The Rhine River

What I've been doing at Europe Endless #2

2007-09-19T10:51:00.001-05:00

Nigh is the time to switch your bookmarks.

MA is the New BA
I think I’ve complained about this trend before. MA programs are used to cull prospective students, without giving them resources to do serious research–without giving them a taste of what a real doctoral program is like–just rushing them out and collecting their cash. Students who take that additional one year to add an MA to cap their undergraduate career are being short-changed, especially since they’ll have to do it all over when they start a PhD program.

Where are the Historians of Popular Political Discourse?
Ben Johnson sent this down the pipe at H-Borderlands:

The Mexico-US border has been all over the news recently, what with the proposed border fence and US congressional debate over immigration. Yet H-Borderlands remains muy, muy tranquilo.

I’m wondering if we can jump-start a discussion so that those of us subscribed can take advantage of our collective wisdom. And contemporary debates actually prompt my question: what role could the “new” borderlands history play in informing contemporary debates in North America about borders and border enforcement? I see economists, political scientists, scholars of immigration, and sometimes legal experts interviewed extensively in recent news coverage, but can’t think of a single borderlands historian who’s been a talking head in major news coverage. What does that say about our field?

Good question, but it could also be generalized. Why have historians, as a group, remained silent? Why have generic arguments been made about the immigrant experience rather than zeroing in on the place of Latinos/Latinas (especially Cubans, Mexicans, and Puerto Ricans) *** in American history? Why are those specific groups boxed into the immigrant experience? And why has so little effort to put current immigration to the US, legal and illegal, in global context?

*** If Scots suddenly clamored to come to America, we’d hear some arguments about cultural compatibility or pre-adaptation. Yet these three communities, by their historical presence, offer a portal to the assimilation of groups coming from Latin America.

A Democratic Style, A German Style
Why did Germany rebuild its cities as it did, with such unrelenting modernism? This question keeps resurfacing as cities decide to replace buildings from the postwar era with those that reflect earlier historical eras. I’ve found this but of nostalgia problematic, failing to appreciate the lacuna caused by the Second World War. Hermann Glaser’s The Rubble Years: The Cultural Roots of Postwar Germany, 1945-1948 puts some of these issues into perspective, mining the brief moment immediately following the war.

In light of the devastation of the war, it was estimated that 6.5 million apartments were needed. “Rebuilding? Technologically, financially impossible, I tell you. What do I say? Psychologically impossible! However, it is possible to build simple rooms on the present foundations and out of salvageable debris . . . bright rooms in which a simple law, equal and understandable for all, is discussed and decided upon . . . no small print . . . no embellishment. Rise, up, lawyers and architects! Plan and design models, rooms of pure, simple clarity and power . . . rooms in which our children and grand- children can follow honorably and freely the universally accepted law!” This Passage Comes from Otto Bartning’s Ketzerische Gedanken am Rande der Trümmerhaufen (Heretical Thoughts at the Edge of the Rubble Heaps), which characterizes the mood of the survivors who experienced, after a total war, total defeat. The dominant mood was one of despair, pessimism, and resignation. In almost every city, however, people began to work on restoration plans based on more optimistic premises

The mood in postwar Germany was understandably dismal. People returned home to find literally nothing. The question of how to continue to live was inextricable linked to the question of where to live. Moreover, Germans were uncertain of their national future, having values shattered in a few years. Perhaps it is obvious that the new architectural style would reflect necessity and humility. Modernism seemed to answer the spiritual need to create distance with the past and repent for it.

In [Walter Gropius’s] lectures, he re-installed the idea of the ‘Bauhaus’ … .The socially conscious architecture, once expelled from Germany, was brought back to a bewildered Germany as a symbol of freedom and individuality by one its most prominent representatives. The modern architecture was supposed to represent and mirror the honesty, transparency, and openness of the young country. Its light, eager, liberal, and international style was completely focused on the Progress of technology and civilization, and expressed the social and utopian ideal of equal housing. It was opposed to provincialism, folkishness, monumentalism, and historism, especially since National Socialism favored these forms of architecture.

All cities took the opportunity to reform their urban plans, simplify streets and utilities, etc. The question to rebuild what had been destroyed or build anew was up in the air. Different cities took different tacts. But references to eras past would not necessarily succeed in expressing a new democratic age in Germany. On the one hand, democracy was not triumphant: it was prescriptive. On the other, the styles that normally represented democratic institutions–Hellenic and Roman–had already been exhausted by German historicism. Rather than democracy, the represented beauty and spirit, ideas that had lost credibility to a public that had mentally checked out. Gothic, which might have connected Germany to the past of urban republics, had been swept up by Romanticism. If remembering was painful, history provided no solace. If the past were a source of symbols, the war made them unavailable. Modern architecture was far from being insensitive to the needs of the people. It addressed those needs directly.

Would contemporary Germans recognize this wisdom in their postwar ancestors? The pursuit of unity seems to extend to history as well as geography and demography, seeking out a continuous history of the German people, if not nation. But as I have said before, modernism treats space as disposable, thus modernism is itself disposable.

What's Spanish for Chutzpah?
I tend to lose track of time. It’s a bad quality for an historian, but confronting the same boring file for hours speeds the passage of time even though one perceives it grinding to a halt. I had been picking away at the same document today (in between bouts of looking after my son) before I gave up, turned on the TV, and surrendered to the pablum of cable news.

Only I didn’t realize what time it was. Suddenly, the dreaded words, “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” appeared in the bottom corner of the screen. Yes, it was that hour when CNN imitates Radio Rwanda, only tonight the Grand Wizard surrendered his stool for his underling (according to the rumor mill, Dobbs wants to import remnants of the Berlin Wall to southern Texas).

As with any other night, another story about Mexico or Mexican immigrants was being broadcasted. This one carried the title, “Mexico’s Chutzpah.” Unfortunately, it carried the subtitle, “What’s Spanish for Chutzpah?” Some clever tech or intern must have thought that one up on the fly. Did they really mean to destroy the credibility of the news shows raison d’être? Did they know it is a loan word from Yiddish, assimilated by English?

Indeed, what is Spanish for chutzpah? Is Yiddish spoken on the streets of Mexico City or Monterrey? Surely a Spanish equivalent can be found ( atrevimiento?), but chutzpah carries with it an ethnic flavor and a certain demonstrative quality that Spanish words might not have. But perhaps there is some word, based on Hebrew’s contact with Spanish, some bit of Ladino slang that affected Spanish, surviving the expulsion.

Of course, asking the question reflects a certain insolence. Is not Chutzpah evidence how language survives and grows when in contact with immigrants and their culture? Does it not show reveal the success of Jewry in acculturating to American life over generations?

So, if we assume that chutzpah is Spanish for chutzpah, we would reference a successfully assimilated minority. If there is a Ladino-Spanish equivalent, we would reference a successfully assimilated minority that was converted by force, dispossessed of property, and expelled.

Perhaps we could say huevos. It’s already part of American slang.

What I've been doing at Europe Endless

2007-09-11T08:02:00.000-05:00

If you haven't switched over yet, do so now.

Autonomy in the Academy

The Brussels-based think tank, BRUEGEL, is rankling some feathers with its report on the performance of European universities, “Why Reform Europe’s Universities?” (full report loads in pdf form). According to its methods (which I won’t analyze–note attention to patenting below), American universities perform vastly better than European, with some American states beating out higher education in all European nations.

Explanations focus on spending, especially the amount spent on research. What I find interesting is that the report also focuses on the governance of universities,
noting that administrations of Americans universities have greater latitude in determining how to spend available funds.

There is considerable variation in university governance across states. States vary not only in the relative importance of private versus public universities, but also in the degree of autonomy granted by state authorities to public universities. Sometimes, even neighbouring states display sharp differences in governance. For instance, public universities in Illinois enjoy on average rather low autonomy, while their neighbours in Ohio enjoy high autonomy. These differences are persistent over time and often go back to the idiosyncratic origin of American universities, which in turn reflect differences in the preferences of university founders … .

Our strategy is to take US states’ differences in university autonomy as given and then ask the following question: Does a given investment in higher education produce more patenting in a US state if universities in that state are more autonomous? … The answer to our question is a resounding ‘yes’. As illustrated in Figure 2, the effect of additional spending on patenting is roughly twice as high for states with more university autonomy. Autonomy therefore greatly enhances the efficiency of spending.

Limits of Liberal Tolerance?

John Holbo, responding to Stanley Fish, wrote the following last week:

I would also like to request a moratorium on critiques of liberalism that consist entirely of a flourish for effect – with accompanying air of discovery – of the familiar consideration that liberalism is inconsistent with blanket, categorical tolerance of absolutely every possible act and attitude. That is, liberalism is incompatible, in practice, with any form of illiberalism that destroys liberalism. If something is inconsistent with liberalism, it is inconsistent with liberalism. Yes. Quite. We noticed.

Also, it might not be a half-bad idea to notice that liberalism is not incompatible with religion, merely with illiberal forms of religion. Just as liberalism is incompatible with illiberal forms of secularism.

Of course, liberalism need not devolve into a celebration of all philosophical systems, all world-views. It’s reasonable to expect that, given liberalism’s attention to the individual, aspects of any philosophy or belief that limits individual action would come under criticism. Certainly liberalism would not seek to become self-defeating. However, Mr. Holbo wants to believe that liberalism is itself intolerant of intolerance, that the compromises made in the midst of political discourse does not undermine the philosophical foundations of liberalism.

Is liberalism intolerant of intolerance? I find it hard to swallow. In practice, liberalism reveals itself as a different beast from its self-image. The history of its application reveals difficulties in accepting completely open political discourse. Liberal political parties started by introducing voting qualification or making elections indirect. Later compromises followed. (I could launch into another long exposition about Jacobins or the Kulturkampf, but I’ve decided not to write about them for the next few months.)

There are two problems: how liberalism constructs its legitimacy, and the makeup of liberalism itself. Tolerance is but one idea that liberals employ to set themselves off against other groups; the dichotomy between tolerance and intolerance is meant to empower the former at the expense of the latter. In the broader sense, liberalism tends to a singular vision of truth which only with difficulty allows plurality in the public sphere. Indeed the pattern of liberal politics, according to Pierre Rosanvallon, has been to introduce “counter-democratic” institutions in the attempt to limit the individual’s free use of political rights.

Liberalism itself is a problematic concept. Some historians have stopped approaching it as a philosophy. Instead they look at the constellation of political, social and economic interests that come to embody liberal politics. In an upcoming book, L’Empire du moindre mal, Jean-Claude Michéa argues that liberalism was primarily an economic phenomenon that developed a complimentary philosophical tradition. Market economy and democratic politics were two aspects–two “translations”–of liberalism, though the former imposed itself on the latter more forcefully. Defending property and economic rights became more central to their programs, and in nations where they were weak, liberals compromised ideals.

Unfortunately, practice must be taken seriously in understanding liberalism. The liberal critique of traditional institutions provided a powerful tool in political reform, even when applied by non-liberal groups. Liberalism itself has had a shakier history.

Letter to a Future Historian

2007-09-07T10:45:00.000-05:00

To whom this may concern:

Will an American president ever utter the phrase, “crimes committed in the name of the American people”? After an acrimonious election and faced with concluding a contentious war in Iraq, the public will need some idea, some formula, to move forward.

I doubt this exact phrase will be used, given that it is how Adenauer convinced Germans of their guilt in the postwar era. “In the name of” allowed enough ambiguity as to what role the German public played in Nazism and the atrocities it caused. It allowed them to sense that they were victims as well as perpetrators of the horrors of war. And given Germans reacted better post-WWII than post-WWI, it was a more effective means of dealing with the recent past.

Eventually, scholars turned their attention to the people, much as I expect will happen in American history. After political history has been exhausted, the public becomes a prime target for analysis. First the policy, then the people. You are the first historian to look at the ambitions and fears of Americans in the “aughts,” and your book will rankle those invested in a particular interpretation of the Iraq War, especially its origins. As much as I welcome the change in discourse on foreign policy, it seems that most Americans are running from defeat rather than embracing ethics and responsibility. Few talk of what we owe Iraqis in the longterm. Public complicity is on no one’s tongue.

Until your monograph is published, historians will have focussed on the deception, or in a few cases, uncertainty. They will have focused on President Bush and his administration. Lies are, however, told for war, but they always find an audience hungry to hear them. Who looked for the River Ebro on a map? Why was “remembering the Maine” such a belligerent act? The invasion of Iraq was sold to a public that feared the foreigner, feared the world, and resented so-called friends who would restrain our global initiatives. It was a public that distrusted the UN. It was a public that put Arabs, Muslims and Middle East countries in the same constellation as terrorism. It was a public convinced that behind every major action, there was a state. It was a public whose faith in the war was unshaken by scandals like Abu Ghraib when they were revealed.

You will receive accolades and harangues. Please, though, be kind to us. You are one generation looking back on another. The middle class is always slow to mobilize, and memory takes time to integrate painful images and experiences. Like the young Germans of the 1960s, you will have a perspective borne in distance that helps you see the war.

Good luck, and good sales,

Nathanael D. Robinson

The Great Blog Migration

2007-09-04T08:46:00.000-05:00

I've thought about this for a while, perhaps too long, but I am joining the great blog migration and setting up in Wordpress over at some place I call Europe Endless. Like many migrations, I'll cross vast seas in dangerous vessels, expansive desserts searching for water, before I arrive. So, until October, I'll be posting the same material at both sites as I get the latter set up.

Next month in europeendless.worpress.com .

The One Who Must Go

2007-09-04T08:43:00.000-05:00

It’s been a while since a new addition of Hate Watch. The minor victories of neo-nazi parties in state in local elections were tempered with resolve by the major parties to shut them out of power, to prevent them from exercising any influence. However, the slide into racism is becoming more real, as the Rheinisches Merkur reported this weekend:

A study published last November by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung arrived at shocking conclusions: almost ten percent of western Germans, and more than double that in the east, are antisemitic, every eleventh German has a reactiony (rechtsextreme) worldview, and in the east every third German is a xenophobe. Accroding to a study by the University of Bielefeld, two of every three Saxons holds a xenophobic position. [Despite divergences in the numbers], it is still certain that in the east, people with dark hair run the risk of being attacked. Xenophobia has become the cultural norm. The stranger is the one who should leave.

Racism, of course, often is a stigmatization of the other, the fear of an ideally threating stranger in the midst of an ideally composed, harmonious community. As the article points out, the other are increasingly not present (only two percent of people living in Saxony are of non-German origin). Their foreignness is imagined and constructed far ahead of their arrival, their presence a priori unacceptable.

It would be easy to say that Germans have not changed (even Goldhagen grants them some redemption). Racism, however, is not just finding new targets, it is behaving differently. The German racist is evolving into an advanced scout announcing a fantasy enemy. Resentment plays less of a role in his/her make-up. Correspondingly, the reaction of Germans to reactionary racism is remarkably different. If xenophobia is becoming the norm, resisting it has become a necessary and automatic response for the German public.

About a Boy

2007-08-31T23:00:00.000-05:00

Too Late to the Dance

2007-08-31T09:21:00.000-05:00

It must be fall semester. I know because Jonathan Dresner burdens his students with my writing. Actually, it's a great syllabus that seeks to include students in conversations about history that are current on the blogosphere. Perhaps in the future his classes will be live-blogged?

Over at the group blog that Jonathan started, Frog in a Well, an interesting discussion has broken out over Brad DeLong's long post on Chinese economic history. It's a fascinating discussion about how Chinese development is understood and explained--entering into areas I am not qualified to discuss. However, the notion of "late industrialization" pops up in the comments there and at Grasping at Reality with Both Hands. Intellectual milieu of Confucian bureaucracy, strong hand of the center, hyper-efficiency of agricultural production--usual suspects make their appearance.

What's interesting is that the trope of late industrialization appears in the historiographical writing of a number of countries. It's used to explain the rise of anti-democratic traditions, especially in Germany, Italy and Russia. (Never mind that more democratically minded countries, like France and Netherlands, took longer to industrialize.) Give the wide application of this trope, it would seem that (proper) industrialization was a one man race only Britain could win. In the case of Germany (among the second wave of industrialization), this has become a hard sell. The work of Geoff Eley, David Blackbourn, George Mosse, and Modris Eksteins has shown that rather than being "peculiar", Germans grasped modernity better than Brits. The timing of economic development does not explain as much, especially since it occurred after many of the Bismarckian compromises between Prussian and dynasties and between Junkers and manufacturers were still to come. Perhaps what was more important was how the nationalist movement was co-opted from the Wirtschaftsbuergertum and handed over to the Junkers.

I don't want to dismiss theories of political economy. Economic backwardness and the timing of industrialization have their place, but they do not provide automatic explanations. China is an interesting case because its ascendancy as a modern economic powerhouse occurs as ideas about energy and environment have changed. Chinese industrialization had been critiqued as an albatross, burdening the global supply of oil and taxing the limits of environment. Perhaps there is no room for an industrialized China: natural resources won't tolerate it.

