Not a review but a few useful words.

My Challenge to Ageing,  Edition 3. Risteárd Mulcahy. Kindle, 2013. Price E7.9

My publication on Kindle deals with the normal changes which we can anticipate as we retire and face later years. My purpose was to report the physical, mental, psychological and social changes which have occurred to me during these last 25 years after my retirement, added to my earlier experience as a physician dealing with older patients. We should learn to adapt to the normal changes of ageing if we wish to lead a normal life and remain an active member of society as well as sharing the same confidence and contentment of our earlier years. We need to recognise these changes to avoid unnecessary medical intervention. There is clear evidence that nowadays there has been overmedicalisation of the elderly through the unnecessary use of drugs and medical interventions. The current age of retirement at 65 years is no longer relevant as older people take an increasingly active role in modern society

The purpose of this review is not to provide details of my publication in Kindle but to look at all the factors in our lives which contribute to longevity and to eliminate the decrepitude which is too often a feature in older persons. My review can best be described as a challenge to longevity and how most people can usefully and happily reach optimum longevity and avoid decrepitude and dependency before they pass to their reward

Life expectation at birth in Ireland in males and females was approximately the same at about 50 years at the end of the 19^th century. Early in the 20^th century life expectation began to increase gradually and without interruption. By 1945 the life expectancy had reached 60 in males and 61 in females.  This improvement during the first 45 years of the 20^th century could be attributed to a big fall in infant mortality and to the successful control of most of the epidemic diseases in the 1920s and 1930s. From 1945 to the last census in 2006, there has been a continued and uninterrupted increase in life expectation among both sexes with males reaching 76.8%.years and females 81/6 years.

The small disparity between male and female life expectation in the mid 1930s continued up to 1950 when the disparity began to increase. By the census of 1980 this disparity had increased from about one to 5.7 years. My colleagues and I in our paper published by the American Journal of Public Health in 1970 studied the smoking habits and mortality data in 15 different countries and we were able to conclude that this disparity could be largely if not entirely attributed to cigarette smoking.

The cigarette habit had increased dramatically after the last Great War, thanks to the influence of the Americans and British who were generous in supplying cigarettes to the troops. Subsequently this led to widespread advertising by the industry.  Smoking was largely confined to men and we predicted that the disparity would eventually fall to a more equal level when the cigarette smoking habit was substantially reduced or terminated. This fall is now evident from the 2006 census where the disparity is now reduced to 4.8 years. This trend will continue and may be reduced to one year or less as smoking is on the wane among middle and older people who are so vulnerable to inhaled tobacco.

Nevertheless, despite a male predominance of smoking there was still a slow increase in life expectation from 1950 to 2006 among men of 12.3 years and 14.5 years in women. The rise in life expectation continued up to the 2006 figures of 76.8 years in men and 81.6 in women. These figures will almost certainly have advanced further at the time of the 2010 census, results of which we are awaiting shortly. When the final results of the 2010 census are reported we anticipate that the sexes will have increased by at least another year in women and perhaps more in men so that the disparity between the two sexes will have narrowed further.

In an attempt to understand the continued improvement in life expectation, which is evident both in Ireland and the UK during the last 50 or more years, it seems worth listing the lifestyle and environmental factors which may account for the continued upward survival trend and which hopefully might contribute  to a reduction in decrepitude among our older citizens. Infant mortality continues to be an important factor, having fallen from 78 per thousand after the war to a remarkable figure of 3 in 2009 and 4 in 2010 in Ireland. The figure of 3 was the lowest ever recorded in these islands. Other epidemic diseases such as polio and deaths from pneumonia contributed, and advances in medical science must receive some credit.

The following list includes the factors which are likely to contribute further to improvement in life expectation. For the sake of discussion I am using  the age of 95 as  the optimum age of humans, that is when 50% of the population will have died from ‘’natural’’ causes, whatever the mode of death is recorded on the death certificate. Such a survival rate is clearly unlikely to be reached, at least in the current world we are living in but clearly there is further room for a further increase in life expectation, both in the first and the third world.

We already have much information about lifestyle and behavioural factors from medical and epidemiological research to allow us to point the way to greater health and longevity and to reducing decrepitude and dependency. As well as the hard research evidence, my opinions are based on my reading, my experience as a physician and a medical epidemiologist, and perhaps a little on common sense.

A further reduction in cigarette smoking or the elimination of the habit would certainly add a few more years to our lives and would leave little or no disparity in the life expectation of men and women. With the recent major reduction of cigarette smoking there is already a marked reduction in heart disease and sudden death, and I expect that lung cancer deaths are or will be in rapid decline.

In countries such as Ireland and the UK changes in eating habits and the nature of the food we eat during the past half century must have been responsible for our improved life expectation. The salt content of commercial food is greatly reduced and has been largely replaced by other less harmful preservatives. In the UK and Ireland there has also been a marked reduction in the use of table salt. Salt is a well recognised cause of stomach cancer and probably other forms of cancer, and is related to high blood pressure.  From being the commonest form of cancer and the most fatal in 1945 when I first qualified as a doctor, this form of cancer has become quite rare thanks to salt reduction and medical intervention in the treatment of stomach ulcers. 

