Paul Johnson (1) (1928–2023)
Author of A History of the American People
For other authors named Paul Johnson, see the disambiguation page.
About the Author
Paul Johnson lives in London.
Series
Works by Paul Johnson
Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Nineties (2001) — Author — 1,260 copies, 16 reviews
Heroes: From Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar to Churchill and de Gaulle (2007) 278 copies, 2 reviews
Modern Times: A History of the World from the 1920s to the Year 2000 (Phoenix Giants) (1999) — Author — 56 copies
The Quotable Paul Johnson: A Topical Compilation of His Wit, Wisdom and Satire (1994) — Author — 56 copies
The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain Volume I: Industrialisation, 1700-1860 (2004) — Editor — 42 copies
American Presidents Eminent Lives Boxed Set: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ulysses S. Grant (2005) — Contributor — 34 copies, 1 review
The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain Volume II: Economic maturity, 1860-1939 (2004) — Editor — 27 copies
The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain Volume III: Structural Change and Growth, 1939-2000 (2004) — Editor — 22 copies
Modern Times the World From the Twenties to the Eghties Part Ii By Paul Johnson Read By Nadia May (1988) — Author — 3 copies
Quest for God 1 copy
" A terrible failure" in TLS 5155, 18 Jan 2002 [review of Pipes' 'Communism: a brief history'] 1 copy
Julian Barrow 1 copy
Associated Works
Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House (2004) — Contributor — 158 copies, 3 reviews
The Norman Podhoretz Reader: A Selection of His Writings from the 1950s through the 1990s (2004) — Introduction, some editions — 49 copies
What's Tha Up To?: Memories of a Yorkshire Bobby (2010) — Afterword, some editions — 18 copies, 2 reviews
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society - Fifth Series, Volume 38 (1994) — Contributor, some editions — 5 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Johnson, Paul
- Legal name
- Johnson, Paul Bede
- Birthdate
- 1928-11-02
- Date of death
- 2023-01-12
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Magdalen College, Oxford (BA|1949)
Stonyhurst College, Clitheroe, Lancashire, England, UK - Occupations
- reporter
editor
historian
columnist
speechwriter
journalist - Organizations
- Kings' Royal Rifle Corps
Royal Army Educational Corps
National Union of Journalists
The Spectator
Daily Mail
The Daily Telegraph (show all 13)
New Statesman
Royal Commission on the Press
Cable Authority
The New York Times
The Wall Street Journal
Forbes
Stubbs Society - Awards and honors
- Francis Boyer Award (1979)
King Award for Excellence (1980)
Presidential Medal of Freedom (2006)
Commander of the Order of the British Empire (2016) - Relationships
- Hunt, Marigold (wife)
Johnson, Daniel (son)
Johnson, Luke (son)
Stoppard, Tom (friend) - Short biography
- 1. Paul Bede Johnson 1928- (also entered in LT as Paul M. Johnson (maybe)) wrote Aerofilms book of London from the air; Art; Birth of the modern world; British cathedrals; Castles of England, Scotland and Wales; Cathedrals of England, Scotland and Wales; The Civilization of ancient Egypt; Creators; Elizabeth I; Enemies of society; George Washington; A History of Christianity; A History of the American people; A History of the English people; A History of the Jews; A History of the modern world; Intellectuals; Ireland; The Life and times of Edward III; Merrie England; Modern times; Napoleon; The National Trust book of British castles; The Offshore islanders; The Oxford book of British political anecdotes; Paul Johnson in New Zealand; A Place in history; Pope John XXIII; The Quest for God; The Quotable Paul Johnson; The Renaissance; To hell with Picasso; The Vanished landscape.
- Nationality
- UK
- Birthplace
- Manchester, Lancashire, England, UK
- Places of residence
- London, Middlesex, England, UK
Gibraltar
Paris, Île-de-France, France - Place of death
- London, Middlesex, England, UK
- Map Location
- England, UK
Members
Discussions
SIGH! Eisenhower (Again...) in Pro and Con (March 2015)
Reviews
According to Paul Johnson, more biographies have been written about Napoleon Bonaparte than about any other historical figure. Nevertheless, despite the wealth of information available, Johnson manages to distill Napoleon's life, career, and legacy in a work of fewer than 200 pages. What results is a first rate and provocative contribution to the Penguin Lives series of biographies.
Johnson’s biography traces the important details of Bonaparte’s family background, rise to power, military show more conquests, and political career, with due attention to his personal life. Born of an Italian family, Napoleon held French citizenship only because Corsica was ceded to France the year before his birth in 1768. No ideologue, Napoleon saw everything in terms of his own power; the sacrifice of millions of lives meant nothing if it served his own ambition and power. Indeed, to Johnson’s Napoleon, war was not merely a means, but an end in itself.
