Beach Haven

Bibliography
​Languereau, G. (Ed.). (1970). 15 Aventuras Fantasticas. (C. Appell, Trans.) Bilbao: Editorial Fher, S.A.

Review by Michael Beach

When I first picked up this book of short stories, I got it because it was all in Spanish. I assumed with a glance that the stories were by Spanish authors. As it turns out they are not. There are two stories set in Spain, neither written by a Spanish author. The rest are stories by authors from many countries, originally written in various languages. What the stories have in common is that they are fantasy stories, primarily horror or ‘scary’ stories.

The most Spanish of the stories is La Herencia del Moro by Washington Irving. As I read it, I found it familiar for two reasons. First, years ago I read it while reviewing many works by Washington Irving. The other is that it is set in the Alhambra in Granada, Spain. I lived in Granada as a missionary for a couple of months and visited the Alhambra a number of times. The story is about a hapless water bearer who takes in a Moor and cares for him.  His efforts don’t save the wounded man. The Moor dies but not before giving our hero a document that explains how to get to a magical treasure beneath the Alahambra. Another friend is brought in who can read the Arabic language. Together they begin to live better lives. Some others in town try to get their hands on the treasure, the mayor, the sheriff, and a neighbor. Eventually it goes poorly for each of them. Eventually the poor protagonist changes his name, takes his wife and children, and moves far away where they are unknown and can avoid others trying to take their riches.

The other story partially set in Spain is La Venus de Ille by Prospero Merimee. The narrator travels along the border between northern Spain and the southern region of France. A local antiquarian unearths a statue of Venus. In the process of preparing for his son’s wedding, the groom slips the bride’s wedding ring onto the statue as a joke. He forgets the ring being drunk, but when he goes back for it, the statue’s fingers have closed around the ring in a fist. The statue believes itself married to the groom. It is the night before the wedding. The statue comes to life, kills the groom and leaves his bride mentally ill. She is moved to a sanitorium and the statue is melted down to make a bell for the local church.

Despite the fact that these stories are not by Spanish authors, the translation work is impeccable. The stories are still entertaining given the notoriety of the authors. The include Claud Morand, Alexander Dumas, Erckmann-Chatrian, Claire Godet, Prospero Merimee, Edgar Allan Poe, Georgy, Ivan Tourgueniev, Claude Appell, Jules Verne, Washington Irving, Paul Cogan, and Edith Orny. The book is work the read for both the Spanish practice and the stories themselves.
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​Bibliography
Eliot, C. W., & Neilson, W. A. (Eds.). (1917). The Harvard Classics Shelf of Fiction: French Fiction (Vol. 13). New York: PF Collier & Son Company.

Review by Michael Beach

This is one volume of a 20-volume set. The larger set is dubbed a ‘shelf of fiction’. I reported on some of the longer stories in this volume earlier individually. The authors include Honoré de Balzac, George Sand, Alfred de Musset, Alphonse Daudet, and Guy de Maupassant. The book doesn't give translation attribute from French to English. The stories are all in English. I can read Spanish but not French. I have read several other works by a few of these authors in the past, also in English. For example, years ago I read a series of writings by Guy de Maupassant. That was also a multi-volume set but all those works were by that one single author.

As you might guess, with such a variety of authors and having only a sampling from each, the range of stories is just as varied. No particular story stands out above another to me. I guess, among the short stories I would say Daudet was my favorite author. His works were about war, but each focused on absurd events. For example, The Last Class, the Story of the Little Alsatian speaks from the perspective of a boy going to his school. He learns that his teacher is being forced out by the Austrian occupation forces. Older members of the community are at his school as they all have one last lesson in French knowing the next day they will have to begin receiving classes in German. Walter Schnaffs’ Adventure by Guy de Maupassant is more comical. An Austrian solider is tired of fighting and just wants to get food. He reasons that if he could get captured the French would feed him. He enters a village expecting to get taken, but the people seem to have fled. He sees a large chateau in the town. He enters and the few who are there think the whole army is attacking so they run. Walter sets down to feast, his only real intention. Finally, the French storm the chateau. They find him there eating. They believe they have run off the opposing army and they take Walter captive. He gets what he wants, and they get to claim what they want.

I appreciate these kinds of multi-volume published works. Along with the stories, there are small sections by experts titled ‘criticisms and interpretations’ that shed light on the stories and authors. As this is the 13th in the larger set, I have already read and reported on the first 12 volumes in the past. I have other multi-volume sets with different kinds of stories. What I like about this approach to publication is I get introduced to authors and genres I otherwise would not consider. They can also be inexpensive. Typically, I find them at yard sales or thrift stores. If I were thinking about it as financial investment I could do well. I doubt I paid more than $15 or $20 for the set. I look online and see complete versions of this specific 1917 set for north of $400. Etsy calls a full-volume collection a ‘rare find’ at $499. To me the value is in the benefit of the reading itself. I will continue to work my way through the rest of the volumes.