If this is the case, should the notion of late industrialization stand? Energy and environment put more emphasis on material factors; will to modernize seems less important. Indeed empire may be a more important factor in industrialization. What would the global economy have looked like if China were competitive when England, United States, Germany and Belgium were at the height of their industrial production?

I'm not sure that I am articulating this problem well. Under the weight of environmental history, the timeliness of industrialization ought to be reconsidered. Projecting power, either by force or commerce, may play a greater role.

Standing on Shaky Ground

2007-08-30T09:31:00.000-05:00

It's not about the sex, it's about the public lewd behaviour. Sure, whatever. Larry Craig's misdemeanor has driven a lot of talk not just about sexual identities, but the practices of homosexuals.

Andrew at Air Pollution has been critiquing those who would label Senator Craig (as those before him) as being gay. He has also been dissecting the icky factor in reporting this story: bathrooms and cruising. Andrew and I have had a number of discussions about the construction of sexual identities, and for different reasons we have been uneasy with the politics thereof. However, we completely agree that professing sexuality in public has its problems:

Many college students, in my experience, see the development of GLBT identities in a pretty straightforward trajectory: in the nineteenth-century we couldn't speak, now we can. Many of them have, in fact, read Foucault and they understand that identities are historically constituted and change over time. But what is so often missing in these discussions, both on college campus and on the internet, is how the injunction to speak can often be just as limiting as it can be emancipatory. Speaking creates categories, forcing people into them against their will. Obviously Foucault made this point, and it probably does little good for me to say it here in this form, but I think its important to emphasize when this sort of thing happens. The automatic reaction should not be "if only he could have come out of the closet," but rather, "how unfortunate we live in a society where the ability to freely express sexual desires, in all their (consensual) forms, remains a dream."

Indeed the creation of a defined category produces conformity as well. Why should everyone be labeled? Could not Senator Craig simply have sought gratification?

Last semester I assigned André Gide's The Immoralist to some students (a book that I picked with Andrew's assistance). I was myself surprised at one student's reaction: she was unwilling to accept the sexual openness proposed in the book. In her opinion, Michel's unwillingness to come out the closet made him sick, made his wife sick, made the people whom he touched sick. Simply put, his disease was not admitting his true sexuality.

Andrew isn't he only one talking about sexual identities. On the other side of the political spectrum, Marc at Spinning Clio is criticizing a work that purports to find same-sex marriage in the late Middle Ages. Projecting contemporary homosexuality, in particular the desire to marry one's same sex partner, reads too much into the past. In communities where each marriage was scrutinized, would not couples affrèrés meet resistance? Would homosexual men and women seek emotional fulfillment through marriage? Marc hits an important point: deep affection between men need not be manifested sexually.

All these examples show more about how identities are constructed and employed than how sexuality is conceived. So many identities are constructed on the belief of unchangeable, unshakable natures that they become essentialist, bordering on nativism or indigenism. These identities become so confining that they tend to isolate those who employ them. Indeed they are best employed when the identifying group wishes to resist modernization. The danger is that they will not participate in the discussion about modernization, rather it will occur around them as they are immune to it. Or that modernization will disturb the root assumptions upon which identities are based. Among the problems faced by Alsatians under German rule, for example, was how to argue that they were who they were (people shaped by history and tradition) and participate in German politics and global commerce.

The point is best driven home by Mahmood Mamdani in Citizen and Subject. By identifying Africans with tribal communities, colonial governments could keep them under traditional tribal justice and traditional tribal authority. Thus they had limited access to European institutions. The African worker, in particular, could not make choices about development and progress. S/he was always a visitor to the modern world, and what s/he experienced could not change African society.

Labeling Senator Craig "gay" potentially constrains him to being a man who cruises for sex in bathrooms--as much as it constrains gay men. It constrains him to live up to an identity that is not as stable as it seems.

(Disclosure: I hate people who fuck in public places. It unnerves me. Sorry, Andrew, I've reported a few couples in various states of passion in the library because, dammit, I have work to do. They were all heterosexual.)

Secular Critique for Believers

2007-08-26T10:54:00.001-05:00

How times can Christiane Amanpour repeat the phrase "G-d's Warriors," either directly or in variation? What ought to have been compelling reportage on fundamentalism turned into a rhetorical exercise. Perhaps I should expect no more: this was journalism, not rigorous scholarship. However, this leitmotiv couched the fact that Amanpour exposed the mobilization of religious sentiment in conflict while ignoring the conflict writ large. During the segment on "G-ds Jewish Warriors," I was repeatedly troubled that Amanpour did not follow the involvement of secular and atheist Israelis (although she calls them only Jews) in the settlements in the West Bank. What connection was there for the Israeli who cared nothing for religion, who, so to speak, did not "long for Messiah"?

It would be easy to call this anti-religion, but reductive seems more appropriate. These fundamentalists, reactionaries, terrorists ... whatever you will call them ... respond to a call that Amanpour hastens to avoid. By calling the series "G-d's warriors," she invites the audience to believe that this is "G-d's War," the crux of the religious calling. It is religion detached from society, and in many cases, many within society cannot be called religious practitioners. This is the danger that Horkheimer diagnosed: the loss of dialogue between religion and reason to the detriment of both.

The program fits well next to Harris, Hitchens and Dawkins. They reduce religion to hate and intolerance, qualities that are by no means exclusively religious. Religion, like society, politics, and culture, is multi-faceted: a nexus of beliefs, institutions, and practices that are not all harmonious with one another and that can serve as a repository of ideas for both love and hate.

In some ways I welcomed Mark Lilla's essay, "The Politics of God," which appeared in the New York Times magazine last week. Many things in the essay were problematic. Lilla seemed to have unreserved faith in non-religious politics, ignoring the rise of ideology that occurred after Luther, religious and non-religious. When he says, "That is what happened in Weimar Germany," I feel compelled to remind him that Germans longed for leadership, spirit and power, and they checked religion at the door.

However, Lilla's emphasis on political theology has merits. Brandon expressed reservations about the concept because of its vagueness. But there needs to be some means of focusing in on the relationship between religion and politics. In particular, how religion is imported into the field of politics, either directly or symbolically, to justify aggression.

Tales from a Monocausal Universe, pt. 2

2007-08-18T20:26:00.000-05:00

In my previous post about Prof. Gregory Clark's forthcoming book, I set out several issues that I felt would disfavor a genetic cause of industrialization, whether cultural or biological. I had planned to write about them in depth, but alas, I haven't the time. In place of thoroughness, here is, perhaps, some brevity.

Most of my objections regard the periodization of capitalism. Prof. Clark's argument seems to focus on the pre-industrial, commercial stage of capitalism, when trade dominated. Don't get me wrong: capitalism put pressure on manufacturing to reform, but so-called proto-industry was not industry, and some would argue that was a shaky foundation for industry, at best. Industrialization was an intellectual leap, and capitalism was not deterministically bound to discover it.

Who was the Dutch Arkwright? Well, no one, of course. However, it order for Prof. Clark's argument to be effective, he must deal with "the first modern economy." Why industrialization took hold only late in Netherlands is a compelling subject. Broadly speaking, the Dutch capitalism was a high level equilibrium trap of its own (though I'll still blame wars with England); capitalism continued without making the next step.

In this context, however, the question of why Netherlands did not industrialize is not as interesting as why the Dutch did not develop industry. Prof. Clark seems to want us to believe that the emergence of genetic traits, either biologically or culturally received, created a natural evolution toward industrialization. The same traits appeared in the Dutch bourgeoisie, earlier and just as forcefully, as the English. Certainly, many of the financial tools were already in place. It would not be difficult to imagine a Dutch version of the industrial factory--it would be the Xerox Alto of economic history.

What makes the question more interesting is that regions of Europe that fell under the United Province's broad economic hinterland would next industrialize. Dutch commerce drew Belgian and Rhenish merchants into capitalism, creating classes who were willing not just to take on industry, but to innovate it.

I expect that, on closer examination, Prof. Clark will have played fast and loose with capitalism, industry and proto-industry.

Another area of concern is the effect of the downward social mobility of which Prof. Clark writes. It's not clear to me that the dispossessed sons of aristocrats and bourgeoisie would apply their superior economic ethics (if they had them) to preparing labor for industrialization. Why would they? Would they not be just as likely to apply their good sense to strengthen corporations, notably guilds, at the lower ends? It seems more likely that they would force greater skill among trades rather than lead the trend to a generalized labor force (such as Gellner described).

Tomorrow, Prof. Clark promises to answer his critics. I look forward to his detailed answers.

1502

2007-08-18T08:26:00.000-05:00

The Discoveries of America--yes, I'm putting it into the plural. It seems like everyone was there before Columbus, like the English and the Chinese before them. Of course, the first people there were the Vikings ... and, er, the Native Americans (... or aliens).

Discovery, however, is not well defined. At Albion's Seedlings, Peter Saint-Andre argues that England discovered America first, albeit its presence evolved very slowly.

Yet it appears that North America was discovered first, by venturesome sailors from the English port of Bristol who maintained an active trade with Iceland starting in the 1300s and who fished the Grand Banks off Newfoundland as early as 1481. News of these fisheries — and land or islands sighted to the west thereof — filtered down to Portugal and Spain, probably inspiring (in part) the voyages of Columbus. ... Despite the fact that the English seem to have discovered new lands to the west before the Spanish did, their colonization efforts lagged.

Anglers find fertile waters, a few new rocks. Peter underplays the effects of the so-called discovery. Indeed, the Vikings knew of many of the same areas of modern maritime Canada. Even after their colonies in Vinland failed, Greenlanders revisited the territories for logging. Moreover, we ought to consider Greenland to be the first European colony in the Americans. Because settlement was not permanent, the honor is withheld.

More importantly, the Viking discovery, like Richard Amerike's, didn't affect the European imagination. Finding new land was not earth-shattering; mariners had done it many times. Finding a new world was. "The Discovery of America", a term fraught with difficulties, ought to relate to changes of European intellect and culture. This means the processes that would lead to permanent settlement.

Moreover, it should reflect those processes that inspired the cartographic imagination, turning the Americas into knowledge. Amerigo Vespucci's Mundus Novus put the newly discovered territories in global context by attending to their geography and changing how Europeans saw the world.

Let's give props to the real discoverer of America: Amerigo Vespucci, the man who put America on the map (or, at least, got Waldseemuller to put it on the map).

Frankfurt, you're not alone

2007-08-15T11:22:00.000-05:00

Another article in Die Welt about a city reconstructing its pre-war city center. This time, it's Kaliningrad, currently a Russian city that was the capital of East Prussia. The website set up by lead architect Arthur Sarnitz is rife with plans and photographs of the restoration, with more to come (perhaps an English version as well).

Tales from the Monocausal Universe, pt. 1

2007-08-15T10:42:00.000-05:00

Japanese workers are shorter and have smaller fingers. Thus, they are better suited to working with electronics than Americans. That’s what Crazy People taught me. Throw in something about work ethic, filial responsibility, honor, the smart breeding with the smart, and a few other clichés, and presto: an attractive theory!

You hopefully know from my sarcasm that I won’t read the Clark book. The issues it addresses and the approach it takes not only seem dated, they seem exhausted. Why European countries dominated geopolitics and economics from as early as the seventeenth century to the last few decades is an important question, but cannot be reduced as Clark seems to have done.

Some writers have compared this approach to Jared Diamond, but at least he knew how to use an indefinite article, writing about the role of technology without losing sight of it being a cause of political-economic development, not the cause. Indeed, Diamonds attempt to draw together environment, culture and politics in Collapse, though flawed, raises important questions that historians can’t ignore.

Genetic or evolutionary explanations for industrialization tread on dangerous ground. Biologists and anthropologists from the last century spent great energy to discover reasons for the superiority of the west, sometimes emphasizing the backwardness of culture, other times the limits of biology. This knowledge was often applied in dangerous ways. Personally, I would need a truly good reason--a profound reason--to reconsider this subject.

However, I also think there are numerous reasons why the proposition of a genetic cause/basis for industrialization is problematic. I hope to discuss each of them in future posts.

Much of the groundwork for industry was laid as early in the sixteenth century, with the commercial activities of Portuguese and Dutch traders.
Why not the Netherlands? The Dutch were social more advanced than the English, and developed similar cultural characteristics before them.
Can the intellectual genius of industry be explained by cultural mentality?
Much of the success of industry depended on the adaptability and education of workers.
After the invention of the factory and steam engine, much of the history of industrialization is a variation on a theme.
Industry--technology and skills--was easily imported to other areas.
The costs of industrialization from the mid-1850s on rose, depending less on the freedom of the entrepreneurial class and more on state planning. (Should we see a comparable evolution of the sociability?)
Freed from their dependence on European nations, non-western nations (like India) could more effectively develop their native industries.

[Part 2 here.]

The Kaczyńskis and the Politics of History

2007-08-14T20:53:00.000-05:00

Vilhelm Konnander's Weblog has an important post on the political turns of contemporary Poland:

How to deal with the past, has become the central issue in Polish politics with the rise to power of the Kaczyński twins. Their policy of lustracja represents the wrath of the malcontents - a revanchist policy for all those former dissidents, members of Solidarity, or ordinary people, who never got a slice of the pie during the 1990s' privatisation. Their populist target is the "Salon" - communists, apparatchiks, bureaucrats, and collaborateurs, who were able to benefit from the privatisation schemes as only the very top echelons of the communist system were removed from power. However, having not previously dealt with history has made most politicans potential victims of persecution, as more or less fabricated scandals about a communist past have often come in handy when populists or others have wanted to permanently discredit next to any public figure. Being able to taint leading personalities of the Solidarity generation, has become a method for young and aspiring politicians to make careers and gain power by removing their seniors by rumours and allegations.

Stegner: American Mobility vs. Stability

2007-08-14T12:10:00.000-05:00

From "The Sense of Place" by Wallace Stegner:

But if every American is several people, and one of them is or, would like to be a placed person, another is the opposite, the displaced person, cousin not to Thoreau but to Daniel Boone, dreamer not of Walden Ponds but of far horizons, traveler not in Concord but in wild unsettled places, explorer not inward ‘but outward. Adventurous, restless, seeking, asocial or -antisocial, the displaced American persists by the million, long after the frontier has vanished. He exists to some extent in all of us, the inevitable by-product of our history: the New World transient.

To the placed person he seems hasty, shallow, and restless. He has a current like the Platte, a mile wide and an inch deep. As a species, he is non territorial, be lacks a stamping ground. Acquainted with many places, he is rooted in none. Culturally he is a discarder or transplanter, not a builder or conserver. He even seems to like and value his rootlessness, though to the placed person he shows the symptoms of nutritional deficiency, as if be suffered from some obscure scurvy or pellagra of the soul. . . .

Indifferent to, or contemptuous of, or afraid to commit ourselves to, our physical and social surroundings, always hopeful of something better, hooked on change, a lot of us have never stayed in one place long enough to learn it, or have learned it only to leave it.

Rebuilding Frankfurt

2007-08-14T08:33:00.000-05:00

Some of my thoughts on Germany's mania to recover the architectural past at Cliopatria.

Sunday Reading

2007-08-12T00:05:00.000-05:00

If you have a lot of time and a settled stomach, check out Subtopia's interview of geographer Stephen Graham on the subject of military urbanism. Check out his comments about the nostalgia for the military history of the city and the subsequent invisibility of urban violence. If you finish that, check out Traveling Wild's discussion of the history of wildness (that is to say, wild landscapes).

Jonathan Dresner's post about Akutagawa Ryonosuke's supposed pacifism has me thinking again about opposition and resistance in fascist states. Of course, I've discussed big A's reputation ad nauseam. As Jonathan writes, "Akutagawa died in 1927 kept him from becoming a victim of the changing political situation post-1931 and therefore kept his politics a bit under the radar." I wonder if the converse could be true: that his early death spared him from difficult decisions about opposition. Too many Germans figures, at least, opposed Nazism on narrow grounds rather than en toto.

Finally, the Robert Putnam article brought me back to a classic: Georg Simmel's Metropols and Mental Life. Alienation and anonymity in the city were persistent themes of sociology that they could be taken separately from any discussion of diversity. Hell, there was much less urban ethnic diversity 104 years ago. Has this theme dropped from contemporary sociology? Should it be revisited? Indeed, do we not all die alone in the city?

Emotion in the Archive

2007-08-11T08:37:00.000-05:00

An eulogy for Raul Hilberg.

The Chemistry of Diversity

2007-08-11T08:04:00.000-05:00

"The Downside of Diversity" discusses problematic findings from the research of Robert Putnam. The sociologist discovered that civic participation dropped in more diverse communities, thus limiting "social capital." Putnam himself found the results disturbing, especially as his findings were taken as reason to justify denying rights of immigration, etc. However, his findings also flew in the face of logic: the more diverse communities, which were also larger (mostly cities), tended to be more creative and productive.

I could raise many issues about this: white flight and gentrification as processes that limit the potential of cross-cultural contact. But two things should be noted above all: type of community and how integration works. First, the geographic concentration of cities allows exchanges to occur with greater frequency and rapidity than in small communities, thus multiplying their potential effect. Second, new arrivals don't surrender their identities so much as moderate them continually such that differences are thinned. They slowly fold their way into society. (The "melting pot" was always a bad analogy. No one, especially Anglo-Americans, lives in such a state of flux.)

