Published yesterday at 6:00 p.m.
A pillar of fire ended in the early 17th century. “The Weapons of Light” begins at the end of the 18th century. Why this 200-year break?
I’ll start with an episode of the story that seems interesting to me. For each of my books, I began with a political, social or economic story that fascinated me. I didn’t find anything notable at the end of the 17th century. At least for now. This is the only reason for this 200 year jump.
What surprised you most about your historical research?
That 7-year-old boys can work 14 hours a day, from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. My grandfather started working in the coal mines when he was 13 years old. But 7 years is cruel.
They describe the strong reaction of artisans to the first looms. There are currently fears that artificial intelligence is endangering jobs. And yet industrialization ultimately benefited workers.
Steam automated jobs that people had done in their homes for centuries. There is a loom that replaced 560 women in a museum in Manchester. But with industrialization, wages eventually increased because people worked in a factory and not in a village, which was often terrorized by a tyrannical nobleman (nobleman). With AI there will be winners and losers. Drivers will certainly be left behind. But this morning I asked an AI tool to write a Ken Follett-style chapter. It was incredibly bad. Full of clichés, green meadows, hills, the wind of war. That made me relieved.
They connect the French and American revolutions with the suppression of the first trade unions.
European nations reacted particularly to the French Revolution with repression. Because of the impending guillotine. Two laws in particular have reduced personal rights in Britain to levels not seen since the Middle Ages.
They lived through the golden age of British trade unionism before Margaret Thatcher and then its destruction. What influence does this personal experience have on your view of the beginning of trade unions more than 200 years ago?
In the 1970s, unions went too far and became unpopular. The coal strike in the early 1980s was called by Arhtur Cargill, who was on the far left. They destroyed the industry. Thatcher took advantage. It is thanks to the radical left union leaders that today’s low earners are paid below the minimum wage.
You mention the tensions between Anglicans and Methodists. How interesting is this since we live in a post-religious time?
In “A Pillar of Fire,” people were tortured because of their beliefs. There were still tensions in the 18th century, but Methodist churches were not burned down. I describe the first steps of religious freedom. Today we don’t even know who is Catholic, Protestant or atheist.
They end the book with the British victory at Waterloo. But in France it is a defeat.
I really admire Napoleon, even though he was a dictator who killed a lot of people. At Waterloo he had a medical corps, while British soldiers relied on women to accompany them. His soldiers were well fed, unlike the enemy soldiers. But if I wanted to have a French perspective, I would have needed two or three other characters to follow to Italy, to Russia, and I already had six.
They describe a development that lasted several centuries. Does this mean that we should be more lenient towards societies where religious intolerance exists rather than condemning them with UN reports?
We don’t have to ask them for permission to write that they don’t think like we do, that they don’t have the same respect for freedom. We don’t tell them how to behave. We simply need to know that the rights our ancestors fought for do not exist in these countries.
They cite as a source only one book, William Pitt the Younger, by William Hague.
This is an excellent book, even if Hague takes a conservative viewpoint. I told him about Pitt’s attempts to strip people of the few human rights they had. He agrees it wasn’t a good thing.
Weapons of Light
Robert Laffont
792 pages
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188 million books Number of books sold by Ken Follett
Source: Penguin Random House