Bibliography
​Collins, Harry, and Robert Evans. 2007. Rethinking Expertise. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press.

Review by Michael Beach
 
In this work, Harry Collins and Robert Evans describe a framework for understanding  expertise. They divide these forms of authoritative knowledge into ‘ubiquitous’ and ‘specialist’ expertise, then offer several forms of tables to depict related topical continua for each. For the authors, ubiquitous expertise is that sort that most people possess so no particular authority is ascribed to it other than one might note if it seems missing in a person. As the expertise requires ever more effort to attain, the continuum approaches the realm of specialist expertise.

Science and technology are considered as a “provider of truth” as they attempt to analyze “the meaning of the expertise upon which the practice of science and technology rests” (Collins and Evans 2007, 2). The note that this provider-of-truth view has been questioned more over time. They share perceptions that some have come to place more confidence in ‘folk wisdom’ or ‘common sense’ over positions taken by scientists. They note a ‘tension’ between legitimacy or trust and the approach of increased involvement of ‘the public’. This increase in public involvement they call ‘extension’.  The opposite of extension is referred to as scientism. This is often found in scientists themselves. Essentially, scientism is a belief that science is the best and maybe only answer to understanding the nature of things. Scientism discourages involvement by those not specially trained in a narrow field that proponents consider acceptable.
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After describing the framework through a series of continua, the authors conclude with three summation questions. They ask about appropriate ratios of influence between science and politics. They wonder which of the sciences should be included in a given discussion in order to understand what is science and what is pseudoscience. Finally Collins and Evans ask if the public can recognize what they need to in order to make “appropriate decisions” (Collins and Evans 2007, 134). Of course the reader might challenge the authors with the question of how to define ‘appropriate’. They go on to argue that “experts should obviously have a relatively greater input where their results are more reliable” (Ibid.). I suppose that ‘reliable results’ would be understood from the position of expected, or at least hoped for, outcomes. Narrow expertise makes for less wholistic understanding. At the same time, one can be an expert without all the accolades of accredited institutions. For example, who has better insight, the doctor of agrology or the farmer? What does better mean? Perhaps each helps the other to see what neither can on their own.

Bibliography
​Kaku, M. (2008). Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration Into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel. New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Auckland: Doubleday.

Review by Michael Beach
 
As the title and subtitle suggest, Michio Kaku considers the stuff of science fiction and considers them from science as we know it today. Taking the mantra that “the ‘impossible’ is relative” (Kaku, 2008, p. xi), he breaks the various sci-fi ideas into categories. Class I impossibilities “are technologies that are impossible today but that do not violate the known laws of physics” (Kaku, 2008, p. xvii). Class II impossibilities “are technologies that sit at the very edge of our understanding of the physical world” (Ibid.). Class III impossibilities “are technologies that violate the known laws of physics” (Ibid.).

Michio Kaku goes on to describe difficult scientific ideas in ways that a novice like me can understand. He looks at each technology, explains the sort of science involved, and the new technology or science that would have to be developed. For each technology he then makes an argument for which category each technology would belong to. I found the approach framed well and the arguments convincing. It’s a really interesting way to a non-scientist like me to get a glimpse into the world of scientific thought.
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​Bibliography
Rumsfeld, Donald. 2018. When the Center Held: Gerald Ford and the Rescue of the American Presidency. New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, New Delhi: Free Press.

Review by Michael Beach

As one might surmise by the title, this book is Donald Rumsfeld’s homage to Gerald Ford. When I first saw the title, being this was likely a political book, I assumed ‘the center’ was a reference to a centrist political position. That was an incorrect assumption. Gerald Ford played college football in Michigan in his younger days. His position was that of the center. This player hikes the ball to the quarterback, then holds the line of large opponents attempting to get past him to tackle the quarterback.

Rumsfeld recounts Ford’s lifetime of service in the military and in politics. He describes his calm demeaner and plain speaking that some took as weakness, but for Rumsfeld, political players in Ford’s day mistakenly underestimated him.

The culmination of the book, and Gerald Ford’s political career, was about his service as vice-president to Richard Nixon. Ford was not the first vice-president to Nixon. He replaced a scandal-ridden Spiro Agnew. This meant that Gerald Ford was not elected to the position. Nixon also made it clear to Ford that he was not his first pick to replace Agnew. After taking office, the Watergate scandal became widely known and led to Nixon’s resignation. Ford found himself moving from an unelected vice-president, to an unelected president.

One of his first acts was to pardon President Nixon. Rumsfeld recounts the Ford administration policies and the historical fallout. Then he reviews the election where Ford actually ran but lost to Jimmy Carter. Rumsfeld recounts likely reasons for Carter’s win. His obvious assumption is that Ford suffered from guilt by his association with Nixon.