[ETA:] Perhaps I should word this more strongly: social capital may not be the best measure or explanation of diversity and its benefits.

Things that annoy me

2007-08-10T11:06:00.000-05:00

I must rely on Alex Rodriguez to save baseball.
Pipers dominate every Celtic session (my underpowered mando can't compete).
The three leading candidates in the Democratic primary race have the least experience in federal government.
I never notice the baby snot and drool on my shirts until after I leave home.
It's friggin' humid.
Lou Dobbs still has a bully pulpit on cable.

Religious Contradance: Everybody swing to the right?

2007-08-10T09:45:00.000-05:00

During a rather blasé search for new material concerning German history on the blogosphere, I came upon an unusual new blog: one written by Ludwig Windthorst, one of the founders of the Zentrum and a towering figure in Catholic democracy, called Der Vasall!

I doubt that it is the historical Windthorst, or even a coincidental appellation, but the blog takes on an interesting subject: the theological basis for monarchy in Catholicism. Well, it's more of a Catholic perspective on politics, an interesting "thought experiment", but apparently German bloggers seem to pine for monarchy with some frequency (if the links are any indication).

Anyway, blogger Windthorst raises an interesting question: is monarchy a "right" form of state? is it necessarily conservative? On the surface, his claim that it could be both holds water. The alliance of European kings and queens with more conservative parties, especially nationalist parties, is inseparable from historical development. Who would join the radicals who called into question the legitimacy of monarchy? Even talk of "nation" from the right could be uncomfortable for the monarch trying to fit into the modern world.

This leads to another question: how did religion, particularly Catholicism, affect the political orientation of monarchy? Was there a swing to the right?

The question only makes sense, of course, in terms of modern partisan politics in an era of popular participation. Party platforms articulated the relationship between head of state, legislature, and administration. Religious voters, who reluctantly came into the system, tended to see the monarch as a guarantor of religion in public life. On paper, it would seem that religious voters would carry the monarch with them.

However, it was never so neat. In France, Bourbonists and Catholics seemed to make common cause against godless republic. Germany was a more complicated story. Protestants seemed strongly to support the Hohenzollern dynasty, but Catholics and Jews were a different story. In the wake of anticlerical repression, German Catholics demanded rights of self-governance even as they trumpeted the principle of monarchy. On the other hand, German Jews seemed to tolerate the Protestant aura of German culture while asking for the deconfessionalization of public life.

Religious voters were, however, only one aspect of the Church. Clergy also affected political life (even though they claimed neutrality). Yet still, there is ambiguity. Missionaries on the frontier of Spanish America generally restrained Spaniards from overtly abusing and exploiting native subjects, especially converts (even as they profited from them). In early 20th-century Africa, missions were safe havens from the plantation economy and a place from which Africans could reconstruct their lives. More importantly, the Rhenish Mission in South-West Africa protected natives from the physical manifestations of aggressive, nationalistic rhetoric. In many nations, clergy encouraged the state to undertake more social programs, both as a reflection of religious conscience and to dampen the growth of socialism. Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum attempts to balance the two impulses of the Church, supporting patriarchy (by extension, monarchy) and the cultivation of social services.

Assessing the effects of the Church is difficult because after the Reformation, the Church cannot be isolated. In general, religion became more reliant on the state. Efforts to restore the universal church and promote the authority of the Papacy succeeded only ideologically.
Doctrines, such as Papal Infallibility, negatively effected religious voters of many nations, forcing clergy and voters alike to qualify their intent and reach into public life.

The Septennat Crisis in Germany provides an important example of the relationship between Catholicism and the state. In its platforms, the Zentrum consistently argued for the restraint of the military budget. Their opposition to military spending further cast Catholics into the category of "enemies of the state." In the 1880s, Bismarck concluded a treaty with the Papacy which included issues related to the military budget. Accordingly, the Pope instructed the deputies of the Zentrum to approve the Septennat. Rather than falling in line, the deputies refused, and the historical Windthorst declared that the party was not an organ of the Church. Twenty years later Catholic politicians would not hesitate to vote for more military spending, but the crisis marked the divergence of the Catholic public in Germany and Rome. If one of them asserted more influence on the Hohenzollern monarchy, it was the former.

Catholicism could push monarchy in either direction. But, if the Church encourages the monarchy to move to the left, it is usually only on two grounds: first, caring for the needs of the people and second, supporting the rights of individuals and minorities (subject to qualification). Social programs were among the most important areas of state growth in the twentieth century and must be taken seriously as evidence of a liberal redirection of monarchy. What we could not expect is that Catholicism would encourage monarchs radically to reconstruct the state and authority.

Crossposted at Cliopatria

The Other Asterisk

2007-08-08T11:06:00.000-05:00

Wonderful: a new home run record on par with the accomplishments of Louis Pasteur and the application of penicillin in medicine. Barry Bonds should be proud, even if his legend should be surrounded with a cloud of suspicion.

However, I would draw attention to other aspects of Bonds' accomplishment. Baseball has been making it easier and easier to hit home runs, building smaller stadiums and changing rules in favor of hitters. In an era where all baseballers (such an old fashion word) could enjoy the boost and repair of steroids, hitters, not pitchers, have been able to enjoy their benefits more thoroughly. Good pitching has become a rare and precious commodity, turned over to cadres of relievers as early as the fifth inning. Perhaps the more significant of this weeks milestones has been Tom Glavine's 300th win, something many sports analysts is unlikely to happen soon, if not ever again. This era has sacrificed many aspects of the game in favor of the cheap thrill of the long ball. Other aspects of the game, like pitching, but also defense and "little ball," have diminished by comparison.

Perhaps the case has been made better by Bill Jenkinson. In The Year Ruth Hit 104 Home Runs, he argues that had Babe Ruth played his 1923 season in contemporary stadiums by contemporary rules, he would have had an additional 40-50 home runs. Many gargantuan blasts were contained by the cavernous stadiums in which Ruth played, and eyewitness evidence shows that many very long flyballs that became outs would have easily cleared fences that barely reach 400 feet in centerfield.

If Barry Bonds deserves an asterisk in his name in the record books, than so does "most home runs, career." Baseball as trivialized the long ball in the last twenty years, and consequently, trivialized its own traditions and legends. It will add context to the era, one in which the home run totals were super-sized but the reputation of baseball diminished.

Toward Urban Dystopia

2007-06-26T22:20:00.000-05:00

The BBC offers this interactive map on the last fifty years of urban population growth, with a look at the next eight. HT: The Map Room.

Clean Hands

2007-06-26T12:32:00.000-05:00

What's in a name? NPR reported last week on how the Polish government wants to change the name of Auschwitz in order to emphasize that it was a German camp, not a Polish camp. According to the story, the Polish government feels that the extermination camp is mistakenly associated with Poland, because it lies on Polish soil. Much of the story concerns how UNESCO is handling the request, mostly focusing on contentious issue with regard to what kind of heritage site it is--a memorial, a museum?

For the life of me, I can't think of any time when I encountered someone who made this mistake. Sure, it was a German extermination camp, and no one would contend with that. However, NPR missed an opportunity to reveal how the current ruling duo on Poland, the Kaczynski brothers, suspected of fascist leanings, have been running afoul of historical memory, trying to draw sharp lines between victims and perpetrators, and attempting to seal Poland's victimhood.

Recently, the government required politicians and scholars to sign statements attesting that they never collaborated with the secret police during the communist era, a matter which was closed a decade ago. Historian Bronislaw Geremek caused a stir when he refused. Auschwitz itself has been used as a political chip: a Russian exhibit was closed because it did not recognize the Soviet occupation of Poland at that time.

The Kaczynski brothers' efforts raise serious questions, not just about Polish memory, but memories of collaboration, resistance and victimhood in general. How far can the Vichy paradigm be pushed? Polish resistance was virulent and organized, and consequently, Poles became special targets for German repressive measures. Resistance does not, however, cancel out collaboration. Even in this, Poles were different from French or Czech counterparts: collaboration and profiteering from the occupation occured at the lowest levels. There is no Polish Pétain.

Most resistance was based on sovereignty or ideology, whether in France or Poland. Seldom was Nazism opposed en toto. It's fair to say that population engineering was opposed on the grounds of sovereignty and ideology, and genocide was seldom confronted directly by any resistance movement.

The Holocaust may have been an institution that Germans brought to Poland. Anti-semitism was not (something that Saul Friendlander reiterates in his new book). Despite their resistance, Poles could easily accomodate this aspect of Nazi policy. Moreover, pogroms occured spontaneously without Nazi supervision, as they did during the war, in Jedwabne, and after, in Kielce.

Victimhood and resistance has been put before less savory aspects of the war experience. Poland was hardly unique. The pattern of post-war politics in all European nations was to use them to promote one's own legitimacy. Since the 1960s historians have unpacked these myths, noting places where (minor) collaboration occurred or how resistance was closer to self-preservation than outright opposition (Bishop Galen comes to mind). The Vichy paradigm has not penetrated Polish memory. A dissertation by Anetta Rybicka was revoked largely because the Polish academy was unwilling to consider collaboration.

Polish memory already dismisses the possibility of participation in genocide. It's not clear that Poles have confronted this part of their past, but why go further? Lech Kaczynski's speech at the 60th anniversary of the Kielce pogrom seems determined to minimize anti-semitism as an enduring feature of Polish culture. Calling attention to the Germanness of Nazism may make homegrown authoritarianism less onerous.

[Crossposted at Cliopatria.]

My So-Called Panel

2007-06-20T14:48:00.000-05:00

I spent much of the day working on a pamphlet by Wilhelm Kapp suggests an alternative vision of Alsatian regionalism, one which would allow Germans to mix into Alsatian society. Interesting, moderate. Now I am kicking back, waiting to pick up Elias from daycare, practicing "Grey Eagle", and annoyed that my AHA panel is already known for something other than its creativity.

Didn't they try this in Mannheim?

2007-06-14T09:13:00.000-05:00

A proposal that scares me: a 19th-century project to rename American towns and cities according to their longitude and latitude. Do I have any recent rants about space being treated abstractly, dependently? (HT: Old is the New New)

Spinoza and the Moderns

2007-06-11T07:30:00.000-05:00

Interesting passage from Robert Leventhal's H-Net review of Jonathan Israel's Enlightenment Contested:

I have my doubts about the basic argument of the book, stated on page 867, that the "only kind of philosoph[ies] which could (and can) coherently integrate and hold together such a far-reaching value-condominium in the social, moral, and political world" are "the monist, hylozoic systems of the radical Enlightenment generally labelled 'Spinozist' in the 'long' eighteenth century". One can reasonably advocate all of the values and moral precepts Israel attributes to the Radical Enlightenment on pragmatic grounds and not be a metaphysical monist. In other words, we do not need to believe in Spinoza's metaphysics to believe in democracy, freedom of expression, social justice, equality, fairness, and tolerance. We can, but do not need to, align historical truth with progressive values. We can, but are not required to, adopt a naturalist vision of science and philosophy to be thoughtful and moral citizens. And in fact, that is what "postmodernism," broadly conceived, is all about. Drop the meta-narrative, the epistemological and metaphysical demands, the high-minded requirements of philosophical truth and "rightness" and get on with the important concrete tasks of making the world a better place to live. In a word, as Spinoza himself argued, we don't need to believe the same things or hold the same metaphysical views to do what is urgently needed on the ground to transform society to become more just, more tolerant, more empathetic, and more peaceful.

Speaking in Italics

2007-06-10T11:32:00.000-05:00

Over at Blogenspiel, where ADM is raising questions about gatekeeping in academia, Marc Comtois suggests that foreign language is often unfairly used to judge the quality of scholarship. He perhaps feels a little bruised after the comments that followed.

Perhaps he has a point. Many of the arguments against Marc focused on the problem of understanding sources from the perspective wherein they were written. In this sense, knowing how to read in a foreign language is not just invalauble, but critical. Original documents are not the only place where historians encounter foreign language. Works written in English routinely import foreign words and phrases that are "untranslatable."

Germanists must be the worst offenders in this respect. Words like Sonderweg, Fuehrer, and Wiedergutmachung often appear untranslated throughout texts, perhaps with cursory explanations about the complexity of the term. I am certainly guilty of this. Indeed, I often leave Land and Landschaft in German. But I do so to avoid confusion and complicated explanations when talking about regionalism. Landschaft causes special problems because landscape (the direct translation) no longer carries cultural, political and social meaning in English as it does in all other Germanic languages.

Do all terms need this treatment? Heimat seems famously beyond the comprehesion of English speakers, and numerous mini-series have been produced for German TV to explore images related thereto. Yet home and hometown are equally evocative and complex. Our home may not be equatable with Germans' Heimat, but they are both ways to use the local to see the larger imagined communities to which we belong, stirring powerful emotions in the process.

What's interesting is that I tend to use untranslated German more than untranslated French. Indeed, I might have more trouble finding an equivalent concept in French for either home or Heimat. I suspect, however, that the problem is not with the languages but the various academic traditions associated with those languages. It seems that Germans place more emphasis on Begriffsgeschichte (another German concept) than others, raising the cost of entry of discussions on German history. The proliferation of italics could very well scare off those with meager linguistic abilities. Yet I would find it difficult to say that someone without German could not make a meaningful contribution to German history--many do.

Fiddlin' Around

2007-06-08T13:58:00.000-05:00

Another extended break has come to an end. No more lecturing, no more grading. I just came back from a short trip to California to see my parents (or rather, to bring my son to see my parents for the first time). It was fun, and maybe I'll write something up about San Diego's Balboa Park. However, the more pressing task is to write my AHA paper (Adenauer's Transient Pasts--good ole' Konnie), which I'll post here in fragments.

Anyway, I've been having fun hunting down source material in music, trying to expand my vocabulary for the mandolin. A lot of fiddle music doubles as mandolin music. I'm surprised not only by the amount of sheet music available, but the historic recordings as well. Two things to check out: The Digital Library of Appalachia and Virtual Gramophone: Canadian Historical Sound Recordings. Other online archives of interest:

Frontera Collection of Mexican-American Music (only snippets of recordings)
LOC's Fiddle Tunes of the Old Frontier
LOC's Southern Mosaic (Lomax Recordings)

Social Realism of WWII

2007-05-02T11:01:00.000-05:00

At Oxblog, Patrick Porter is taking on the "backlash" against American triumphalism over WWII. In particular, he feels that Stalin and the Soviet Union have been getting too much credit. Too much emphasis is being placed on the numbers of lives lost rather than the qualitative contributions of each nation to the war effort.

Place me among those who think that the eastern front was more important. Would allied air attacks have been as effective if the east hadn't become a sinkhole of men, machines and money? Indeed, I tend to find that the allied war effort was slow to get started, not opening a genuine European front until 1944.

But Patrick is right to say that certain details cannot be isolated in the process of weighing contributions. American contributions to Soviet economic development and in the Pacific greatly affected how well Stalin fought the war. It was a well integrated effort, and Soviet resolve might have failed otherwise.

However, some special praise should be given to Soviet nationals. Indeed, fighters faced guns on both sides--the Germans' insane fear of the barbarous Huns on the one hand, the mass executions of NKVD on the other. They fought a much deadlier war than anyone else. In this sense, more credit should be given to the people than to their leaders.

Obligation

2007-05-01T22:21:00.000-05:00

Never Again for Armenians too
By Daniel Sokatch and David N. Myers

For the last 60 years, the Jewish community has labored to avoid granting Hitler, in the words of philosopher Emil Fackenheim, "a posthumous victory." Jews have taken as their motto "never again," and most tend to understand that this charge refers to all of humanity, not only to fellow Jews. One of the last surviving leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, Simha "Kazik" Rotem, once said that the central lesson of the Holocaust to him was that the Jewish people should stand vigilant against genocidal acts directed at any people.

This is why it is troubling that some major Jewish organizations have lined up in support of Turkey's efforts to keep the U.S. Congress from recognizing the Armenian massacres as an act of genocide. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and B'nai B'rith International recently conveyed a letter from the Turkish Jewish community opposing a resolution recognizing the genocide. ...

The American Jewish community has insisted, and rightly so, that the U.S. Congress, the United Nations and other governmental bodies formally commemorate the Holocaust. Why should Jews not insist on the same in this case, especially given the widespread scholarly consensus that what happened to the Armenians from 1915 to 1923 was genocide? After all, the man who coined the term "genocide" to refer to the Holocaust — the Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin — cited the Armenian massacres as a precedent.

The unfortunate and well-known answer to the question is that Turkey has fiercely opposed efforts to call the Armenian massacres "genocide." Moreover, it has asked its friends to help beat back the attempts at historical recognition.

Jewish opposition to recognizing the Armenian genocide comes mainly from a desire to safeguard the important strategic relationship between Turkey and Israel. Alone among the world's Muslim nations, Turkey has forged close military, political and economic ties with Israel. In addition, Jews remember with a deep sense of gratitude that Turkey served as an important haven for their forebears fleeing persecution, from the time of the Spanish Expulsion in 1492 to the dark days of Nazism and beyond. And it is not just that Turkey has been kind to Israel and the Jews. It is a critically important U.S. ally in a dangerous region racked by religious extremism. ...

