John Reader - Cities

Çatal Hüyük a large Turkish neolithic site has been described as the world's first city. Stretching back over 9000 years, at times up to 10,000 people might have lived there. Certainly it is a site of immense historic and social importance. John Reader argues it wasn't a city, more of an overgrown village, and indeed, after reading this sweeping history of "cities" it is hard to see how such a neolithic site could be a city in the sense that we understand today.

Nonetheless, permanent settlements like Çatal Hüyük were extremely important. True permanent settlement could only occur when agriculture developed. Only then could a surplus be provided that could support non-agricultural workers. Reader argues though that the dynamic was more complex and that early urban areas encouraged the further development of agriculture, rather than the other way around.

But Çatal Hüyük is remarkable in one other respect. It is the site of the first known example of art, where humans portrayed themselves within a recognisable landscape. The Çatal Hüyük wall painting includes the outline of a nearby volcano as well as buildings. The painters deliberately noted a site of economic importance - the volcano which provided the rich soil that enabled farmers to support the city.

Here then is the real importance of the city; once humanity moves towards an urban environment, that urbanisation dominates and shapes both people, and the world around them.

While much of Readers' book concentrates on the development of the modern city, the chapters on ancient cities are fascinating. An extended discussion of Rome, for instance, brings home just how much the economic dynamics of that Empire worked. In particular the way that Rome was absolutely in hock to countries that could supply the vast amounts of grain needed to feed the population. Here environment, politics and economics combine to give Rome both its power, but also its strategic weakness.

As early as 1200 CE a network of European cities was in place. Some of them came from older cities, many of them much newer, and again rooted in the development of agriculture and trading. The growth of these cities was rooted in the surrounding agriculture, but they were also dependent on the surroundings to maintain the population. As Reader explains:

"The fact is that until recently (and then only in the developed world) more people died in cities than were born in them. So here is another way that the city parasites the countryside.... Just as city-dwellers could not produce their own food, nor could they raise enough children to replace the citizens who died... the Agricultural Revolution had not only powered the Industrial Revolution - it had also fuelled the Demographic Revolution that filled the cities."

And fill them it did. London went from a population of about 80,000 in 1551 to 865,000 just 250 years later. This despite London's birthrate being 13% lower than in the countryside, and a 50% higher death rate.

Much of the discussion of modern cities concentrates on trends that we still see today - housing, pollution, transport and other "problems". There is a fascinating discussion about sewage that mirrors much of debates that inspired Karl Marx's own concerns around the degradation of agricultural soil and the "waste" of human excrement in the Thames. Reader looks at similar cases in Paris and notes a more rational approach to the question, which will fascinate anyone who has read John Bellamy Foster's Marx's Ecology. 

This book was written in 2005 and in its ecological discussion it is perhaps most dated. Few today might share Reader's optimism that we can deal with environmental crisis through technological innovation. But that said, he does explore solutions in terms of solar cell technology.Similarly, Reader's discussions on the links between the urban environment (and the domestication of animals) with the growth of disease and epidemics are very interesting.

Unfortunately the greatest weakness of this book comes with the discussion of the future. Reader rightly concludes that the future lies in cities; but rather like Leo Hollis' more recent book on the city; he looks to enlightened planning procedures and politicians as the answer to over-crowding and pollution. No one should dismiss these factors and Reader rightly points to some of the weaknesses.

But what is missing here again is any sense of the city as a site of class struggle. This is not to simply glorify revolution, strikes or workers' protest. But a sense of the way that cities themselves have been shaped by mass movements. It was the fear of revolution, for instance, that lead to Baron Haussman designing Paris' enormous boulevards to make it harder to build barricades. 

Nor is there any sense of the collective struggles that fought to improve slums, reduce rents which helped lead to the building of public housing in Britain in the 20th century. Certainly there is no mention of the struggles that have come from those on the periphery of the developing worlds' great cities - struggles that have been fought over water and electricity, and problem stand more of a chance of shaping the future cities than many an enlightened planning officer.

Related Reviews

Hollis - Cities are Good for you
Harvey - Rebel Cities

Leo Hollis - Cities are Good for You

Marx and Engels argued that a prerequisite of capitalism was the displacement of people from rural areas into towns and cities. This separation between town and country was one of the defining points of capitalist society for them, creating as it did a metabolic rift between humans and the natural world.

In the two centuries of so since the birth of capitalism Marx and Engels' insights have been proved right time and again. Today, as a majority of the human population live in cities (3,303,992,253 in 2007 according to the UN) the problem of the "rift" is even more important given the threat of environmental crisis.