In Ireland too there has been a distinct change to more European types of food with a wider variety choice and more popular use of vegetables and fruit and with less emphasis on domestic meat and other sources of high saturated fat foods. It is well established that vegetarians live longer than meat eaters. Epidemiological studies in Japan and elsewhere confirm that nearly all fish are healthy.  Meat derived from foul and wild birds and animals are less rich in saturated fat. 

It is not possible to measure the exact effect of dietary change on health and longevity but I have little doubt that it is a major factor in the continued improvement in life expectancy during the last 60 years. As regards the efficacy of vitamin supplements and other trace elements, I would suspect that they benefit their commercial  producers more than their customers.

It is well established that the educated enjoy more years than

the uneducated. In one British study third level educated people

gain three extra years over first level. This does not

surprise me. This finding must be based on multiple causes such

as better nutrition, more aerobic exercise, less smoking and

alcohol abuse, and possibly better medical care, although I might

have some doubts about this last factor.

Like education, advances in medicine and changes in medical practice may contribute to a longer life but this is particularly so in the increasing ability to prolong life in the elderly, even at the expense of creating or adding to decrepitude and dependency. The orthopaedic surgeons and eye specialists have contributed, among others, to reducing decrepitude at least if not longevity. The wealthier appear to have better medical care but they are also prone to being exposed to unnecessary medical attention as part of the expensive and widely advertised check-ups by private hospitals and clinics. In an ideal world I believe doctors should treat sick people and government and educators should be responsible for health promotion and prevention, the logical approach to good health in the population.

Another area which can add to years, quality of life and good health is regular aerobic exercise. What is clear from a number of studies worldwide is that regular walking at an optimum rate consistent with comfort for as little as six miles a week provides benefit in slowing ageing, in enhancing mood, in reducing depression and  in improving wellbeing. The more strenuous forms of exercise, such as running, climbing, cycling and aerobic sport are to be recommended too at appropriate ages but walking is sufficient, Your mantra should be Keep Your Legs Strong. Even those of us who have been sedentary up to retirement or later can benefit by adopting an exercise programme of walking and thus enhancing our physical and psychological wellbeing.

The word hygiene is defined in my Random House dictionary as ‘’the science that deals with the preservation of health’’. (Hygeia was the daughter of Asclepius, the goddess of health in Greek mythology)  It is clear that hygiene is related to human longevity. Under this heading I include care of our bodies, our teeth, skin, hair and our physical functions and appearance. And I extend the meaning of the word the avoidance of accidents, a constructive and optimistic outlook, moderation and a rational approach to life and to our relationship with others.

Our greatest challenge is decrepitude among the aged and its prevention. This can only be achieved if we are aerobically active, if we keep our legs strong. Decrepitude and dependency were appropriately described by Ivan Illich as living death. You are likely to avoid a long period of decrepitude and dependency in your last years if you keep aerobically and mentally active.

Charles 1

King Charles 1 by Pauline Gregg. Phoenix Press, London, 1998 (1981). pp X11 + 496. Illustrated.

This review was written on July 25th 2004

I borrowed this rather intimidating volume from the Pembroke Library. I started reading it at the end of March and I finished the book on 13 April. The book is well written and my preliminary notes were started when I was at page 104.

I knew little of the history of England during the sixteenth and seventieth centuries apart from some popular impressions of the earlier period from Henry V111 to Elizabeth 1. Charles was the second son of James V1 of Scotland who succeeded Elizabeth after her death as James 1 of England. Immediately after his elevation, he went to live in London and paid little attention to Scotland (and less to Ireland) during the rest of his life. James had married Anne, the daughter of the King of Denmark, and had three children by her, Henry, Charles and Elizabeth. Henry as he grew to manhood was greatly admired and loved for his talents and for his many personal attributes. He would clearly have made an excellent successor of James 1 if he had not died from scarlet fever at the age of 18, to the great distress of his family, the Court and the people of England. It is likely that, if he had survived to become King, much of the troubles which were to afflict the United Kingdom during the early seventieth century would have been avoided.

James 1

James 1 was a remarkable man, intellectual, artistic, sentimental and obsessed by the concept of the Right of Kings. He has always been the subject of a bad press to my mind. History has been unkind to him, probably because of his perceived tolerance of Catholics, and the pejorative repetition of his role in intervening in such areas as the smoking of tobacco and his disregard for parliament. It is hard not to recall his description as the wisest fool in Christendom.

Shall smokers name in centuries to come King James the wisest fool in Christendom? Or doth he seek with seer’s divining eyes a Siren Nicotina seeking tears, a usurer who charges men in years? (anon).

 

He was in fact a very tolerant person who at all times wished to encourage amity between Protestant England and the Catholic monarchies in Europe. He was equally tolerant of the remaining Catholic aristocracy at home and had many Catholic friends and advisors.

His anxiety to have his surviving son Charles marry the Infanta of Spain led to the rather ludicrous, unheralded and abortive visit by Charles and his intimate companion, Buckingham, both in disguise, to Madrid seeking marriage with the Infanta. She largely snubbed Charles and the whole episode turned out to be a disaster. The escapade was not approved by James and this humiliating episode eventually led Charles, after he had succeeded his father, to supporting the anti-Catholic and anti-Spanish Parliament to declare war on Spain. The quarrel with Spain was related to the fact that James's daughter, Elizabeth, had married Frederick of the Palatinate but Frederick was ousted by the Catholics in his own country with the support of Spain and Austria. Frederick’s restoration was to remain an obsession with both James and later Charles but, despite a persistent diplomacy and the provision of an army on their part to support Frederick, he was never to return to his modest fiefdom. He was exiled with his wife and family to the Netherlands, and after his early death his wife and family came to live and to extend further the burgeoning and extravagant Court of Charles.