Nobody is suggesting that Jews forget Turkey's historic friendship. But it is a mistake for Jews — or, for that matter, anyone — to surrender the moral imperative of condemning genocide in the hopes of avoiding a perceived, but by no means necessary, strategic loss. Similarly, it would be a mistake for Turkey to hinge its own strategic interests on the denial of past criminal acts. Coming to terms with the past, as democratic Germany has done in the aftermath of the Holocaust and South Africa in the wake of apartheid, is the best path to political legitimacy.

My 1992

2007-04-30T07:08:00.000-05:00

Where was I when I heard the verdict in the Rodney King case? Probably in "The Coop," a rather bland eatery in UCLA's student center, over the university's low power radio. I might have listened momentarily, thinking that the verdict defied expectations, but thought no further. It was a little later, sitting in US Intellectual History, where the professor pushed aside his normal lecture in order to frame the verdict in historical context that I considered the verdict more fully. But the idea that there would be anger and outrage had not yet crossed my mind.

It was only late in the afternoon, when I reached my apartment, that I fully realized what was taking place: the outbreaks of rioting and violence. Watching the television, I was afraid and confused. The streets and neighborhoods mentioned by reporters were familiar to me only in name. They had no place in my mental maps of Los Angeles, mostly of the west side, almost oblivious to anything east of Rampart and south of Pico. Indeed, in my unfamiliarity, I could imagine the barbarians at the gate, so to speak: that organized rioters making their way up Wilshire into Westwood.

The next night the calm of Westwood intensely contrasted with the paranoia on television. My friends and I, feeling the strain of being trapped inside, met and, essentially, had a party. It seemed unlikely that such jollity could break out. Indeed, it seemed to us as if we were defying the mood of the city, claiming that the horrors happening elsewhere had no personal sway over us.

The third night, I biked several miles to jam with my band. I biked back later in the evening. I saw a few police cars. No one stopped me. In the following days we talked, but not as if the events were personal. We laughed about the friend who drove eight hours straight to get home, or the "new stereo" someone else suddenly had in their room.

With regret, I offer no powerful memories of the 1992 riots. As in Jean Renoir's Rules of the Game, I was surrounded by a decadence that was oblivious to the brewing storm. My actions seem self-serving.

Was I alone? There may have been many Angelenos who watched the riots on TV, who had no personal contact with it and could not understand the outrage. Geographically so close, we could not have been socially farther away. Perhaps it was because of how the city was laid out. It was easy for parts of Los Angeles to remain isolated from one another. Or perhaps we were just modern spectators, our witnessing mediated by television.

Perhaps historical memory is seldom personal memory.

I am but an indirect witness to events that happened in my own hometown. The magnitude of the riots, their context, their meaning, didn't wash over me until I saw an exhibit at the Museum of Tolerance and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, three years later. Even now I can speak more personally about 9/11 ( I was at least on the 103 floor of one of the Twin Towers). I can't explain why the riots aren't part of my personal memories: because I was not engaged; because I could see nothing but the world around me; because I was in a world apart ... . It's only after the fact that I can talk about the worst nights in my hometown's history.

In Justice We Trust?

2007-04-29T14:26:00.000-05:00

Would you prefer "justice" in the place of "G-d" on coins and in the Pledge of Allegiance?

Brandon, responding to Jason Kuznicki, argues that mention of G-d in political discourse does not in and of itself constitute an endorsement of religion (and that a more objective definition of endorsement is necessary).

I often worry that the purpose to reference's to G-d in government slogans have nothing to do with endorsement: surrounding American values in an aura of absolute truth and goodness. What we "trust" is that what we do is sanctioned by G-d.

The more challenging notion--that we strive to follow the precepts and desires of a divine entity--is not in operation. No judgemental eye will be cast upon the nation. G-d is a passive witness to American exceptionalism.

More often than not, G-d is subordinate to nationalism when used in public life. In Nationalization of the Masses, George Mosse argued that nationalists appropriated the symbols and rituals of religion--both Christian and pagan--to create a "secular religion": nation as the ultimate object of faith and worship. The origin of those symbols was superfluous; their meanings were distorted beyond recognition.

From this perspective, mention of G-d does not entail endorsement. It raises new concerns about the use of religious symbols in government, and is a more powerful argument for disentangling symbols and government (for both "believers" and "atheists"). But it is a god that is subordinate, devalued, subject to the exigencies of nationalism and the national spirit.

Should a concept like justice substitute for G-d? As much as I would like "justice" to be a leading principle in public life, it might fare no better than G-d. "In Justice We Trust" would not provide anything more objective or substantive, nothing that would generate more consensus or require less of a leap of faith. It would do nothing more than say, uncritically, "we are just."

Geremek Affair

2007-04-26T09:36:00.000-05:00

Bronislaw Geremek, French historian and Polish politicians, may lose his seat in the European Parliament: he refuses to sign a statement, per a new Polish law, declaring that he did not collaborate with secret state police during the communist era. He has resisted because, first, he already signed a statement, and second, the law is part of a larger purge of intellectual and bureaucrats in Poland:

I already made [such a declaration] in 2004, when I campaigned for the European elections, and now I feel as if I live in the country of King Ubu. . . . I believe that the law of lustration in its current form violates moral rules and threatens liberty of expression, the independence of the media nd the autonomy of the university. It engenders a form of ministry of truth and memory police. (full statement, in French)

Colleagues have rushed to defend him, noting his history resisting communism:

[Daniel Cohn-Bendit:] We have fought Stalinism with Geremek, and we will protect our colleague without hesitation from a government that behaves either in a Stalinist or fascist manner.

This affair comes as Poland's president, Lech Kaczynski, has come under scrutiny for his administrations intolerant policies, especially toward homosexuality.

[ETA:] I don't expect we'll have a "Gunter Grass" moment--information coming to light of collaboration, or that whatever meager information does come to light will be of no significance. His early membership in the communist party is known (as his involvement in Solidarity), and Geremek has not insisted that those who collaborated had not place in public life. Given that Polish governments in the 1990s decided it would not, in the country's interest, investigate such matters, Geremek's refusal seems like an honest attempt to protest the Kaczynski's turn to extremism and prevent hysteria.

Besieging the Ivory Tower: Blogs in History

2007-04-23T14:50:00.000-05:00

Zid offers a paper that he will present soon on the future of blogs in history ("Weblogs: Workshops of the historian"). Give him some comments (it's in French, but he can read your English comments).

Because the historian entrenched in his ivory tower does not discuss with amateurs who try to reconstruct the past in their own manner; the historian entrenched in his ivory tower cannot understand the actions of genealogists, without whom access to the archives would be more difficult; the historian entrenched in his ivory tower lets the state or the [elites] respond to the negationists who attack daily life; the historian cannot entrench himself in his ivory tower. He must put his research in the service of a type of democratic humanism. And the blog allows us to communicate like never before. [My apologies to Zid for this rough translation.]

Car un historien retranché dans sa tour d'ivoire ne discutera pas avec des amateurs qui essaient de faire de la reconstitution historique à leur façon ; un historien retranché dans sa tour d'ivoire ne pourra comprendre le mouvement des généalogistes sans lesquels l'accès aux archives serait rendu encore plus difficile qu'il n'est aux chercheurs ; un historien retranché dans sa tour d'ivoire laissera l'Etat ou les grands pontes répondre aux négationnistes qui attaquent au quotidien ; un historien ne peut être retranché dans sa tour d'ivoire. C'est son devoir de chercheur au service d'un certain humanisme démocratique. Et le blog nous permet de communiquer comme jamais.

Junkers' Return

2007-04-23T11:23:00.000-05:00

Rebuilding the castle in Berlin: the kind of architecture Berlin has in abundance.

Random Notes

2007-04-22T10:31:00.000-05:00

Francophonic World: Words without Borders features African writers this month. Alain Mabanckou's "Blue White Red" reflects on Africans' perceptions and experiences of the mere patrie (Mabanckou recently won the Prix Goncourt):

I was one of those who thought that France was for the others. France was for those who we used to call les bouillants—the go-getters. It was that faraway country, inaccessible despite its fireworks that shimmered even in my smallest dreams, and from which I woke with a taste of honey in my mouth. True, I had been secretly working in my field of dreams on that wish to cross the Rubicon, to go there some day. It was a common wish; there was nothing special about that wish. You could hear that wish expressed from every mouth. Who of my generation had not visited France par la bouche—by mouth, as we say back home. Just one word, Paris, was enough for us to meet by magic spell in front of the Eiffel Tower, at the Arc de Triomphe, and on the Champs Elysées. Boys my age led their girls on by showering them with the serenade: I’ll be going to France soon. I’m going to live in the center of Paris. We were allowed to dream. It didn’t cost anything. No exit visa was necessary, no passport, no airline ticket. Think about it. Close your eyes. Sleep. Snore. And there we were, every night...

Reality caught up with us. The barriers were insurmountable. The first obstacle for me was my parents’ poverty. We weren’t dying of hunger, but a trip to France was nothing but an extravagance for them. We could do without it. We could live without having gone there. What’s more, the Earth continued to rotate. The sun followed its course and would visit other faraway places; we would cross paths in the same places, in our fields or at the marketplace at slaughter time or when the peanuts were harvested. My parents would be ruined for no good reason by contributing to an adventure like that.

Paroles des esclavage is a memory project of slavery in Martinique (sorry, it's in French).

Roma in Greece: Devious Diva's Roma Series has been receiving much deserved attention.

The Search

2007-04-20T10:55:00.000-05:00

Die Welt profiles a Dutch comic designed to teach the Third Reich and the Holocaust (images and critique).

Real Landscapes?

2007-04-20T10:33:00.000-05:00

Old City of the Future

2007-04-20T09:15:00.000-05:00

The city planner in Berlin's senate, Hans Stimmann, argues that the city must turn away from the Bauhaus-inspired "apartment blocks" and return to "the example of Anglo-Saxon townhouses," and that the left (to which he belongs) should support such contiguous development and private ownership in urban areas.

Following the development of (West) Berlin's Hansa-Viertel in the twentieth century, Stimmann sees modernist planning and architecture in the same light as Siedler and Niggemeyer--the murder of the city already devastated by allied bombing. The creation of a "city of the future" (especially as an alternative to the communist city rising in the east) was an injustice.

Everything could have been simpler: through the takeover of available municipal plots, the maintaining of as many buildings as possible, the protection of private ownership, the return of Jewish property, the reconstruction of churches and synagogues and the development of parcels with contemporary architecture. However, everything was impossible on political grounds. [Emphasis mine]

The Hansa-Viertel became an architectural curiosity; not a living space, but a collection of "rental vaults."

Good idea. America could use more rows of houses in place of the McMansions on monster plots (see Witold Rybzcynski's Why to we live in houses anyway? (HT: Ralph Luker)). But the modern style, which would dominate so many bombed-out German cities, was also a product of the political struggles that came before WWII. Worker housing was in short supply, and patrician-dominated municipal governments still resisted changes that would challenge the identity of the city and its elites. Among the reasons I admire Adenauer as a mayor is that he imagined Cologne of the future with a modern workers' quarter, but it had many of the same architectural features of the Hansa-Viertel. On the other hand, much of the effort to save the city from modernity in the 1930s and 40s was not just social, it was racial--eliminating anything that smacked of cosmopolitanism.

Aside: Eduard Fuhr has an interesting essay about ornamentation in modern urban planning.

Juifs pour Buchanan

2007-04-20T07:24:00.000-05:00

"I have black friends," French-style: Le Pen tries to convince French Jews that it is in their interest to vote for him in the upcoming presidential elections.

I have Jewish friends, and there are Jews in my party ... Jews voted for me in 2002. They know better than me the danger this country faces due to the problem of security."

Better yet: he didn't deny the Holocaust, only claiming that the gas chambers were a minor detail. And why vote against Sarkozy, even if he is part Jewish: because he'll let in Asian and African muslims. Rich, very rich.

On the other hand, Sarkozy's "chosen immigration" is being compared to eugenics.

Stop it! No, just stop it!

2007-04-19T14:07:00.000-05:00

From Volokh:

What Exactly Is the Reason Not To Allow Professors To Carry Guns?

We'll, let's see.

In all my encounters with nutty students (there have been a few), not having one has never been a problem. Walking onto a college or university campus, I am in one of the safest environments in America.

Besides, no one should feel that there is a physical manifestation of whatever repression he or she may believe is affecting them.

The Edible Presence

2007-04-01T07:23:00.000-05:00

Sweet Jesus? Really? That's a problem for people?

I'm sure that there are plenty of people with a secular orientation who think, "lighten up." Such would be the response of anyone who would oppose religion to reason.

But I am more than befuddled that Christians, especially Catholics, would take offense. The Last Supper and Eucharist forces all Christians to confront the meaning of the body and the blood in scripture and liturgy and the meaning of eating that body and blood. Moreover, there is a long history in which this issue has been pondered (see Abendmahlstreit). Either there is a real presence and real eating, a symbolic presence and symbolic eating, a spiritual presence and spiritual eating, or no real presence and no really meaningful act. In any case, the notion of eating Christ has been regularized by all Christian denominations, and those that dismiss the Eucharist cannot claim that the notion is sacrilegious.

The controversy over Cosimo Cavallaro sculpture ought to serve as another example of where fundamentalism departs from religion. Control of symbols is at the heart of the matter. Jesus appears every week in an edible form (exposing his humanity should not shock people). Where have protesters been until now?

Cement Shoes for World Peace

2007-02-21T11:24:00.000-05:00

Another year of Cologne's Rosenmontag.

Freedom without Borders part I

2007-02-18T12:23:00.000-05:00

Monday's class begins with a simple idea: during the Ancien Regime the citizen enjoyed his freedom and rights based upon his citizenship; following the French Revolution, his citizenship expresses the natural freedom and liberty enjoyed from birth. I doubt that this idea will withstand the scrutiny of the students, especially since the class consists entirely of women. Nevertheless, it will introduce questions about the practice of citizenship during the French Revolution, leading into the contentious Reign of Terror: a nation of the sovereign people could not tolerate individualist, particularist expressions of personal liberties.

What was interesting about the revolution's elucidation of the rights and liberties of the individual was its desire to be both foundational and universal–an expression of human rights, not just those reserved for Frenchmen. Although American constitutions and bills of rights (national and state) served as models for the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (with a particular Jeffersonian accent), the revolutionary deputies felt that the "self-evident" truth that "all men are created equal, ... endowed ... with certain unalienable rights" was not adequately enshrined in the Bill of Rights. From their perspective, the French saw a document that reflected the realities of American culture, and it give any reason to say that these were anything more than American rights.

Distinguishing themselves from the Americans, yet appealing to the world, revolutionary deputies set forth to tell the world of the natural rights that were denied to them, not the least of which was that "men are born and remain free and equal in rights." And many Europeans and a few Haitians seemed to agree, even as they were kicking the French out of their own countries.

There are probably those out there who will disagree with the assessment of the Bill of Rights versus the Declaration of the Rights of Man, that the former indeed offered a statement of universal (and revolutionary) truth to the world. And some rights may not entirely be universal. Regardless, both documents are premised on the notion of the existence of rights that belong to the individual, regardless of gender, status or nationality. The social contract is not even the benefactor of these liberties, but must observe them as being natural and innate.

What are these rights? Right of free speech? Rights to dispose of one's own property and labor? Right to a public, jury trial? What are these inalienable rights that precede all political categories and considerations? And has any nation the right to deny them?

[Part II coming soon]

Say It Loud!

2007-02-13T20:31:00.000-05:00

Notes for Stanley Crouch:

Memory is not genetic.
Repression of people of African descent by people of European descent is not uniquely American.

Now, I'm gonna blast Stan Kenton and Jimmy Guiffre until Stanley can't stand anymore.

[Wik] Better yet, Cecil Taylor!

Noch Einmal (Once More)

2007-02-12T15:22:00.000-05:00

Dixie Chicks--Best Country Album--a political statement? The belles of the dance received the most accolades for an album shunned by country radio, the genre they supposedly represent, and the Country Music Awards. Best country album? Johno will no doubt interject that country music eats its own, fossilizing new talents into legends as quickly as possible and pushing them into the closet, making way for another generation of singers with clean-pressed blue jeans and posturing with capoed guitars.

Well, there's nothing new under the sun, and this year was no exception. For the third year in a row, the Grammy best country album went to artists who did not even receive nominations in the respective categories at the CMA: Loretta Lynn's Van Lear Rose and Alison Kraus' Lonely Runs Both Ways preceded Taking the Long Way. It's easy to focus on the political statement that the Dixie Chicks' album presents, but other trends may be at work. I won't argue the merits of the album (I preferred Chis Thile's How to Grow a Woman From the Ground and Carrie Rodriguez's sassy "Never Gonna Be Your Bride"). But it seems that the larger music industry (which includes country musicians) disagree about what should be considered good country music. Indeed, Taking the Long Way is the most accessibly crossover of the three I've highlighted, perhaps much more in line with country music trends (especially in marketing) than Lynn's alt.country and Kraus' bluegrass.

