Book Review #103: Europe: Chained By History: What forces can break the chain? By Larry J. Hilton

Title: Europe: Chained By History: What forces can break the chain?

Author: Larry J. Hilton

Publishers: Newport Publishing

Genre: History/Non-Fiction

Pages: 344 (Paperback)

Source: Advanced review copy from Cadence Group

Having read many books on the history and especially on the European history, this book makes a unique read. It stands as a class apart. It doesn’t goad us with the facts and figures in a detailed manner which is painstaking to remember everything. This book will present its readers a riveting and vivid account of the history from a different perspective. The book encompasses the humane angle of the history from the medieval times till modern days. 

How does each phase of the history affect the common human beings like you and me? This very essence was captured in a brilliant way.

The book picks up really good with a note from the author in the preface of what led him to write this book. His love towards the history is evident in each chapter and the reference he quotes from different backgrounds adds a feel good factor while reading. In almost all chapters, the readers can see the references being made to the epic series of 11 volumes of western history "The Story of Civilization" by Will and Ariel Durant. We can also witness the author’s adoration towards the famous French poet, philosopher and playwright Voltaire and endorses his beliefs on the freedom of expression and social justice.

The central theme of the book is the capital of Austria, the Vienna. Starting from its historical background of how the present day Vienna got its name from the historical name of Vindobona which means “Fair Village or White Settlement” that originated from the historical beliefs from the Roman settlement of Celtic extraction. From there, the author takes us on a ride through the many kings and dynasties that ruled the Austria, especially the Habsburg dynasty and the king and queens that ruled for hundreds of years. The interesting account was of Maria Theresa, the only female ruler of the Habsburg dynasty, followed by her son Joseph II that ruled for just 10 years, but yet, made enough progress to abolish many things and bringing in new reforms that helped every sect of the society, especially the Jewish origins.

The more we dwell into the book, the more interesting it becomes. The chapters on the birth and rise of Adolf Hitler are a fascinating read. How Adolf does have his surname “Hitler” is an interesting tale. Adolf’s father, Alois Hitler was the illegitimate child of Maria Anna Schicklgruber; the Baptismal register didn’t show the name of the father, though Marina Anna knew who Alois’s father was. From there, Alois used his mother’s name as his surname. By late 1842, Maria Anna married Johann Georg Hiedler. Alois was infact brought up in the family of Hiedler’s brother Johann Nepomuk Hiedler. In 1876, Alois was legitimized and the baptismal register changed by a priest to register Johann Georg Heidler as Alois’s father has mistakenly changed his name to Georg Hitler. This was, Alios assumed the surname as “Hitler”. The chain followed ever after in the family, and thus we see Adolf Hitler. “Hitler” means the one who lives in a Hut.

Adolf Hitler’s regime was one of the brutal and inhumane phases of the modern Austrian history as recorded in this book. With a nil or deteriorating political backbone of the Austria and a growing strength of Adolf Hitler has left no option for the Austrians but to yield before Hitler. This came at the cost of no bullets. Hitler proudly records this event as “conquered without firing a single shot”. It is quite interesting to note that, Adolf Hitler’s childhood comprises of his friendship with Jews, his mother was treated till death by a Jewish doctor, and his stay in Vienna during his college days had made him to have many Jewish acquaintances and so on. His sudden change of behavior of hatred towards Jews has a long history of his reading habits and understanding the political world.

The book has many such fascinating and interesting tales from the history. One such example is the family of Klaar’s. Their tale of misery has no bounds. Also, the diary of a war widow Anna Eisenmenger will provide a vivid detail of the war and post war life, describing the events and the misery they had to endure. One should read these tales from the book to understand the complete picture of a common family during those times.

Overall, I feel this is an interesting book with the facts and figures covered from a different perspective. It is an easy read. The language used is simple and effective. It holds the readers till the end and it certainly becomes unstoppable. Larry J. Hilton has done a tremendous research to pen this book. I strongly recommend this book to be read by all.

My Rating:

5/5

Note: This book was given to me by “The Cadence Group” in exchange for an unbiased review.

Book Review #98: The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History By Sanjeev Sanyal

Title: The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History

Author: Sanjeev Sanyal

Publishers: Penguin India

Genre: Geo-political History/History/Maritime History

Pages: 374 (Paperback)

Source: Personal Copy

Being a regular reader of the history I was fascinated by this book by the author Sanjeev Sanyal. Having read his previous book "Land of the Seven Rivers" I was all eager to read this new book. In his previous book, he talked about the seven important rivers of India including the mighty Saraswati River. The Land of seven rivers was summed up in one line as “Seven Rivers (Sapth Sindhu), One Country, Five Millennia, Startling History”.