In 1635 James died at the age of 57, as usual in those times in suspicious circumstances.  Suspicion of poisoning was rife and his close friend, Buckingham, was suspected of conniving in his death. Buckingham was a close confidante of both James and Charles, and was recognised as the power behind the thrones until his assassination. He was suspected of having connections with the Catholics, so that his death was greeted with satisfaction by most of the English population. In general, James 1 emerges as a tolerant person, an earthy character with good common sense and a homely touch, and not as the intolerant, irascible and unstable monarch which has been the historical stereotype

Charles 1

Charles replaced him at a difficult time for England, bad weather, recurring epidemics of plague and smallpox, and the country in debt (thanks largely to James’s extravagance and his European policies). He was hampered by a poor army and a poorly equipped fleet. Soon Charles became disastrously involved in foreign policy, particularly with his failed marriage to the Infanta of Spain and his subsequent marriage to Henrietta, the daughter of Louis X111. His marriage to a Catholic Queen, with her large coterie of Catholic staff and hangers-on, created inevitable difficulties with the largely Protestant English people and with parliament. It also irritated the French Court because of his perceived failure to honour his commitment at the time of the marriage arrangements to allow freedom of practice of Catholicism in the United Kingdom. His tolerance of Catholics was seriously embarrassed by a Protestant parliament and a largely Protestant people.   

Charles became involved in a number of disastrous political and military escapades in Europe, including naval attacks on Spain and France, all of which ended in humiliation of the British Crown and the people of England. Like his father, he believed in the supreme power of the King, and this was manifested by his complete control of central administration and the ministry, and his contempt of parliament which he rarely convened and then only when he was in dire need of money. He rarely called Parliament and failed to do so for one period as long as ten years.

Charles 1 - three different views by Van Dyck

Because of the enormous debts he accumulated through his ill-judged European policies, his generous gifts and his extravagant Court, he was forced to call Parliament for financial reasons. Since the time of Elizabeth, power and central administration was entirely in the hands of the monarch and there was little evidence of local or regional administration which were largely in the hands of Justices of the Peace who were appointed by the King. By recalling Parliament, he was to run into trouble because he had already alienated the aristocracy, the landed gentry and an increasingly influential business community through his autocratic behaviour, his taxation policies, his apparent toleration of Catholics and his wife’s Catholicism. Parliament had certain powers under the constitution to prevent the monarch from collecting taxes and he only called Parliament when he needed money. His request for special taxes was refused and, having been convened by Charles, Parliament took the opportunity to bring charges of treason against some of the King’s closest advisors and confidantes which marked the beginning of the rift between the King and the people, and which eventually lead to the effective transfer of much political power from the King to Parliament.

Despite Charles’s chronic financial problems, he, like his father, continued to collect valuable pictures from Italy and Holland, and other important items of jewellery and artefacts. The Caravaggio’s, Titians, Rubens and the works of all the great Italian, Spanish and Dutch painters which adorn the homes and palaces of Royalty in the United Kingdom are largely the result of James and Charles intense interest in the arts and their extravagant tastes. Van Dyck and Rubens were only two of many artists who visited London at Charles’s bequest during his reign.

17th century Puritan theologians

During Charles’s reign the puritans became increasingly intolerant, not only of Catholics but of the Anglican Church of which Charles was the head. Charles’s own tolerance was shared by many of his subjects but the puritans believed that the Anglicans were tainted by many of the customs and liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church and it was about this time that the English developed their extraordinary antagonism to the Pope. The Puritans were supported by the Scots who were strongly committed to their Presbyterian Church, who were antagonistic to the bishops and who greatly resented Charles’s imposition of Anglican influence on the Scottish Parliament during his one visit to that province. Charles’s contact with Catholics, his rather extravagant, outgoing and gregarious Court, his corrupt and inefficient government, his wife’s Catholicism, and his close contact with the ambassadors from Catholic Europe were reasons to raise the hostility of the Puritans. The Puritans were further fortified by Charles’s action in creating a number of martyrs who opposed him in public and they were supported financially and morally by the many low church emigrants who were in the New World where they were becoming more prosperous and more  independent than their brethren at home. It was stated that Charles hit the rich more than the poor and that he had sympathy for the underdog, a further reason to antagonise the powerful and the privileged.

Charles 1 (blue sash) during the civil war.

