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41-521: Written at the Bond-mania's zenith in the 1960s, The James Bond Dossier is the first, thorough, albeit tongue-in-cheek, literary analysis of Ian Fleming's strengths and weaknesses as a thriller-writer. As a mainstream novelist, Amis respected the Bond novels, especially their commercial success, believing them 'to be just as complex and to have just as much in them as more ambitious kinds of fiction'. That

82-504: A bias in the TAT psychological personality test. Through cross-examinations, the TAT exhibits a tendency toward chauvinistic stimuli for its questions and has the "potential for unfavorable clinical evaluation" for women. An often cited study done in 1976 by Sherwyn Woods, "Some Dynamics of Male Chauvinism", attempts to find the underlying causes of male chauvinism. Male chauvinism was studied in

123-482: A fervent faith in national excellence and glory. In American English, the word has also come to be used in some quarters as shorthand for male chauvinism , a trend reflected in Merriam-Webster's Dictionary , which, as of 2018, began its first example of use of the term chauvinism with "an attitude of superiority toward members of the opposite sex". According to legend, French soldier Nicolas Chauvin

164-460: A girl is protective, not dominating or combative"; 'Damnably clear grey eyes' describes M., the head of SIS: "a peevish, priggish old monster"; 'A glint of red' is about the villains, who have in common only physical largeness and angry eyes; and so forth. According to his first biographer, Eric Jacobs, the hand of sovietologist and scholar Robert Conquest is betrayed in Amis's precise dissertation upon

205-442: A national mission. As long as this concept did not develop into the ideology of chauvinism and remained in the rather vague realm of national or even nationalistic pride, it frequently resulted in a high sense of responsibility for the welfare of backward people. In this sense, chauvinism is irrational, in that no one can claim their nation or ethnic group to be inherently superior to another. A historical example of chauvinism from

246-403: A reason for male chauvinism is masculinity itself: For the vast majority of people all over the world, the mother is a primary carer...There's an asymmetry in the development of boys and girls. Infant boys have to learn how to be masculine. Girls don't. Masculinity is not in a state of crisis. Masculinity is a crisis. I don't believe misogyny is innate, but I believe it's inescapable because of

287-742: Is considered to be Alexander Zinoviev . The term is named after the Kremlin , the seat of the former Soviet government. Kremlinologist refers to academic, media, and commentary experts who specialize in the study of Kremlinology. The term is sometimes sweepingly used to describe Western scholars who specialized in Russian law, although the correct term is simply Russian law scholar . Sovietologists or Kremlinologists should also be distinguished from transitologists , scholars who study legal, economic and social transitions from communism to market capitalism . Academic Sovietology after World War II and during

328-511: Is deliberately provocative. In that context, the Dossier can ' ... look like a cheeky two-fingered salute to the academic world, a farewell raspberry blown at all things pedantically donnish, in a manner Lucky Jim would surely have approved. For to Ian Fleming's œuvre Amis brought the anatomising and categorising zeal he never had devoted and never would devote to more elevated works of literature'. Kingsley Amis had several motives for writing

369-455: Is in the 1935 Clifford Odets play Till the Day I Die . The balance of the workforce changed during World War II . As men entered or were conscripted into the military to fight in the war, women started replacing them. After the war ended, men returned home to find jobs in the workplace now occupied by women, which "threatened the self-esteem many men derive from their dominance over women in

410-601: Is still in use in application to the study of decision-making processes in the politics of the Russian Federation . In popular culture, the term is sometimes used to mean any attempt to understand a secretive organization or process, such as plans for upcoming products or events, by interpreting indirect clues. While the Soviet Union no longer exists, other secretive states still do, such as North Korea , for which Kremlinology-like approaches are still used by

451-579: Is the study and analysis of the politics and policies of the Soviet Union while Sovietology is the study of politics and policies of both the Soviet Union and former communist states more generally. These two terms were synonymous until the dissolution of the Soviet Union . In an extended usage, Kremlinology is sometimes used to mean any attempt to understand a secretive organization or process, such as plans for upcoming products or events, by interpreting indirect clues. The founder of Kremlinology