The solution however is not some return to a rural past. Leo Hollis' new book is a celebration of the city and its potential, as well as an exploration of the problems for citizens of urban areas. Hollis goes so far as to say that the city is the best chance we have for survival as a species.

Some cities, particularly in the developing world, are growing enormously. In the next five years Yamoussoukro in the Ivory Coast will expand by 43.8 percent, the Chinese city of Jinjiang by 25.9 percent, but London and Tokyo will only grow by 0.7 and 1 percent respectively.

Once in the city, people are shaped and dominated by it. Hollis tells us that "the city offers more chances of making connections than anywhere else.... it is these 'impersonal, superficial, transitory' relationships that make the city so unique and important." Hollis makes much of the energy given to a city by its people, and he celebrates the idea that cities can be designed to maximise that energy. "Can we design an urban space to encourage people to kiss?" he asks rhetorically, and indeed demonstrates that properly thought out spaces can make people linger and relax.

One of the strengths of this book is that it presents interesting aspects of urbanisation to the non-specialist. Hollis gives us studies that discuss how people flow through streets, or where they congregate to chatter on the pavement.

Over the decades various architects have sought to design the ideal city, a rational place to maximise comfort, health and pleasure. Ebeneezer Howard for instance, inspired by utopian novels of the 19th century, came up with a design for a future city in his Tomorrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform published in 1898. He argued that

"Human society and beauty of nature are meant to be enjoyed together... Town and country must be married, and out of this joyous union will spring a new hope, a new life, a new civilisation."

Howard's idealism here, echoes Marx and Engels in their hope that the rift between town and country would end in a socialist society, but it also reflected the belief that cities needed to be redone from scratch. Not surprising that Howard's ideas became influential for later town planners - the new Garden Cities of the early 20th century were built along similar lines to Howard's plans.

This quest for the better city is one that has always concerned urban planners. But it has also been a concern for those living in cities as they grow, develop and change. From the early days of skyscrapers when residents worried about being cast into shadow, to those who try to redesign streets in order to encourage walking. But Hollis is also rightly worried about the direction that cities are moving in today. He points out how our space is being restricted and taken from us, quoting the author Anna Minton:

"Who controls the roads and the streets is... enormously important to how cities function. Today there has been no public debate about the selling of streets at all. Instead, as ownership of British cities goes back to private landlords, the process of removing public rights of way is buried in the arcane language and technical detail of the most obscure parts of planning law... there is an adage in highway law which says 'once a highway, always a highway'... In many British towns and cities, this common-law right is being quietly eroded."

Hollis thus celebrates those movements that have sort to defend and challenge this attack on public space; the book is recent enough to note the Occupy movements, and discusses Lefebvre's Right to the City as a slogan and tactic. The Right to the City, Hollis argues following David Harvey, is more than being about ownership of space in a city, it is about access, democracy, control and involvement.  Taking the pressing issue of housing Hollis argues that instead of allowing homes to be foreclosed during the credit crunch, instead

"the city could buy the property from the banks at a good price, creating manageable housing cooperatives, guaranteeing that families can stay where they are and maintain their participation in the life of the city."

The problem is, of course, that capitalism doesn't work like that, and here, as with Hollis' other wonderful suggestions of how cities could be cleaner, safer and more involving for citizens, I fear that what is lacking is a strategy to challenge the forces that really shape cities. These are, of course, the forces of capital and the state's "armed bodies of men". This isn't to say Hollis is not aware of these problems, his understanding of the roots of the 2011 British riots in police racism demonstrates this. But Hollis' strategy to reach the better city seems to be based mostly on electing enlightened politicians who can bring about reform.

Of course, a good mayor can make enormous differences to a city, and Hollis has some great examples, particularly from South America. But he stops short of showing how the energy of the citizens themselves can really begin to alter power relations in society and rebuild their city. It would have been interesting to hear the author's thoughts on the way that great revolutionary movements of the past - the Paris Commune of 1871 or Red Petrograd in 1917 for instance - reshaped their urban environments.

Hollis claims that "most of us now live in suburbs where there are fewer people and sprawl allows us to live behind fences". This is a strange idea, given the descriptions he gives of the mass overcrowding in cities around the world, but perhaps reflects the audience his book is aimed at.

I did notice one significant error. Hollis claims that Friends of the Earth support plans for HS2 the High Speed Rail link being built in the UK as a way of reducing emissions. As far as I am aware, this is not true, as can be seen in FoE's response to the draft HS2 consultation here, where they say "current High Speed Rail plan will do little to cut carbon emissions".

