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Articles by John Freeman
America, América: Greg Grandin turns the story of a continent upside down
We've heard and read about MAGA almost daily since January. That said, "Making America Great Again" begs some key questions. None of them have simple answers. When exactly was America “great” and what made it so? And, according to the MAGA movement, when did it cease to be “great” and why? There is an even more basic and underlying geopolitical question: what and where is America and who made it what it is?
Review: Ankit Panda and Frank Close offer little hope on managing nuclear threats
In his latest book, “Destroyer of Worlds”, Frank Close takes us back to the beginnings of the nuclear age and guides us through the decades that followed. His is a story of unintended consequences. What started in the late 19th century as a search for an understanding of the atomic foundations of life on Earth morphed into the power to end such life. Ankit Panda in “The New Nuclear Age” starts from where Close concludes “at the precipice of Armageddon”.
Malinowski is unremitting in his exposure of Hohenzollern Nazi-era culpability
The house is imposing but not grand. More manor house than palace. Set in wooded, spacious grounds, it is simply called Huis Doorn. In a small mausoleum nearby are interred the remains of ex-Kaiser Wilhelm II, the last member of the Hohenzollern family to reign as Emperor over Germany. After mutinies and revolution in 1918 had forced him from the throne, Wilhelm took refuge in The Netherlands.
Children of Radium is wry, occasionally sour and deeply laced with tragedy
There can be few more arresting opening lines: “My grandmother grew up brushing her teeth with radioactive toothpaste.” That sentence sets the tone of Joe Dunthorne’s new book as a whole: wry, occasionally sour and deeply laced with tragedy. “Children of Radium” is the unexpected outcome of Dunthorne’s excursion into the 20th century history of his own family. Or at least into the German part of his family.
SACRAMENTO NOIR | Kirkus Reviews
Noir enough, but needs more Sacramento. Thirteen sad stories curated by a Sacramento native whose memories of his hometown seem overdue for an update. Sacramento certainly has its dark side. Like every big city, it has its share of homelessness. Residents struggle to keep up with the high cost of living in California. Housing is too often unaffordable, thanks in part to an influx of telecommuting tech workers from the Bay Area.
Sheftall's Hiroshima: an extraordinary account of the last atomic bomb survivors
To remember the last test explosion of a nuclear weapon in the atmosphere you have to be approaching 60 years of age. To have any recollection of the Cuban Missile Crisis you have to be 70 or older. And only someone approaching 90 can have any personal memory of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Snyder and Applebaum's books show Ukraine war is a turning point for western democracy
If books could meet and talk these two would have a lively and complementary conversation. The authors have much in common, too, not least their interest in the history and politics of central and Eastern Europe. They have long been severe critics of Putin’s Russia – and Putin returned the compliment by sanctioning both of them in Autumn 2022. One began as an historian and has reconfigured himself as a public intellectual with numerous subscribers to his substack blog.
Why War?: Overy uncovers humanity's age-old appetite for intergroup violence
War was abolished in 1928. Or at least that was the theory. Horrified by the loss of life in the First World War and led by the US and France, states signed up to the Pact of Paris under which they resolved not to have recourse to war between them and to settle disputes or conflicts among them solely by peaceful means. Not that the Pact prevented an even more devastating conflict only eleven years later.
The Aldeburgh Festival turns 75 and remains a glory of the British musical year
Over the eleven months between June 1948 and May 1949, RAF aircraft, which in the recent war had operated out of airfields near the coast of East Anglia, had been moved to bases in the British occupation zone in Germany. This time, they had crossed the North Sea not to bomb Hitler’s Berlin but to save it from Stalin’s blockade.
Mark Gilbert review: tale of Italy’s rebirth after fascism feels highly pertinent
As Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni is proving to be a wily political operator. In the European Parliament elections on 9 June, the party she leads secured 29 per cent of the Italian vote, the highest party vote and a higher percentage than her party gained in the general election that brought her into national government. In the European election in Italy, Meloni has helped to redefine the Italian centre-right.
