#year of learning

My third book this year was an eye-opening treatise on living with masked autism, trying to present as neurotypical when you're not, and the difficulties one can face as a result. I've often ended up feeling burnt out, exhausted, unable to do anything after even short periods of work, and reading Unmasking Autism brought a lot of familiar feelings to the surface that I had forgotten.

Too often we forget that the world is not made for us - the grind of daily 9-5, social obligations full of unwritten rules, and tedious tasks which seem utterly pointless, all serve to drain the energy of neurodivergent folk. For myself, I've struggled to hold down jobs and work without experiencing severe burnout as a result of my undiagnosed mental conditions. This book has finally explained why.

Dr Devon Price is an austistic social psychologist, and he's put his career to excellent use to construct a field guide to living with autism from the inside out. Too often, mental health conditions are diagnosed and researched from outside, with the scientist's demand for a dispassionate eye; Dr Price proves that lived experience can be invaluable to expanding our understanding of mental health, as he takes us through the history of autism research and explores the lived experiences of autistic individuals who have lived for many decades without a diagnosis. He calls out autism as currently viewed as a rich, white, male disorder, a problem codified by the eugenicist researchers who originally named it, and explores the condition in greater depth and scope, examining how it manifests in women and people of colour. He also looks at society as a whole, how it is structured to exclude those with autism and other disabilities, and points out how we can change all this to better support and encourage autistic people.

Zen is ready to boldy go where she has not gone before: into the year 2020!  

This is a difficult book to write about.

It difficult because I'm writing about topics I've barely learned about. Brick by Brick is by Cradle Community, a collective of organisers whose goal is to educate about prison abolition and transformative justice. And whilst the book is emotionally affecting and presents clear arguments, it really only feels like a first step to understanding and implementing a system of justice free of prisons.

Which it's meant to be! Brick by Brick presents the arguments for prison abolition, and it does it in a wholly effective way, using emotional stories to tug at the heartstrings and giving you the vocabulary and talking points to argue against the status quo. But it doesn't have the data to back it up. Without hard evidence, it's a lot of anecdotal evidence designed to appeal to the reader's emotions.

It presents a lot of facts which are, on the face of it, difficult to argue with: that prisons are places of isolation and punishment which rarely, if ever, give those inside the tools to reform and reintegrate, at best using them as a source of cheap labour. This doesn't touch on the legacy of imperialism inherent in the British prison system, or the close ties between immigration and the justice system, or that police who commit crimes are often protected by their colleagues closing ranks and thus don't see the justice that they purport to uphold. This is all discussed within the first half of the book, along with myriad other ways in which the criminal justice system fails the people it is supposed to protect, and fails the people it incarcerates too. Frankly, I think my first issue with the book is that it spends a lot of time saying why prisons are bad. I understand - it gives us talking points for every facet of the argument, from the racial (the lengthy history people of colour's disproportionate persecution at the hands of the justice system, compared to relatively lighter or even non-existent sentences for white people) to the environmental (that prisons are often built on waste ground which is not safe for those living or working there, and little thought is put into them by the builders of proper ventilation, clean water, or prisoner health in general). But it also doesn't help the problem feel any more surmountable - prisons are not permanent structures, much though they feel that way, but they feel as permanent as capitalism and the two-party system.

The latter half of the book - parts 3 to 5 - are all about how we look at and begin to build a world without prisons. It should come as no surprise that it's all fairly similar: the ultimate solution is community-building and grassroots organisation, acting together to fight the construction of new prisons, to provide security of food and shelter for people, and to protest against the state violence the puts people in prison in the first place. It's such a simple step, and an admirable one, but it's one I struggle with as a person who has difficulty speaking to new people and making friends (perhaps I'll pick up a book about it). And - to heap another criticism upon the pile - the community initiatives Brick by Brick highlights are, for the most part, based in London or the South of England, with little focus on the North or initiatives in the wider UK (with one environmental group highlighted in Scotland). It's understandable to some extent - many of these prisons and justice systems have headquarters centralised in London - but it's also disheartening as someone who lives in the north that there is little focus on activism and solidarity outside of the Capital.

So!

I've been reading two very dense books - Periodic Tales by Hugh Aldersley-Williams, and Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Kobes Du Mez. They're both very detailed and very long, and they're taking me some time to get through. And while I'm at work, I can't just have a book on my desk to flip through.

So instead, I've been delving into Project Gutenberg. I was inspired by another Tumblr post to look into books on politics written through history, and this was the first one to come up.

A brief primer: The Art of War is a text by Chinese military tactician and general Sun Tzu, who was employed by the House of Wu to help fight their battles against various other houses of the day - "the day" being sometime in the 6th Century BC. And whilst this is treated as a seminal text on military tactics and battle planning, it didn't exactly help the House of Wu, which was crushed by their neighbour to the South, the House of Yue, about a century later.