These minor criticisms aside, this is an interesting and stimulating book for those thinking about alternatives to the unsustainable society that we currently live in.

John Bellamy Foster - Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature

Published in 2000 John Bellamy Foster's Marx's Ecology was and is an extremely important work. It reasserted a crucial element of Karl Marx's thought for a new generation of activists and for more long standing revolutionary socialists. John Bellamy Foster argues that at the core of Karl Marx's ideas is a nuanced and dialectical understanding of human ecology, rooted in his materialism. This rests in part in Marx's understanding and development of ancient philosophers, but is also a break with his contemporary thinkers which enabled him to develop a more radical and far reaching critique of capitalism, and vision of communism.

Foster begins this book by looking at the philosophy that underpins Marx's thought. In particular he engages with Marx's early work (including his PHd) which was based on the ideas of Epicurus. Foster shows how 19th century materialism developed and how Marx's own materialism developed from his critical engagement with other thinkers.

Foster quotes Bhaskar who writes that

"For Marx, in contrast [to Hegel], 'neither thought nor language... form a realm of their own, they are only manifestations of actual life',,, so that 'consciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence."

Foster emphasises the importance of this approach, saying it rested "on a perpetual and close connection between natural science and social science, between a conception of the material / natural world and the world of society. For this reason, Marx continually defined his materialism as one that belonged to the 'process of natural history'."

There has been a tendency to see a break between the thought of the young Marx and the later writings of the old Marx. For some writers the young Marx was interested in the relationships between man and nature, as exemplified through Marx's writings on alienation. The older Marx by contrast, was more analytically, given to a scientific study of capitalism rather than the more general philosophical concepts. Foster argues that this is an artificial break, that Marx always began from a idea that "what individuals are depends on the material conditions of their production." Foster writes:

"Marx and Engels thus started out from a materialist or realist ontology in which nature, the material world, was a precondition of human existence, and production of the means of subsistence was a precondition of human life in all its manifold determinations and hence human society."

This is in contrast to other thinkers, like Feuerbach, who Marx and Engels argued, "posits 'Man' instead of 'real historical man" - abstracting humans from their social world.

But because humans are part of nature for Marx and because it is their ability to transform nature through their labour, the changing relationship to nature has an impact upon man (as well as nature). Thus Marx's theory of alienation developed in his 1844 manuscripts is far more than a study of the way that the worker is disenfranchised by wage labour. Alienation for Marx "estranges man from his own body, from nature as it exists outside him, from his spiritual essence, his human essence."

Foster points out that from 1844 onwards Marx always treated nature as an extension of the human body. This is crucial to understanding the way in which Marx's later analysis is less of a break with earlier writings and more of a continuation. For it is only by understanding the centrality of this human-nature relationship, this metabolism as Marx described it, that we can understand the impacts of the great transformation that capitalism has wrought upon the world.

Marx argues that the precondition for capitalism was the primitive accumulation of wealth, which takes place through the displacement of people from the soil, making possible the historical development of capital. This separation, manifested in the "antagonistic separation of town from country" is the root of much of the great environmental and ecological crises of the 19th century.

Foster goes into detail the way in which Marx and Engels engagement with contemporary scientific literature, as well as their economic studies enabled both of the revolutionaries to understand that capitalism not only destroyed workers lives through exploitation, but it also destroyed the natural world. Thus they argued for a world (free of alienation and exploitation) that could restore the "rift". As Engels writes,

"Abolition of the antithesis between town and country is not merely possible. It has become a direct necessity of industrial production itself, just as it has become a necessity of agricultural production and, besides, of public health. The present poisoning of the air, water and land can be put an end to only by the fusion of town and country; and only such fusion will change the situation of the masses now languishing in the towns, and enable their excrement to be used for the production of plants instead of the production of disease."

Such an analysis betrays a far greater understand of the ecological relationship between humans and nature than is often attributed to Marx and Engels by more recent green thinkers. But, as Foster demonstrates throughout this book, it wasn't an aberration for them, rather an integral part of their thinking.

To back up this argument, Foster's book covers far greater ground than I can possibly do justice to in this review. He examines for instance the ideas of Thomas Malthus and the way in which both Marx and Engels engaged with debates around population. He also discusses the roots of Darwin's ideas and the parallels between the development of his materialism and Marx and Engels own ideas. In an important section he also explains what it was that Marx precisely meant in his infamous comment that Darwin's evolutionary ideas offered the "basis for our view" in nature.