Globalisation’s uncertain future
Globalisation was to be the commercial motor of an increasingly borderless post-Cold War world. In Goodbye Globalisation: The Return of a Divided World, Elizabeth Braw provides an account of what she sees as the unravelling of globalisation. In her telling, it is a salutary tale of western economic and geopolitical naivety and Chinese unscrupulousness. With the end of the Soviet Union and the “fall” of the communist ideology which underpinned it, a new global order beckoned; or so it was thought.
Judgement at Tokyo: new book on Second World War trials is a timely read
It was a long time ago and faraway. Or was it? Three years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had brought the war against Japan to a juddering end, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East concluded its work in Tokyo and sentenced seven of the highest category of indicted Japanese offenders to death for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Kampfner's love letter to the reinvented city of Berlin
In one way or another everyone has been to Berlin. If they haven’t been there in person they have visited it in their imaginations. It is now one of Europe’s most popular city-break destinations whether visitors are drawn to it for its superb galleries and museums, for its vibrant nightlife (including the celebrated Berghain club) or for an alcohol-fuelled stag party or hen do.
ANNOUNCEMENT: John Freeman announces candidacy for supervisor District 2
This commentary was contributed by John Freeman. The opinions expressed do not necessarily represent BenitoLink or other affiliated contributors. Submissions must follow BenitoLink’s Terms of Use. During campaign seasons, BenitoLink allows up to two submissions a month related to a particular candidate or measure such as an announcement of candidacy, platforms or endorsements. Submissions made by other agencies/groups endorsing candidates are counted toward the candidate’s/measure tally.
A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: a timely study of Palestine in miniature from the ground up
I began reading “A Day in the Life of Abed Salama” on the evening of 6 October. Early the following morning, I switched on the BBC News and heard reports of the fusillade of rockets and land incursions launched from Gaza at 06.30 that day. Nathan Thrall’s latest book is not a story about Gaza but it is about Palestine and specifically about an encircled enclave of the West Bank abutting the walls or fences of East Jerusalem and of a local tragedy affecting Abed Salama and his family.
Central Coast Community Energy sets new electrical rates
This column was contributed by John Freeman, San Juan Bautista Councilmember and Central Coast Community Energy Policy Board Member. The opinions expressed do not necessarily represent BenitoLink or other affiliated contributors. BenitoLink invites all community members to share their ideas and opinions. By registering as a BenitoLink user in the top right corner of our home page and agreeing to follow our Terms of Use, you can write counter opinions or share your insights on current issues.
Rory Stewart’s memoir reveals a man of contradictions
Rory Stewart’s memoir, “Politics on the Edge”, is a story of frustrated ambition. At times the prose is almost lyrical – and always a pleasure to read – in what is signposted as “A Memoir from Within”. Stewart was a politician with acres of personal hinterland, an almost Victorian figure in his love of countryside and enjoyment of long and strident walks across Afghanistan and Scotland and its borderlands, but above all in his seriousness.
Can a new Cold War be avoided?
The Czech writer Milan Kundera who died last month was shaped by a European cultural sensibility in a Cold War setting. A slim volume of essays written by him before the Berlin Wall came down has just been published. A Kidnapped West: The Tragedy of Central Europe is a poignant and eloquent reminder of a world of yesterday, of a divided Europe. It makes for unsettling reading as Russia, the instrument of past repression in Kundera’s own homeland, seeks now a renewed imperium in its borderlands.
FREEMAN'S | Kirkus Reviews
An angry, powerful book seething with love and outrage for a community too often stereotyped or ignored. Awards & Accolades Likes 19 Our Verdict GET IT Kirkus Reviews' Best Books Of 2022 New York Times Bestseller Inspired by David Copperfield, Kingsolver crafts a 21st-century coming-of-age story set in America’s hard-pressed rural South.
