Cynthia Chung has ruined what is otherwise a convincing story-line by errors of fact which are so egregious as to appear deliberate, including omission of essential context, character assassination and abuse of language. The reader cannot and must not rely on her for points of historical detail.
Much damage is done in the real world by tendentious narratives swallowed and peddled by the gullible & uninformed, with much moralising about distant events which are routinely misrepresented. It is therefore imperative to issue a warning against what appears to be a woke agenda. The criticism below focuses on particular chapters. Other chapters would seem to be unobjectionable. Chung quotes extensively from a handful of books, which themselves may or may not be reliable.
First, tho, a summary of the main argument, which is all-too-plausible.
I. “The Empire on which the Black Sun Never Set” (447 pages) is one telling of how secretive bodies have for centuries been engaged in long marches to create or preserve oligarchies and to undermine free & transparent institutions. Much of what is told is credible and for many years has been accepted in circles critical of the dominant narrative. In particular, the Western intelligence services and high finance are held to have themselves been ultimately responsible, through false flag operations and sundry manipulation, not only for terrorist attacks and assassinations but ultimately for wars, including the world wars, and for economic crises.
Since in early 2020 blatant lies and absurdities began to be propagated about a generally minor ailment – obviously in order to destroy civil rights – such allegations have become entirely credible even among many who had hitherto taken “received wisdoms” for reality. This scepticism has been reinforced by the refusal of the dominant media to report on the background to the Russian intervention in Ukraine.
The forces at play are evidently evil, which is to say they go way beyond what might be explained in terms of all-too-human faults, errors of judgement or misfortune. Here a truthful historical account will not rest with explaining misunderstandings but must issue with moral condemnation where this is due.
II. This said, sadly, hard-working Cynthia Chung has done her – and our – cause a great disservice by succombing to woke, i.e. the drive to “cancel” (i.e. suppress) whatever does not fit a popular narrative or counter-narrative.
The first duty of a historian is to be truthful; not to tell a good story. A second duty is to keep assertions of fact and moral judgements distinct and be sparing with the latter.
Even as someone knowledgeable about the history of the last century or two I am unable to check on much of what Chung narrates or that her preferred sources claim. However, reading her, I have stumbled on falsities in minor matters which go beyond being mere mistakes and look like deliberate misrepresentation. This means that I and we cannot rely on her narrative even where it is persuasive. I shall go into some detail of her misrepresentations further below since any such accusations must be properly documented.
III. Here is a list of where she falls down badly:
1. Abuse of language, for example, by failing to define key terms such as “fascist” or “eugenicist” and then attributing these characterics on the flimsiest of grounds to whoever she needs to classify as a villain. She confuses slavery with exploitation.
2. Omitting key considerations (e.g. historical context)
3. Engaging in character assassination
4. Use of value-laden (or evaluative) terms where the argument has not been made
5. Assertion as fact on matters where her evidence is so flimsy that it looks like deliberate deception
6. Mis-attributing titles presumably to create false impressions among the readership. It is hard to see how this can be anything other than deliberate.
Further to 1. and 6.
She speaks of “openly pro-fascist Prime Minister Lloyd George.”
>>Asquith...was replaced by Lloyd George who was in favour of partitioning the Ottoman Empire. Interestingly, it would be under the openly pro-fascist Prime Minister Lloyd George that the Balfour Declaration was signed and the British Mandate of Palestine created.<< This refers to 1917. According to Merriam-Webster (see below) the “The English words 'fascist' and 'fascism' are first cited in 1919 and 1921, respectively.”
Later she speaks of “Lord Lloyd-George,” presumably in order to insinuate inherited membership of the aristocracy. >>According to Special Branch, Lord Lloyd George had “approached Mosley through Rothermere with an offer to join the party ‘in any capacity’ in February 1935 ”<<
Only the year before he died, in 1944 aged 82, long after he was in active politics, did Lloyd George, of humble origins, receive the title of Earl, not “Lord” and he was and is always referred to simply as Lloyd-George. https://www.gov.uk/government/history/past-prime-ministers/david-lloyd-george
The use of “fascist” for anyone Chung considers evil is endemic in certain parts of the book. This is a slur because the first thing to do here, before attributing a fascist standpoint to people not usually considered remotely fascist, would be to define what she means by “fascist”, but she fails to do this anywhere. She just shouts “fascist!” at anyone she has taken a dislike to – much as the woke mob does. https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/fascism-meaning-and-history (800 words) gives a clear account of what fascism is and the origins of the expression. It is not synonymous with “right-wing” or “conspirational” or “having sometime in a long career expressed opinions or analyses which were also held by avowedly fascist figures such as Mosley”.
