The Bicycle Diaries

The Bicycle Diaries: My 21,000 Mile Ride for the Climate
© 2014 David Kroodsma
428 pages

The Bicycle Diaries combines travel and climate-change advocacy, both literally as a trip and throughout the book. As Kroodsma makes his way through Mexico, Central America, and the mountainous roads of South America,  he talks to locals, from retired presidents to impoverished farmers, about the ways their landscape is changing and discusses with them the ways climate change will further alter their homes, health, and livelihood.   The book is thus a tour of these regions by bike and a survey of the various ways climate will affect the future, as seemingly every place he visits is imperiled either by development or by climactic alteration.

 Although Peruvian villagers aren’t exactly a primary source of problematic emissions,  developing countries and their poor are the most at risk to future changes,  and Kroodsma wanted to increase awareness on all fronts – communicating what he knew to people young and old as he cycled, learning from his discussions with people about their experiences.  This a tale with great appeal, from the travel descriptions of varied landscapes (the beautiful Andes, salt flats the size of New Jersey, stupefyingly rich forests,  to the candid interactions with people from the poor and marginalized to the wealthy and powerful.   Kroodsma is continually amazed by the hospitality of strangers over the course of the year, and challenged by the fact that many people seem happy with their lives despite having so little.  The spread of the internet into very remote places was also a pleasing surprise, as it meant more opportunities at less expense.   The virtue of bicycles comes up quite often, as you might imagine -- from their travel merits (making it easier for Kroodsma to interact with people),  to their environmental impact, to their role in making cities more livable places.

Announcing: Peoples of the Americas

In the past few years I've explored the Middle East and Asia; for 2018, I am moving closer to home with "Peoples of the Americas".  With it, I hope to remedy my ignorance of the United States' southern neighbors (save Mexico and Cuba), as well as learn about a few native  American tribes who are a blank to me...the Chinook being one example.

The plan: open the year by visiting a few  Amerindian tribes in North America, move into a treatment of the Aztec, Maya, and Inca, and then follow up with histories of various nations in the Caribbean, as well as Central and South America. If time permits, we may even visit that most exotic of American nations, Canada.

Although this, along with the Classics Club, will be my focus this year,  I'm just going to fool around in January and ease into the new year with light reading in the form of Star Trek, books on cities, that kind of thing.

Harvest of Empire

Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America
©  2000 Juan Gonzalez
416 pages

Harvest of Empire is a tale of two civilizations, Anglo and Spanish. In general terms, it recounts the history or rather the plight of Latin America, of people and cultures dominated first by European powers, and then by the colonial rebels turned colonial master, the United States.  The author ends by arguing that the United States owes as much its Hispanic tradition as its Anglo, and that it should embrace Hispanic culture  and make amends to foreign policy which has wreaked havoc throughout the eastern hemisphere.  Divided into three parts, Harvest first dwells on the roots of Anglo-American conflict by recounting the age of discovery and rise of American imperialism, moves to the "branches", in which populations disrupted by war and famine (often linked to American foreign policy) migrate to the United States to seek their fortunes, and then ends with a "harvest" that looks towards a stronger role played by Latino culture in the United States.

 Considering that two of the leading recent  Republican candidates for El Presidente were Cruz and Rubio, 'los hermanos cubanos',  there's no denying the book's relevance, despite its sixteen years of age. Even though neither are in the running now,  immigration  -- the causes and consequences of which are explored here -- remains a big-ticket item.  While some of the author's recommendations (that the United Staces embrace its Hispanic heritage and start promoting and protecting Spanish) are likely to fall flat,  at the very least this review of the United States' catastrophic record of international meddling in central America might give American leadership pause about supporting future debacles.  More convincing is the authors' case for settling the matter of Puerto Rico, which for a century has been a bastard, neither  sovereign, nor a territory or a state.  Harvest has a lot to recommend it, first as a general history of Latin America, secondly by focusing on the widely varying experiences of different Latino groups as they moved to the US.  What name recognition does Puerto Rico have with most Americans, other than the film West Side Story? ("Puerto Rico is en America now!")   The author is right when he points out that the United States is scarcely over two hundred years old, a mere blip in the historical perspective, and the past century of exploitation and dominance by D.C. over Latin America are not likely to last. Latinos will play a larger role in the United States as they continue to migrate here, and will shape D.C's policy as they achieve political influence -- and as the descendants of those who have experienced the consequences of foreign-policy imperialism, they are unlikely to support more of it.

