverty, for all its ugliness, begets opportunity.

It may be that Mr. Reding's snapshot in Methland is a little too neat for some. It may be that readers will disagree with where he has laid the blame for the current mess. What cannot be disputed, though, is the extent to which poverty drives people to desperation. The casualties of the Meth trade chronicled here have shattered their lives in the pursuit of a drug that literally destroys the ability of their brains to experience pleasure. That is simply not something anyone would volunteer to do, no matter how potent the drug. The violence of the trade and the harm that it does are risks taken when people feel as though their backs are to the wall. And so it's little wonder that Mr. Reding's list of culprits for the current state of disrepair includes everyone from the politicians unwilling to legislate, to the big business willing to take its ball home and refuse to play unless it can play by its own rules. And those left to be squeezed between? Souls who could've made lives for themselves if things had just been a little bit easier.

This is a moving read which travels from the desolate streets of smalltown America to the vibrancy of the halls of power, comfortable here, there and everywhere in between. (5/5 Stars)

Anthem by Ayn Rand

From The Week of March 21, 2010

Ayn Rand will forever occupy a special place in 20th century history. Her philosophy is valuable but arduous, her literature is edifying but long-winded, and her essays are penetrating but pompous. Perhaps, if you have achieved as much as Ms. Rand has, your work is inevitably shot through with virtues and vices. What cannot be questioned, though, is the intellectual ferocity with which she attacked what she believed to be against the liberty of man. And to that end, Anthem is a powerful and concise statement.

Coming in at around a hundred pages, Anthem concerns a nameless man and a nameless woman whose love drives them to transgress the laws of their future, totalitarian society. The society itself is utilitarianism run completely amok, to the extent that those born into the society are assigned jobs by the state based on their perceived aptitudes. And as individualism has more or less been surrendered to this state, the need for names has been done away with. Everyone is completely equal, therefore, no one need be named. Everyone has a job to do, they will do it well, they will be rewarded. Rinse, lather, repeat... This is all they know until this lovestruck couple venture out of the narrow confines of their world to be together and, in doing so, realize that their society is not at all the all-knowing authority they thought it to be.

Ms. Rand savages the notion of a planned economy with this short story which is all the more potent for its brevity. Though she's clearly taken liberties with Communism which has never asked its adherents to relinquish their own names, she has pointed out the gravest flaw with centralized planning, socially and economically. The moment that the State is given a stake in the welfare of the people, it suddenly has a vested interest in managing that welfare. And if it is in the business of managing welfare, then isn't it logical for the State to promote certain practices which it considers beneficial to its subjects? And can it not, conversely, punish those same subjects for harmful and selfish behavior which deprives the general public of the individual's best efforts? Ms. Rand demands that Communism answer to its endgame. Where does centralized planning end? Where does the sacrifice of personal liberties end? And it's a question that the Welfare State will be struggling with for decades to come. For it seems to me that Ms. Rand's brand of personal liberty is as anti-societal as the Welfare State's is anti-libertarian. The answer must be located somewhere in the gray middle.

This is a wonderful story infused with serious, intellectual force. (5/5 Stars)

Beggars In Spain: Sleepless 01 by Nancy Kress

From The Week of March 21, 2010

First published in 1991, this first in a trilogy from Nancy Kress, is a study in a modern odyssey which, while inventive in concept and operatic in scope, fails to find its full stride.

In the early 21st century, a wealthy magnate, obsessed by his own weakness, sets about the task of genetically engineering his unborn children with the stated goal of eliminating their need to sleep. And though his dream is realized beyond his wildest imaginings, the fateful experiment proves to have profound consequences for Earth when it is realized that the Sleepless, as the children of this experiment come to be called, are extraordinarily gifted children who, upon growing to adulthood, cease to age. The sleepless, numbering only in the thousands, begin to harness the economies of the world, out-performing regular humans to such a painful extent that, eventually, there is simply no need for most people to work anymore. The labor necessary for the functioning and advancement of society is not only lifted from the shoulders of humanity, but the Sleepless, in their superiority, essentially promise to take care of everyone else, putting their unmatched powers to the forwarding of society.

This is an intense and fascinating sociological novel which has clearly had a great deal of thought injected into its crafting. The characters are interesting, the dilemmas are ethically engaging, and the sense of tension between the sleepless and the humans keeps the reader connected to the plot. However, Ms. Kress has bitten off, here, far more than can be comfortably chewed. The novel spans about a century of human history. And though many of the characters are the same, thanks to their non-aging, too many formative events are skipped over in the interests of brevity. Clearly, Ms. Kress has written three or four distinct stories here and packaged them into one, but they fail to knit together in a satisfactory manner because some of the sections, particularly the early ones, are much stronger than the sections which come later. And so as the story moves farther away from what we know and onto highly speculative ground, it trades in its sociological potency for some pretty mundane, science-fiction tropes: the rise of the renegade faction of mutants who refuse to conform, the inflaming of anti-mutant sentiment among mainstream humanity, the formation of a renegade cult of mutants who remove themselves to orbit under the leadership of their quasi-religious and completely nutty leader... Sound familiar? What begins with both feet firmly planted in the tradition of speculative, social commentary disappointingly devolves into Star Wars. Just too jarring a transition in a single book.