The widespread view of Napoleon as a military genius is hard to reconcile with the facts presented in Johnson’s account. Early in his career, Napoleon failed in his Egyptian campaign -- and quickly deserted his own army in favor of a chance to grab power back in France. Certainly, as Emperor, Napoleon had astonishing successes against English and Prussian armies in continental Europe, in part due to lightning attacks that overwhelmed his opposition. Nevertheless, he never understood naval warfare, and for that reason, England lay beyond his grasp. And then there is the disastrous invasion of Russia, and the astonishing miscalculations at Waterloo, followed by his final, lonely exile. What’s more, selling such a large portion of France’s holdings in North America to the newly established United States is (from a strategic standpoint) surely a “failure of imagination” on a monumental scale.
Paul Johnson’s Napoleon is no admirable figure. He violated every treaty and agreement he ever signed, including the one involved in his own first exile to Elba. Further, events that he set in motion caused the loss of four to five million lives, not to mention the enormous loss of property. (For his actions, Johnson asserts that Napoleon would be tried as a war criminal today -- an arguable point in view of the lack of consequences for recent US leaders under international law). Further, despite having conquered much of Europe, he had neither the ability nor interest to administer an actual empire. Napoleon’s legacy, ironically, became a negative one -- the establishment of political alliances that made it impossible for any European nation to dominate the others for nearly a century -- putting an end to the perpetual wars between France and England.
One small error mars this otherwise fine work. Johnson confuses two of Napoleon’s brothers, in stating (p. 10 and 109) that Lucien was established as King of Holland, until his abdication in 1810. In fact, this position was assumed by Napoleon’s younger brother Louis (Johnson also gets the dates of birth/ death wrong).
This book offers a challenge to ideologues who assert that history is caused by impersonal events and forces. Without a Napoleon (and for that matter, without the fortuitous timing of his birth), two centuries of European history would have turned out differently. Paul Johnson’s Napoleon offers a thought - provoking and informative perspective on an important historical figure who left a legacy as troubling as any other person of the 18th century, and whose crimes against humanity were not to be exceeded until the 1930s and beyond. show less
Johnson’s biography traces the important details of Bonaparte’s family background, rise to power, military show more conquests, and political career, with due attention to his personal life. Born of an Italian family, Napoleon held French citizenship only because Corsica was ceded to France the year before his birth in 1768. No ideologue, Napoleon saw everything in terms of his own power; the sacrifice of millions of lives meant nothing if it served his own ambition and power. Indeed, to Johnson’s Napoleon, war was not merely a means, but an end in itself.
The widespread view of Napoleon as a military genius is hard to reconcile with the facts presented in Johnson’s account. Early in his career, Napoleon failed in his Egyptian campaign -- and quickly deserted his own army in favor of a chance to grab power back in France. Certainly, as Emperor, Napoleon had astonishing successes against English and Prussian armies in continental Europe, in part due to lightning attacks that overwhelmed his opposition. Nevertheless, he never understood naval warfare, and for that reason, England lay beyond his grasp. And then there is the disastrous invasion of Russia, and the astonishing miscalculations at Waterloo, followed by his final, lonely exile. What’s more, selling such a large portion of France’s holdings in North America to the newly established United States is (from a strategic standpoint) surely a “failure of imagination” on a monumental scale.
Paul Johnson’s Napoleon is no admirable figure. He violated every treaty and agreement he ever signed, including the one involved in his own first exile to Elba. Further, events that he set in motion caused the loss of four to five million lives, not to mention the enormous loss of property. (For his actions, Johnson asserts that Napoleon would be tried as a war criminal today -- an arguable point in view of the lack of consequences for recent US leaders under international law). Further, despite having conquered much of Europe, he had neither the ability nor interest to administer an actual empire. Napoleon’s legacy, ironically, became a negative one -- the establishment of political alliances that made it impossible for any European nation to dominate the others for nearly a century -- putting an end to the perpetual wars between France and England.
One small error mars this otherwise fine work. Johnson confuses two of Napoleon’s brothers, in stating (p. 10 and 109) that Lucien was established as King of Holland, until his abdication in 1810. In fact, this position was assumed by Napoleon’s younger brother Louis (Johnson also gets the dates of birth/ death wrong).
This book offers a challenge to ideologues who assert that history is caused by impersonal events and forces. Without a Napoleon (and for that matter, without the fortuitous timing of his birth), two centuries of European history would have turned out differently. Paul Johnson’s Napoleon offers a thought - provoking and informative perspective on an important historical figure who left a legacy as troubling as any other person of the 18th century, and whose crimes against humanity were not to be exceeded until the 1930s and beyond. show less
I have to declare an interest here. Consolidate Gold Fields was subject to an aggressive takeover bid in 1988 from Minorco and I was on the defence team. The bid was unsuccessful but, exhausted, Gold Fields fell by consent later that year to Hanson.
This book, published in 1987, was given to me as part of the 'learning curve' of mounting a defence but, frankly, takeover bids were then such intense affairs, played within a particular ritual game in which the actual business of the target was show more ancillary, that I put the book to one side.