Hoyer's Beyond the Wall: a just and dignified account of East Germany’s distinctive history
When the Wall came down in 1989, I was living in Berlin. Whilst most people headed west, I went east, for me an unexplored world. There was beauty to be found in the landscape of nearby Brandenburg, original and surprisingly undamaged. Many of the pathways through local woodlands described by the 19th century German writer Theodore Fontane were still accessible. With German friends, I followed those same routes and was enchanted by them.
The Lost Future: Jan Zielonka writes that humanity is losing control of tomorrow
Jan Zielonka is an international academic born and bred in Communist era Poland and now teaching at Oxford and Venice universities. “The Lost Future” was composed in Venice during the Covid lockdown and the irony of writing a book about the future in a decaying city in thrall to its own history is not lost on its author. Indeed for Zielonka Venice’s past offers instructive lessons for the shaping of our own futures.
Tania Branigan's Red Memory: a lament for the horrors of China's Cultural Revolution
It is hard to comprehend the human cost and impact of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution which Mao Zedong unleashed on China in 1966. Over the next ten years 2 million people died and 35 million suffered in lesser ways. 17 million were forced from their homes, schools and universities and made to work in the countryside or in mines or factories far from their own communities. They were variously hounded and humiliated.
Nouriel Roubini's Megathreats is not a book for the fainthearted
Dr Doom will see you now…. Nouriel Roubini is an American economist and analyst with a reputation for invariably seeing the downside and for having been virtually alone in predicting the financial crisis of 2008. Despite being – his own term – mocked in 2006 as Dr Doom, he rather plays up the moniker in his new book, “Megathreats”. Indeed if dystopia were a country, Roubini would be an honoured citizen. “Megathreats” is not a book for the faint-hearted.
Black Snow: an arresting account of air power’s ability to flatten cities
This is a shocking book. It is a reminder – if one were needed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February – that 20th century warfare eroded the distinction between civilians and combatants. It is the story of the ascent of air power and of the deliberate use of aircraft and later of missiles to flatten cities in pursuit of unconditional victories.
Indigenous Continent: a revised tale of cowboys and Indians
Youngsters growing up in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s watched “Westerns” on TV and in cinemas and then played cowboys and Indians in their own back gardens. Those who played the Indians drew the short straw because they were the bad guys. The cowboys on screen and in suburban gardens always won and, when in danger, the US cavalry appeared over the hill to save the day.
The Suffolk Heritage coast: Southwold v. Sizewell
The Suffolk Heritage Coast is in the news as the government agrees to the construction of a new and nationally important nuclear power station at Sizewell whilst a strike at the port of Felixstowe has put at risk the daily operations of the largest container port in Britain. Suffolk sits alongside the eroding edge of England, a study in contrasts but of growing national economic importance.
Rogues by Patrick Radden Keefe review - a scintillating set of hard-boiled stories
Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels, and Crooks by Patrick Radden Keefe (Pan Macmillan, £14.79) If you are ever on the receiving end of an inquiry from Patrick Radden Keefe, be on your guard. He is a seriously determined and tenacious investigator. His research is intimidatingly thorough and he doesn’t readily take “no” for an answer. There is a pattern to his journalism and the essays in his new book, Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks, reflect it.
Is this the end of the Great British Boozer?
Pubs are going through a bad patch. Since the beginning of the year, there has been an unprecedented wave of closures, and there are 7,000 fewer pubs in England and Wales than a decade ago. According to the latest figures from Altus Group, the real estate consultancy, there are now just 39,970 pubs, the lowest number on record. The immediate reasons are plain to see: rising costs and staff shortages on top of an earlier battering during the Covid lockdowns.
Have remote politics really wrecked Britain?
The Social Distance Between Us: How Remote Politics Wrecked Britain by Darren McGarvey (Ebury Publishing), £15.95. In a Twitter post on finishing his new book, The Social Distance Between Us, the Scottish writer, rapper and TV host, Darren McGarvey, reflected that “after 3 years of crazy ups and downs, false starts and moments where I felt I might throw in the towel, my second book is complete”. Well, here we have it and what an angry little beast it is.