Chung argues here and elsewhere on the basis of guilt by association, which is a hallmark of woke.
“International fascism” is a related expression which Chung uses without proper elucidation. It insinuates a coordinated international movement rather than just a commonality of ideas.
Similarly, with “eugenicist”. Merriam-Webster again: “the practice or advocacy of controlled selective breeding of human populations (as by sterilization) to improve the population's genetic composition”
Similarly with “Malthusian”: “of or relating to Malthus or to his theory that population tends to increase at a faster rate than its means of subsistence and that unless it is checked by moral restraint or disaster (such as disease, famine, or war) widespread poverty and degradation inevitably result”
(The failure to distinguish between Malthusian and eugenicist ideas has become widespread altho these are completely different ideas. )
Further to 2)
Chung blames Churchill for the Cold War. Blaming the messenger. She fails to mention the legendary oppressiveness of Stalin’s regime or the millions he caused to perish, not least in the Holodomor. No mention of the Soviet Union’s expansionist ideology and the accompanying strong-arm tactics which forced the East European countries to become communist. No mention of people fleeing East Germany for a freer and ultimately more prosperous life in West Germany.
A more general point is the blanket condemnation of the British Empire, a standpoint which is today almost universal among right-thinking people. But any such condemnation must encompass a historical perspective. How did the British Empire compare with that of France? Did the German, Belgian and Dutch colonists treat their colonised better? (They treated them far worse.) What was the moral quality of the governance which the growing British Empire replaced? Did British intervention lead to a growth or a decline in the population and/or well-being of the lands conquered? Was there more or less slavery? What were the long-term effects, including cultural effects, of the occupation? Are there no respects in which the British Empire enriched the peoples and lands conquered? Is there a categorical (God-given) right for people to have exclusive claims on the territory on which they were born?
Questions of harm or merits of the British Empire are not settled. Nigel Biggar has recently found himself “cancelled” by Bloomsbury for his book “Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning,” now to appear under William Collins.
I suggest that answers to these questions will give a differentiated picture, with diverse conclusions being drawn for different locations.
More further to 2.) Chung spends several paragraphs on the Suez Canal and Nasser, but fails to even mention the well-known outcome of this dispute, presumably because the end contradicts her narrative of a British takeover of US foreign policy. It ended in 1956 with PM Anthony Eden (together with his French counterpart and in coordination with Israel) attempting to take back the Suez Canal militarily. Britain was forced to back down by threats from the USA. It is this event more than any other which is widely considered to have marked the demise of Britain as a great power.
Further to 3.) and 5.): Engaging in character assassination.
As a philosophy graduate of Eliot College I was astonished read “T.S. Eliot had incorporated this philosophy of Maurras into his core, and in his 1928 essay collection For Lancelot Andrews, he described himself as a classicist in literature, royalist in politics, and Anglo-Catholic in religion.” This famous quip may or may not have come from Maurras, but adopting and adapting an isolated phrase is hardly evidence of having “incorporated the philosophy of Maurras into his core” or for speaking of "an Eliot-Maurrassian creed”.
The entries about T.S.Eliot in Brittanica and Wikipedia do not mention Maurras, but do mention many other names including the genuine philosopher F.H.Bradley.
In his 1934 pageant “The Rock” T.S. Eliot even caricatured (mocked) Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts (page 47 at https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.3608/page/n46/mode/1up?view=theater ).
There was no need for Chung to even mention T.S. Eliot, instead of which she cast aspersions on him with what can only have been malicious inventions.
Other victims of her character assassination are such complex and contradictory personalities as Bertrand Russell and Winston Churchill, men who in the course of long lives changed their radical opinions but also had the courage of their opinions.
Further to 1. and 2.): Speaking of the time of the American Civil War (1861 to 1865) she writes, “Britain’s slave-based economic policy of free trade enforced by the British East-India Company.” Britain had abolished slavery in 1833/1834 and the slave trade in 1807, a trade prohibition enforced by the all-powerful Royal Navy. Nowhere does she mention these facts, which are well-known among educated people. Therefore, it has to be assumed that her intention is to mislead newcomers to history by leaving out essential context and confusing dates. It would seem to be part of her vendetta against anything British.
The above instances are not exhaustive.
My great gran lived to 104 in a walk-upi n Newark in its worst years. My best guess is she was native, but she chose to be Ba'hai as well.
Tarring Sufis, for example, is so wrong, I can jonly hang my jaw about it. I am careful og fine print and disses, wherever they may originate. Where, when, who, how, et al must be cpnsidered when getting forensic. Individual, organic life-forms matter. Huskies tell stories. Just listen.
The tendency of some to goat Russia, China, and the Islamic world for errors of royal Europens pains me no end