WHITE SAVAGE William Johnson and the Invention of America
by Fintan O’Toole
Faber, £9.99
In the spring of 1738 William Johnson went to America to escape the constraints of his native Ireland. He had accepted an invitation from a relative to join the colonisation of Mohawk lands in what is now New York State. Johnson took little in the way of physical possessions but had enormous energy, ambition and pragmatism. When his sponsor indicated that his Catholicism was hardly ideal in an area occupied by Protestant Britain and threatened by Catholic New France, Johnson “did what was necessary”. The hurt to his family in Ireland was profound.
In temporal terms at least, the price was worth paying. Johnson thrived, becoming a respected leader of the Mohawks under the name Warraghiyagey, which means “a man who undertakes great things”. He did just that, becoming a general for the British in the wars against France and the greatest powerbroker in the land. Along the way, he won himself a lucrative trading empire, an estate of 170,000 acres, a knighthood, many wives and concubines, and even more children.
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Because he moved so “deftly on the borders between empires and cultures”, Johnson became an “icon of American nationalism and the growing American empire”. He was lionised as Hawkeye, the titular “white savage”. O’Toole is an adept of the tortuous politics of the times, and with an engaging empathy for the doomed Indians, he tells a fascinating story well. How Scientists are Taking a Leaf from Nature’s Book
THE GECKO’S FOOT
by Peter Forbes
HarperPerennial, £8.99
The gecko is no ordinary lizard, if there is such a thing. Thanks to about a billion minute bristles on its feet, it can “scale a perfectly smooth vertical wall, even glass, and walk across a ceiling”. Learning from this astonishing capacity has given us, among other things, Velcro fastenings.
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Forbes takes the gecko as the epitome of his point, which is the fecundity, for a new generation of scientists, of imitating or being inspired by nature. We developed sonar, for example, with help from studying dolphins. “Bio-inspiration” is a fertile field that now yields nanotechnology (from the ancient Greek word nanos, dwarf). Forbes gives us ten chapters and ten examples of new, tiny technologies — ranging from their application in architecture to miniature aircraft or glues — all deriving from close studies of the natural world. “We can now start to unravel nature’s nanoengineering and produce engineered equivalents for it.”
Apart from the odd sour remark such as “our whoring after complex chemistry” and ugly neologisms such as “tensegrity”, the result is not only interesting and informative, but delightful. A poet as well as a scientist, Forbes peppers his text with quirky quotations, such as E. M. Forster’s comment on the poet C. P. Cavafy — “at a slight angle to the universe”. There are helpful illustrations and diagrams as well. This book fills us with wonder at whatwe know, and with excitement at what wemight find out.
THE THISTLE AND THE ROSE Six Centuries of Love and Hate between the Scots and the English
by Allan Massie
John Murray, £8.99
After the Union of the Crowns in 1603, political union between England and Scotland took place in 1707. So although Ireland did not join until 1801 (and the Irish Republic broke away in 1921), next year marks 300 years of the United Kingdom as a political entity. With devolved assemblies in Wales and Scotland, and regional assemblies mooted for England, is the union likely to last for another 30 years, let alone another 300? To predict the future, first understand the past. Massie, a distinguished novelist and columnist, is uniquely qualified to comment. The common concern of his fiction is the force of history. An Anglophile Scot, he has been, for 40 years, a wise and temperate observer of the shifting sands of union. Always a unionist, he advocated devolution for Scotland before changing his mind. These 19 elegant essays explore aspects of the bitter-sweet relationship between England and Scotland — industry and economics, politics, culture.
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Massie’s common sense, sadly, just isn’t that common: “For many people in the British Isles, nationality, other than a British one, is a matter of choice.” His insights and perspective make this essential reading for anyone concerned with the nature and direction of the union. A second reason to read it is Massie’s poised and near perfect prose. You may not agree with what he says, but you have to admire how beautifully he says it.