Yet, taking all in all, taxes in the United Kingdom were less than they were in other European countries. He devoted much of his time to attending to government matters and was closely aware of the activities of his ministers. Charles had many faults but he was sensitive, tolerant and not vindictive. However, as the conflict with parliament developed over the late 1630s and early 1640s, he became more rather than less belligerent towards his opponents and he made the first move to organise an army to fight a hostile parliament. The author goes into some detail of the civil war which ensued, a war which would not have taken place if Charles had shown some judgement in arriving at a settlement with willing opponents in parliament who were willing to compromise. The war dragged on for a few depressing and formless years but it was clear that the King, isolated as he was from his court and his centre of power in London, and unwilling as he was to compromise, was unlikely to win against better organised and more committed opponents. His ultimate execution by beheading became inevitable as the prospects of compromise faded with his defeat by the forces of parliament and their Scottish allies. The situation was worsened by the rebellion which took place in Ireland at the time and which was to lead to Cromwell’s subsequent savage subjection of the Irish and of the plantation of a large part of the country. The decision to execute the King required courage and strong resolution, and might have been avoided if Charles had offered to abdicate and to accept his son as king, and if he had agreed to the settlement demanded by parliament on behalf of the people.

Despite the Irish view of Cromwell’s savage treatment of our antecedents, he emerges as a reasonable representative of the parliamentary party with a strong urge to compromise with the King on constitutional matters. Unfortunately, by this time the King was obdurate in refusing any compromise.  One can understand how the British had a more tolerant attitude to Cromwell than had the Irish. He does not emerge with the same reputation for draconian repression among the English as he does among the Irish.

Charles 1 execution.

Cromwell’s vision of revolution was undermined when he supported the privileged following the King’s execution rather than establishing the freedom and welfare of the ordinary people. It was probable that the civil war and the immediate administration following the execution of the King led eventually to Whig supremacy and the increasing political influence of the landed gentry.

Charles could hardly have averted the Civil War because of the faults in his character and temperament which made negotiations with him difficult. His death and the subsequent period before the Restoration in 1660 left the landed gentry and the wealthy independent of monarchy. They remained the main source of influence in the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Eventually, with the Restoration, the Church of England was established. Dissent was tolerated but simply excluded from the corridors of influence and power.

This biography made a valuable addition to my reading. It describes that seminal moment in British history when power passed from the monarchy to Parliament. However, membership of parliament was confined to the rich and the aristocratic, substituting one tyranny for another. They were to continue their dominion of privilege, graft and corruption for the next two centuries and they, with the support of a corrupt monarchy, became the subject of Tom Paine’s strictures at the end of the eighteenth century when he published his attack on the British monarchy and government in his classic The Rights of Man. (See the review re Paine)

Dev

Judging Dev by Diarmaid Ferriter. Royal Irish Academy, 2007. pp 396. Photos, letters.

This review was written on December 25th 2007 

Judging Dev was sponsored by the RIA in order to bring the documents which they have on Dev to the notice of the public. Ferriter was commissioned to write the text. It is divided into three sections - text, photos and facsimile copies of letters written by or received by Dev. The text is divided into 16 short chapters and is limited to about 150 pages. Apparently Ferriter was not expected to write a comprehensive account of Dev but more a commentary on the documents appertaining to him in various archives, especially those in the RIA and UCD. It is a personal as well as a public account of his life rather than a detailed and factual account of his career (I counted 84 photos of Dev in all.). Ferriter deals mostly with Dev’s time in government from 1932. It does not deal in any comprehensive way with some of Dev’s earlier and important moments in history, such as the Treaty settlement, his record before and during the civil war, and such aspects of his later career as the setting up of the Fianna Fail Party and the Irish Press.

This is not a structured biography in the ordinary sense. It is short and by no means comprehensive, and is rather a personal and interpretive account of the man. . The views and identities of Dev’s critics are frequently mentioned, which tend to evoke a response from the author couched in favour of his subject. It may be perceived as a riposte to the drubbing Dev received from Coogan in his controversial De Valera – Long Fellow, Long Shadow.

I do not think Ferriter’s text adds significantly to our revolutionary history. The main emphasis is on his leadership of the country from 1932, his later settlement with the British, and his international recognition while presiding at the League of Nations.   He emerges as a successful politician with a mystique acquired through his aloofness. We are reminded of the exceptional loyalty he evoked, of his diplomacy, his capacity to impress his British political colleagues once he was himself in the driving seat, and his consistent policies in relation to neutrality. His most enduring achievement was the formulation and successful acceptance of the 1937 Constitution and his ability at the time to resist excessive interference from the Church and other vested interests, including the vehement protests of some prominent feminists.

Ferriter tends to be less critical of Dev’s ‘comely girls’ conservatism than other commentators. Indeed he may be right in the sense that it is difficult for us to-day in this materialistic and secular country to have an insight into the culture of fifty years and more ago. Ferriter underlines Dev’s great interest in mathematics, scientific research and the Irish language among other academic subjects. Undoubtedly, he did contribute to developments in these and other areas, although hardly in restoring the language.  He believes that Dev and his various administrations were successful out of the ordinary in many other areas of progress but this is surely questionable when we remember the chronic emigration, and when we concede the  progress made by other European countries at the same time, and who had suffered the ravages of war for  more than five years.  

Like all other colleagues and administrations during the 80 odd years of the state, he made little progress in restoring Irish as a popular first language. His approach to the language was reminiscent of the lip service paid to the subject by nearly all Irish politicians as well as a largely indifferent and cynical public.  Dev’s view was that the language revival was more important in terms of national well-being than the reunification of the country, a view which might be questioned by many.