This is an important and engaging work of Marxism. It deserves to be read and re-read by socialists who are trying to develop ideas around sustainability and the links between capitalist crisis and ecological destruction. I would also suggest it is a crucial book for those in the wider environmental / green movement.

In parts (particularly the early chapters) it is not an easy read, particularly for those of us without a background in the study of philosophy, but it is worth persevering and, reading some of John Bellamy Foster's other works (links to my reviews below) would certainly help in preparing the reader.

Related Reviews

Foster - The Ecological Revolution: Making Peace with the Planet
Foster - The Vulnerable Planet
Foster - Ecology Against Capitalism
Foster -

David Harvey - Spaces of Global Capitalism

This collection of short essays by David Harvey begins with an essay on Neo-Liberalism and the Restoration of Class Power.  This a very clear argument about how the model of capitalism that arrived with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher allowed the ruling class to establish their control over the economy and their populations. Harvey explains that the

"neo-liberal state looks to further the cause of and to facilitate and stimulate ... all business interests, arguing that this will foster growth and innovation and this is the only way to eradicate poverty... The neo-liberal state is particularly assiduous in seeking the privatization of assets as a means to open up fresh fields for capital accumulation"

He continues;

"The free mobility of capital between sectors and regions is regarded as crucial to reviving profit rates and all barriers to that free movement (such as planning controls) have to be removed except in those areas crucial to 'the national interest'."

From this Harvey argues we get the notion of flexibility. Workers, trades unions, public services must all be prepared to bend and change in the interests of the wider system, which is supposed to bring improvements to all. In reality of course this means that wages are cut and rights are removed, public services are dismantled in the interest of business profits which is supposed to be the same as the "national interest".

Neo-liberalism didn't get deployed everywhere but where it did there were "rapid increases in social inequality". However neo-liberalism did not solve underlying problems for capitalism, countries that had implemented neo-liberalism were still in economic difficulty even if they had dismantled or weakened many of the barriers to the capitalist class' drive to accumulate. Indeed Harvey points out that it was the centre-left, Clinton and Tony Blair who worked hardest not to blunt the worst aspects of the neo-liberal agenda, but to expand and consolidate it.

The defeat or weakening of traditional opponents of the capitalists through the use of neo-liberalism both ideologically and economically is the origin of Harvey's suggestion that neo-liberal policies have restored the capitalist class power.

The essay argues that there was an uneven implementation of neo-liberal policies geographically. This fits with the second A Theory of Uneven Geographical Development. Here Harvey looks at the various ways that different regions of the world have arrived at many different economic situations. He argues that "uneven geographical developments reflect the different ways in which different social groups have materially embedded their modes of sociality into the web of life, understood as an evolving social-ecological system."

This challenges those for instance who argue that Africa must always be poor or others like Jared Diamond who suggest that the key question is whether or not there are particular natural resources available in an area.

But this is not to ignore "nature". Harvey takes an extreme position (paralleled by William Cronon's analysis in his environmental history of Chicago), arguing that you cannot understand uneven geographical development without understanding how "the production of nature" has occurred through capitalist activities.

In a quote that will infuriate many if taken out of context he writes that "there is... nothing unnatural about New York City". What he means is that human activity and the economic systems that humans have created, has built and shaped New York. It is as much a product of nature as anything else. Harvey continues, by quoting Robert Park approvingly, that "in making the city man remade himself".

For Harvey the only solution to the problems that bedevil us today is not through single issue campaigns like environmentalism, or feminism, though those are important struggles that cannot be ignored. However they are at best "protective coverings" [Polanyi] even as they are "pitted against the dynamics of free-market commodification". Rather we need a movement that can "actually do something to check if not transform what a predatory capitalism is about."

The final essay in this book is a discussion of the notion of "space". Space for Harvey is more than a fixed geographical area, it is a dynamic changing region in time and location. It is something that is shaped by history, our actions, experiences and the economic system. To think about places or areas in isolation limits our ability to understand those spaces, or indeed change them. In a comment that echoes some of the ideas that dominated recent Occupy! movements, Harvey quotes Don Mitchell:

"In public space - on street corners or in parks, in the streets during riots and demonstrations - political organisations can represent themselves to a larger population and through this representation give their cries and demands some force. By claiming space in public, by creating public spaces, social groups themselves become public."