Like any political history work, one should consider the perspective of the author who was a Ford administration insider. He also later served with President George W. Bush.  Despite some reflexive influence on the part of Rumsfeld, for those of us who remember the period, the book rings true. 

Bibliography
Rohde, Joy. 2013. Armed with Expertise: The Militarization of American Social Research During the Cold War. Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press.
 
In this work, Joy Rohde begins discussing a relatively new tool in the military arsenal called the Human Terrain System (HTS). Essentially, HTS includes social scientists who are familiar with local social factors in war zones who advise in-field troops and commanders. Rohde begins discussing it’s use in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Another example of HTS researchers Rohde discusses are those “behind the front lines in the War on Terror” (Rohde 2013, 1). She notes how one of the goals of HTS participants is to encourage soldiers to “see the world through the eyes of the people affected” so perhaps they could somewhat “demilitarize the military” (Ibid.). As it turns out, many critics of HTS argue the opposite. This approach, some social scientists point out, is militarizing the researchers instead.

The military funded much of this research through the Special Operations Research Office (SORO) created by the Office of the Chief of Psychological Warfare. After setting up this tension and noting some of the major participants, Rohde goes on to offer a historical view of the roots of psychological warfare research dating back to the 1950s and 1960s during the height of the Cold War between the United States and Western allies in conflict with the Soviet Union and it’s sphere of influence.

Among other conclusions, Joy Rohde asserts that “much of the critical focus on contracting for the post-9/11 environment focuses on the dangers of privatization, not on those of militarization” (Rohde 2013, 155). Perhaps the same could be said about the military itself. Rohde notes that if it’s true that Americans are “devoted to their image of the nation as a global superpower” (Rohde 2013, 156), then militarization of social research will “last as long as Americans continue to measure their national greatness by their global might” (Ibid.).
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Bibliography
Hawking, Stephen. 2017. A Brief History of Time. New York: Bantam Books.

Review by Michael Beach
 
Stephen Hawking is a well-known astrophysicist, so much so that a novice like me has heard of him. Yes, he was connected to the popular TV show The Big Bang Theory, but I had heard of him long before then. This book is a treatise on the best scientific thinking about the cosmos distilled into more palatable language for the average reader.

Each chapter tackles somewhat ticklish unresolved topics such as the latest descriptions of the universe, the relationship between space and time, the uncertainty principle, and the elementary particles and forces of nature. Whether discussing black holes, the origin of the universe, or worm hole travel, Hawking includes what ‘we’ humans think and what we don’t know. He peppers these heavy topics from well placed humor.

The original version of the book was published in 1988. This third version incorporates ‘new material’ including some short descriptions about the theoretical scientific contributions of Albert Einstein, Galileo Galilei, and Isaac Newton. For me the topics Hawking discusses are fascinating. His approach is thoughtful and clear.  
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​Bibliography
O'Brian, Patrick. 1973. H.M.S. Surprise. New York & London: W.W. Norton & Company.

Review by Michael Beach 

This book is the third in the series written by Patrick O’Brian centered on the British naval officer Jack Aubrey and his friend and ship’s doctor, Stephen Maturin. The series is set during the Napoleonic Wars when British and French warships often battled. My first introduction to this series was through the moving Master and Commander starring Russell Crowe. A work friend of mine gifted me the first two novels and I decided to continue the series.

As one might expect, this story is a continuation from the other two which I have already written reviews on here https://bhaven.org/reviews/master-commander
and here https://bhaven.org/reviews/post-captain.

This point of the longer story begins with Aubrey temporarily in command of HMS Lively. He is assigned to escort duty. The crew is less practiced than he would have hoped, but he manages to use them to sneak ashore to a Spanish fort on the island of Minorca and rescue Stephen who is imprisoned there. They go on to engage French ships with victorious effect. The permanent commander returns, and Aubrey’s career is left adrift.

The middle of the book returns focus to his romance with Sophie Williams to whom he proposes marriage. She accepts, but her widowed mother is not supportive since he has a fair amount of debt and an uncertain naval future. Jack has his own internal conflicts on this problem and is always finding ways to dodge creditors. Jack’s accomplice Stephen has his own love entanglement in an on-again off-again affair with a widow Diana Villiers who is also friends with Sophie.