Shape of Textbooks to Come

2007-02-06T12:21:00.000-05:00

If you don't check out Words without Borders, you are missing some great works in global literature. This month they are offering graphic stories from around the world, this one a biography of the medical education of a German woman during the Kaiserreich.

Imagining the Westphalian World

2007-02-05T17:37:00.000-05:00

The University of Augsburg has put up an interesting collection, Die Augsburger Friedensgemälde — Tradition und Bedeutung im Rahmen der Erinnerungs- und Gedächtniskultur des Westfälischen Friedens (Paintings of the Peace of Augsburg--Tradition and Meaning in the Realm of the Memorial Culture of the Peace of Westphalia), a work that was directed at local school children. Most of the works are allegorical in nature, but they taught recent religious and political history as well. (Click here and work your way down the left-hand window.) These images specifically pertain to the Peace of Augsburg, the city's role in its formation and its importance to order in the German world.

A Picture is worth a thousand politicians

2007-02-02T11:27:00.000-05:00

Pictures as historical actors? L'Événement (The Event), an exhibition at Jeu de Paume (Concorde, Paris), considers the role of photography in reporting historical events--effectively "generating the historical event." Lunettes Rouges looks at the exhibition (it's all in French, sorry).

Paving Paradise

2007-02-02T11:07:00.000-05:00

Get out your maps! The boundaries of Europe have changed yet again! Old nations disappear, new nations appear, conquest shifts the divisions between people (often without shifting the people themselves). This is what makes European history fun: the division of Poland, the Napoleonic conquest of Europe, the Congress of Vienna, Greek indepedence, annexation of Alsace -Lorraine, the break-up of Czechoslovakia.

What earth-shattering event has happened? France and Luxembourg exchanged nine hectares of unused agricultural land so that the latter can put up a parking lot. With strains of Joni Mitchell in my head, I lament the modesty that has overcome the politics of the continent. I guess Chirac's "triple revolution" of environmentalism has started off on the wrong foot.

The Long Nineteenth Century

2007-01-29T11:37:00.000-05:00

Back to teaching: my current course is "The Long Nineteenth Century," essentially an intermediate historiography course for undergraduates. How long was the Long Nineteenth Century? How sexy is a course about the age of prudery? I hope to convince that this era of European history is the perfect vehicle for studying the paradigms and tropes of modernization that can be applied to other places and other eras.

So, to the syllabus. As you can tell, there are four broad themes that we will explore: revolution, social structure, nationalism, anxiety. What I hope to get across is the duality of the spirit of the age: change and progress that turns on itself.

I think I've picked out some interesting readings. After Andrew's recommendation, I've assigned Ernest Gellner's Nations and Nationalism, which works as both an outline of modernization as well as a strawman. We also colluded on the decision to assign Gide's The Immoralist. Michael Gross' The War against Catholicism is my favorite recent work in German history, and I am anxious to share it with students. There are a few chestnuts: how could I teach such a class and not assign something from Peasants into Frenchmen?

Finally, I'll experiment with having students contribute to a blog. It will be for members only, although I am sure there are people out there who'll wonder how well it's going.

Description
This course explores the “Long Nineteenth Century,” an era that began with the French Revolution, ended effectively with World War One, and defined the paradigm of modernity. Rather than offering a straight account of what happened, the course will approach important historical themes that will help students develop their own interests. We will explore the meaning and impact of revolution, the evolution of social structures, conditions and attitudes of women, the nation as a political concept, and the cultural shift from faith in reason and progress to subjectivity and irrationality.

Readings
The following are available for you to purchase at Odyssey Books at the Village Commons.
TCW Blanning, ed., The Nineteenth Century: Europe, 1789-1914
Michael Gross, TheWar against Catholicism
Søren Kierkegård, Fear and Trembling
André Gide, The Immoralist
Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism

Other readings include selections of primary sources, articles and chapters from books. Many of them are available online, either at internet sites or available on JSTOR. All other readings will be made available at the library on short-term reserve, although I will endeavor, when possible, to put them online for you. Each student will come to class prepared, having read everything for that day and with two written questions based on the reading. (Note: readings are set only to February 19. Changes should be anticipated.)

Units
January 29 First day: introduce course, readings, assignments; themes of nineteenth century history; students’ input on tailoring syllabus.

Age of Revolution

January 31 States and Estates
Reading Blanning, p. 1-9
Gellner, p. 8-18

February 5 Enlightenment and the Public Sphere
Reading: Kant, “What is Enlightenment” (online)

February 7 Coming of the French Revolution
Abbé Sieyès, “What is the Third Estate” (online)

February 12 Citizens
Reading: Dorinda Outram, “The Guillotine, the Soul, and the Audience for Death” in The Body and the French Revolution, p. 106-123
Gouges, “Declaration of the Rights of Women” (online)

February 14 World of Revolution
Blanning, 9-33, 158-165
Schurz, “Looking Back at 1848" (online)

February 19 Industrial Revolution
Reading: Blanning, 89-97
Gellner, 19-38
E.P. Thompson, “Time, Work-Discipline and Industrial Capitalism” (JSTOR)

February 21 Romanticism
Readings: ETA Hoffmann, “The Sandman” (online)

February 26 Kierkegaard
Reading: Søren Kierkegård, Fear and Trembling

Modern Society

February 28 Bourgeoisie
Readings: Blanning 47-61

March 5 Private Life
Readings: Marion Kaplan, Making of the Jewish Middle Class (selection TBA)

March 7 Liberalism
Mill, “The Subjection of Women” (selection TBA)
Jurgen Kocka, “The Middle Classes of Europe” (JSTOR)

March 12 Secularism
Reading: Michael Gross, The War against Catholicism
Blanning, 130-140

March 14 Renewed Spirituality and Crisis of Identity
Reading: Michael Gross, The War against Catholicism

March 26 Conservatism
Readings: Blanning, 70-77
Pius X, Syllabus of Errors (online)
Metternich, Political Confessions of Faith (online)

March 28 Workers and Social Politics
Readings: Blanning, p. 61-70, 85-89
Flora Tristan, “The Workers’ Union” (online)
Friedrich Engels, “Principles of Communism” (online)
Leo XIII, “Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor” (online)

April 2 Urbanization
Readings: Carl Schorske, Fin-de-Siècle Vienna (selection TBA)
René Schickele, “City Folk”

Age of Nationalism

April 4 Nationalism
Reading: Mazzini, “On Nationality” (online)
Blanning, 33-46, 104-118, 140-146
Gellner, 38-62

April 9 Nationalization
Readings: Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen (selection TBA)
Gellner 63-88

April 11 Mass Culture
Readings: Michael Miller, The Bon Marché (selection TBA)
Gellner, 88-109

April 16 Imperialism
Readings: Gewald, Herero Heroes (selection TBA)
Rudyard Kipling, “White Man’s Burden” (online)
Blanning, 188-200, 224-32

Age of Aggression

April 18 Avant Garde
Readings: Arthur Rimbaud, A Season in Hell (selection TBA)
Marinetti, “The Futurist Manifesto” (online)
Lenin, “Organization of Workers and Organization of Revolutionaries”, from What is to be done? (online)
Blanning, 152-7

April 23 Misogyny
Reading: Bram Dykstra, Idols of Perversity (selection TBA)

April 25 Sexuality
Reading: André Gide, The Immoralist

April 30 TBA

May 2 Persistence of the Old Regime
Blanning, 200-209, 233-240
Kafka, “Before the Law”
Gellner, 110-136

May 7 End
Blanning, 241-247
Gellner 137-43

Random Notes

2007-01-11T10:08:00.000-05:00

Cliopatria Awards: Rebecca Goetz, Brandon Watson and I served as judges for this year's Cliopatria Awards, honoring the best in history blogging from 2006. We were proud to honor Chris Bray for Best Series and Alan Baumler for Best Writer. Go check out all the winners.

Hillbilly Klezmer: I've divested myself of my old musical identity as a guitarist who played the "scene." Now, I am happily an amateur mandolinist! Fiddle tunes, reels, jigs ... they're all my current bag. Of course, I like the idea of an instrument that can range into other repertoires. Thanks to Joel at Far Outliers, I found this post on the Appalachian roots of the Klezmer revival. Before picking up the instrument, Adam Statman, along with Klezmer Conservatory Band's Jeff Warshauer, were among my favorite mandolinists.

Concerning another oddball instrument, the Hartford Courant profiles the ukulele.

Viennoise: Die Fackel is now online! Published by journalist/satarist Karl Kraus, the periodical is an essential source for Austrian cultural and social history.

Sighted: Topical Portrait Prints 1660-1714 (yep, she's back).

Buyer Beware?

2007-01-09T17:03:00.000-05:00

Annual tuition at Occidental, a private college, is $32,800. That means if you take "The Phallus" and "Blackness" (plus its prerequisite "Whiteness") this year on a four-course-per-semester schedule, you will have set your parents back $12,300.

Set your parents back? Could someone say the same thing for theology?

Trendy courses proliferate, certainly at small, private universities (including mine). Something, though, has been lost in listing "America's Most Bizarre and Politically Correct College Courses." The author of these studies assumes that professors make up these course, that they are a huge waste of time, and contribute nothing to the students' formation. But seeing trends in history, traditional courses (say "France, 1815 to 1945") have been disappearing because of dropping attendance, not faculty choices. On the other hand, professors struggle to come up with appealing courses with zippy titles that attract students. It's worth asking whether the faculty or the student body drives these trends. I would tend to think it's a buyer's market: students get courses that suit their interests more often than professors provide courses they think students need.

At its roots, however, this list is an attempt to devalue cultural studies. There appears to be no attempt to evaluate how the courses further students' knowledge of a discipline or perfect their skills therein.

You too, Moik?

2007-01-08T12:26:00.000-05:00

I just died a little.

Lego Giddens

2006-12-19T12:54:00.000-05:00

With four nights left, you are probably wondering what to get me for Hanukkah. Might I suggest the Anthony Giddens in His Study Lego Set from theory.org.uk?

Go to London! Go to London!

2006-12-10T21:48:00.000-05:00

How Team Alabama could have won the Amazing Race last night: take a flight from Orly to one of London's airports (City, in this case) that evening, then take a taxi to Heathrow. There was a good chance they would have had a twenty minute lead by taking a morning flight. I guess the agent at the airport didn't want to volunteer such information.

(Yes, I was yelling at the TV.)

A Two Map Solution

2006-12-09T20:30:00.000-05:00

Jimmy Carter has received a lot of flack for his book, Palestine: Peace not Apartheid, but the charge of plagiarism seems to be difficult to pin on him. The maps in question certainly look similar, but the problem lies more with the cartographer than with Carter. However, I disagree with Ralph Luker: the National Reviewis not making something out of nothing. Dennis Ross' map reflects the experiences of a diplomat of the Camp David process in 2000 and the ideas that were bandied about. Such a representation is not as obvious as something that showed the topography of the Holy Land--the River Jordan, Dead Sea, etc.--or stable political boundaries.

I let other people gripe about it. What I find interesting is that, if Carter's map copies Ross' map, they are two maps, and the differences are telling. The Ross map shows more area; the Carter map focuses in on one area. The former represents what a solution to the Israel-Palestine question might look like, and how it might be achieved. The latter shows one state being encroached upon, its territory being eaten away. The titles tell two different stories: "Map Reflecting Clinton Ideas" versus "Israeli Interpretation of Clinton's Proposal." One envisions a future for two nations; the other shows the same plan as the unilateral desires of one nation.

Jonah Goldberg, in his review, suggests that Carter wishes to discredit Clinton's diplomacy in 2000. The Carter map (if it is plagiarized) cast doubt on what Clinton might have achieved.

Recalibration

2006-12-08T18:01:00.000-05:00

John Russell, who has been tracking history resources and blogging about matters related to history librarianship, is moving on to the University of Oregon. I'm sure this is an exciting opportunity for him, and I wish him the best of luck. But that also means other changes, namely he must give up his university-sponsored blogs. So go check him out at his new home, History News.

(Another Wordpress blog, how much longer will I resist?)

The Jelly Doughnut Test

2006-12-08T08:44:00.000-05:00

Thinking about the trend to push the origins of national identities further into the past, I think that historians should employ the jelly doughnut* test: national indentities should be mutually intelligible and communicable. Not being enough to feel one way or another (feelings can be deceptive), potential co-nationals ought to share a political vocabulary and collective memory, at least rudiments thereof, but more importantly, the willingness to see each other as members of the same nation. In many cases, nationality is negotiation rather than self-identification.

* Based on John F. Kennedy's statement "Ich bin ein Berliner," which some Germans mistook allegedly for "I am a jelly doughnut."

Digging in the Dirt

2006-12-08T08:28:00.001-05:00

It's worth checking Die Welt on a regular basis: their plumming through the files of the Stasi, divulging what the East German government thought about prominent West Germans. Günter Grass may have been seen as an enemy of the state, albeit boring, but Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt's visit particularly worried the secret police: thousands swarmed around him, chanting "Willy! Willy!"

Le Goff: France, Origins and Present

2006-12-07T20:40:00.000-05:00

Le Figaro interviews Jacques Le Goff. Mostly he talks about his book, La libération d'Orléans (The Liberation of Orleans), and La fin de la France anglaise (The End of English France) by Régine Pernoud, with which he describes the Siege of Orleans as a site of memory comparable to Verdun. He also discusses legacy of the Annales and the state of history in contemporary politics. It's well worth reading.

The larger question of his work is interesting: what are the origins of French nationalism. Current trends seem to push the birth of "national identities" further into the past. However, they leave many questions unanswered: how was the image of nation and nationality shaped? was it shared? was it singular? to what extent did it circulate? who was exluded? were other identities excluded? Any of these identities are, in my opinion, only prototypes. Some form of mass communication and literacy would have been necessary for them to have currency.

Focusing on Orleans, Le Goff puts an intereting twist on these excavations of nationalism

The lesson of the siege was that G-d helped the French liberate Orleans. It had thus demonstrated that Christians, in the past divided into monarchies, were now more and more considered as nations. And the nations ought to respect one another. It was not a question of making the English disappear. It was a question of preventing the English from taking from the French what G-d gave them. Thus, Orleans corresponds effectively to an important moment in the constitution of nations.

Awareness of cultural differences may be implied, but what is interesting is the shift from identification with elites to the sense of a common heritage, one not necessarily predicated on culture. Perhaps he is even suggesting awareness of nation as a common work of the people, its defense necessary for its maintenance.

The other interesting point concerns the absense of historical consciousness in French and European politics. The recent memory wars have, of course, been divisive. With respect to Europe, the critique is particularly salient. It seems that the people who consider the EU's relations to the past several centuries are in academia, not forming its policy.

... what appears to me to be a regression of history is that its place is becoming more and more marginal in the education and culture of men and women in politics. How can you govern France without accounting for its past? ... I also deplore that the historical dimension is little present in the construction of Europe. History is necessary to give a soul and a foundation to politics.

For the full text of the interview, untranslated, click here.

À l'occasion de la réédition de «La libération d'Orléans», de Régine Pernoud, le grand médiéviste s'interroge sur la naissance du sentiment national et sur ce que la connaissance historique peut apporter à la politique.

LE FIGARO LITTÉRAIRE. - Dans votre postface au livre de Régine Pernoud, intitulé « La fin de la France anglaise », vous affirmez que la libération d'Orléans, en 1429, serait un des premiers « hauts lieux de notre mémoire nationale ». Vous allez jusqu'à le comparer à Verdun. Pourquoi ?

Jacques LE GOFF. - Aux yeux des historiens militaires, le siège d'Orléans apparaît comme une péripétie de la guerre de Cent Ans, si on le compare aux grandes batailles rangées, toutes d'ailleurs perdues par les Français (Crécy, Poitiers, Azincourt). Mais il a joué un rôle essentiel dans l'histoire des mentalités. Régine Pernoud l'avait perçu dans son livre. J'ai voulu insister sur sa signification. Ce siège marque la première victoire française, et une victoire à laquelle les contemporains ont donné une grande importance. Il existe une représentation théâtrale, un « mystère » comme on disait au Moyen Âge, contemporain de l'événement, puisqu'il a été composé et joué entre la mort de Jeanne d'Arc, en 1431, et le procès de Gilles de Rais, en 1440, qui le montre très bien. Il faut se rappeler qu'en 1429 la France est coupée en deux : tout le nord de la France est devenu anglais, ou mieux, anglo-bourguignon, bien qu'il n'y ait pas eu annexion, car le roi Henri VI continue à se proclamer roi d'Angleterre et de France. Au sud de la Loire, à l'exception de l'ouest, l'essentiel des habitants reconnaissent comme roi le fils du défunt Charles VI, celui que les Anglais appellent le dauphin Charles (le futur Charles VII). Les Anglais et les Français ont le même objectif : conquérir ou reconquérir la France entière. Étant donné sa situation sur la Loire, Orléans est la clé de la possession du royaume tout entier. À la fin de l'année 1428, les Anglais croient qu'en prenant la ville ils gagneront la « guerre de Cent Ans ». Les Français prennent la chose à leur compte. Ils se persuadent que, s'ils conservent Orléans, ils gagneront la guerre, et que ce ne sera plus ensuite qu'une question de temps pour reconquérir le reste de la France. Ce siège est donc bien l'événement clé du conflit séculaire entre les deux pays.