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492-475: Is where he suggests several implausibilities in Bond's capture by the eponymous villain in Dr No (1958). However, that 'Bond is temporarily helpless in his creator's grip', does not matter, because 'three of Mr Fleming's favourite situations are about to come up one after the other. Bond is to be wined and dined, lectured on the aesthetics of power, and finally tortured by his chief enemy'. Earlier, Amis had discussed

533-525: The Cold War was dominated by the "totalitarian model" of the Soviet Union , stressing the absolute nature of Joseph Stalin 's power. The "totalitarian model" was first outlined in the 1950s by political scientist Carl Joachim Friedrich , who argued that the Soviet Union and other Communist states were totalitarian systems, with the personality cult and almost unlimited powers of the "great leader" such as Stalin. The "revisionist school" beginning in

574-459: The Dossier . He had recently retired from teaching and wanted to 'put behind him the more rigid austerities of university life'. He wanted to expand his range as a writer beyond poetry and mainstream fiction. The need to make more money was also a consideration. Primarily, however, he wanted to show the academics that the literature of popular culture could be as substantive as the literature of high culture . In November 1963, he announced to Conquest

615-442: The psychoanalytic therapy of 11 men. It refers to the maintenance of fixed beliefs and attitudes of male superiority, associated with overt or covert depreciation of women. Challenging chauvinist attitudes often results in anxiety or other symptoms. It is frequently not investigated in psychotherapy because it is ego-syntonic, parallels cultural attitudes, and because therapists often share similar bias or neurotic conflict. Chauvinism

656-573: The "totalitarian model" approach to Soviet history and were most active in the Soviet archives. During the Cold War , lack of reliable information about the country forced Western analysts to "read between the lines" and to use the tiniest titbits, such as the removal of portraits, the rearranging of chairs, positions at the reviewing stand for parades in Red Square , the choice of capital or small initial letters in phrases such as "First Secretary",

697-606: The 1960s focused on relatively autonomous institutions which might influence policy at the higher level. Matt Lenoe describes the "revisionist school" as representing those who "insisted that the old image of the Soviet Union as a totalitarian state bent on world domination was oversimplified or just plain wrong. They tended to be interested in social history and to argue that the Communist Party leadership had had to adjust to social forces." These "revisionist school" historians such as J. Arch Getty and Lynne Viola challenged

738-668: The Communist press were also scrutinized, as well as the degree of hospitality lent to dignitaries. Kremlinology also emphasized ritual , in that it noticed and ascribed meaning to the unusual absence of a policy statement on a certain anniversary or holiday. In the German language, such attempts acquired the somewhat derisive name "Kreml-Astrologie" (Kremlin Astrology ), hinting at the fact that its results were often vague and inconclusive, if not outright wrong. The term Kremlinology

779-643: The Golden Gun in the New Statesman . The James Bond Dossier includes most of the Bond fiction cycle, excepting Octopussy and The Living Daylights (1966), the final collection of 007 short stories, which was published after the Dossier . Kingsley Amis's argument is that the Bond novels are substantial and complex works of fiction, and certainly not, as Ian Fleming's critics said, 'a systematic onslaught on everything decent and sensible in modern life'. He viewed them as popular literature, akin to that of

820-565: The James Bond franchise, and may or may not have contributed to one of Fleming's novels, The James Bond Dossier would end up being the only book of this type to be published under Amis's own name. In the 1968 essay 'A New James Bond', anthologised in What Became of Jane Austen? And Other Questions (1970), Kingsley Amis revisits the literary character, and explains why he accepted the commission of writing Colonel Sun (1968), discusses

861-449: The James Bond phenomenon include: Male chauvinism Chauvinism ( / ˈ ʃ oʊ v ɪ n ɪ z ə m / SHOH -vih-nih-zəm ) is the unreasonable belief in the superiority or dominance of one's own group or people, who are seen as strong and virtuous, while others are considered weak, unworthy, or inferior. The Encyclopaedia Britannica describes it as a form of "excessive and unreasonable" patriotism and nationalism ,