I only found the book again very recently 'in a box' I was clearing out, one of many that I had let fester in a loft and whose contents I felt I should send to the dump or have shredded if sensitive. This time, over three decades later, I decided to read it.
I now find that I have read what I think is the finest 'corporate biography' I have come across. Part of its quality lies in the author, the centre-right intellectual Paul Johnson, and part in the exceptionally open, transparent and highly intelligent approach of those who commissioned it.
What is not in the book and I did not know until recently was that Gold Fields (as we called it) was instrumental in the fall of apartheid through the secret talks it sponsored between the South African Government and the ANC on its estate in Somerset.
This would be in character because, although it smacked at times of upper class 'noblesse oblige' and a slight tendency to patrician arrogance, its senior management were liberal and rational. Rudolph Agnew, the Chairman, was very impressive.
The book becomes valuable because, although it has its necessary 'longeurs'to describe its mining and manufacturing activities, it is also a clear and honest account of how mining finance developed in an imperial context and how capitalism has shifted and adapted over long periods.
Johnson is in favour of capitalism but not in a hectoring or polemical way. He simply lays out the background and the facts. He positions it as, quite simply, rational and adaptable, the basis of the 'good life' that we all take for granted (at least in the West).
The general reader can learn lessons from this book on how top level capitalist enterprise works, the amount of risk involved and its critical role in the creation of the great new 'white-led' colonial enterprises in South Africa and Australia and in the further development of the mighty US.
There is no racism in this book (except by the light of those who argue that simple dominance is racist). It becomes clear that it was in Gold Fields interest to train and educate black workers and that tribalism and white trades unions were more problematic than capitalists in this respect.
It came to exist through capitalist ruthlessness but probably nothing would have happened, or another ruthless capitalist would have taken its place if not. It was maintained through rational management and negotiation and an unusual degree of decentralisation.
Highly sensitive to politics, even in the late 1980s, it was adapting to environmentalism with more enthusiasm on the part of managers than you might expect - in fact, both 'greening' and health and safety/working conditions were improved because they made good business sense.
Johnson writes well. He did not just sit in his den and write from papers provided by managers. He travelled across a global mining empire and gives long extracts from his diaries which sometimes do not hide the different prespectives of different parts of the whole. He asks tough questions.
The economics of mining and the nature of mining finance are well covered as well as the cultural differences between parts of the empire which might suggest that Agnew's unusual decentralised strategy was partly forced on him by reality.
More interesting still, Johnson teased out and the managers allowed to be published serious internal debates on strategy and reasoned criticism of prevailing senior management opinion. This is possibly unique, at least in my readings of the closed world of the corporation.
The book is sumptuous in its use of illustration. Johnson introduces personnel at every level of management although the actual workers below that level are observed rather than given a voice. This is still very much a hierarchical environment even if a British and liberal one.
As we finish the book, noting that the company (though its components still trade today) was to fall victim by consent to a financial conglomerate, there is a sense of Gold Fields representing a form of British capitalism whose adaptability was not sufficient to final purpose.
Something constructed to duck and dive and take risks within a free-booting imperial environment might always have found increasing difficulty under a global capitalism that was getting bigger than the British Empire had ever been. But it died with honour. show less
This book, published in 1987, was given to me as part of the 'learning curve' of mounting a defence but, frankly, takeover bids were then such intense affairs, played within a particular ritual game in which the actual business of the target was show more ancillary, that I put the book to one side.
I only found the book again very recently 'in a box' I was clearing out, one of many that I had let fester in a loft and whose contents I felt I should send to the dump or have shredded if sensitive. This time, over three decades later, I decided to read it.
I now find that I have read what I think is the finest 'corporate biography' I have come across. Part of its quality lies in the author, the centre-right intellectual Paul Johnson, and part in the exceptionally open, transparent and highly intelligent approach of those who commissioned it.
What is not in the book and I did not know until recently was that Gold Fields (as we called it) was instrumental in the fall of apartheid through the secret talks it sponsored between the South African Government and the ANC on its estate in Somerset.
This would be in character because, although it smacked at times of upper class 'noblesse oblige' and a slight tendency to patrician arrogance, its senior management were liberal and rational. Rudolph Agnew, the Chairman, was very impressive.
The book becomes valuable because, although it has its necessary 'longeurs'to describe its mining and manufacturing activities, it is also a clear and honest account of how mining finance developed in an imperial context and how capitalism has shifted and adapted over long periods.
Johnson is in favour of capitalism but not in a hectoring or polemical way. He simply lays out the background and the facts. He positions it as, quite simply, rational and adaptable, the basis of the 'good life' that we all take for granted (at least in the West).
The general reader can learn lessons from this book on how top level capitalist enterprise works, the amount of risk involved and its critical role in the creation of the great new 'white-led' colonial enterprises in South Africa and Australia and in the further development of the mighty US.
There is no racism in this book (except by the light of those who argue that simple dominance is racist). It becomes clear that it was in Gold Fields interest to train and educate black workers and that tribalism and white trades unions were more problematic than capitalists in this respect.