Earrthquakes in Human History

Earthquakes in Human History
© 2005 Jelle de Boer, Donald Sanders
304 pages

de Boer and Sanders' "Earthquakes" is exactly what it says on the tin: a quick survey of how earthquakes have affected human history.   An initial section explains the basic causes of earthquakes, and subsequent chapters reflect on activity in the middle east, England,  Greece,  Japan, South America, the American midwest, and the Pacific Coast.  The authors lead with a retelling of the quakes' immediate effects, like the days of fire consuming San Francisco in 1906; this is followed by material on how seismic activity has shaped the local geology, and finally thoughts on the long-reaching effects. The long-reaching effects are the weakest point of the book, with the authors giving credits to earthquakes for everything from the collapse of states like Sparta and Portugal, to the rise of the scientific revolution. That last is overdoing it, methinks.    Take it as a narrative account of some of the Earth's deadliest earthquakes, strengthened by explanations of how quakes occur where they do,  and it succeeds.

Related:
Disaster 1906, Edward F. Dolan

The Voyage of the Beagle

The Voyage of the Beagle
© 1839 Charles Darwin
448 pages*

As a young man, Charles Darwin lacked sharp direction. His father wanted him to become a doctor, but he hated the sight of blood.  His passion was natural philosophy, the observation and study of the natural world,  and he briefly considered becoming a country parson so that he would have the time to pursue that passion. A chance opportunity to join the crew of the HMS Beagle, assigned to survey the extreme southern end of South America,  gave him more occasion to practice natural observation than he might have ever expected. It was on that journey that he collected the data that would produce his first book,  a monograph on coral reef formation, and stir his imagination about life's abundant variety.

Voyage consists of a log by Darwin, divided into sections of interest, and follows him and the Beagle  from England to South America, then across the Pacific back to England again. Darwin's real purpose on the ship was to keep the captain company,  a man who would have otherwise had to have made conversation with common sailors.   Virtually all of his commentary is given over to descriptions of Darwin's time spent on land, aside from brief mentions of dolphins frolicking.   Young Darwin explores the surrounding area every time the ship puts into port, but he is often dropped off for several days on end, trekking into the interior. Voyage is a work of scientific journalism, describing the flora and fauna of South America's rims and outlying islands. Darwin's commentary reveals an already practiced scientific mind, especially in the area of geology.  The author is most famous, of course, for his insights into biology, particularly the way natural selection forces living populations to change over time.    His  chapter on the Galapagos island and its famed finches drops a hint of the patterns Darwin was beginning to detect:

"Seeing this gradation and diversity of structure in one small, intimately related group of birds, one might really fancy that from an original paucity of birds in this archipelago, one species had been taken and modified for different ends."

In addition to detailing the behavior of pumas and the native economy of this-or-that group of Patagonians, Darwin has a few extraordinary experiences. At least once he is marooned in-country during a revolution, and as the Beagle is sailing up the coast of Chile, there is a volcanic eruption and several earthquakes.  Darwin does not limit his commentary to the plants and animals he collects; he also has much to say about the peoples they meet, and here he comes off rather nicely. He views Spanish and English civilization being created in these distant lands an improvement on say, human sacrifice, but recognizes that the age of 'discovery' has also been one of violent ruin for many.   He takes in the many strange customs he sees not with condescension, but with wonder -- with the exception of commenting on stagnant rural economies.  Upon departing the eastern coast of South America on the return trip, he sighs with relief that he will never again witness a slave-country; in Australia, he exhibits a strong sympathy for the aboriginal peoples, who have lost their land to both Polynesians and the English.