Après les terribles défaites françaises, on se demande comment la monarchie pouvait encore tenir debout en 1429 ?

Le monde du Moyen Âge a beaucoup plus de ressources qu'on ne l'imaginait à l'époque où on le considérait comme une période noire. N'oublions pas que les Européens, notamment les Français, ont connu d'autres épreuves, notamment les croisades. Ils ont su les surpasser. Certes, après la défaite de Poitiers, la monarchie est fragilisée, car le roi est emprisonné en Angleterre, où il mourra. Comme, dans les siècles précédents, c'est la monarchie qui a fait la France, cette défaite aurait pu être fatale au pays. Or, grâce à Charles V, le prestige de la monarchie s'est maintenu et, lorsque son fils, Charles VI, s'avère fou, on ne songe pas à le renverser, contrairement à ce qui se serait passé en Angleterre. En réalité, les grandes défaites de la guerre de Cent Ans ont surtout affaibli la noblesse. À Azincourt, des lignages entiers ont été décimés. La rumeur publique, qui fait au XIVe siècle son intrusion dans l'histoire, rend les nobles responsables de ces désastres.

À quoi tient la force de la monarchie française de cette époque ?

La monarchie compte, parmi ses forces, la continuité dynastique, les conseils et assemblées, et les légistes. En outre, le roi de France est sacré à Reims. On n'a pas assez insisté sur l'importance de cette transformation du baptême de Clovis en sacre.

Quel fut le rôle de Jeanne d'Arc dans la victoire d'Orléans ?

Régine Pernoud est partie de l'idée que la libération d'Orléans révèle Jeanne d'Arc. Celle-ci joue un rôle encore plus important, en raison de la mentalité de l'époque, selon laquelle la victoire de l'un ou l'autre camp à Orléans sera un jugement de Dieu. Il s'agit pour les Français d'annuler le jugement de Dieu d'Azincourt par une victoire qui signifierait le pardon de Dieu. Celui-ci se manifeste à Orléans de deux façons. Dès le début du siège, le chef des Anglais est tué par hasard d'un coup de canon. N'est-ce pas la preuve d'une intervention divine ? D'autre part, Jeanne d'Arc joue dans la libération d'Orléans ce rôle d'intervention divine. Cette jeune paysanne est allée trouver voilà quelques mois le dauphin à Chinon. L'importance historique de cette rencontre est capitale. Que s'est-il dit ? Nous ne le savons pas. Mais la conjecture la plus vraisemblable, c'est que Jeanne a convaincu Charles qu'il était fils légitime de Charles VI et qu'elle était envoyée par Dieu.

Est-ce une singularité française de regarder certaines femmes comme des « sauveurs » ? Y a-t-il eu des personnages semblables à Jeanne du côté anglais ?

Les Anglais ont certainement vu un signe de Dieu dans leurs victoires militaires. À propos d'Azincourt, Shakespeare fait dire à Henry V qu'il y voit l'action de Dieu. Mais, soit parce que cela ne s'est pas présenté, soit parce qu'ils n'ont pas eu assez d'imagination, les Anglais n'ont pas trouvé de personnage aussi spectaculaire et aussi frappant que la « pucelle d'Orléans ». Ils n'ont pas eu d'envoyé de Dieu. Jeanne appartient à l'imaginaire français.

C'est intéressant. Peut-on aller jusqu'à dire que le légendaire pragmatisme des Anglais s'est, sur ce point, retourné contre eux ?

On peut peut-être avancer prudemment cette hypothèse.

Cette libération d'Orléans aura été en tout cas un moment décisif dans la constitution de la nation française.

C'est une évidence. La leçon du siège, c'est que Dieu a fait libérer Orléans par les Français. Il a ainsi montré que les chrétiens, jadis répartis en monarchies, sont maintenant de plus en plus considérés comme des nations. Et les nations doivent se respecter l'une l'autre. Il ne s'agit pas de faire disparaître les Anglais. Il s'agit d'empêcher les Anglais de prendre aux Français ce que Dieu leur a donné. Ainsi, Orléans correspond en effet à un moment important dans la constitution des nations. La reprise ultérieure de Paris est importante, mais elle l'est moins symboliquement car elle intervient à un moment où la victoire française est désormais prévisible. Alors qu'à Orléans, on ne sait pas encore ce qui peut se passer.

À propos du mystère d'Orléans, vous écrivez que « de nos jours, il est rare qu'un événement donne lieu dans la foulée à une oeuvre littéraire : nous avons besoin d'un certain répit ». Ne sommes-nous pas au contraire envahis d'histoire immédiate plus ou moins littéraire ?

Mais il y a peu, me semble-t-il, d'oeuvre immédiate qui apporte de véritables lumières. Il y a un certain nombre d'années, Jean Lacouture a créé l'expression : « l'histoire immédiate ». Mais, par les médias, nous vivons cette immédiateté ; nous avons donc besoin, pour écrire une histoire plus profonde, de prendre de la distance. La surinformation nécessite de laisser s'écouler du temps. Prenez le fameux roman Les Bienveillantes de Littell. Ne représente-t-il pas, par rapport aux camps nazis, un ouvrage de la nature du mystère d'Orléans ? Mais la chronologie se renverse. Au XVe siècle, ce qui confère une valeur particulière au mystère, c'est qu'il a été conçu et représenté très peu après l'événement. Au contraire, l'attrait d'un Littell tient à ce qu'il écrit loin de l'événement. Car il faut de la décantation.

Ne tient-il pas aussi à un intérêt obscur pour le Mal, pour les passions les plus sombres ?

Le retour des passions est un grand trait de l'histoire. On est allé par exemple rechercher les croisades pour expliquer les événements du Moyen-Orient. Bush s'est présenté comme un des croisés de l'Occident, et les Arabes ont regardé les croisés comme les premiers signes de la méchanceté anti-islamique de l'Occident. Je l'avais pressenti. On m'a beaucoup reproché d'avoir été un des premiers médiévistes à avoir dit du mal des croisades. Mais c'est maintenant qu'on en mesure l'impact négatif.

Cela nous ramène à la « longue durée » chère à Fernand Braudel. André Burguière vient de publier une Histoire intellectuelle des Annales. Où en est selon vous cette « nouvelle histoire » ? N'est-elle pas en panne ?

Je suis assez mal placé pour vous répondre puisque les réunions du comité des Annales ont souvent lieu chez moi. Mais je ne vois pas de déclin des Annales. N'a-t-on pas exagéré, voire inventé, la crise de l'histoire ? La vivacité de l'histoire continue dans sa production. Je ne vois ni retour en arrière ni tarissement. Certes, c'est un peu banal de le dire, la nouveauté ne dure pas toujours. Pour autant, « l'histoire continue », comme disait Georges Duby.

Elle n'a plus la place qu'elle occupait ?

Il est vrai qu'elle n'est plus à la première page des journaux comme elle l'a été jadis. Mais notez bien que sa place dans l'intérêt des médias ne s'est pas modifiée parce que l'histoire déclinerait ou qu'elle cesserait d'intéresser les lecteurs. En revanche, ce qui m'apparaît comme une véritable régression de l'histoire, c'est que sa place est de plus en plus marginale dans la formation et la culture des hommes et des femmes politiques. Comment gouverner la France en tenant aussi peu compte de son passé ? J'en profite pour souligner l'excellent livre posthume d'Yves Renouard (1908-1965) sur les caractères généraux de la France (1). Je déplore aussi que la dimension historique soit si peu présente dans la construction de l'Europe. L'histoire est nécessaire pour donner une âme et une assise à la politique.

Speak the Language

2006-12-03T11:05:00.000-05:00

Reacting to a proposal to make Nashville "English only," CM Edwards takes the logic a step further: why should it not apply to those outsiders who just come to buy country homes and impose their values on the good people of Tennessee:

Let's look at this from the other end of the spectrum. What about all the D.C. commuters who are taking over the eastern panhandle 'cause they want to work and spend all their money in the city, but live in the country? What about Terrapin Run in western Maryland and Michael Carnock's attempt to turn beautiful Appalachian country into a suburb for commuters? And what about all those people from places like New York City and California who have so much money on their hands they feel the need to buy summer homes in the Appalachian region to get away from whatever hectic area of the country where they reside for a couple weeks out of the year. We don't have much in common with these folks; which is fine. But what makes them so much more special than some hard-workin' folks from south of the Rio Grande?

Perhaps Appalachia should require all outlanders including those from New England, New Jersey, and out west to speak our language before they move or buy a home here. Therefore, I propose that they take a written exam proving that they've taken the time to learn our language before they come here- just like some assholes want to do to Latin American people and other immigrants; otherwise they should either stay where they are or take a two year Hillbillianish course to correct the problem. I mean why should we be burdened with produce clerks who pull out some piece of exotic fruit when we ask for a mango or tolerate being asked for a stocking cap?

So here it is--Appalachian Greens' language test for prospective residents:

1) Is the word "creek" pronounced "creek" or "crik"?
2) A "mess" equals how much of something, as in a "mess of beans"?
3) To "take a gander" at something is to do what?
4) A soft drink is called: a) a soda or b) a pop
5) To be "a skeered" of something is to what?
6) Define a mango.
7) Define a poke.
8) Where is "over yonder"?
9) What condition is "fair to midland"?
10) To worsh is to what?
11) To reckon is to what?
12) Youins equals how many people?
13) "Around these parts" means where?
14) If something is "smack dab", where is it?
15) A toboggan is a what?
16) What does it mean to not "rightly know" something?
17) Define outcheer?
18) How much is "a mite"?
19) How long is "a spell" as in "stay for a spell"?
20) If you are "nekked", you missing what?

Answers here.

Church of Corbusier

2006-12-01T10:55:00.000-05:00

Saint-Pierre, Corbusier's dream church, was finally built in Ferminy. Interestingly, it is already being treated as an historic, cultural site before its use has been allowed to emerge.

Grizzly Man Ecology

2006-11-29T09:30:00.000-05:00

Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man certainly left an impression on me. Timothy Treadwell's passion for grizzly bears (and a pretty-fly-for-a-white-guy desire to live like them) unfolded into an blinding innocence about the distance that man has evolved from animals, leading to his ultimate, bloody death (and his companion's). Herzog, not content to focus just on Treadwell's character, implies a difficult question: to what extent does humanity delude itself that it can peacefully coexist with nature?

In subsequent interviews, Treadwell's colleagues rejected Herzog's portrayal of the delusional man, emphasizing his expertise, experience, and ultimately the results he achieved protecting grizzly bears. Of course, these colleagues seem apologetic, salvaging what they can of Treadwell's work and reputation. Their conservationism seems to be as destructive and confrontational as their poachers they try to stave off.

This film came to mind as Brdgt has tried to convince me of the importance of risk in urban history. True, I would not equate Treadwell's environmental instincts with urban planning or think that his follies discredit environmentalism's attention to urban issues. But her comments have me questioning my own belief that "humanity has a history of dialogue with the environment": that it is impossible to see the landscape without the human hand. Rather than rushing toward the disaster, urban life involves constant, tedious balancing that is seldom stable. I'm not as concerned that Mike Davis' hot tubbing bears are evidence of man's crossing the line than Treadwell.

I guess my concern is how risk emphasizes certain aspects of the urban experience above others. Has the intimacy and rapidity of interactions brought by urban life been, well, worth the risk? Is human population density in itself problematic, even fundamentally unnatural? And do disasters fit in as speed bumps in the urban experience, or are they washed away in the tide of rebuilding?

If I have answers in the future, I'm sure I'll have more questions as well.

City and Country (Current Version)

2006-11-28T10:51:00.000-05:00

Thanks to everyone who made suggestion about my proposed syllabus. I found them all helpful. Yes, Nature's Metropolis made it in (with three recommendations, how could I resist?). However, I have to thank Alan Baumler for mentioning Pommeranz--it was a book that I had read and enjoyed years ago.

Anyway, here is how the readings stand now. I added sections relevant to migration and urban interaction. I expect to make changes in the future, and will keep an updated syllabus somewhere on the sidebar.

The City from Tradition to Modernity

Mark Mazower, Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews, 1430-1950
Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City
Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (film)

Fate of the Village

Kenneth Pommeranz, The Making of a Hinterland: State, Society and Economy in Inland North China, 1852-1937
Jean Giono, Harvest (aka Second Harvest)
Marc Bloch, French Rural Society
Raymond Williams, The Country and the City

Taking Control of Nature

Charles Mann, 1491: New Revelations about the Americas before Columbus
David Blackbourn, The Conquest of Nature: Water, Landscape and the Making of Modern Germany
Jared Orsi, Hazardous Metropolis: Flooding and Urban Ecology in Los Angeles

Theories of Space

Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space
Paul Virilio, Negative Horizon
Paul Rabinow, French Modern: Norms and Forms of Social Environment

Landscapes

Ann Whitson Spirn, The Language of Landscape
Renzo Dubbini, Geography of the Gaze
Denis Cosgrove, Social Transformation and the Symbolic Landscape

Urbanization

William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West
Jan De Vries, European Urbanization
Jane Jacobs, Cities and the Wealth of Nations: Principles of Economic Life
Shri 420 (film)

Environmentalism

J.R. McNeill, Something New under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth Century World
Martin Rudwick, Bursting the Limits of Time: Reconstruction of Geohistory in the Age of Revolution

Borders and Border Crossings

Leslie Page Moch, Moving Europeans: Migration in Western Europe since 1650
Emile Zola, La Bête Humaine
Paula Robert, La Gran Línea: Mapping the United States-Mexico Boundary, 1849-1857
Robert Davidson, “Spaces of Immigration ‘Prevention’: Interdiction and the Non-Place”, Diacritics (2003)

Industry and Environment

Marc Cioc,

The Rhine: An Eco-Biography, 1815-2000

Joel Tarr, The Search for the Ultimate Sink: Urban Pollution in Historical Perspective
George Orwell, Road to Wiggan Pier

Preservation and Conservation

Maiken Umbach and Bernd Huppauf, Vernacular Modernism: Heimat, Globalization and the Built Environment
Michael J. Lewis, The Politics of the German Gothic Revival
Gregg Mitman, The State of Nature

Memory and Place

Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul
George Mosse, Fallen Soldiers
Sunil Kumar, The Present in Delhi’s Pasts

Transacted Space

Doreen Massey, Space, Place and Gender
David Harvey, The Urbanization of Capital
Matt Houlbrook, Queer London: Perils and Pleasures in the Sexual Metropolis, 1918–1957

Space and the European Union

Andreas Faludi, Making the European Spatial Development Perspective
Secondary Reading: none

City and Country: Modern Spatial History

2006-11-24T18:59:00.000-05:00

Alas! I'm spending too much time away from this blog. Baby, applications, and the albatross (Diss) take up too much of my time. Needless to say, this state of affairs won't last forever.

Yet I need help. I've been trying to design a course, either advanced undergraduate or graduate, that integrates various aspects of, what I would call, spatial history: urban history, social history, rural history, environmental history, etc. This project, while it has got me thinking about how these topics work together, it has made me aware of deficiencies in my reading.

Anyway, this is how the units are set up so far:

Part I: Milieu The City from Tradition to Modernity
Primary reading: Mark Mazower, Salonica, City of Ghosts
Secondary reading: Edwin Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham

Fate of the Village
Primary reading: John Merriman, Stones of Balazuc?
Secondary reading: Marc Bloch, French Rural History?

Taking Control of Nature
Primary Reading: Charles Mann,
Secondary Reading: David Blackbourn, The Conquest of Nature

Part II: Theories
Theories of Space
Primary Reading: Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space
Secondary Reading: Paul Virilio, Negative Horizon

Landscapes
Primary Reading: Ann Whitson Spirn, The Language of Landscape
Secondary Reading: Renzo Dubbini, Geography of the Gaze

Urbanization
Primary Reading: ?
Secondary Readin: Jan De Vries, European Urbanization

Environmentalism
Primary Reading: J.R. McNeill, Something New under the Sun
Secondary Reading: Jeffry Diefendorf and Kurk Dorsey, eds., City, Country, Empire?

Part III: Themes
Geography of the Imagination
Primary Reading: Aaron Sachs, The Humboldt Current
Secondary Reading: Martin Rudwick, Bursting the Limits of Time

Industry and Environment
Primary Reading: Marc Cioc, The Rhine: An Eco-Biography, 1815-2000
Secondary Reading: ?

Preservation and Conservation
Primary Reading: Maiken Umbach and Bernd Huppauf, Vernacular Modernism
Secondary Reading: Rudy Koshar, Germany’s Transient Pasts ?

Memory and Place
Primary Reading: Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul
Secondary Reading: Michael J. Lewis, The Politics of the German Gothic Revival

Green Politics
Secondary Reading: Gregg Mitman, The State of Nature
Secondary Reading: ?