It came to exist through capitalist ruthlessness but probably nothing would have happened, or another ruthless capitalist would have taken its place if not. It was maintained through rational management and negotiation and an unusual degree of decentralisation.
Highly sensitive to politics, even in the late 1980s, it was adapting to environmentalism with more enthusiasm on the part of managers than you might expect - in fact, both 'greening' and health and safety/working conditions were improved because they made good business sense.
Johnson writes well. He did not just sit in his den and write from papers provided by managers. He travelled across a global mining empire and gives long extracts from his diaries which sometimes do not hide the different prespectives of different parts of the whole. He asks tough questions.
The economics of mining and the nature of mining finance are well covered as well as the cultural differences between parts of the empire which might suggest that Agnew's unusual decentralised strategy was partly forced on him by reality.
More interesting still, Johnson teased out and the managers allowed to be published serious internal debates on strategy and reasoned criticism of prevailing senior management opinion. This is possibly unique, at least in my readings of the closed world of the corporation.
The book is sumptuous in its use of illustration. Johnson introduces personnel at every level of management although the actual workers below that level are observed rather than given a voice. This is still very much a hierarchical environment even if a British and liberal one.
As we finish the book, noting that the company (though its components still trade today) was to fall victim by consent to a financial conglomerate, there is a sense of Gold Fields representing a form of British capitalism whose adaptability was not sufficient to final purpose.
Something constructed to duck and dive and take risks within a free-booting imperial environment might always have found increasing difficulty under a global capitalism that was getting bigger than the British Empire had ever been. But it died with honour. show less
Négy csillag, annak ellenére, vagy éppen azért, mert időnként padlizsánszínűre vitatkoztam a fejem vele. Kezdjük azzal, hogy Johnson abból az alaptézisből indul ki, miszerint a keresztény vallás és erkölcs relativizálódása olyan űrt hagyott maga után a XX. században, amit szükségszerűen a nietzsche-i hatalom akarása-érzés töltött be – ami gondolatnak felettébb termékeny, de csekély történelmi ismereteim alapján nem úgy rémlik, mintha a XX. századot show more megelőző időszakban turbékoló gerlepár lett volna ez a szerencsétlen kontinens. Az ő világában az olyan eszmék, ideológiák vagy gondolatok, mint a relativitás törvénye vagy az egzisztencializmus egész nemzetek viselkedésére vannak hatással. Ebben is biztos van igazság, de a magam részéről nem látom bizonyíthatónak, hogy mondjuk egy balassagyarmati pék vagy egy mórahalmi gyümölcskertész szavazatai mögött Sartre marxista tévtanait kell sejtenünk. Ettől függetlenül le a kalappal Johnson előtt, mert az építmény, amit felhúzott saját világnézetére, hibátlan és lenyűgöző, külön értékelem, hogy tényeit egy enyémtől különböző világnézet fényében vizsgálhatom. Bár meglehetősen ambivalens érzéseim voltak az olyan provokatív stílusú* részek olvasásakor, mint a spanyol polgárháború időszaka vagy a dekolonalizáció, ugyanakkor Johnson egyrészt véleményt nyilvánít és nem prófétál, másrészt pedig adatai és magyarázatai helytállóak**. Ezek az ambivalens érzések pedig nagyon hasznosak, mert világosan rámutatnak, hol vannak a lyukak az én érvrendszeremben, amiket be kell tömködnöm, mielőtt belevágok legközelebb egy világnézeti disputába.
Viszont ez az utószó, ez csapnivaló. Körmendy Zsuzsanna vagy nem mélyedt el a műben, vagy csak szeretett volna egy kis aktuálpolitikai szájfényt adni hozzá***, mert annyi esett le neki, hogy Johnson szerint a kommunizmus meg a fasizmus édestestvérek. Ami egyrészt nem új elmélet, másrészt csak egy következménye a johnson-i alapgondolatnak: hogy a XX. század az egyéni jog és az állami hatalom küzdelmeként is felfogható, ahol utóbbi iszonyatos rémtettektől sem riad vissza, hogy az előbbit (akár liberalizmus, akár piacgazdaság formájában jelenik meg) maga alá gyűrje. Egyáltalán nem kérdés, hogy Johnson ebben a küzdelemben kinek a pártján van. Jellemző, hogy bár a demokratákat vagy liberálisokat gyakran gúnnyal kezeli, de az autokratákat és nacionalistákat mindig dühvel, sőt helyenként gyűlölettel****. Johnson kevesebb államot akar, olyan kormányokat, akik engedik polgáraiknak, hogy azok maguk döntsenek érdekeik felől – hogy az egyén mit kezd ezzel a szabadsággal, az persze más kérdés. Johnsonnak sem tetszik sok minden, bele is mászik a szerintem felettébb ingoványos erkölcsi relativizmus fogalomkörébe, de nem szabad elfelejteni: legfeljebb a tanító rangjára pályázik, semmiképpen sem a törvényhozóéra. És hát tanítson, semmi kifogásom ellene.