For the reader with a scientific appetite and the willingness to chew on pages of description, Voyage is appealing.  This is not some layman's travel guide to South America, obviously, but a book intended for those who wish to learn about the land's geography and life. In 2016, of course, there is added historical appeal; not only in exploring a continent not yet hit by industrialism, but in seeing a giant of English scientific achievement in his youth, still gathering material awaiting the imaginative spark.

*I read from an online version from Literature.org, so pagecount is taken from an Amazon edition. 

Oil on the Brain

Oil on the Brain: Petroleum's Long, Strange Journey to Your Tank

© 2007 Lisa Magonelli

336 pages

Every moment, oil is surging up wells, being chemically sorted in vast refineries, sloshing its way across continents in pipelines, and being dispersed throughout the country in trucks to keep over three hundred million Americans mobile. The same  miracle is effected in other nations across the globe. In Petroleum on the Brain, Lisa Margonelli begins at her local gas station and backtracks the supply line – riding with truckers, touring refineries, standing in the pit of oil exchanges,  and filling her hands with ancient dirt that hasn’t seen sunlight in millions of years at the edge of a drilling operation.  Although beginning with the American market,  Margonelli’s travels take on a geopolitical message as she scrutinizes oil’s role in the destabilization of Africa and the middle east, and looks to the future in China.   Although slightly dated (researched and written  in 2004-2005),   the majority of the book’s information remains relevant, and  is delivered in humorous style.  Petroleum brims over with personality, as Margonelli connects with lives across the globe,  and demonstrates through her travels how our lives, too, are knit together with those whose livelihood

Although gas stations are where most consumers of  gasoline/petrol enter the market, and absorb the scorn of disgruntled drivers who see the price continuing to climb,  the seemingly ubiquitous c-stations are the low men on the supply line, in control of nothing and making only a marginal profit on their gasoline during the best days. As witnessed by Margonelli as she spies fleets of trucks from different companies pulling up to the same pipelines,   gasoline sold in the United States is fairly uniform. Some companies add a detergent, but pricing varies more depending on the location and the market than the product.  Given how much oil is being produced, refined, shipped, and sold every hour, the pace of activity becomes frenetic as Margonelli travels further up the supply line, encountering harried supply dispatchers and middlemen.  Although her book is about the oil industry, it's a personal encounter with time invested in relationships on Margonelli's part. For her, the gas station owner, the driver, the genius wildcatter in Texas -- they are men and women of passion and intelligence, whose story is bound up with their profession.

Its beginnings scratch idle curiosity as to how the petroleum industry works, but Margonelli spends more time researching, her text develops broader appeal, examining the role oil plays in U.S. foreign policy.  Here the book threatens to show its age: having virtually exhausted its home reservoirs of oil, she writes that the United States has to secure new supplies across the world, and to that end has been involved in a series of wars, directly or indirectly. A chapter on Iran sees her chat with both American sailors and Iranian oilmen regarding an incident during the Iraq-Iran war, in which half the Iranian navy was sunk by an American fleet despite the United States’ official non-combatant status.  Magonelli also visits petro-states in South America and Africa, where corruption is apparently immortal;  some of the tribal warfare in sub-Saharan Africa has its roots in villages receiving unequal shares of the loot when oil companies discovered their untapped potential.   Ultimately, Magonelli believes we must look beyond petroleum, to cleaner and less volatile energy sources. In her final chapter, the story moves to China, where a then-ascendant economy was not only gobbling up goal, but dumping money into clean energy programs in the hopes of expanding China’s consumer fleet while not further destroying what little clean air remains.

The oil market has continued to evolve in the ten years since this book was originally, first doubling the highest price marked in her original next and then falling beneath it. The United States has become again (however temporarily) a net oil exporter, thanks to technological advices that make extracting oil in harder to reach places easier.  Oil's votility underscores its continuing importance to the world economy and political dramas;  in the middle east, the swinish mob that is ISIS finances itself  partially through the oil market.  Given that oil won't be bowing out to competition anytime soon, learning its cost and vagaries is utterly helpful for citizens of any country, and Magonelli's account offers entertainment value to boot. 

Related:

• Uncommon Carriers, John McPhee
• Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet,  Michael Klare
• Coal: A Human History, Barbara Freese