Page | 1 John Christmann History 116 Dr. Lary October 13 th , 2013 Comparative Book Review There is a common theme between the books ‘Bananas!’ and „ Fathers and Sons’. These two books form quite the odd pair for a literary analysis. Regardless, there is an interesting common theme with an interesting contrast as well. Before getting right into laying out a schema that can be applied to both books to draw out the common structural theme, need to describe exactly what it is that is being looked for. The common theme that will be described is what is dubbed the lord-serf mentality. This mentality is cross-ideological; it can be instantiated b y various ideologies A common example of this phenomenon is racism. Racism can be actualized by various ideologies; different regimes that can be described as fascist or communist w ere all capable of displaying racist mentalities. Racism is not a structural feature particular to any single ideology. Fascists, conservatives, liberals, communists, and anarchists can all display racist mentalities; this is exactly what is claimed for the lord-serf mentality. Now to lay out the general structure that will subsequently be explored. Call a situation where one group of people exercises some level of power rooted in authority over a different and distinct group of people such that no member from the ruling group is also a member of the ruled group a lord-serf scenario. In a lord-serf scenario, one group of people is called the lords and a different and distinct group is called the serfs. The mentality displayed by both groups is called a lord-serf mentality. The lord group‟smentality is from the perspectival-value-set of the lord side of the mentality, and the serf group‟smentality is from the perspectival-value-set of the serf side. Perspectival-value-set being the set of values held b y those of the perspective of one o f the aforementioned groups. Two discrete historical situations can both display a lord-serf structure, regardless of the scope or pedigree of the authority that enables and legitimizes the
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