Más. Mindig rájövök, mennyivel jobban tudom a keresztény konzervatívok érveit akceptálni, mint a nacionalistákét. Talán mert előbbiek gondolataiban a hagyomány elemei dominálnak, és abban mégis találni valami kézzelfoghatót. Viszont a nacionalisták a nemzeti érdek és nemzeti gondolat mentén érvelnek, ami színtiszta absztrakció. Az absztrakciók ellen pedig nem lehet észérvekkel védekezni. No persze Johnson nem a keresztény konzervatívok azon csoportjába tartozik, akiket módom van személyesen megtapasztalni. Lehet, nem is létezik olyan. Mese csak.
* Példának okáért Johnsonnak nagy öröme telik abban, hogy szívének kevéssé kedves személyekről gúnyos anekdotákat illesszen a szövegbe. Amit helyén kell kezelni, még ha időnként bűnösen mulatságos is.
** Nyilván nem mindig. Egy ízben Kádárt „gyűlölt vezetőnek” nevezi – ezt például nem tudom, honnan szedte. A II. világháború esetében pedig betéved kicsit a „ha”-k világába: ha Hitler nem a Szovjetuniót, hanem a brit Közel-Keletet támadta volna meg, akkor akár meg is nyerhette volna a háborút – na ja, ha nem ő lett volna Hitler, akkor megnyerhette volna, viszont ha nem ő Hitler, akkor talán ki sem robbantja. Meg aztán ha Hitlert a müncheni sörpuccs után nem egy szanatóriumszerű tanintézménybe viszik, hanem agyonlövik (ahogy például a baloldali forradalmárok esetében volt szokás), akkor ide se vonulnak be az oroszok, és Magyarország maga lenne a paradicsom, a szőke holland gazdasági emigránsok sorban állnának Hegyeshalomnál, csak hogy beengedjük őket. Ha. Ha. Ha.
*** Talán ennek tudható be, hogy az eredeti, értékítélettől mentes alcím (A History of the World from the 1920s to the Year 2000) helyett a jóval szájbarágósabb A huszadik század igazi arca magyarítást választották. Pedig hát hol mond Johnson olyat, hogy az ő véleménye az „igazi”? Kicsit olyan ez, mintha a Bűn és bűnhődést Makai úgy fordította volna, hogy A szemét Raszkolnyikov. Vagy az ellenkező véglet: Szabó Lőrinc a Tess of the D'Urbervilles-t úgy, hogy Egy tiszta nő. Ja, hogy ez megvolt…
**** Amely gyűlölet igazából nem is tudom, hogy fér össze a keresztény szemlélettel. show less
Viszont ez az utószó, ez csapnivaló. Körmendy Zsuzsanna vagy nem mélyedt el a műben, vagy csak szeretett volna egy kis aktuálpolitikai szájfényt adni hozzá***, mert annyi esett le neki, hogy Johnson szerint a kommunizmus meg a fasizmus édestestvérek. Ami egyrészt nem új elmélet, másrészt csak egy következménye a johnson-i alapgondolatnak: hogy a XX. század az egyéni jog és az állami hatalom küzdelmeként is felfogható, ahol utóbbi iszonyatos rémtettektől sem riad vissza, hogy az előbbit (akár liberalizmus, akár piacgazdaság formájában jelenik meg) maga alá gyűrje. Egyáltalán nem kérdés, hogy Johnson ebben a küzdelemben kinek a pártján van. Jellemző, hogy bár a demokratákat vagy liberálisokat gyakran gúnnyal kezeli, de az autokratákat és nacionalistákat mindig dühvel, sőt helyenként gyűlölettel****. Johnson kevesebb államot akar, olyan kormányokat, akik engedik polgáraiknak, hogy azok maguk döntsenek érdekeik felől – hogy az egyén mit kezd ezzel a szabadsággal, az persze más kérdés. Johnsonnak sem tetszik sok minden, bele is mászik a szerintem felettébb ingoványos erkölcsi relativizmus fogalomkörébe, de nem szabad elfelejteni: legfeljebb a tanító rangjára pályázik, semmiképpen sem a törvényhozóéra. És hát tanítson, semmi kifogásom ellene.
Más. Mindig rájövök, mennyivel jobban tudom a keresztény konzervatívok érveit akceptálni, mint a nacionalistákét. Talán mert előbbiek gondolataiban a hagyomány elemei dominálnak, és abban mégis találni valami kézzelfoghatót. Viszont a nacionalisták a nemzeti érdek és nemzeti gondolat mentén érvelnek, ami színtiszta absztrakció. Az absztrakciók ellen pedig nem lehet észérvekkel védekezni. No persze Johnson nem a keresztény konzervatívok azon csoportjába tartozik, akiket módom van személyesen megtapasztalni. Lehet, nem is létezik olyan. Mese csak.
* Példának okáért Johnsonnak nagy öröme telik abban, hogy szívének kevéssé kedves személyekről gúnyos anekdotákat illesszen a szövegbe. Amit helyén kell kezelni, még ha időnként bűnösen mulatságos is.