The edition of The Art of War that I read was a translation by Lionel Giles, complete with annotations and footnotes regarding the translation. It was translated in 1908, piecemeal from various other modernisations in Chinese where the translators had added their own flavour, so there are definite ambiguities, but on the whole these notes are useful, as they give some insight into how other people have seen Tzu's words, and they give extra context to some rules. It also means we are treated to some stories of historical Chinese warfare, which may or may not be apocryphal, to illustrate some of the points. Such tales include:

Placing old and infirm soldiers on the walls and in plain sight, and hiding the able-bodied, so that spies sent to report on the conditions of your army to the enemy will underestimate the strength of your force;

Opening the gates of your heavily defensible city wide open and practically welcoming the enemy in, so that they suspect and ambush and retreat;

Putting your own men into desperate straits and then charging the enemy during a sandstorm to rout them;

Set fire to your enemies tents in the night, and have men bang drums and make noise to scare them from their camps so you can kill them with crossbows!

I'm being a little facetious here, but these are some of the tactics previous translators have suggested were employed against armies, enemies, and even generals' own soldiers to ensure victory. There are some thirteen chapters in all, and apocryphal tales aside, a lot of it is good advice - things like issuing clear commands, making sure your soldiers do not despise you, protecting your supply line, and getting the better terrain. There's a reason The Art of War is still talked about today, and part of that is because the core tenets of its message are still used in modern military thinking. Sun Tzu emphasises "the factor of Earth" in planning, and terrain considerations are still vital; protection of supply lines is still important for moving large numbers of troops, even if the methods of movement and protection have changed; and let's not forget chapters 12 and 13 as a whole, "The Use of Fire" and "The Use of Spies", which in moden times Sun Tzu could write whole novels about, I'm sure!

You might have seen this tag on my book reviews this year, and be wondering what it's all about. Well, there's a short answer and a long answer.

The short answer is this:

My theme for this year is "Year of Learning". Instead of a resolution to read [x] books or do [y] thing, I decided to follow Grey's advice and stick to a general theme. As it is, it's February and I've finished five non-fiction books so far, so I feel like I'm doing okay.

But I'm going to be documenting more than this. I have plans to pick up some new hobbies in spring, and I want to learn some specific skills which I'm putting work into each day. I'll update you as I make some solid progress that isn't just research, and trying to stave off winter depression.

All told, Year of Learning is going to spread over all my blogs at some point. It's just starting here because non-fiction is an easy gateway to learning new things. It'll be on all my book reviews for non-fiction books this year, so you can find them all in one place (and so I can catalogue them).

I first heard about efforts to rewild Britain's waterways with beavers on the podcast Let's Learn Everything (episode 9 - it's still one of my favourites!), in what turned out to be a humerous and in many ways heartwarming story. Two sets of beavers were trialled in Scotland in the late 2000's to 2015 - those in Knapdale and those in Tayside. The twist? The Tayside beavers were unplanned, unlicensed, and escaped from a local enclosure to make their home downriver. Following much campaigning by various groups, the issuance of licenses to shoot beavers which mayyybe shouldn't have been issued, and some bad publicity following the death of a beaver brought into captivity, they were allowed to stay. They became a second study group, as scientists tracked their habits and learned how beavers' natural inclination to fell trees, strip bark, and build dams altered the British wetland environments downstream.

It sounded like a heartwarming tale, for the most part. But what the science from LLE leaves out is the international collaboration, many previous attempts at reintroduction, and the shadowy, unseen politics of beaver reintroduction.

Enter Derek Gow.

Derek is someone for whom native species reintroduction has become a lifelong calling. A farmer and conservationist, he has spent his life enthralled by nature - his mention of Gerald Durrell's influence on his life brought back vivid memories of my own childhood, lying on the floor reading My Family and other Animals that I'd borrowed from my mother's bookshelf - and he's turned that passion into a concerted effort to help reintroduce many species into Britain that have been lost for hundreds of years.

Where my podcast habits focus on the science, Gow tends to focus more on the politics. He describes the many ways beavers can revitalise British landscapes, it's true, but the primary thrust of the book is the struggles to uphold or even begin trial reintroductions. The many times he's spoken with politicians who've been all for bringing back the beaver, only to change their mind once the Angling Trust or DEFRA's bureaucrats got in the way and insisted that no, the public did not want beavers in their rivers - often to a background of the public saying that actually yes, they would quite like beavers back in their rivers, thank you very much.