The Great Escape - Walking the Welsh borderlands
In the film of Bruce Chatwin’s novel On the Black Hill, the opening sequence sees a hang-glider floating over the Welsh and English borderlands shifting from the outer edges of the Brecon Beacons Mountains down to the Wye Valley near Hay. The viewer’s eye moves in the breeze attached, as it were, to the hang-glider, skirting close to the ground as it moves upwards over the mountainsides and down into the valleys.
The Crown is vital in binding the Union together
The second Elizabethan age began with an empire and a union, but could conceivably end with England alone. In just seven decades the United Kingdom has evolved from a country with substantial global reach and presence to an offshore island with an uncertain future. The empire that existed in 1953 has gone and the Union, as it now exists, is not wholly steady on its feet.
In the new Europe of Russia’s making, there’s no room for neutrality
Military neutrality works when potential adversaries respect it. After the invasion of Ukraine, two of the most serious and respected neutral states in the world have decided that Russia may no longer respect their neutrality. Neither Sweden nor Finland has ever used rose-tinted spectacles when looking at Russia and both countries have long had credible defensive military forces as deterrents to Russian adventurism. But the war in Ukraine is a tipping point for Stockholm and Helsinki.
The Wash: battling to save Britain's largest estuary
Driving north from Ely across the East coast of England, medieval churches follow one another in procession across the fenlands which border The Wash, Britain’s largest estuary. Little islands of comparative elevation in a landscape as horizontal as any in England. It’s not true what Noel Coward said: Norfolk isn’t “very flat”, but the Fens certainly are.
Who Are We Now? review - a sentimental reflection of England and Englishness
This is a more romantic and nostalgic book than might have been expected from the editor-in-chief of the New Statesman. Whilst it shows all the writerly and analytical skills of Jason Cowley the journalist, it is as much about Harlow as about England and quite a lot about young Jason’s years growing up in that post-war “New Town”.
A lesson from Ukraine: Preserving democracy takes work
Protesters gather at the Town Square in Jackson, Wyoming, on Monday, Feb. 28, 2022 to show solidarity with Ukraine as that country endures an invasion by Russian forces in eastern Europe. Several of the protesters were native Ukrainians with family in the country and sheltering from the Russian invasion. (AP Photo / Jackson Hole News&Guide, Bradly J.
The Great Escape - A dose of winter sunshine in Seville
It was the oranges that gave me itchy feet; the unmistakable aroma of Andalusia. They had been imported to England only a few weeks earlier. Our kitchen was quickly overtaken by the seductive smells of marmalade-in-the-making. Now the tart delights are secured in sealed jars ready to be eaten over breakfast in the months ahead.
The BBC: A People’s History review - will we ever stop fighting over the Beeb?
Last year the BBC reached its 100th birthday. Through wars, commercial competition and political power-play, it has been a great survivor. It is an institution central to our national life, second in public loyalty only to the NHS. In 2020, in any given week, over 91 per cent of UK households used one BBC service or another.
Wyoming and its discontents: A word to the wise
Sparring bison. (John Warden/FlickrCC) Wyoming is no longer immune to the grievances and resentments that have infected our nation. We need look no further than the shouting matches during our school board meetings; parents angry at teachers; teachers fearful of speaking out; and, most disheartening, now even first graders disrespectfully sassing their teachers.
The Vanishing review - faith, loss and the twilight of Christianity in the Middle East
Speaking in 2014, a decade after the US-led invasion of Iraq, Prince Charles remarked: “It is an indescribable tragedy that Christianity is now under such threat in the Middle East, an area where Christians have lived for 2,000 years and across which Islam spread in 700 AD, with people of different faiths living together peaceably for centuries.” The threat to Christianity in its original heartlands in the Middle East did not begin with the war to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein or the...
Kent: a divided county at the heart of our national story
Kent is England’s borderland facing out across the narrow stretch of water to the Continent. It’s where the majority of people and goods criss-cross between post-Brexit Britain and the countries of the EU. And it’s where so far this year some 23,000 migrants have been ferried in small boats across the Channel in search of footfall on the Kent coast. Kent’s beaches have been at the heart of our national story.