Perhaps his greatest failure was his negative approach to the North of Ireland, the persistence of partition and his antagonising of the Northern Unionists. His outspoken almost obsessional approach lacked any sense of realism in terms of understanding the passion which lay behind the Unionists commitment to Britain and the Commonwealth. After he was defeated in the 1948 election, Dev set out on his world tour to seek international support for his anti-partition policies and, not unexpectedly, met with a largely indifferent audience. This international publicity only further alienated our northern brethren (and his successor, Jack Costello, joined vociferously in the same Anti-Partition Campaign and went further by leaving the commonwealth against the policies of his own party.)  It was to take Lemass, by his historic approach to O’Neill,  to break the senseless policy of his predecessors.

Twenty thousand copies of the book will be distributed to our secondary schools by the Department of Education. It is about time that our young people were informed about our more recent Irish history. However, Judging Dev is not a likely publication to give a balanced and unbiased account of our contentious history during the 20^th century. It is an interpretive account of a single, albeit very important, figure but it will not fulfil the purpose of conveying the true picture of our times and can only stir the dying embers of the civil war. Its release to our schools is a misjudgement by our educational authorities and it is hard to believe that this unprecedented step was taken without a political motive. It is vital that our civil servants are not suspect on an issue of this sensitivity. Why not a concise and inclusive history of Ireland by a professional historian such as Ferriter for our secondary school pupils?

The future of our more recent history will be fought out on the battlefield of revisionism, with Collins and de Valera as the main contestants, and the contest will continue as long as both subjects prove to be of commercial value to publishers, historians, and the media.

Ultimate Fitness – The Quest for Truth about Exercise and Health.

By Gina Kolata. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York. 2003. pp 299.

This review was written on July 4th 2007

Ms. Kolata is a reporter with the New York Times and deals generally with medical matters. She is herself a physical fitness guru and is committed with her husband to the most strenuous exercise in the form of weight lifting, cycling, a highly strenuous form of fixed cycling in the gym called Spinning, and to running. She is obviously familiar with the American fitness world and particularly with the history and politics of weight lifting and the more strenuous form of cycling. Her own fitness career is concerned most with muscle building and the physical, mental and psychological effects of extreme physical exercise. 

There is much of interest in the book about the whole fitness and body culture of the United States. This short review deals mainly with three aspects of her message – the body cult related to extreme exercise, the huge fitness industry which is generated by commercial considerations rather than scientific based evidence and the huge commercial industry inviting Americans to join a bewildering variety of fitness gyms and various bizarre fitness programmes, to encourage a bewildering variety of diets, and to take a wide variety of vitamins, drugs, chemical supplements and skin applications.  What valid research exists in the field of exercise ‘gets lost amidst marketing claims and exaggerations and the sale of dubious programs and nostrums’.

Apart from her own devotion to muscle building and the satisfaction she derives from extreme exercise, her writing is reasonably balanced and sensible. She is certainly ready to acknowledge that much of the philosophy driving the fitness cult not only ignores the importance of the scientific method of evidence but is at times contemptuous of conventional research based on proper trials and observational studies. 

Kolata puts forward many reasons why people take exercise or wish to adopt an exercise programme. They include health, longevity, pleasure, strength training, improved appearance, weight control, social cohesion, treatment of depression and other mood problems. She accepts that training through such aerobic exercises as walking, jogging, running and cycling does contribute to better health but she is justified in being cautious about accepting the widely held view that such aerobic exercise increases longevity. Many confounding factors which are common to the exercise-motivated person, and particularly in those who adhere to long-term training, make it difficult to define the specific effect of exercise on longevity.  Aerobically active people are less likely to smoke and to drink heavily; they tend to eat sensibly with an eye on fat and salt, and have a preference for vegetables and fruit. I have little doubt that those following a sensible aerobic exercise live longer, and enjoy a shorter period of disability and decrepitude before death, than the sedentary but there are certainly other confounding factors which add to longevity as well as aerobic exercise. I doubt whether weight lifting and other strenuous isometric exercises aimed at muscle mass and strength confer the same benefits. Certainly there is little valid research evidence to suggest that being more heavily muscled will prolong our lives. 

Spinning

There are strong physiological reasons to accept the value of aerobic exercise as a factor in ensuring health and longevity. It has been shown through basic cellular research that exercise reduces the instability of the lining of blood vessels, a condition which makes people more liable to clots and to heart attack and stroke. There is also indisputable evidence that exercise reduces blood pressure and has a beneficial effect on the blood cholesterol profile with an increase in the protective high-density cholesterol and a possible reduction in the harmful low-density cholesterol. It is likely that these benefits can be achieved by a moderate exercise programme and there is little reason to believe that greater benefit can be achieved by more severe aerobic exercise and certainly not by muscle building, weight lifting or the extreme form of static cycling or Spinning practised by the author. In justice to the author, she makes no such claim. Rather, she expresses concern about the humbug, unjustified claims, fabrications and greed of the so-called health industry which exists in the United States and which is sadly, like many aspects of American culture, spreading world-wide.

A substantial part of this book is an account of the author’s involvement in very strenuous weightlifting and her devotion to Spinning. Spinning involves prolonged and at times maximum exercise on a static bike, an ergometer, which has been specially designed for this purpose. She and other adherents indulge in periods of some hours in the practice, always in groups in specially designed gyms and with music. The degree of exercise which they indulge seems so great that it is difficult to think it can be achieved by any human being, however intense the training. The sessions require heavy and repeated fluid replacement, heavy sweating and moments of extreme fatigue. Sessions may last some hours and a marathon session is described as lasting twelve hours. All this apparently leads to a high, a state of mental exhilaration which leads to this unlikely, almost bizarre, addiction.  

