Short Reviews for September 2024

Hungary in Early 1848, Borders and Freedom of Movement in the Holy Roman Empire, Hope, Saint Antony's Fire

Hungary in early 1848: the constitutional struggle against absolutism in contemporary eyes, by Edsel Walter Stroup (261 pp; 1977)

Who should read this? People interested in constitutional development and legal change; or interested in Hungarian history.

This's a history of Hungary's legal structure and constitution. It sweeps from from the early Middle Ages up to the cusp of 1848, and then slows down to tell in detail the legal reforms - peaceable reforms, but with the threat of revolution in the background.

In the Middle Ages, under Ottoman threat, the Diet of Hungary had elected the Hapsburg Archdukes of Austria as king. The Hapsburgs had seized increasing power, ignoring the Diet except to extort concessions.

But now in 1848, the Diet stood up to the Hapsburg king and his Vienna chancellery to win responsible parliamentary government for Hungary.

Stroup emphasizes this was fully legal according to the ancient laws of Hungary: it had never had an absolute monarchy, and always kept its separate legal identity, through the ages of Hapsburg rule. The Diet was primarily insisting that Vienna stop infringing on their legal rights. Also, even though only nobles could vote for the Diet, everyone descended from nobility had that right - so in many ways, the Diet was more representative than the British or French Parliament with high property qualifications for the franchise.

I love this amazing tale of heroic revolution that somehow remains peaceful and legal. Sometime, when I next write an epic novel, I'd like to take things like this for inspiration. Tragically, it wouldn't remain peaceful for long - the next year, the Vienna Chancellery would lawlessly invade Hungary.

But Stroup doesn't tell that part of the story. Or rather, I suspect, she would say that’s another story. The “in contemporary eyes” in the subtitle, I take it, is to emphasize her focus on this one moment and how Hungary’s assertion of its constitution looked at that heady moment of possibility when people didn’t know what would come next.

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Borders and Freedom of Movement in the Holy Roman Empire, by Luca Scholz (288 pp; 2020)

With an amazingly intricate mess of noncontiguous states, how did borders work in the Holy Roman Empire? Scholz writes about how they worked in a very different way from modern borders. Rulers largely didn't care about keeping people out of their borders, but simply ensuring that they passed through tollhouses at some point to pay tolls.

The big point where borders did come up was with formal escorts offered to distinguished visitors or merchants, which were a huge point of pride for rulers in the Empire. They frequently conscripted their peasants into these escorts, and even resorted to violence to enforce their rights to escort travelers.

This book has a wealth of interesting anecdotes and pictures. It shows us a very different world from any world most of us have heard of. Where it falls short is in contextualizing it. How did this system develop? How did it change over time? How did merchants respond to it? Questions like those unfortunately go unanswered by Scholz; we must wait for some future book there.

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Hope, by Aaron Zelman & L. Neil Smith (430 pp; 2001)

Who should read this? People desperate for any pro-libertarian story.

This's a libertarian wish-fulfillment novel. What's more, it's one from a different era - 2001, before the heady days of the Ron Paul campaigns and their sad failure, when it was still not just possible but common (among libertarians) to believe the silent majority of Americans were actually libertarians or could be brought over if they could just hear the good news.

In a vague near future, a libertarian businessman runs for the Presidency on a third-party ticket - and unexpectedly wins. In his first term, he fights and wins with assassins, bureaucracy, income tax, abortion laws, gun laws, the United Nations, et cetera. He spreads the word of libertarianism, jury nullification, and the Bill of Rights, to mass popularity and the despair of career politicians. Every opponent is roundly defeated, usually within one chapter.

I was a libertarian myself, in the days of Ron Paul. I don't call myself one anymore, but I still have sympathies in that direction. I know I would've welcomed this premise then; now, I was still very interested.

Unfortunately, the development is lacking. Our protagonist is a Mary-Sue, and the sudden popularity of libertarianism is no longer believable two decades after publication - but that's pardonable in a wish-fulfillment novel. Worse, the authors don't seem to care about the details of how their plot events would get done! Their libertarian President is making some of the worst power-grabs ever for executive orders, and nobody even remarks! His impeachment not only happens mostly offstage, but nobody even remarks that it would require a two-thirds majority to remove him from office! Most of the book seems to be an excuse for speeches and announcements about what a libertarian President would do.

When I read about a President abolishing the ATF, I want to read about his fight to get it through Congress (which legally established the bureau), about what he does with the agents in the meantime, and about the actual effects on the American people. I want to bask in the details of what part of me still counts as wish-fulfillment, and see something of how it might work. This book doesn't give me any of that.

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Saint Antony's Fire, by Steve White (320 pp; 2008)

Who should read this? People who like historical fantasy or science fiction, and don't mind it being over-the-top.

Aliens arrive in 1500's Earth, to find their plans of conquering the world stymied by their ship having broken down and lost the portal that brought them here. So, they ally with the Spanish and the Roman Catholic Church in hopes of puppeting them to conquer the world. With their superweapons, the Spanish Armada conquers England...

... and the main body of the story follows the desperate English fleet gone to meet the Roanoke Colony, which has secretly discovered the aliens' missing worldgate. Together, they have to first defeat the aliens in the other world and then return to Earth and fight there.

If this sounds over the top, it's exactly characteristic of how this book's told. But I liked it. The author's respectful of the historical atmosphere and their technological level, and familiar with the historical background, and it shows to the story's credit.