The Magician review - the revival of Thomas Mann and pre-war German sensibility
Colm Toibin’s The Magician is a deeply European novel, even when part of the action takes place in America. An impersonation of the life of the writer Thomas Mann, its range and compass are extraordinary. Moving from late-nineteenth-century Germany which formed and inspired Mann, to the advent of the Nazi regime which he publicly opposed and sought refuge from in the US, it is a considerable achievement to have fictionalised this shadowy figure in all his personal and political complexity.
Solnit Offers a Framework for Living During Disaster and Beyond
Of the many grim moments in the Trump presidency, one in particular represents a loss of almost unimaginable scale. And that is the degree to which the Trump administration played down the coming pandemic, all while knowing how bad it’d get. “You just breathe the air, and that’s how it’s passed,” Trump told reporter Bob Woodward privately over the phone on February 7, 2020, adding it was much more dangerous than a regular flu.
Wish We Were Here: Salzkammergut
There are times when the Mediterranean is just too hot for comfort and this year is one of those times. This is when the coolness of the lakes and mountains beckon and I wish I was visiting the Salzkammergut in Austria. This region is cool in every sense of the word: refreshing lakes, excellent nature trails, fine food and wine, and Salzburg’s world-class cultural delights.
Wondrous Waddesdon Manor - home to the Rothschild Family
If you aren’t minded to risk a trip to France this pandemic summer, there is an alternative. And we have the Rothschilds to thank for it. On a small hill in Buckinghamshire, there is a neo-Renaissance chateau seemingly transplanted there from the Loire valley. Waddesdon Manor’s towers poke out from among the fir trees around it to provide an uninterrupted vista across the surrounding countryside.
Travelling the world with Agatha Christie
Agatha Milner married twice, and both her relationships fed her taste for foreign travel. Her first gave her a new surname and took her around the world, and her second took her deep into ancient history via the Near East. A hopeful romantic, she often travelled for love or to recover from the loss of it.
Freeman: Bettering Wyoming: A lesson in patience and perseverance
Freeman: Bettering Wyoming: A lesson in patience and perseverance These days Wyoming seems to be competing for last place among the states in several key categories. Little wonder that many young people leave our state never to return; and that newcomers seeking to do well by doing good eventually throw up their hands in despair and leave, too. Not a recipe for sustainability. But that is just part of the story.
Statues and stately houses: Who do we want to remember and how?
A statement issued last February by a spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex read: “We can all live a life of service. Service is universal.” Yes, but whose service and what kinds of service do we want as a country to commemorate and how best to do so? Some of the public figures our forebearers had apparently wanted to remember have fallen (or been pulled) from their plinths; but deciding who and how to memorialise in today’s more cynical age of “celebrity” can be tricky, too.
Freeman: Principled patriotism: A remedy for our time
Freeman: Principled patriotism: A remedy for our time A divisive cloud hangs over this year’s celebration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. At multigenerational gatherings, the topic of what it means to be a patriotic American likely will be left unspoken in order to safeguard friendships and family relationships. But without a shared notion of patriotism the bonds of civic life are torn apart. Why and how must we put America together again?
England could lose Cornwall
Cornwall used to be an isolated place, a Celtic outlier. Not so much nowadays as lockdown escapees migrate to the West in search of sun, sea and space to breathe. The peninsular was packed for much of last summer but is absolutely heaving this year. Even the G7 leaders are paying it a visit this weekend.
Review: Contemporary lessons from the Cuban Missile Crisis
Nuclear Folly: A New History of the Cuban Missile Crisis by Serhii Plokhy (Penguin), £25. It was 60 years ago, but for those old enough to remember, the Cuban Missile Crisis was a seminal moment in their lives. Just like the assassination of President Kennedy only a year later, people can remember where they were and what they were doing during the crisis. Those 13 days in October 1962 threatened the survival of the world as they knew it.
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