There is much about the body and muscle building benefits of weight lifting and about the author’s long attachment to this form of isometric exercise. She describes the history of weightlifting in some detail with its long tradition of recourse to anabolic drugs. The sport has its seamier side in terms of crime and corruption, and is now on a decline worldwide because of its association with drugs and crime. It is hard to believe that the human frame, including the female frame, can lift the weights which have been reported in recent years, almost certainly as a result of resorting to muscle building drugs. 

Gina Kolata running a marathon

This book gives an honest account of the evolution of the popular and commercialised exercise health industry in the United States. It is also a very frank and personal account by the author of her devotion to strenuous exercise and of its importance to her in her daily life.  It is a striking account of human greed, of human frailty and credulity, of changing social and behavioural fashions. Most of all, the author reminds us  of the huge part leisure exercise can play in our physical wellbeing, in our attitudes and moods, our spirituality and in coping with boredom and other stresses of life. 

An American sage

Autobiography

By Thomas Jefferson. 1743-1826

With the Declaration of Independence, 1821.

This review was written on February 22nd 2012

This was one of the first books I bought on the Kindle.  Jefferson played a crucial part in formulating the Declaration of Independence which was issued by Congress in 1776. ‘’A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America in general Congress assembled’’ It was an early autobiography which he finished in 1790. Jefferson became the third President of America and was re-elected for a second term. He died at the age of 83.

Monticello

I was aware of Jefferson’s important role during the formation of the United States after the break with England in 1776. In 1985 Louise and I stayed with Richard Crampton, a colleague of mine married to Julia, an Irishwomen. Richard was professor of medicine in Charlottesville in South Carolina and was later to spend a month with me as visiting professor at St. Vincent’s. I was living alone at Leeson Park at the time. He stayed in my house and I remember most distinctly the massive telephone bill he left behind. He seemed to spend all his time in my home on the ‘phone! He graciously left me a cheque for £100 when he was leaving. We visited Jefferson’s home, Monticello, at the time of our visit to his home. I wrote the following note about Jefferson in a letter to my children after our visit there.

This is the home of Thomas Jefferson who was a remarkable man and who made enormous contributions to American science, culture, politics, education and industry during and after the American Revolution. I visited his home in Charlottesville and I was amazed by the number of innovative ideas he formulated and his inventions, and by his extraordinary wide interests and energy. I find biography very interesting because it teaches us so much about the talents of other people and undoubtedly can be an important stimulus and inspiration to ourselves.

The name of Jefferson’s home was Monticello. It is now a widely visited and greatly evocative museum. It is clear from his earlier years that he was hugely influential  not only in advising about the prospect and the inevitability of the break with England but that he played a major role in the difficult task of bringing all the eleven states then in existence together as a united nation with common political and national interests and with a constitution which would ensure their unity through a common President and an effective Congress to organise and direct the  economic, legislative, judicial and international policies of the nation.

It appears that as well as encouraging the unity of the states and in furthering the independence movement, he was a man whose thoughts and ideas had a fructifying effect on the minds of his colleagues. His interests were wide and his influence was compelling just as he appeared to have the patience and the realism to face opposition and often to wait for another day.

An important part of his early biography included his few years as ambassador to France during the French revolution. He took a deep interest in the early years of the revolution and he was not slow to air his views about the genesis of the final collapse of French political society. His advice, if accepted, would certainly have prevented the execution of the King and Queen, the disloyalty to the Crown and the widespread adoption of the guillotine. He is convincing in his view that the Queen was the major influence which led to the failure of the King and many of the clergy and nobles to reach a rational and peaceful accord with the common people. Having read a biography of Edmund Burke a few years ago and knowing how rational was his approach to the American revolution and how his views conflicted with the bellicose King George 111, the Tories and other politicians, and knowing how concerned he was about the effects of the French Revolution on European affairs and international society, it would be interesting to know how closely Burke and Jefferson’s views were shared about these two periods of history.  Jefferson believed that all men are equal. His life was contemporaneous with the writings of Paine in his Rights of Man and Jefferson’s whole political life was based on this self-evident truth.  Paine himself in his famous book and in his prolonged stay in America greatly influenced the progress of the revolution.

When Jefferson at last was released from his duties as ambassador to France and allowed to return to America to meet again with his family and to resume his life there, he was immediately asked to become secretary of State by General Washington. He was reluctant to take on the task being anxious to retire to the comfort and repose of a country gentleman. However he was unable to resist the strong influence of Washington and thus found himself thrown into the active political cauldron of the nascent American States. 

Jefferson left Le Havre for the United States about the 22nd of September. He crossed the channel to Cowes to catch a clipper for Norfolk in the United States. Between contrary winds and other problems it took him two months to reach Norfolk! This is a reminder of the immense amount of time he spent in travelling during his adult life, both in the United States and in Europe. Apart form his many journeys, travel for him seems to have been a leisurely affair as he not infrequently used to spend many days staying with colleagues and friends during his journeys. The invention of the railways in the mid 1800s surely must have had a profound effect on society, at least in terms of reduced travel time and in making travel between people and between nations so much easier.