Asian histories have been rendered in a biased manner since time immemorial. As a famous saying that goes, until an animal has its own history, the history of the hunting will always glorify the hunter. If we take any history curriculum in Indian education system, we can read leaps and bounds of Mughul Empire, the British regime, the Sultanates and such similar accounts. 

Unfortunately, we won’t be able to read the histories of Cholas, Pandyas, Pallavas in greater detail and their glories have been limited to few pages here and there. This book, one of a kind in its genre, breaks that stupor and gives us a riveting account of how the Indian Ocean has shaped the human history. Indian Ocean is itself a big mystery. It holds many unresolved or undiscovered history that is hidden deep into its core. Author Sanjeev Sanyal tried to uncover this in this vast researched and well articulated book and succeeded in satiating his readers.

The book opens up by a fascinating tale of how the Pallava dynasty has traced an heir to their Kingdom when the erstwhile King, Parameshwara Verman II died in 731 CE. A delegation of Brahmin scholars, which travelled across the Indian Ocean to the far ends of Cambodia, and got back an heir that traced his roots to the Pallava dynasty from five long generations ago!! Thus, the reign of Nandi Verman II has started.

Hundreds of questions pop up as we read further through the book. For example:

Why did Vasco Da Gama worship in a Hindu temple when he set in India for the first time?

Why there are fossil remain of marine animals have been found in the Himalayas?

How come the Parsi community of India embraced the Guajrati culture so effortlessly?

How did the Sinhalese come to Sri Lanka?

What was the connection of the Sri Vijaya Empire with the Chinese?

How did the world’s second Mosque (King Cheraman Perumal) have been built in Kerala, India? What was the motive behind it?

How did Portuguese and Dutch have taken advantage in conquering parts of India?

How come we see oriental faces of engravings by Pallavas?

And so on…

The Ocean of Churn begins its journey even before the formation of the Indian Ocean. It talks about the super continent called Gondwana (This name is derived from the Gond tribe of the central India) that existed more than 270 million years ago and the mighty Saraswati River and how it dried up due to the tectonic plate shifts, how the Himalaya has been formed, and how the races have been migrated from India to outside world. This book traces the history through the Ocean way. How people set up its civilizations, how their trade hub got established, what was their commercial aspects, how they dealt with various traders inside and outside their territory and so on.

Sanjeev Sanyal views this history as Complex Adaptive System. Given his background in Economics, where he considers multiple factors act upon a system to determine the direction it takes. From Harrappan times, Indians have been trading with the world in many ways. Maritime trading is the major aspect during those times when land routes were hardly discovered. The powerful Chola king, Rajendra Chola made a naval attack on the Sri Vijaya Kingdom of Sumatra by 1025 is one such example. Chola Empire was one of the powerful empires in the entire South Asia region during that time. There were a major geo-political-economic alliances or rivalries between Indians, Chinese and the Sri Vijaya Kingdom.

Kerala being the hub of the maritime trade have witnessed a vast amount of geo-political-economic tradeoffs. As a testimony to those, even today in Kerala, we have the world’s second Mosque and India’s first mosque (Cheraman Perumal Mosque) built by the king Cherman Perumal by the orders of Mohammed the prophet himself in 629 AD. We also get to see the memorial of St. Thomas (doubting Thomas fame), a disciple of Jesus, who visited Kerala via sea route.

Overall, this book is a well researched one. It starts right from the origin of India Ocean due to the tectonic plate shifts and ends right at the transformation of Bombay to Mumbai with the reclamation of land over the Ocean. This book is full of rich details of all Kingdoms that throve around the Indian Ocean, Indian coastline, and several islands of the Indian Ocean that also had cultural trade ties with India and its Kingdoms.

Author personally visited several of these places that he mentions in his book. It shows what kind of painstaking research that he has put in this book. It is extremely informative and knowledge enhancing. As the author himself remarks at the end of the book “A systematic bias I have found in the existing literature is the preference given to the writers and sources from outside the continents.” This is evidently true, as we are fed with the histories that are written by mentally enslaved minds. It is time to look through a new perspective and stop looking towards the west for our recognition. India was and is an ancient lands with many millions years of history. Authors like Sanjeev Sanyal should be encouraged by reading these kinds of books.

My Rating:

5/5