The first half of Beggars in Spain is great work and I salute Ms. Kress for the thought she put into her project. But this work would have greatly benefited from being divided into three or four parts, with each part fleshed out to make a novel. This would have provided much needed continuity which was sorely lacking in this set up. (3/5 Stars)

V For Vendetta by Steve Moore

From The Week of March 21, 2010

I have a hot and cold relationship with dystopian science fiction. I can't get enough of it! And yet, every bite of that forbidden fruit just doesn't taste as sweet as it should. Perhaps we all have our own, private notions of what the future would look like, if twisted darkly, and that these imaginings clash with the visions we encounter from others. Nonetheless, while this dissonance is in play with V For Vendetta, the book's pacy plot, savage characters and Big-Brothery villainy overcome its flaws and my dissonance to succeed where other stories of its like have failed.

The defining, 0-to-10 scale of dystopian fiction is pessimism, with 0 being fluffy fiction with pretentions to be Dystopian and 10 being "I'm off to get some razorblades because there's no longer any point in living." V For Vendetta comes in around a 7. For though its characters are violent and cruel, and though the totalitarian government is mammoth and unstoppable, a thick vein of anti-establishment triumphalism runs through the story, a vein which pumps some serious energy in the form of hope into the lives of the eponymous V and his new protege, Evey. Caught out on a dangerous, London street after leaving a party later than she planned, Evey is, in good, damsel tradition, plucked from the grubby hands of men who intend her harm by a masked vigilante with exceptional, physical prowess. Delivered into the vigilante's lair, Evey is offered the opportunity to return to her normal life, but though she wavers, as anyone would, she ultimately opts to follow in her master's footsteps, learning from him and, in the process, taking upon herself his great mission of setting back to right what went so spectacularly wrong. Though V is something of a cartoon -- imagine Batman without all the gadgets and the butler --, Evey is a believable heroine with believable fears and understandable incredulity at the situation into which she has been thrust. V may get his name in the title, but it's Evey who carries the story.

These novels are always, to varying degrees, warnings to the people, to be mindful of big institutions which take unto themselves powers they should not have. And to the extent that this book will convince anyone to act more responsibly should totalitarianism come a-knockin', it is a failure. No, this is good fun in a dark world. And nothing more. But good fun is worthwhile. (3/5 Stars)

Imperial Life In The Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran

From The Week of March 21, 2010

We can and will, as a society, debate the merits and the mistakes of the 2003 Iraq War. We'll attack it on grounds ideological, political and even practical, but we'll never come to a full understanding of it. There are some events in the world that are too complex and too secretive for us to individually digest. We will simply never have enough information to comprehend their truth. So what do we do? How do we come to grips with matters as important as these?

We can examine what life is like, on the ground, for the Iraqi people. Mr. Chandrasekaran endeavors to do just that by first exploring the Green Zone, the lavish, American, secured compound deep inside Baghdad, and then expanding his travels out into Baghdad proper, where the streets are dangerous, the rule of law dubious and the shattered lives as plentiful as sand in the dessert. Mr. Chandrasekaran chronicles a few of these beaten down Iraqis, descendants of a proud people now bowed under years of dictatorship and war. He follows their attempts to build new lives out of the rubble of their country while suicide bombs and American policies pound down around them.

Interwoven into these real world experiences is a history of the civilian occupation of Iraq. Mr. Chandrasekaran narrows his focus down to the vital decisions, under Paul Bremmer, that shaped the years to come, siting in particular the calamitous decision to disband the Iraq Army and send countless thousands of armed young men into the streets without any prospect for employment. A clusterfuck of the gravest order, a decision which surely defined the state of Iraqi life until 2007 when the troop surge and the Sunni Awakening began to knit some semblance of Iraqi life back together again.

Though Mr. Chandrasekaran is unsparingly critical of Mr. Bremmer and of the flawed decision making exhibited by his civil administration, he also communicates that, in many ways, there's simply no good way to go about nation-building a conquered country. A mixture of wounded pride and cultural miscommunication will inevitably doom all such efforts. A more nuanced approach is called for, not only to avoid the death and destruction that result from flawed policy, but to avoid the astronomical amounts of cash that have to be sunk into rebuilding a nation with any sort of success. Meanwhile, as Mr. Chandrasekaran so vividly portrays, Baghdad is divided between the slice of Americana that exists in the Green Zone and the lawless and war-torn world that suffers beyond its air-conditioned walls. (3/5 Stars)