** Nyilván nem mindig. Egy ízben Kádárt „gyűlölt vezetőnek” nevezi – ezt például nem tudom, honnan szedte. A II. világháború esetében pedig betéved kicsit a „ha”-k világába: ha Hitler nem a Szovjetuniót, hanem a brit Közel-Keletet támadta volna meg, akkor akár meg is nyerhette volna a háborút – na ja, ha nem ő lett volna Hitler, akkor megnyerhette volna, viszont ha nem ő Hitler, akkor talán ki sem robbantja. Meg aztán ha Hitlert a müncheni sörpuccs után nem egy szanatóriumszerű tanintézménybe viszik, hanem agyonlövik (ahogy például a baloldali forradalmárok esetében volt szokás), akkor ide se vonulnak be az oroszok, és Magyarország maga lenne a paradicsom, a szőke holland gazdasági emigránsok sorban állnának Hegyeshalomnál, csak hogy beengedjük őket. Ha. Ha. Ha.
*** Talán ennek tudható be, hogy az eredeti, értékítélettől mentes alcím (A History of the World from the 1920s to the Year 2000) helyett a jóval szájbarágósabb A huszadik század igazi arca magyarítást választották. Pedig hát hol mond Johnson olyat, hogy az ő véleménye az „igazi”? Kicsit olyan ez, mintha a Bűn és bűnhődést Makai úgy fordította volna, hogy A szemét Raszkolnyikov. Vagy az ellenkező véglet: Szabó Lőrinc a Tess of the D'Urbervilles-t úgy, hogy Egy tiszta nő. Ja, hogy ez megvolt…
**** Amely gyűlölet igazából nem is tudom, hogy fér össze a keresztény szemlélettel. show less
How does one determine a rating for a book like this? Do we appreciate its best parts, its fine writing, and its page-turning momentum, so rare in an almost thousand page book of history? Or do we judge it by its worst parts, where the author, near the end of the work, appears to be finishing it from a lunatic asylum, perhaps under the constant gaze of a couple of orderlies, assigned to keep him from doing something rash (other than with his pen).
That is the dilemma of Paul Johnson’s show more History of the American People. I began my read well aware of some of the author’s biases. He is a religious man and admires America because in his opinion it is a nation firmly founded on religious (i.e., Christian) principles. Never mind that other than John Adams, the first few Presidents were rarely found in church, and that when they spoke of god, it was an acknowledgement, or perhaps simply the desire for, some overriding supernatural power greater than man—not the jealous, personal god of the Bible. But in the case of religion, Johnson’s bias is straightforward, and his opinions are clearly separated from the historical facts he presents. He is convincing when speaking about John Winthrop and the importance of religion in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, for instance. This is a book driven by the portraits of the individuals who were the protagonists in the history of their time. Johnson’s judgments can be severe—he in no way overlooks the contradictions and weaknesses of Thomas Jefferson for instance. Jefferson was no saint, and Johnson’s portrait of him is multi-sided and believable. This is true of his portraits of other great figures of the first half of American history, from the Founding Fathers to Abraham Lincoln. His portrayal of Andrew Jackson (a man Johnson tells us had killed numerous people before becoming President) is especially memorable.
On the other hand, Johnson has little sympathy for the Native Americans who were relentlessly pushed back into the barren wastelands of America by the westward expansion. He says they weren’t very good farmers. He denigrates their intelligence, and pretty much makes what happened to them seem both inevitable and their own fault. Perhaps it was. There is always a little truth even in Johnson’s most drastic pronouncements.
The book continues along in its fascinating way through the Civil War, Reconstruction, and into the age of the Robber Barons. Except, they weren’t Robber Barons, Johnson says. There is again some truth in this. They were certainly more industrious, talented men than the current crop of bank CEOs who have enriched themselves at the expense of their customers and our financial system in general. Johnson takes great pleasure in expounding on the incredible civic deeds of Andrew Carnegie or Andrew Mellon, while acknowledging that their may have been one or two rogues among that bunch. Amazingly, in the midst of the most outrageous parts of his book, while discussing late-20th Century America, Johnson does spend a few paragraphs highlighting the growth of income inequality and does so with some passion—but he still loves the Robber Barons. At least they created something out of nothing.
To Johnson, it was probably the term of Woodrow Wilson when things really started to go wrong, with the unchecked growth of Presidential power, and along with it, the Government itself. This reached its peak—philosophically at least, as the government would continue to grow and grow—during the Roosevelt administration’s New Deal. Johnson, correctly I would say, points out that it really took World War II to end the Depression. Roosevelt was overrated and copied a lot of his ideas from Hoover anyway. (I have left out the administration of Warren G. Harding, whose reputation Johnson tries to rescue, much in the same way that Edgar Allan Poe’s reputation had to be rescued from the arch-enemy who took control of it in the wake of Poe’s death. About Harding, Johnson is somewhat convincing, and always interesting. At this point, no one has even called the loony bin.)