This is not of course the end of the struggle, but it does give a hint at how wider forces can see the role of "space" in political struggle, which can then lead to wider confrontations with the system. Ultimately the question becomes one of political power as movements come into conflict with the state. But if there is one weakness that this book shares with Harvey's more recent book Rebel Cities it is that it raises these further questions, but fails to answer them.

Related Reviews

Harvey - Rebel Cities

Tony Cliff - Trotsky 1923-1927: Fighting the Rising Stalinist Bureaucracy

Of the four volumes of Tony Cliff's biography of Leon Trotsky, I suspect that this one was the hardest to write and it may well be the hardest to read. The first volume Towards October dealt with the early years of Trotsky's revolutionary life. His work in small political organisations, followed by the 1905 revolution which Trotsky helped to lead. It's a work that captures Trotsky's political brilliance and his organisational genius as he led the St. Petersburg Soviet through advances and retreats.


Volume two, Sword of the Revolution also deals with an inspiring period, that of the Russian Revolutions of 1917 as well as Trotsky's time in exile. Here again Cliff stresses the role of Trotsky in organising the insurrection, as well as his brilliance during the Civil War.

By contrast volume three deals with the defeat of Trotsky's ideas. This defeat cannot be separated by the isolation and defeat of the Russian Revolution itself and the triumph of an entirely different set of ideas - those of Stalin and the notion of Socialism in One Country.

Cliff discusses the various political forces ranged against Trotsky, those individuals around Stalin - particularly Kamenev and Zinoviev - and the growing strength of the bureaucracy. Cliff argues that Trotsky never abandoned a revolutionary outlook. Stalin on the other hand, retreated into the idea that socialism could survive alone in Russia in the midst of a capitalist sea. The struggle between these two viewpoints became the core debate in Russian politics, being reflected in, as well as shaping wider discussions on foreign policy, agrarian questions and the economy. As such much of this book is devoted to the factional struggles within the Communist Party.

Trotsky did badly in these battles. It clearly wasn't his natural territory, despite being politically and intellectually head and shoulders above his opponents, he wasn't able to break through. Towards the end of the book Cliff asks why this was, and can only conclude that it was the very isolation of the revolution and the retreat of the international working class movement that was hampering Trotsky. As Cliff writes;

"One should have a sense of proportion about the strengths and weaknesses of Trotsky's stand in the years 1923-27. While his strategic direction was correct, he made a number of serious tactical blunders and compromises. The point is not that had he been firmer he would have been able to beat Stalin, but that he would have laid firmer bases for the growth of the Opposition, not allowing the 1923 Opposition to wither on the vine, not disorienting his followers in the foreign Communist Parties."

But during a period of retreat, Trotsky's mistakes had far greater consequences than in a period when the working class was moving forward, "not a few mistakes were committed by the Bolshevik leaders during 1917 and the period of the civil war. But the sweep of the revolution repaired the errors. Now the march of reaction exacerbated the impact of every error committed by Trotsky."

The isolation of the revolution led to a number of serious problems for Trotsky. One of these was the lack of a cadre who understood what the party had been through and who Trotsky was. When Stalin and his cohorts argued that Trotsky had disagreed with Lenin and quoted him out of context, or pointed to his errors, many Communists were disorientated. But many of those who understood the past were gone. Support amongst Old Bolsheviks for Trotsky and the Opposition to Stalin was significant, yet in 1922 there were only 10,431 party members who had joined before February 1917. By 1927 the figure was less than half of this.

Some of the core chapters of this book also look at Trotsky's attempts to understand the failures of the wider struggles in the international working class. Cliff retells some stories familiar to readers of this blog, he looks at the defeat of the 1923 German Revolution, the British General Strike and the Chinese Revolution. Cliff argues that these were important, because in all cases, their victories could have helped end Russia's isolation. More importantly the incorrect analysis applied to the events by Russian revolutionaries, and Stalin in particular stemmed from the weakness of their own politics. Even today Trotsky's analyses from afar are often head and shoulders above anyone else.

The period of transition between the revolutionary era and the Stalin era was a slow drawn out process, but one that has concrete roots in economics and international politics. Cliff's analysis is beautifully clear and he is not afraid of criticising his subject. In fact I was quite surprised at how weak and compromising Trotsky was at times. In fact for a period of 18 months in the aftermath of the defeat of the 1923 Opposition, Cliff says that Trotsky effectively abstained from fighting inside the party leadership. He even remarks that Trotsky sat reading novels during Central Committee meetings.