Space and the European Union
Primary Reading: Andreas Faludi, Making the European Spatial Development Perspective
Secondary Reading: None

German, all too German! I'm disappointed that these readings seem to apply mostly to Germany, France to a lesser extent. Moreover, there are several holes that I cannot fill in the way I like. Anyway, I'd appreciate any feedback anyone might have with regard to the readings or the structure. Thanks!

That's what I've been saying

2006-11-19T09:25:00.000-05:00

Thank you! There are other, more charitable, more socially aware sides to religious people.

Consider that the Catholic Bishops, who have, from my perspective, unfortunately concentrated their energies on the issues of abortion and same-sex marriage, have also engaged in eloquent criticism of American actions in the Iraq War, and the National Conference of Catholic Bishops is among the most important groups that still support the idea of a vigorous welfare state. One could obviously present other examples, including the attempts of Jim Wallis and others to present a more politically progressive version of Evangelical politics.

This is not a question of learning to talk about "values" or professing one's own religiosity. I remain a thoroughly secular Jew, with the operative word, when all is said and done, being the adjective. Rather, it is how "we" who have no religious "faith" manifest our respect for and make alliances with those who do have very deep religious commitments and are, as with King, quite literally willing to put their lives on the line in behalf of the most fundamental values of instantiating "equal concern and respect" even for those who pick up our garbage. (Jesse Jackson, who is too often derided, is surely the most eloquent speaker in the country today in behalf of King's late-60's commitment to what he called the "Poor People's Campaign" (which, of course, utterly failed, and not only because he was assassinated).)

For a History of the Use of Religion

2006-11-17T09:15:00.000-05:00

rousAt Spinning Clio, Marc, writing about Michael Novak, distinguishes between the religiosity and spirituality of the sogennant Founding Fathers:

I do think things have a gone a bit too far in proclaiming that the Founders weren't really, you know, that religious and, by extension, they'd be somehow against referring to God in public. Historians have learned to contemporize their subjects in so many other areas of historical research. Yet, it seems to me that there is a deficit of contemporization with regards to how important religion was in both the daily life and the philosophy of the Founders.

Now, I'm not going to discuss the merits of Novak's arguments about their attachment to Judaism as portrayed in the Old Testament (I don't believe there is much Judeo- in the Judeo-Christian Tradition). Nonetheless, Marc points out a problem about the way religion is presented in historical discourse that is not limited to the founding of the United States. Inordinate attention is paid to the doctrines and orthodoxies of faith without examining the importance of faith and its use in daily life. This is especially true in the teaching of religion in the past, and I am afraid that students believe that almost all past societies are dominated by fervent spirituality. Moreover, they become convinced that the political application of religion leads necessarily to intolerance (something I complained about last month).

Yet the application of religion is of utmost importance. Even in the Nineteenth Century, when religion supposably declined in the midst of faith in progress, religion grew in astounding ways. As Owen Chadwick pointed out (The Secularization of the European Mind in the Nineteenth Century), religion persisted despite the effectiveness of anticlerical rhetoric on faith. Surely faith lost its intimacy, but religion practice remained (perhaps even strengthened) as it became seen for its potential for moral education.

Indeed, for an age known for rationality, there were many mystics and pilgrims. This was especially true for Catholicism, which experienced a revival even though its position vis-a-vis the state progressively weakened. Suddenly it was free to concentrate on the faithful, and in some ways, to be led by them, as in the popular sentiment that grew around Bernadette ~~Subaru~~ Soubirous.

But if there is one trend that shows the change in the use of faith, it would be how religion was transformed into identity. Perhaps the best work of history I read this year, is Michael Gross' The War against Catholicism: Liberalism and Anti-Catholic Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Germany. He writes evocatively about the Catholic revival missions and the propaganda used to raise the alarm about the Jesuit presence in Germany. Protestantism, interestingly, became a foil for Liberals' campaign against Catholicism, casting the visibility of Catholics as a threat to the nation and its dominant religion.

Can religion influence the public mind in the absence of spirituality? I think it can, and does.

The Way Out

2006-11-12T12:01:00.000-05:00

HW Brands on how the money question and the founding of the Federal Reserve hold the answer to compromise on Medicare and Social Security:

The act established the Federal Reserve system, which represented a compromise between the private sector and the public sector — between the demands of the bankers and holdover Hamiltonians for capitalist control of the money system, and of the Populists, Progressives and remnant Jeffersonians for democratic control. The dozen Federal Reserve banks were privately capitalized but were directed by a board of governors appointed by the White House. Otherwise, the Federal Reserve system was designed to be institutionally independent of both the business and the political classes. ...

The secret of the Federal Reserve Act — and of the subsequent success of the Fed — was the willingness, born of exhaustion, of the two opposing camps to turn the money question over to a partly capitalist, partly democratic agency — and thereafter to keep their hands off. It's a model that works and that might be applied to other vexing problems. The healthcare and pension questions, for example, have defied solution in much the way the money question did during the 19th century. On healthcare and pensions, both the private and public sectors have strong interests in the outcome — so strong as to prevent, thus far, any outcome besides a muddled extension of the status quo.

Reviewing the compromise that produced the Federal Reserve, modern reformers might well find the key to similarly happy, or at any rate acceptable, solutions. Details, naturally, would have to reflect the distinctive facets of healthcare and pensions, but the principle of a public-private compromise, followed by insulation from both the political and corporate spheres, would allow decisions to be made that can't be made in the current setting.

Whether the resulting agencies would achieve the success of the Fed is something only time would reveal. But, at the least, Ben Bernanke would have company. [Emphasis mine]

I think the key, unfortunately, is exhaustion, and I don't think either side will stop, even if a part-private, part-public solution is found.

The Shifting Winds

2006-11-09T18:45:00.000-05:00

The U.S. may yet get on the right side of international justice:

To Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), ranking member of the Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee, the verdict is already in. "The ICC has refuted its critics, who confidently and wrongly predicted that it would be politicized and manipulated by our enemies to prosecute U.S. soldiers," he said recently.

So, the International Court has not been used to randomly prosecute soldiers, you say?

Again with the Urban Strategy?

2006-11-09T09:19:00.000-05:00

Remember this map. It's the results of the 2004 presidential vote, by county. It looked so red, with thin veins of blue only at the margins. At the time I wrote:

The counties map might tell of dwindling influence, but it also shows a clear advantage. Those blue spots produced almost as many votes as all that red. They are cities and their regions. It might be useful for the Democratic Party to concentrate on its urban politics (economic development, safety and policing, anti-terrorism) as a means of attacking many places at once. Furthermore, they should not limit planning to the cities themselves, but to their suburbs as well. Get people to realize that they have a stake in the health of their nearby metropolis.

USA Today has another county-by-county map for Tuesday's results. It's bluer than 2004, as if all the Democratic areas had jumped their banks and inundated the surrounding areas. But these are the House results, which, if you click over to the 2004 county-by-county House results, look similar (again, bluer). DNC gains occurred in areas adjacent to other Democrat leaners. I still think that Democrats might build their support by convincing voters of their stake in municipal-regional development.

What I didn't appreciate at the time is that big swath of blue along the Canadian border. Sure, Minnesota and Wisconsin looked blue, but not North Dakota and South Dakota. Of course, I am comparing 2004 Presidential results to 2006 House results, which is a jump. And I'm sure someone will have an explanation that will seemingly negate its importance (maybe the counties are sparsely populated with Native American majorities). Nonetheless, it shows that Democrats have some appeal in rural areas.

In North Dakota, the Democratic senator and representative were both long-time incumbents, and they were probably going nowhere, but Democrats made gains in state elections, reversing recent trends to the right. Similar small gains were made in South Dakota state offices; commentators disagree whether mood drove voters at the polls, or a little Rovian strategy helped. Whichever is true, there is reason to believe that Democrats can reestablish themselves in rural America.

The Deficit

2006-11-08T12:41:00.000-05:00

Last night ... so much different than two years ago, especially the mood swing that occurred from when I left New Hampshire as as poll watcher (yes, I had the power to challenge votes! but I didn't) to when I had a headache at 1 am. I like the idea of a legislature that involves itself in matters of oversight and administration than 'big projects.'

Anyway, Brandon has some interest reflections on what votes really mean--that is, the reality beneath the euphemisms that pundits and commentators pile on top of them.

Points 2, 3, and 8 are particularly interesting because they reflect to the extent that an election is the "voice of the people" (as is point 7, as it connects voting to the psychology of mass politics). Elections are, at best, an attempt at collective agreement among voters that, in the end, is never an expression of the full electorate. On the one hand, choices are not what the people want, but what is made available to them. They cannot pick z when only options x and y are put on the table, as Brandon points out.

On the other, the selection of x over y does not indicate that the entire electorate choice x. Voters for y, in this sense, do not contribute to the collective decision that has been made, and their votes are not counted among the "voices of the people," no matter how small their numbers.

Pierre Rosanvallon, a French political scientist, refers to this as the deficit of representation (or democratic deficit), a problem that arose with the transition from monarchy to parliamentary democracy. Despite equating the nation with the people (as Siéyès did), voting systems and legislative bodies could never become identical to the nation. Despite every measure to fold the minority back into the governing process, majorities excluded largswatheshs of the population. Moreover, the inability to identify the two led to increasing politicization and partisanship: counter-democratic institutions to create a majority by driving a smaller section of the electorate. Rosanvallon's view is not all doom and gloom: democracy may be "unachieveded," but the counter-democratic institutions do not overturn democracy.

The "voices of the people" are diverse, multivalent, personal, and complicated. Speaking of the vote in the singular ascribes motives to those who did not see their desires met, regardless of how they were formulated.

Taping the Disaster

2006-11-06T15:23:00.000-05:00

Excellent post at Global Voices Online: Former Yugoslavia: Can video play a part in truth, justice and reconciliation?

2006-11-03T10:22:00.000-05:00

I wanna job
I wanna job
I wanna good job
I wanna job
I wanna job that pays
I wanna job
I wanna good job
I wanna job
One that satisfies
My artistic needs

Job searches--so much like Sid & Nancy.

Fun on the Internets with the Google

2006-10-30T12:46:00.000-05:00

President Bush is making surprising progress leaving his mark on the lexicon of digital communication, laughter notwithstanding. But perhaps his usage of "the Google" isn't ignorance, but actually reflects his websurfing in foreign languages (which don't tolerate the absence of an article as well as English)? After all, in Portuguese he would use "o Google." Perhaps he reads Rua da Judiaria!

(So far, I have found a few references to le Google (French), el Google (Spanish), Der Google (German), and one to Googlen (Danish). De Google (Dutch) reference only Bush's usage. Interestingly, in languages with the choice between gendered and neutral articles, Google is masculine (or common in Danish and Dutch).)

Browning Appalachia

2006-10-29T11:04:00.001-05:00

... by which I mean that Mexicans, and other Latin Americans, some of them illegal, are becoming the new face of Appalachia. Kim Cobb has been writing articles for the Houston Chronicle about the influx of Hispanic immigrants to Morristown, Tennessee (here , here. here , here). Rather than being a cause of social instability, as critics claim, the immigrants are propping up what was once a dying region of the country. Moreover, they raise questions about the nature of the so-called problem of illegal immigration and "broken borders": are they not overwhelmingly about culture and ethnicity rather than law and crime? And can rural America survive without them?

Hamblen County's resident Latino population jumped from a few hundred to as many as 10,000 in the past decade, and the Pew Hispanic Center estimates that more than half the immigrants arriving in southeastern communities are illegal. Cumberland Avenue on the town's south side has been transformed into a commercial strip dominated by Latino restaurants, specialty stores and used-car lots.

"I mean, right here, where our church is, is Little Mexico," said the Rev. William Burton of Iglesia Bautista La Gran Comision, or The Great Commission Baptist Church.

The pastor is an exuberant, round-faced white man who speaks the Spanish he learned as a missionary in Venezuela with a decidedly Tennessee accent. His congregation began as a Bible study group at another Southern Baptist church. The study group grew, and Burton eventually began offering an early service on Sunday mornings in Spanish.

But, the young minister said, his devotion to the newcomers created resentment among some of the church's established members. It was never put into words, but Burton felt the challenge to choose "between us and them."

"Of course, my heart was with 'them,' " he said.

Burton quit and took his new flock with him. Six years down the road, La Gran Comision is flourishing in a salmon-colored stucco building that used to be a grocery store. ...

Morristown does not fit the Appalachian stereotype of quaint villages and hillbilly shacks.

It's a factory town with the usual Ameri-bland assortment of burger joints, drugstores, a Wal-Mart. For generations, the spectacular mountain greenery visible from the highest points in town was a wall between Morristown and change.

But change has come. Now, when residents say they don't like to travel the area along South Cumberland Avenue after dark, they mean they fear the newest arrivals who frequent the Latino businesses there.

That fear may be overblown. Roger Overholt, the chief of police, said the crime rate among Latinos is not much different from that of their neighbors. Cases of public intoxication and cars being abandoned after accidents increased with the arrival of Latinos, he said. But an education campaign about American law reduced the problem.

Morristown averages one homicide a year. There were five in 2002, which Overholt called "probably our worst year." None involved Latinos killing whites.

Still, the perception of danger is strong. ...

The khaki-clad state troopers hup-hupped into formation on opposite sides of the courthouse lawn, wearing riot gear and clutching batons.

About 100 state and local officers stood on the square this summer, some carrying M-16 rifles. They were more than a match for an equal number of mostly middle-aged locals arriving for the anti-illegal immigration rally.

It was one of the most confounding spectacles this little town of 25,000 had ever seen.

The only way to step on the lawn between the rows of troopers was through a security checkpoint, surrendering anything that looked like it could be used as a weapon. Ted Mitchell and his flag never made it in.

"It's an American flag!" Mitchell sputtered.

You can bring the flag into the rally, a police officer explained, but you have to leave your flag pole.

Mitchell's face got redder. His yelling got louder. In an instant the 62-year-old man was scuffling with the police. They pushed him to the ground, cuffed him and carted him off in a police car.

By the time lame-duck County Commissioner Tom Lowe was ready to start the rally, the police helicopter overhead was so loud that even people standing a few feet away couldn't hear him.

"They brought in all this overwhelming force like there was going to be some kind of violence," Lowe shouted over the din. "I understand this to be a violation of my constitutional rights!"

What would make a little town like this prepare for battle on the courthouse lawn?

Local police officials said they had gathered information that members of the Ku Klux Klan, a familiar presence in East Tennessee, might show up and force a confrontation. People identified as Klan members had attended previous anti-immigrant rallies in the Morristown area.

Beyond Vichy Galactica

2006-10-21T08:32:00.000-05:00

Vive l'humanité! The Cylon occupation of New Caprica is over, and the Vichy government of Giaus Baltar has fallen. Now, we can forget historical analogies and get back to science fiction!

The analogies to Vichy France were hardly surprising. Indeed, the producers advertised their intentions at the end of the last season. The show explored the messy differences and overlaps between resistance and collaboration, especially the problems of collaborators who act, nonetheless, to protect their loved ones.

The summary execution of Ellen Tigh reflects the purge of collaborators that occurred as France was slowly freed and the German army pushed back. Actually, I was a bit disappointed that occupied New Caprica looked so much like Vichy France--did Robert Gildea get a writing credit for these episodes?

Now that the human race is back on it's quest to find Earth, is the show done with the Vichy analogy? There are still possibilities to mine it into the Fourth Republic era? Yes. Post-liberation politics were dominated by conflicts between political parties, each of whom claimed to embody the true spirit of resistance, who did the most to free the nation. "Resistance" became a key term in discussing the future. They talked about resistance in the singular, as if only one movement existed, but they did so in order to legitimize their politics.

Although the resistance on New Caprica looked like a united effort, it's possible that their cooperation was a matter of convenience, and that Col. Tigh, Roslin, and Zarek each see themselves as the key component in the success of the resistance. More intriguing, Tyrol has been set up as a major player in post-occupation politics, something akin to the Communist Party, who would claim to be unrelenting opposition not just to the occupation, but to the corrupt political forces that pre-existed the occupation (Baltar, namely).

Resistance was a powerful force that freed the human race. Or was it? This is another area where the Vichy analogy can be exploited. The role of the French resistance in liberating France is unclear; military power finally broke the Nazi hold on state and society. Similarly, freedom for humanity appears to be unthinkable without the Galactica and Pegasus. Could Adama become De Gaulle? The scene in the landing bay shows the emergence of a hero who seems super-political, to whom humans will look to save them from their own machinations. Who knows: maybe the Fifth Republic will make an appearance as well.

A Little More French Politics

2006-10-19T12:03:00.000-05:00

Not only did the CEVIPOF report on the public's attitude toward political corruption grab my attention, several pther articles seem noteworthy.

Ségolène Royal had drawn attention outside of France as potentially the next woman to be elected head of state, but political anthropologist Marc Abélès says that her style--her approach to political discourse--is a break from the politics of the past. (Is she's the French Howard Dean? I think she does him better.) On the one hand, she uses her blog, Désirs d'avenir (Future Desires), to realize a dynamic, less asymetrical relationships between politician and public, very muc realizing the potential and realities of the blogosphere. On the other, rather than argumentation on the basis of ideological differences, she accepts the collapse of those differences.