It comes across as absurd - stories of grumpy beavers going for Derek's ankles when they're released into quarantine; the many obstructive tactics of DEFRA, up to and including calling the police on beaver reintroduction ceremonies; and one memorable incident where an ecologist showed a group of fundraisers how to sex a beaver - but there's the constant undercurrent of love for this animal.

And frustration. The difficulties include finding suitable locations to trial reintroductions, which must meet the approval of a triumvirate of groups with opposing goals - the politicians, who want people's votes next election; the Angling Trust, who don't want them anywhere near their rivers; and the beavers themselves, who need good trees, insects, and some water for them to dam up so they don't die. There are the government groups, who really shouldn't be getting involved but end up doing so anyway. And then there are the individuals in power, who often don't want beavers back for reasons which have nothing to do with the beavers themselves. The kind of people who go out to the countryside of a weekend to go grouse shooting or fox hunting, and don't want beavers because... there might be less countryside for them to hunt in? In many cases, the hoops Gow and other conservationists must jump through are ludicrous at best, and maliciously obstructive at worst.

But that's not to say there isn't hope. As with all my nature books this year, Bringing Back the Beaver ends on a high note. It finishes with the Knapdale and Tayside introductions, alongside some wild beavers which were spotted in Devon. Amidst outcry, the proposal for Tayside and Devon was almost identical, two years removed - the beavers must go. It took protests, direct action, and years of work before the government relented, and the beavers, by popular decree, were allowed to stay.

But they remained. The tide of public opinion has shifted in the last two decades, from one of fear and anger, to one of joy and love. People want beavers back. Bringing Back the Beaver demonstrates that we can return extinct species back into their niches as keystones of ecological activity, if only we put in the work. The biggest hurdle is bureaucracy, and once the effort is started, the wheel soon turns.

I finished reading this book the night of the Lions' playoff game against the San Francisco 49ers. I'm writing this review the night after, knowing they've lost.

There was a time Detroit was not the dark horse in sporting achievement; when people looked to the Motor City as a pillar of strength. Coming out of prohibition with record unemployment, Detroit boasted industrial power as America's automobile capital, and it would boast physical prowess as it cornered four of America's greatest exports: Baseball; Football; Boxing; and Hockey.

But beneath the shining veneer of the "City of Champion" lay a dark heart: a gun-toting, hood-wearing mob known variously as the Bullet Club, the Wolverine Club, or the Black Legion.

This is a book in two parts, really. In 1934 and 1935, as Mickey Cochrane takes on the role of the Tigers' player-manager, we chart the rise of Detroit in the sporting world. In baseball their team finally takes shape and they begin a meteoric rise; in boxing Joe Louis wins Detroit's Golden Gloves championship and starts his world champion climb; a small football team moves from Portsmouth to become the Detroit Lions, and is immediately a powerhouse. The first half of this book centres on the achievements of the Tigers and Joe Louis, as they upset the world of baseball and boxing respectively. The whole time there is an undercurrent of malice as we learn about the Black Legion coming together, growing in numbers - swelling their ranks with terrified prospects swearing an oath at gunpoint - but there is little activity to truly shock. Whilst they are, at this point, a club of racists, they do little in the way of heinous acts.

It's in the second half that the Legion comes to the fore. Started in Ohio following the collapse of the Klan, the group expanded to Michigan and in the 1930s it began its reign of terror. We principally follow Dayton Dean, a middle-ranking member of the Legion who is caught up in many plots - the attempted murder of Detroit attorney Maurice Sugar; the bombing of Ecorse mayor Bill Voisine's house; and any number of racially- or religiously-motivated attacks and murders. In the final third of the book we are witness to the murders he partakes in, ordered by higher-up Legion members, and the following investigations which drag the cult into the light and tear away its hood.

Both stories are equally gripping. The tremendous highs of Detroit baseball and boxing mix well with the seedy underbelly of segregationist, isolationist fascism growing in America's heartland. But it's fair to say that they are not exactly intertwined - the closest we get to a scandal in Tigers baseball involving the Black Legion is Mickey Cochrane's friendship with Harry Bennett, the Ford factory's union-busting second-in-command, who may or may not have been a Legion member. There is much speculation on Stanton's part as to whether Legionnaire's crowded the stands at Navin field to watch the Tigers win their games, but for the most part it can only be left at that: speculation.

But that's not to say it's bad. As I say, it's really a book in two parts. And if you take the baseball story and you take the crime story, and you look at them as two separate wholes, they both draw you in and keep you reading. I think both sides are important: the story of Detroit as a sporting powerhouse, something we can look to for hope for the future; and the story of the Black Legion, a far-right menace that met in community centres and basements and plotted to kill black people and Catholics and Jews.