23 The Human Cosmos by Jo Marchant
This is a history of how we’ve seen and understood the universe, going all the way back to Palaeolithic times – Marchant’s theory is that the cave paintings in Lascaux are evidence of a sophisticated astronomical understanding. We go through the whole of human history, from then to the present day, exploring how our emerging understanding of the cosmos has shaped what we understand about ourselves. This is really accessible and highly informative book although it covers so much ground in such a short space of time it felt a little rushed in places. Each chapter, which explores different themes such as the impact on art, or the mind, or power, would merit a book in itself. While our understanding of the universe has increased enormously over recent decades as technology has allowed us to look further back in time and further into space (it blows my mind that a hundred years ago, we thought the universe was infinitely old and no bigger than the Milky Way, just 300,000 light years in size, and now we know it to be 94 billion light years across and 14 billion years old) there’s always been the sense of awe and wonder for as long as people have looked up at the stars.
24 Red Famine by Anne Applebaum
Recommended on here by boiledeggandtoast. This is an account of the Ukrainian famine of the 1930s, and the way in which it emerged from the crucible of Ukrainian nationalism, Marxist ideology and the drive to collectivisation of agriculture. I knew very little about this, and was only vaguely aware of the famine. Current events really do have a way of highlighting the massive gaps in one’s knowledge of the world. As Applebaum tells the story, Stalin and the Soviet machine decided that the way to address low agricultural productivity and weed out bourgeois influences was to collectivise agriculture. Unsurprisingly, this had the effect of disincentivising farmers who’d previously owned their own land – why would they want to work hard only to hand over any harvest to the Soviet authorities? Coupled with the fact that many farmers were sent off to the gulags because they were deemed to be kulaks, or bourgeois peasants, there was an even greater decline in productivity. Soviet authorities responded brutally, seizing even the tiniest amounts of grain from farms and creating mass starvation in 1933 on a scale that is really hard to comprehend.
The whole history is heart rending, as families were ripped apart and forced to make the most unimaginable decisions to survive – there’s a story of one woman deciding to sacrifice her children because she could have more, and to give food to her husband instead. People boiled shoes, and ate food that they salvaged from pits that the authorities had poured carbolic acid over to try to ensure they couldn’t use it, and there were reports of widespread consumption of corpses.
The book’s final chapter looks at the legacy of the famine and the way in which it has shaped modern Ukraine, and it certainly made sense to a degree of the way in which Ukrainians have responded to the Russian aggression, as well as giving me context into how Russia views Ukraine. The end suggests a brighter future for the country as it looks Westwards – that feels very poignant now.
I don’t know whether “thank you, boiledegg” is quite the right way to express my feelings about this - it is a really harrowing read, and at times I had to put it down as it was overwhelming, but I kept coming back to it, not least because I felt that walking away and not coming back was particularly cowardly given the relevance of what was being written about to what is currently happening. But I appreciate you drawing it to my attention.