Johnson loves Harry Truman (a Democrat) and Dwight Eisenhower (a Republican). Both men had a firm grasp on what they were doing and don’t appear to have fallen victim to excesses or grand visions. Johnson explains and defends Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan. Personally, I have always believed that if he hadn’t done it then, someone would have done it later. It was a weapon that had to be used to be believed. And by precluding the need for a bloodbath-inducing invasion of the Japanese homeland, lives were undoubtedly saved.
The administration of Eisenhower also brought us Vice President Richard Nixon, of course, a self-made man, a solid anti-communist who beat Khrushchev in a kitchen debate, and who was immediately targeted for destruction by the liberal press. In Johnson’s telling, Nixon was robbed of the 1960 election (which is probably true) but spared the country the trauma of contesting it. He was by far superior to John F. Kennedy, whose wartime record was vastly inflated (and ghost-written), who was a secret drug addict, who had a prostitute in the White House the night of his inauguration, and so on and so forth. Again, some of this, perhaps most of it may be true. But by this point in the book, Johnson has lost all control of his storytelling. There is no more separation of facts from opinion. It is ALL opinion.
The deeply flawed Lyndon Johnson gets some kudos for pushing through civil rights legislation, though this is offset by deepening the Vietnam quagmire. Thankfully, Richard Nixon consented to return to politics and put things back on the right course, aided by his “able and devoted” senior White House team of Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman. If it weren’t for the witch-hunt of Watergate, instigated by those who had been trying to get Nixon for the past 20 years, his administration would have gone down as one of the greatest in history! Still, despite leaving office early, Nixon did manage to save Israel from destruction in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, according to Johnson’s account.
After Nixon’s departure, things would just get worse until finally Ronald Reagan appeared. Johnson’s portrayal of Reagan is quite fascinating, however. He shows him as a man who did indeed treat the office of President much like a movie role. While not involving himself, or perhaps even understanding the fine details of what was going on, he nevertheless made most of the right decisions and brought back a sense of hope to a country which had lost faith in the Presidency after the downfall of Nixon, the well-meaning ineffectuality of Gerald Ford, and the feel good failure of Jimmy Carter. Again, there is an undercurrent of truth in Johnson’s version.
After the Reagan Administration, Johnson seems to lose interest. He doesn’t dwell much on Bush I, preferring to go on a rant about Ebonics instead. Despite the doom and gloom of most of the last chapter, he closes on an optimistic note, talking about Americans as a problem-solving people, who can presumably get past that Ebonics thing. I’m assuming these closing paragraphs were written some time well before the frenzied out of control pages that come before them, which were undoubtedly written by the insane Johnson.
Of course, in the end, I must admit that Johnson, so far as I know, didn’t actually go insane. He has written other books since, and I quite enjoyed his take on Mozart. If you are well-versed in history, you will find much to enjoy here. And if you are of the right (wrong) political persuasion, you’ll probably like the last part of the book as well. Johnson is a talented writer, and I don’t regret reading this book. It is in no way a waste of time. It has inspired me to write, off the top of my head, the longest review I have ever posted. So read it, and you be the judge. I can at least tell you that it goes down a lot easier than most 1,000 page tomes.
Oh yes, I need to come up with a rating. It can’t be really good, given how outrageous some of this is, but I have to give Johnson credit as well. So I’ll compromise on 2 ½ stars. (Or 2 stars on Amazon, since it can’t deal with halves as well as LibraryThing, which is the world’s greatest website. How can anyone enjoy using GoodReads?) show less
That is the dilemma of Paul Johnson’s show more History of the American People. I began my read well aware of some of the author’s biases. He is a religious man and admires America because in his opinion it is a nation firmly founded on religious (i.e., Christian) principles. Never mind that other than John Adams, the first few Presidents were rarely found in church, and that when they spoke of god, it was an acknowledgement, or perhaps simply the desire for, some overriding supernatural power greater than man—not the jealous, personal god of the Bible. But in the case of religion, Johnson’s bias is straightforward, and his opinions are clearly separated from the historical facts he presents. He is convincing when speaking about John Winthrop and the importance of religion in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, for instance. This is a book driven by the portraits of the individuals who were the protagonists in the history of their time. Johnson’s judgments can be severe—he in no way overlooks the contradictions and weaknesses of Thomas Jefferson for instance. Jefferson was no saint, and Johnson’s portrait of him is multi-sided and believable. This is true of his portraits of other great figures of the first half of American history, from the Founding Fathers to Abraham Lincoln. His portrayal of Andrew Jackson (a man Johnson tells us had killed numerous people before becoming President) is especially memorable.
On the other hand, Johnson has little sympathy for the Native Americans who were relentlessly pushed back into the barren wastelands of America by the westward expansion. He says they weren’t very good farmers. He denigrates their intelligence, and pretty much makes what happened to them seem both inevitable and their own fault. Perhaps it was. There is always a little truth even in Johnson’s most drastic pronouncements.