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902-430: The arrangement of articles on the pages of the party newspaper Pravda and other indirect signs to try to understand what was happening in internal Soviet politics. To study the relations between Communist fraternal states, Kremlinologists compared the statements issued by the respective national Communist parties , looking for omissions and discrepancies in the ordering of objectives. The description of state visits in

943-556: The century following Chauvin was the German-Jewish poet Ernst Lissauer , whose extreme nationalism after the outbreak of World War 1 included writing the "Hymn of Hate against England" ( "Haßgesang gegen England" ) in 1915. As David Aberbach remarks, "There is nothing in modern Hebrew literature, however devoted to the cause of Jewish sovereignty, remotely comparable to the super-chauvinistic Hassgesang ('Hate Song for England')..." Despite chauvinism's irrational roots, at

984-529: The challenge of impersonating the writer Ian Fleming, and explores the stylistic and world-view differences among the spy novels of Ian Fleming , John le Carré , and Len Deighton . Moreover, under the pseudonym 'Lt.-Col. William "Bill" Tanner' — M.'s CoS and 007's best friend in SIS — Amis wrote his second Bond book, The Book of Bond, or Every Man His Own 007 (1965), a tongue-in-cheek, how-to-manual to help every man find his own inner secret agent. Other studies of

1025-574: The development of masculinity. Female chauvinism is the belief that women are superior to men. Second-wave feminist Betty Friedan observed that "...the assumption that women have any moral or spiritual superiority as a class is [...] female chauvinism." Ariel Levy used the term in her book Female Chauvinist Pigs , in which she argues that many young women in the United States and beyond are replicating male chauvinism and older misogynist stereotypes . Sovietologist Kremlinology

1066-508: The essential background of Ian Fleming's Cold War world of the 1950s. After Fleming's death in August 1964, Glidrose Productions Ltd. , owners of the international book rights, asked for Amis's editorial assessment of the uncompleted manuscript of The Man with the Golden Gun , which Jonathan Cape deemed feeble, and perhaps unpublishable. He reported that the manuscript was publishable, but would require substantial modifications. Because Amis

1107-571: The family, the economy, and society at large." Consequently, male chauvinism was on the rise, according to Cynthia B. Lloyd. Lloyd and Michael Korda have argued that as they integrated back into the workforce, men returned to predominate, holding positions of power while women worked as their secretaries, usually typing dictations and answering telephone calls. This division of labor was understood and expected, and women typically felt unable to challenge their position or male superiors, argue Korda and Lloyd. Chauvinist assumptions are seen by some as

1148-418: The genesis and changing nomenclatures of SMERSH , the employer of the villains of the early novels. Three appendices deal, respectively, with science fiction, literature and escape, and 'sadism'. With 'almost parodic scholarly dedication', Amis provides a ten-category ('Places', 'Girl', 'Villain's Project', etc.) reference guide (pp. 156–159) to the Bond novels and short stories. Typical of Amis's approach

1189-405: The idea of writing an essay of some 5,000 words about the James Bond novels. By late 1964, he had expanded the essay to book length, and submitted it to his publisher, Jonathan Cape . In one hundred and sixty pages, The James Bond Dossier methodically catalogues and analyses the activities and minutiae of secret agent 007: the number of men he kills, the women he loves, the villains he thwarts, and

1230-399: The matter of Bond's correct designation: 'It's inaccurate, of course, to describe James Bond as a spy , in the strict sense of one who steals or buys or smuggles the secrets of foreign powers ... Bond's claims to be considered a counter-spy , one who operates against the agents of unfriendly powers, are rather more substantial'. Although, as noted elsewhere, Amis wrote three books related to