Nonetheless, eventually Trotsky did come out fighting. He made a compromising alliance with Kamenev and Zionviev. When they proved inadequate in the face of Stalin's onslaught, Trotsky along with many of his supporters and other Oppositionists were drummed out of the Communist Party. Trotsky spent the rest of his life keeping the flame of international revolution alive in the face of Stalinist lies and slander. As Tony Cliff concludes:

"After 1927, when Trotsky grasped the enormity of Stalin's crimes, and called him the 'gravedigger of the revolution'. when the bloc with Zinoviev and Kamenev fell apart - from then onwards Trotsky became completely uncompromising."

The story of his final years of struggle is in volume four of Cliff's biography.

Related Reading

Cliff - Trotsky Volume One: Towards October
Cliff - Trotsky Volume Two: Sword of the Revolution
Hallas - Trotsky's Marxism
Lewin - Russian Peasants and Soviet Power: A Study of Collectivisation

Carol Birch - Jamrach's Menagerie

Warning Spoilers

Jamrach's Menagerie begins with a scene only slightly surreal in its content as our hero Jaffy Brown, aged 8, is nearly carried off by a tiger that is wandering around the streets of London's East End Docklands. I say slightly surreal because in her afterword Carol Birch tells us that the incident actually happened.

Jaffy meets the eccentric Jamrach who imports exotic animals from around the globe and sells them to rich Londoners. Jaffy has a talent for looking after the animals, calming and understanding them. He forms a friendship with a fellow worker, a slightly older boy named Tim. Jamrach gets Tim to join a Whale ship bound to the East Indies in search of Whale Oil. Jaffy too joins the ship to take part in the capture of a giant "dragon" which they know will make their fortunes.

Carol Birch has an easy going style. She brings to life the dirt and poverty of East London, and the terror of a Whaling boat. The story of the ship's disaster and the long voyage on the life boats is expertly painted. The problem is that about half way along I realised I'd read it all before. At one point on the voyage Jaffy and Tim are entertained by some old salt who tells them of the cursed waters where the Whaleship Essex sank.

Jamrach's Menagerie follows that story very closely. In fact most of the key points that happen once Tim and Jaffy's ship is wrecked and they take to the Whalers are taken from the story of the Essex. Birch notes that those wanting to know more about that story should read Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea. Frankly I found myself drifting along with our shipwrecked heroes and lost interest in the story.

This is a shame because Birch has excellent writing talents and does well to bring the story to life, but because In the Heart of the Sea did such a good job of telling the amazing story of the crew of the Essex, I couldn't enjoy this re-telling. I'd encourage those interested to read the historical book, rather than this dramatisation. Given that history involved cannibalism, heroism and amazing sailing skills, in this case history is better than art.

Related Reading

PhilBrick - In the Heart of the Sea

Christopher Empson - The Far Horizons: Thirty Years Among the Gauchos of Uruguay

In many ways Christopher Empson led a fairy-tale life. As a young boy, he had listened to his father's tales of his adventures in far off Uruguay, and dreamed of going there. Leaving the British Navy at the end of the First World War his payout was enough to get him a trip on a steamer to South America. Carrying a pile of letters of introduction, but not knowing a single word of Spanish, he arrived in the country and began to work in the cattle farms and on the open plains of the country.

Being hardworking and English he rose to be quite a trusted man. Eventually he was able to purchase his own farm and run a farm. Thirty years later he eventually retired to England and these memoirs seem to have mostly been written for friends and family, though he dreamed of having them published. They weren't in his lifetime and we owe this edition to the editorship of Renée Scott who has translated and annotated them.

Empson's life was lucky. Most farm-workers in Uruguay, working on the herding and export of cows and sheep for European meat and wool markets didn't have it anywhere near so good. His working days are punctuated by time off from work for shooting and picnics.

Sadly Empson's writing really isn't good enough to make this a must read memoir of times past. He fails to bring the country or the people to life, and it the book hangs together as a collection of anecdotes. Sometimes these are fascinating - such as the description of the perils of locusts and how Empson spent one day collecting sack after sack of them, with help from the local army, in an effort to reduce crop damage. But sometimes the memories are little more than family history for his children and grandchildren - the list of pets for example, tells us of the skunk that disappeared and several dogs that played a lot. English readers might be interested to learn that the local meat factory was in the port city of Fray Bentos, explaining the origin of the British food brand name.

I suspect for someone interested in the detailed history of Uruguay's agriculture or particular individuals in the cattle industry, this book might have its uses. Unfortunately it is not a particularly well written story and Empson's life, while worthy, doesn't seem to illuminate the people, place or time much.