The book continues along in its fascinating way through the Civil War, Reconstruction, and into the age of the Robber Barons. Except, they weren’t Robber Barons, Johnson says. There is again some truth in this. They were certainly more industrious, talented men than the current crop of bank CEOs who have enriched themselves at the expense of their customers and our financial system in general. Johnson takes great pleasure in expounding on the incredible civic deeds of Andrew Carnegie or Andrew Mellon, while acknowledging that their may have been one or two rogues among that bunch. Amazingly, in the midst of the most outrageous parts of his book, while discussing late-20th Century America, Johnson does spend a few paragraphs highlighting the growth of income inequality and does so with some passion—but he still loves the Robber Barons. At least they created something out of nothing.
To Johnson, it was probably the term of Woodrow Wilson when things really started to go wrong, with the unchecked growth of Presidential power, and along with it, the Government itself. This reached its peak—philosophically at least, as the government would continue to grow and grow—during the Roosevelt administration’s New Deal. Johnson, correctly I would say, points out that it really took World War II to end the Depression. Roosevelt was overrated and copied a lot of his ideas from Hoover anyway. (I have left out the administration of Warren G. Harding, whose reputation Johnson tries to rescue, much in the same way that Edgar Allan Poe’s reputation had to be rescued from the arch-enemy who took control of it in the wake of Poe’s death. About Harding, Johnson is somewhat convincing, and always interesting. At this point, no one has even called the loony bin.)
Johnson loves Harry Truman (a Democrat) and Dwight Eisenhower (a Republican). Both men had a firm grasp on what they were doing and don’t appear to have fallen victim to excesses or grand visions. Johnson explains and defends Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan. Personally, I have always believed that if he hadn’t done it then, someone would have done it later. It was a weapon that had to be used to be believed. And by precluding the need for a bloodbath-inducing invasion of the Japanese homeland, lives were undoubtedly saved.
The administration of Eisenhower also brought us Vice President Richard Nixon, of course, a self-made man, a solid anti-communist who beat Khrushchev in a kitchen debate, and who was immediately targeted for destruction by the liberal press. In Johnson’s telling, Nixon was robbed of the 1960 election (which is probably true) but spared the country the trauma of contesting it. He was by far superior to John F. Kennedy, whose wartime record was vastly inflated (and ghost-written), who was a secret drug addict, who had a prostitute in the White House the night of his inauguration, and so on and so forth. Again, some of this, perhaps most of it may be true. But by this point in the book, Johnson has lost all control of his storytelling. There is no more separation of facts from opinion. It is ALL opinion.
The deeply flawed Lyndon Johnson gets some kudos for pushing through civil rights legislation, though this is offset by deepening the Vietnam quagmire. Thankfully, Richard Nixon consented to return to politics and put things back on the right course, aided by his “able and devoted” senior White House team of Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman. If it weren’t for the witch-hunt of Watergate, instigated by those who had been trying to get Nixon for the past 20 years, his administration would have gone down as one of the greatest in history! Still, despite leaving office early, Nixon did manage to save Israel from destruction in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, according to Johnson’s account.
After Nixon’s departure, things would just get worse until finally Ronald Reagan appeared. Johnson’s portrayal of Reagan is quite fascinating, however. He shows him as a man who did indeed treat the office of President much like a movie role. While not involving himself, or perhaps even understanding the fine details of what was going on, he nevertheless made most of the right decisions and brought back a sense of hope to a country which had lost faith in the Presidency after the downfall of Nixon, the well-meaning ineffectuality of Gerald Ford, and the feel good failure of Jimmy Carter. Again, there is an undercurrent of truth in Johnson’s version.
After the Reagan Administration, Johnson seems to lose interest. He doesn’t dwell much on Bush I, preferring to go on a rant about Ebonics instead. Despite the doom and gloom of most of the last chapter, he closes on an optimistic note, talking about Americans as a problem-solving people, who can presumably get past that Ebonics thing. I’m assuming these closing paragraphs were written some time well before the frenzied out of control pages that come before them, which were undoubtedly written by the insane Johnson.
Of course, in the end, I must admit that Johnson, so far as I know, didn’t actually go insane. He has written other books since, and I quite enjoyed his take on Mozart. If you are well-versed in history, you will find much to enjoy here. And if you are of the right (wrong) political persuasion, you’ll probably like the last part of the book as well. Johnson is a talented writer, and I don’t regret reading this book. It is in no way a waste of time. It has inspired me to write, off the top of my head, the longest review I have ever posted. So read it, and you be the judge. I can at least tell you that it goes down a lot easier than most 1,000 page tomes.
Oh yes, I need to come up with a rating. It can’t be really good, given how outrageous some of this is, but I have to give Johnson credit as well. So I’ll compromise on 2 ½ stars. (Or 2 stars on Amazon, since it can’t deal with halves as well as LibraryThing, which is the world’s greatest website. How can anyone enjoy using GoodReads?) show less
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