1271-514: The meaning of chauvinism strictly in its original sense; that is, an attitude of belligerent nationalism. In 1945, political theorist Hannah Arendt described the concept thus: Chauvinism is an almost natural product of the national concept in so far as it springs directly from the old idea of the "national mission". ... [A] nation's mission might be interpreted precisely as bringing its light to other, less fortunate peoples that, for whatever reason, have miraculously been left by history without

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1312-411: The narration slips into 'the idiom of the novelette '. Amis reserves his most serious criticism for what he considered to be academically pretentious rejections of the Bond books, a theme implicitly informing much of the Dossier . Each of the 14 chapters deals with one aspect of the novels — 'No woman had ever held this man' defends Bond's attitude to and treatment of women: "Bond's habitual attitude to

1353-516: The opportunity of the war to demonstrate their patriotism, Lissauer was an extremist, and in contrast many other German Jews disagreed with Lissauer and the way that mainstream opinion had shifted. The Christianity-centric imagery used to document the Kriegserlebnis by authors such as Walter Flex alienated Jewish soldiers. Whereas Lissauer attempted to sign up as a soldier (but was rejected as unfit) as soon as war broke out, then penned

1394-423: The poem, and in the words of Stefan Zweig considered everything published by the German newspapers and army to be "gospel truth" and Edward Grey to be "the worst criminal". The last lines of the poem read: We love as one, we hate as one, We have one foe and one alone — ENGLAND! Male chauvinism is the belief that men are superior to women . The first documented use of the phrase "male chauvinism"

1435-527: The science fiction texts he critiqued in New Maps of Hell (1960). Although written in Amis's usual accessible, light-hearted style, The James Bond Dossier is neither patronising nor ironic — it is a detailed literary criticism of the Ian Fleming canon. In the main, he admires Fleming's achievement, yet does not withhold criticism where the material proves unsatisfactory or inconsistent, especially when

1476-506: The time, it was explicitly seen as almost obligatory for any German patriot. As Walter Rarthenau commented just prior to the outbreak of the war, "Whoever loves his Fatherland may and should be something of a chauvinist." Lissauer's poem was exceedingly popular, to the extent that it was praised by the Kaiser himself, and Lissauer's slogan " Gott strafe England ! " was used as a daily greeting. However, whilst some German Jews did take

1517-504: The use of the term. Chauvinism has extended from its original use to include fanatical devotion and undue partiality to any group or cause to which one belongs, especially when such partisanship includes prejudice against or hostility toward outsiders or rival groups and persists even in the face of overwhelming opposition. This French quality finds its parallel in the English-language term jingoism , which has retained

1558-531: Was a controversial approach in the 1960s, because from early on, since the mid-1950s, the James Bond novels were criticised by some detractors for their violence, male chauvinism , sexual promiscuity, racism, and anti-Communism . Despite his intellectual respect for the Fleming canon, Amis's way of writing about it, according to his biographer Zachary Leader, ' ... partly guys academic procedures and pretensions by applying them to low-cultural objects' and, as such,

1599-535: Was badly wounded in the Napoleonic Wars and received a meager pension for his injuries. After Napoleon abdicated, Chauvin maintained his fanatical Bonapartist belief in the messianic mission of Imperial France , despite the unpopularity of this view under the Bourbon Restoration . His single-minded devotion to his cause, despite neglect by his faction and harassment by its enemies, started

1640-455: Was found to represent an attempt to ward off anxiety and shame arising from one or more of four prime sources: unresolved infantile strivings and regressive wishes, hostile envy of women, oedipal anxiety, and power and dependency conflicts related to masculine self-esteem . Mothers were more important than fathers in the development of male chauvinism, and resolution was sometimes associated with decompensation in wives. Adam Jukes argues that

1681-417: Was not the only writer consulted, it remains controversial if his editorial suggestions were implemented, and to what extent Amis contributed directly to the revision of the manuscript. In the event, the Dossier' s publication was delayed a year, because Jonathan Cape asked Amis to include discussion of The Man With the Golden Gun . Both books were published in 1965; later that year, Amis reviewed The Man With

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