Recommendations and Recriminations
January 25, 2013 | 02:06 AM

I don't know if Mr Card reads these comments any more, but I would be very interested in any recommenation he has for a good book on the history of maps...? Ideally something which is sufficiently rich in detail and anecdote to be both informative and enjoyable for a neophyte, but without Garfield's innacuracies.

On a totally separate subject, I must say that the following comment left me completely baffled (and I don't think it's just because I'm a "Brit"):

"I think of how the Brits argued about whether King Edward VIII could marry a divorced woman â€" while their own government was allowing Hitler to break treaties and prepare for the war the would kill millions and millions of people."

I just do not understand how Mr Card sees this as an example of a civiliation destroying itself through its choices...?

Which civilization was destroyed, exactly? The only plausible possibility I can think of is the British Empire, and even leaving aside the substantial argument that the British Empire was never a civilization in the first place, it's one heck of a stretch to say that the "choice" of allowing Hitler to break Germany's treaty obligations led to the collapse of the British Empire.

Yes, Hitler being emboldened by getting away with breaking treaties was most likely a necessary (if not definitely a sufficient) cause of WWII, and yes, WWII undoubtedly hastened the demise of the British Empire, but there is no clear, unbroken chain of causation - there were many other influences in play all along the way.

Besides, "choice" is in quote marks above because it is seriously doubtful that Britain really made the choice that Mr Card seems to be saying it did. Is Mr Card seriously saying that the British Government "chose" to ignore the threat presented by Hitler due to domestic distractions around Edward VIII? That dealing with the latter was prioritised over dealing with the former? I just don't buy it. Yes, arguably Ramsay MacDonald, Baldwin and Chamberlain all chose to ignore the threat that Hitler presented, in the face of more insightful (and, as it turned out, prescient) warnings from the likes of Churchill, but to suggest that they did so because of the (admittedly bizarre, to modern eyes) constitutional crisis around Edward VIII is quite a leap - especially when one considers that Germany had been breaching the restrictions on military training since before Hitler came to power, and that Hitler's re-militarisation programme started in 1933, 3 years before Edward VIII even came to the throne.

On that note, underinvestment in Britain's military (which started long before any distraction offered by Edward VIII) meant that there were serious question marks over Britain's ability to act on Hitler's later breaches of the relevant treaties even if it wanted (or "chose") to do so - especially on its own (and if we're going to talk about the sin of "letting" Hitler get away with it, then every single Government of the day is complicit in that one - another reason why the link Mr Card seems to make between Britain's "choice" and the end result of the massacre unleashed by Hitler is so questionable).

Or have I entirely missed the point, Mr Card? Are you talking about the collapse of somer other civilization, caused by some other choice implicit in the piece of history you describe? I am genuinely interested to understand what lies behind your remark. As it stands, it looks as though you are simply testing your audience with a Garfield-esque wild inaccuracy of your own.

Al