Jefferson was born in 1743 in Albemarle County, Virginia, and died on July 4 1826. He was President of the United States from 1801-1809.

The spread of Islam

The Great Arab Conquests - How the Spread of Islam changed the World we live in. Hugh Kennedy. 

Wiedenfeld & Nicolsen, London, 2007. PP 421 Illustrated and maps.

This review was written on February 2nd 2011.

I first saw this book on the shelves of the RDS Library. It was in January 2011 and just after the disturbances in Tunisia, Jordan, Yemen and Egypt had commenced. I read the book during our holiday in Tenerife that month. The 428 pages were a task too far and it was not an easy read. It is evident from the author’s introduction that there is a dearth of documentary evidence available about the entire period of the Islamic invasion of the East and North Africa. Much of the history as recounted by the author is speculative and the few documentary sources available are often contradictory. This makes the appreciation of this important event in world history less satisfactory for the reader. I read parts of the book carefully, particularly about the occupation of the Iberian Peninsula and other sallies into France and the Mediterranean Islands where there is perhaps a little more information available to the historian. 

The paucity of documentary material led me inevitably to skipping the earlier chapters dealing with the Arabian conquest of the Near and Middle East as far as Iran and Afghanistan and parts of latter day Pakistan. The early 7^th century conquest included Iraq, Syria, Egypt and the other parts of the Near East close to the current borders of Turkey which was then part of the Byzantine Empire. The conquest included the North African littoral as far as present day Morocco, inhabited then by the Berbers. The entire conquest of these extensive regions started about the time of Mohamed’s death in 632 and was completed before the end of the same century, a period of less than 70 years. A handful of Arabian Bedouins from the Arabian Peninsula became an army which managed to conquer the entire region. The treatment the conquered people received varied widely in terms of military and political strategy. Some cities, towns and regions were dealt with in brutal fashion while others were dealt with leniently, particularly when the beleaguered population surrendered without resistance. The various other religious in the area were as often as not tolerated but by the end of the century most of the inhabitants had adopted the Islamic faith.

The first attempts to conquer Spain and Portugal were delayed until the early 8^th century but within the short period of six years from the year 711 the entire Iberian Peninsula, with the exception of the North West, was taken over from the Visigoths who had earlier inhabited the peninsula as emigrants from Germany. The Islamic occupation, led by Tariq and largely supported by Berber soldiers who were inhabitants of North Africa, took over the administration of the Spanish and Portuguese territories but, apart from the military and administrative functions of the invaders, the local population were not greatly molested as long as  taxes were paid.  The Arabs were to continue their occupation of most of the peninsula for the  next eight hundred years during which the Muslims and the Christians appeared to have lived in reasonable harmony until the invaders were eventually dislodged by Philip the First in the 16th century and his successor Charles the Fifth.

The Islamic invasion of Gaul

As in the East and North Africa, there is little documentary material about the Islamic occupation of the Iberian Peninsula. I am told by my late sister-in-law, Rosemarie Mulcahy, that by the 16th century, at the time of their banishment from Spain, the Arabs mostly occupied the rural areas of the country where they had established the fruit and olive industries which to-day are such a traditional part of the economic fabric of Spain and Portugal. During their banishment the Islamic population suffered many cruelties in the hands of Philip 1 and his Spanish subjects. The Arabs had also invaded Sicily, the lower regions of Italy and the South of France but their stay in these parts was short-lived. 

The great Mosque of Córdoba

During subsequent centuries attempts were made by the Arabs to conquer Constantinople where the Byzantine kings reigned but the Byzantine control of the sea was a major factor in preventing the fall of their capital.  Unfortunately, there is no reference to the later spread of the Islamic faith to Turkey and to the Greek peninsula in Europe nor is there any account of the relationship between the Greek Orthodox and the other Christian sects in Asia and the spreading Islamic faith. There is no reference to the Crusades which were organised in Europe to stop the spread  of Islam in the near East and one wonders about the factors which led to the Turkish domination of the Near East and North Africa during the later centuries of the second millennium. For those of us who live on the Atlantic coast, it is not surprising that we are told about the Dark Ages which preceded Medieval times. It appears that the poor documentary sources left by the early Muslims was in contrast to the richer sources coming to us from Rome and Greece in classical times. Is it possible that the gradual spread of the Islamic tongue among people whose language had been earlier based on Latin ond Greek was a deterrent to the production of the written word? A factor which may be relevant was the absence in the Islamic world of the monasteries and other academic institutions in mediaeval Europe which were such storehouses of ancient literature.

Córdoba Mosque interior

At a later date I was to read Michael Barry’s Homage to Al-Anbalus about the rise and fall of Islamic Spain. It stirred my interest and my curiosity about the unique story of a new and vibrant civilisation appearing so abruptly on the Iberian Peninsula, surviving for more than seven centuries and, while dominating the inhabitants, largely living together with the natives in harmony. After these long years they were to leave or to be banished as abruptly as the day of their arrival. They may not have left a vibrant literature behind them but Barry’s book, with its fine collection of photos, reminds us of the Islams’ rich architectural heritage. We are also reminded by the history of Spain that politics and religion need not conflict but this virtue, greatly to be desired for the good of humanity, was rudely and cruelly forgotten by Phillip the first and his Catholic subjects.