Eventually the book puts Jack back in charge of a ship HMS Surprise. It turns out to be the ship he had served on many years before as a young midshipman. He fixes it up and sails for India on assignment. There are a number of close calls with ocean storms, doldrums, sickness, and times of low provisions for the crew. The result is a battered ship and crew when they get to India. Jack not only fixes the ship and provisions it, but in the process makes many improvements to the hull and masts. While in India, Stephen meets up with his love interest, Diana Villiers. They have some intrigue and adventures in several parts of India. They agree to meet in Madeira on their way home after the ship’s tour there. Diana also agrees to encourage Sophie to join Jack there. Before heading home to England, there is a substantial battle between the Surprise along with some less experienced warships manned by sailors from India. They are escorting a large convoy of merchant ships and come under attack by a number of French navy ships. A battle ensues and the British are victorious. Jack is the main hero and as a result receives a sizeable reward, enough to pay off his creditors and marry Sophie.

After another batch of repairs to the Surprise resulting from the battle, they sail home stopping at Madeira as planned. Unfortunately for Stephen, his relationship with Diana is off-again. She left word that she has married a wealthy merchant and they have gone to America. Jack initially has no word from Sophie, but at last they come together and resume their romance. Sophie is sure her mother will accept Jack after his turn of fortune.

As with the other O’Brian books, the writing is very engaging and he clearly knows his nautical and naval language. The details can be a bit hard to follow during the heated battles, even for someone like me with some experience sailing, but the reader is not lost. This book had less emphasis on the romance than the second book had and more on battles and expeditions into India jungles. From that perspective the balance was better from my point of view. 

Bibliography
​Ottinger, Gwen. 2013. Refining Expertise: How Responsible Engineers Subvert Environmental Justice Challenges. New York. London: New York University Press.

Review by Michael Beach
 
In one way, Gwen Ottinger could be thought to be writing a form of exposé about how emissions from an oil refinery in Louisiana exposed a community to hazardous fumes and the (likely? potential?) harmful health effects. She shares that story in this work. As important as that story is, the book has a larger point. Ottinger reviews how what started as a public relations failure shifted. As refinery ownership changed, so too did the communications strategy. The refinery began to involve local citizens through a series of meetings, placing gas detection monitors around the town, and making some operational concessions. Over time, residents began to accept engineering data and explanations, even when accidental over-emission events happened.

Gwen Ottinger explores the idea of identity and influence. She looks at how experts at first relied on that identity to make definitive statements and expect people to trust them. As the messaging began to include technical information and logic in lay terms, residents could follow the thinking and were more accepting. Residents also began to change identity from antagonistic victims to informed supporters. The refining companies also financed improvements in the town itself. To Ottinger’s point, this shift in identity by both refinery personnel and local citizen advocates did not mean there were no negative health effects or risks. She argues that a shift in identity created a new form of discourse. Shifting narratives helped shift identifying self-definitions by the actors involved. For example, over time the refinery became a ‘moral company’ at least in the perception of those involved. As residents became more participating and more accepting of information their diminishing challenges transformed them into ‘good citizens’ living in ‘nice communities’. Granted, there were some actual changes to how the plant was operated, but how much change was enacted really?

For Gwen Ottinger, one can question motives linked to narratives. For example, did the company change because it became moral? Did the challenges by citizens cause introspection on the part of refinery leaders? Were resident attitude changes justified by more participation or information, or did their attitudes change unjustifiably? The links among language, narrative, discourse, identity and power are co-productive. All affect and are affected by social interaction. This case-study sheds light on one way that technical knowledge in particular helps shape these relationships.
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BibliographyBerger, Peter L., and Thomas Luckmann. 1966. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Anchor Books.

Review by Michael Beach
 
The “core of the argument” (Berger and Luckmann 1966, v) as described by Peter Berger and Thomas Luckman is to contrast several schools of thought related to how we humans understand ‘reality’. Specifically, they show the two primary issues as “society as objective reality” (section 2 of the book) and “society as subjective reality” (section 3 of the book). Another way to consider these two titles would be in the form of a question. Is society something that happens and sociology attempts to describe it, or is society something that results from attempts to describe it?

Although the authors spend some time discussing some ways ‘reality’ can be thought of, they don’t really attempt to create their own definition. They are focused more on social process in either describing or defining how sociological forces interact.

Berger and Luckmann conclude that knowledge is a primary sociological force. “We have tried to present a general and systematic account of the role of knowledge in society” (Berger and Luckmann 1966, 185). Not seeking to answer all the questions, they acknowledge a primary goal is to encourage more academic exploration. “Of one thing we are confident. A redefinition of the problems and tasks of the sociology of knowledge was long overdue” (Ibid.).

Their work here attempts to link ‘objectification’, ‘institutionalization’ and ‘legitimation’. They don’t seem to make an argument that societal definition is objectifiable, rather they state that the depiction of objective definition leads to creation of institutional forms of knowledge. They likewise make the case that knowledge considered as institutional is also accepted as legitimate. The other form of that same equation is also arguable. As knowledge becomes more widely accepted as legitimate, such knowledge becomes institutional, even if not codified in some formal organized institution.
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