A nice guy or what?

Stalin, a Biography. Robert Service. Published by Harvard University Press.

This review was written on October 20th 2011

I began to read the book during a cycling holiday on the Ile de Ré in September 2011. The Kindle was a convenient means of travel without having to carry a heavy book but lack of familiarity with this new means of reading made it difficult for me to write a meaningful review. However, I can make some generalisations which might be of help to others who may wish to know more about Stalin.

This was the first book I read on my Amazon Kindle. It is a long biography measuring more than 700 pages in text, of which about one third includes the evolution of the Russian empire during the first half of the 20^th century.

The book was tedious reading for a number of reasons but it was nevertheless compelling enough and I followed it to its end, with a little skipping of the many pages which provide the author’s views of Stalin’s personality and his behaviour as dictator of Russia for 30 years. The author conveys a rather grim impression of Russia as it was dominated by him and the Bolsheviks.  If the author had any prejudices about Stalin and his career, it was critical rather than approving.  Stalin emerges as an ambitious and paranoid figure and merciless in his treatment of his subjects. Even his closest associates and extended family suffered at his hands. Wholesale executions and political murder were a constant feature of his time, with exacerbations of his lust during the first Five Year Plan in the 1920s and during 1938, just before the 1939-1945 War, when he disposed of many of his earlier Bolshevik colleagues. His final public crime and splurge of paranoia was the rounding up and execution of the Jewish doctors in Moscow who, he believed, were planning to kill him.   His closest colleagues were in constant fear of him and could not be sure of how he might react to a remark, decision or action which would lead them to the Gulag or the firing squad. The author thinks that Stalin delighted in keeping his colleagues in fear of his lust.

Stalin was born in 1877. He started his life as a student in the spiritual academy of his home country of Georgia. He was entered for the priesthood but he was clearly an unwilling candidate for the religious life and was soon to be deemed unsuitable for ordination. Georgia was then part of Nicholas II’s Russian Empire. His parents were separated and his only intimate parent was his mother who lived her entire life in Georgia but with whom he maintained some contact during her lifetime. His political involvement was with the early Bolsheviks and he was greatly influenced by Lenin who was in exile in the early part of the century but who had an immense influence on the Bolshevik movement in Russia and elsewhere.

He is still admired in Georgia and is commemorated by sculptures and other public artefacts. This cannot be said about other countries and particularly about the countries which were part of the Russian hegemony after the 1939-1945 war. There is still a small residue of Russians who think warmly of him and who still yearn for the Communist regime which he dominated.

For the average reader who is not too familiar with Russia and the Russian people there are some difficulties in dealing with this large biography. The many personal and family Russian names need constant reference to the glossary, not easy when reading the Kindle for the first time. The author devotes large and repeated sections of the text in analysing Stalin’s character, personality, motives and reaction to the different circumstances during his thirty years as dictator of Russia and the Russian Empire. For me the lasting effect in reading about Stalin was being reminded of the cruelty of the man and his times, and his apparent indifference to the fear he created among his close colleagues and personal and family acquaintances, and the apparent indifference he had to their fate. While he clearly  held all the strings of power, he appears to have remained aloof of the various organisations, secret police, political councils and parts of government who carried out his  instructions in conducting the trails which led to so many executions and to the Gulag.  During his despotic power he was noted for his approval of the systematic killing of people on a massive scale and many of his prominent colleagues were eventually disposed of to the Gulag or the firing squad, for personal or political reasons and strongly related to his increasing paranoia.

The author states in his introduction that Stalin had many sides and this is the view of his niece Kira Allilueva, who was imprisoned by him and who spoke freely to the author. That he was ambitious, energetic and dynamic is evident from his response to Hitler’s invasion and his commitment to defeat the Nazis at all costs irrespective of the sacrifice of men, whether of his own men or his enemies. In battle soldiers were to move forward however strong or impregnable the opposition. Those who turned back were shot. During his 30 year reign he was responsible for the industrialisation of Russia and for the highly traumatic and controversial collectivisation of agricultural land leading to the impoverishing and deaths of millions of agricultural workers and farmers.

The author concludes that he left the Soviet Union as a world power and an industrial colossus and with a literate society. He died with continued institutions of terror and indoctrination with few rivals to contend with. The history of the USSR after his death was largely a series of attempts to conserve, modify, disparage or discredit his regime. He was succeeded by Nikita Khrushchev who according to the author shoved Stalin off the pedestal of Communism and its concept of equality for all.  It was Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985 who initiated the campaign against Stalin and all his works.

Since the opening up of the Archives in Moscow through the influence of Boris Yeltsin there is now a massive academic interest in and curiosity about Stalin and his times. Already we have a huge amount of literature aimed at interpreting Stalin and his regime. These archives can only add further to the attention of biographers and historians. They will contribute further to our knowledge of Stalin and the cult of Communism but I suspect that different attitudes and different prejudices will add rather than resolve the confusion of opinions about Stalin which is already evident among historians.

After the World War he sustained a tyranny which denied any vestige of freedom for the Russian people. Brutality continued to be institutionalised for his country. He had a monstrous record as a tyrant and his tyranny spread to some extent through Russian influence in the other Eastern Communist countries until the falling of the ‘’Wall’’