What the candidate and her team have understood is that one need not produce a majority opinion as much as the possibility of that the greatest number of people will enter into the debate, expressing their opinions ... Diversity, and not head-on opposition. It is clear that there no longer exists a "left vote" or a "right vote" that is the same on every issue.

Absorption capacity has been thrown out with regard to the expansion of the EU: concern for how new members fit into the overall mix. The fear that limitless expansion would weaken and dilute central institutions is real, but as Thomas Ferenczi points out, such concerns presuppose the need for new members to assimilate the practices of established members. Ferenczi says that absorption capacity is an important concept in measuring up Turkey for membership, but that "new memberships are accompanied by institutional reforms." I don't think it is different for an international organization as a nation: expansion occurs contiguously, and as the limits of the nation increase, diversity must be accomodated. Expansion goes hand in hand with reform.

The Sun King's liaisons were notorious, but were they political sexuality? The NY Times has a good review of Antonia Fraser's new book on Louis XIV and his women. I am, however, a bit wary of the positive spin that Fraser puts on his affairs:

This period, during which Louis enjoyed the “undiluted love of his mother” and witnessed her mostly able leadership — at her death, he memorialized her as “among the great kings of France” — may have established in him a respect for and comfort with dynamic women that led to his “variegated philanderings.

Still, I love this characterization of aristocratic sexuality:

Perhaps, on the domestic front, some innate evolutionary imperative, an awareness of the incestuousness of it all, led many of them — not just Louis XIV but also Charles II of England and a number of “princes of the blood” — into compulsive adultery as a means of expanding the gene pool.

Affairs (Not of the Heart)

2006-10-18T23:55:00.000-05:00

Mitterand used the anti-terrorism service to spy on starlets and political enemies. Juppé ripped off the city to pay the salaries of RPR (conservative party) employees. Villepin implicated Sarkozy in the Clearstream debacle to discredit him in the upcoming presidential campaign. I've been helping someone edit part of his book on the seedier aspects of French politics--I was by no means surprised by this headline:

60% of French citizens see their elected officials as corrupt

Actually, it's better than that: of the remaining 40%, three-quarters refused to answer the question. Only 10% believed in the integrity of French politicians!

(This is all according to a report that should be released in the next few days by Centre de Recherches Politiques de Sciences Po (CEVIPOF).)

Australians started World War II

2006-10-17T11:17:00.000-05:00

Denied an outlet for its criminals in the Americas, Britain sent an unsavoury bunch of people around the world, who landed in Australia in 1788. They grew, thrived, and prospered as only European colonies can do, until in 1901 they became a Commonwealth in 1901. Then, on September 3, 1939, Australia declared war against Germany. So began World War II. Simple, isn't it?

Of course, it isn't. At Revise and Dissent, Brett Holman has been pondering when WWII began. He gives three possible dates: first, 1937, when hostilities began between China and Japan; second, good ole' 1939; third, 1940, when Italy declared war against France because of the real possibility of warfare in Africa among the European powers. Which does he chose? The conservative date of September 3, 1939, which, by his own admission, affirms his British perspective.

I'll give Brett his subjective judgment, but it still raises the question for the non-Britons, when did World War II begin? Was there something magical about 9-3-39? The more I ponder this, the more I feel that it is a question of the prestige of the powers that came into the conflict: Britain and France, two nations who prided themselves in their global stretch. Colonies and submarine warfare aside, their declaration of war against Germany, along with those of Australia and New Zealand, did nothing to expand the theater of battle outside the European region. Germany was in no position to fight in Africa or Asia, at least not until the falls of Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark and France, all nations that possessed overseas colonies nominally under German control. Australia or New Zealand sending troops to Europe would not have made for multi-regional theaters.

The larger question: every time a nation with colonies/an empire goes to war, is it a world war (or potentially one)? When the United States fought Mexican revolutionaries in the 1910s, was there potential for expansion to Hawai'i? For that matter, was the American Revolution a world war (or just a continuation of the Seven Years War)? Is fighting in eastern Congo an African World War, as some have claimed? Is Iraq a front in World War III (ok, perhaps this question should be left alone)? Finally, when was the first "world war"? Alexander in India, perhaps?

Of course, I want to make light of this. Many conflicts take place in the midst of international, worldwide processes. Even if Britain, France and Germany never fought anywhere but Europe, we would still have cause to zoom out to see larger issues at play. The same could be said of almost every conflict since the 16th century.

Turkey, Ruined but Unspoiled

2006-10-13T09:03:00.000-05:00

The Nobel Prize in Literature for Orhan Pamuk? Hooray! He's one of my favorite writers, and Snow is one of my favorite books. Alas, so many older than he whom I thought would win by now...

Istanbul: Memories and the City, which has not received as much attention as other works by Pamuk, contains vibrant insights into the use of urban landscapes. One chapter, "The Melancholy of Ruins: Tanpinar and Yahya Kemal in the City's Poor Neighborhoods," explores how the two writers explored the less attractive parts of Istanbul in an effort to find the genuine Turkish people, the spirit of the nation, not overburdened by the legacies of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires (or the poetry of the French who glorified them).

When Tanpinar wrote "A Stroll Through the City's Poor Neighborhoods," he was not just describing his own most recent visit and his earliest walks. His purpose was more than merely to reacquaint himself with the poorest and most remote areas of Istanbul; he was attempting to accustom himself to the fact of living in an impoverished country, in a city that no longer mattered in the eyes of the world. To explore the poor neighborhoods as a landscape, then, was to address the reality that Istanbul and Turkey were themselves poor neighborhoods

[Tanpinar and Kemal] had a political agenda. They were picking their way through the ruins looking for signs of a new Turkish state, a new Turkish nationalism: The Ottoman Empire might have fallen, but the Turkish people had made it great (like the state, the two were happy to forget the Greeks, the Armenians, the Jews, the Kurds, and many other minorities), and they wanted to show that though suffused in melancholy they were still standing tall. Unlike the ideologues of the Turkish state who expressed their nationalism in unlovely and unadorned authoritarian rhetoric, they expressed their patriotism in a poetic language far removed from decrees and force.

To prove that theirs was a Turkish city, these two writers knew it was not enough to describe the skyline so beloved of western tourists and writers, or the shadows cast by its mosques and churches. Dominated as it was by Hagia Sophia, the skyline noted by every western observer from Lamartine to Le Corbusier could not serve as a "national image" for Turkish Istanbul; this sort of beauty was too cosmopolitan.

Nationalist Istanbullus like Kemal and Tanpinar preferred to look to the poor, defeated, and deprived Muslim population, to prove that they had not lost one bit of their identity and to satisdy their craving for a mournful beauty expressing the feelings of loss and defeat. This is why they went out on walks to poor neighborhoods in search of beautiful sights that endowed the city's dwellers with the hüzün of the ruined past ... . All his nationalist fervor notwithstanding, Tanpinar sometimes resorted to words like "picturesque" and "paysage"; to convey these neighborhoods as traditional, unspoiled, and untouched by the West, he wrote that "they were ruined, they were poor and wretched," but they had "retained their own style and their own way of life."

Ruins often figure into the image of places. Early modern illustrators were keen on pairing peasants with ancient edifices whereever they went, but particularly in the eastern Mediterranean. Such images gave power to the Classical era, but also romanticized the unchanging nature of traditional ways. But in the 19th Century, landscapes in France tended to divorce the people from the ruins. The paintings of Millet, for instance, put the peasants and their struggles in the center. The human ruins that Tapinar sought established a different hierarchy: rather than just eliminating monumental architecture, the people replaced it.

Asian History Carnival!!!

2006-10-11T23:48:00.000-05:00

What’s happening? Have the lunatics taken over the asylum? Why is a Euro-centrist, such as myself, hosting the Asian History Carnival? Obviously, I want to sit at the cool kids table with Manan et al. Apparently, I need to overthrow the dry, stultifying style of my Rankian super-ego and embrace my inner Asianist.

So for today, Welcome to the Indus River!

Sleazy Western Businessmen

At Marmot’s Hole, Robert Neff writes about the impressions that Westerners had of sexuality in Korea in “The Oldest Profession in Choson.” Yet it was the Japanese who brought the prostitutes the Westerners desired.

When Chemulpo was opened to the West it was nothing more than a handful of small rude huts. The Japanese began building European/Japanese hybrid buildings and as more and more people arrived, began importing “entertainment” from the home islands. Many of the early missionaries were appalled at the low morals of their fellow countrymen and that of the Japanese - but no matter how much they moaned about it - they could not get rid of it.

Similarly, Jonathan Dresner looks at the sex-toy industry in 1930s Japan, noting that it seemed completely oriented towards foreigners, as the catalog for the Arita Drug and Rubber Goods Co. was printed entirely in English.

Rather than “Googling himself,” Konrad Lawson wiles away his evenings by searching through Google Books. He has been pulling out full-text, downloadable books that should be of interest to Asianists: something for China, for Japan, and for Korea.

Pan-Asian Unity

Oiwan Lam tells us about a Chinese cartoon series, Devil Soldiers in Mao-er Mountain, set during WWII, which portrays Japanese soldiers as idiots. Perhaps it will be a point of discussion when Japanese PM Abe visits China and Korea, who puts such a positive spin on Japan's war.

Just before taking off, Prime Minister Abe spoke to the press corps at Haneda Airport about the issue of Japan's acknowledgement of its history, stating emphatically, "We will act based on humble reflection on the past. I would like to make that the basis of my discussions [with the PRC and ROK] and look toward the future." On the Yasukuni Shrine issue, he stated, "I want to explain that most successive Prime Ministers paid their respects to those who died for their country and that we have made our pilgrimages in a spirit of seeking peace."
Well, since that's the way the issue's been "explained" to the rest of East Asia for years now, I'm not sure what's supposed to make it more persuasive this time--especially since it's now going to be coming a from a known nationalist and apologist for Japan's wartime conduct.

All Greek to Me

I found nothing beguiling about Wade-Giles in the three classes of Chinese history I took as an undergraduate, but apparently the Cambridge scholars, Thomas Wade and Herbert Giles, despite being linked together in the awkward Romanization of Chinese, were quite different men. Language Hat notes this article by Andrew Leonard that explored the diverging Weltanschauungs of the two scholars.

Thomas Wade may have been [a soldier] in the infamous Opium Wars, giving heft to any theories of Wade-Giles Romanization as a tool of neocolonialist ideological oppression. But Giles, apparently, was something else. According to Pickford, "Giles was also disliked by the Christian Missionaries whose work he despised. This antagonism was contrary to British Government policy, which saw the work of the missionaries as entirely legitimate and beneficial. Giles disagreed, and made his disagreement very open and public... Giles was also unpopular with the British traders because he opposed the overcrowding of emigrant Chinese on British ships. In 1881 he was presented with a Red Umbrella by the Hsiamen Chinese Chamber of Commerce in recognition of this service to the Chinese people."

Reb Chaim HaQoton offers a post on triskadecaphobia’s expansive, transnational roots.

At Global Voices Online, John Kennedy tells Chinese students how to access Wikipedia.

History and Memory

Siddhartha Shome has a wonderful and erudite post about the recovery of India's ancient past from myth. Discussing the efforts of the Brit-run Asiatic Society, Siddhartha examines the process of deciphering ancient inscriptions and matching them to known personalities. So, who was King Devanampiya Piyadasi?

The question now was, who was this person Devanampiya Piyadasi? Prinsep initially thought it could be the Buddha himself, for, so far as scholars then knew, no single Indian monarch had ruled over such a vast territory as was covered by the pillars and rock inscriptions. This explanation, however, had soon to be given up because the inscriptions referred to ‘such and such year of my reign’, and the Buddha had never been a monarch. Unfortunately, wrote Prinsep, “in all the Hindu genealogical tables with which I am acquainted, no prince can be discovered possessing this very remarkable name”. The mystery was solved within a few short months, with information gleaned, not from archeological sites in India, but from distant Sri Lanka.

Alan Baumler minds the calendar. First, Taiwan's celebration of Confucius' birth and the accompanying feather dance. Then, the 95th anniversary of the Wuhan Revolt.

It may have happened only one year ago, but Manan Ahmed looks back at the deadly earthquake in Pakistan and his efforts to help out.

“Either you are with us or you are against us”: the attitudes toward Westernization during the Meiji era reduced to a simple dichotomy. Morgan Pitelka worries about reducing complex realities of resistance and promotion to binaries.

M.G. Sheftall gets political, dissecting comparisons between Kamikazes and suicide bombers.

That said, one wonders if JSB’s promoters and apologists can legitimately claim that their campaign is, like tokkō, an act of defense: is there any “existential threat” today posed by the West vis-à-vis modern Islam – the world’s fastest growing religion – or for that matter, even by Israel vis-à-vis the Arabic-speaking community currently residing in the Palestinian Authority territories, whose population is increasing with vigorous fecundity, and for whom obesity is a chronic public health crisis?[10] If so, where are all the starving, besieged Palestinians, Saudis, Syrians or Jordanians, or the carpetbombed and firestorm-ravaged Muslim cities whose nightly obliteration under some merciless Western juggernaut – as in 1945 Japan – might provide at least some semblance of understandable rationale for suicide bombing? The absence of such threats suggests that JSB is not the collective burnt offering of a desperate community fighting a rear guard action and preparing for a worst-case scenario of collective suicide. Rather, it is obvious that the operant motivation is a hot/cold mélange of ressentiment-inflamed desire to inflict pain on a hated cultural Other, and a cleverly crafted and calculated political manipulation of these emotions on the part of its strategists, i.e., the Jihadist ideologues who have been rallying the disaffected faithful of the Islamic world and stage managing the West’s nightmares for the last five years.

Identity

Spaces of struggle: Abodh takes us on a tour of Ganhi's Bombay.

Onnik Krikorian has a rather long post about the Yezidis of Georgia, a national minority sometimes considered a subset of the Kurds. He interviews the president of the Union of the Yezedis of Georgia, discussing the history and memory of the group during the Soviet era and current issues related to identity and cultural policy.

Varnam brings to out attention the recovery of Hindu texts, written on palm leaves, through the use of multispectral imaging, especially the Saramoola granthas.

East-West

Jonathan Dresner asks a few stupid questions: how ceremonious was the rectifications of names; which Chinese leader suggested that the French Revolution was incomplete? (That last question is so 1989).

If turnaround is fair play, then I offer you this interpretation of a German article written about Chinese government at the height of the French Revolution. Oh, how great Chinese imperialism would be for the Germans ...

The End

That's it, folks. Thank you to Jonathan Dresner for allowing me to host. Also, I want to thank Manan Ahmed and Chaim HaQoton for their nominations, and Global Voices Online for allowing me to pilfer some of their work.

The next Asian History Channel will return to safe hands at Kotaji. You can nominate posts at Blog Carnival or e-mail him directly at kotajihwal[a]yahoo.co.uk. And don't forget the other upcoming history carnivals: the History Carnival at ClioWeb and Carnivalesque at Recent Finds.

Empire in the Mirror

2006-10-11T23:31:00.000-05:00

How it can be said that in China, which has been described as despotic, that people have been described as both more free and more fortunate as people in many republics!

Searching for articles about the Holy Roman Empire in Zeitschriften der Aufklaerung, I came across this anonymously-written aritcle in the 1797 Deutsche Monatsschrift (table of contents) , which seemed stand in stark opposition to what most 18th-century politicians thought about the Orient. The French, certainly, fetishized the Orient, especially Turkey (see Montesquieu’s Persian Letters). Rather than being accurate portrayals, these were mirrors held up to France.

German thinkers were a bit more analytical in their approach to, dare I say, comparative political science. The Humboldt brothers paid attention to the larger world (Alexander to the Americas, Wilhelm to South Asia). No state played the same role in German culture that Turkey played for the French. Herder (Treatise on the Origin of Language) accorded great respect to China, making it (probably) the first civilization, the root from which all other civilizations spread. However, each subsequent manifestation improved upon what China accomplished, and China was itself stuck in its ancient ways.

What struck me was not the esteem with which the anonymous writer held for China and its “despotic government,” but how s/he used used it. China is a model of efficiency and unity based on the “unlimited,” “undivided authority” of the emperor and the nature of the state bureaucracy. He “tames the wildness of the princes”; his court is the perfect Versailles, forcing the aristocracy to bind themselves to his will. He is “the source of all fortune” (patronage) and “by law the absolute Lord over the lives of his subjects.” He leads a strong, well-funded army. Finally, he composes “a [civil] service, that is honest, erudite, experienced, and especially accomplished.”

The perfection of this system, “for so long made of the same stuff” (ancient and unchanged), is close to the state of nature. Rather than stifling public life, the authority of the Chinese emperor simplifies rule to such a point that he need not interfere (arbitrarily) with its operation. Despotism is never practiced. Conversely, “the concept of the republic is completely foreign to the Chinese ... they see the republic as a many-headed monstrosity that would develop from the ambition and corrupt intentions into civil unrest and confusion.”

I’m sure this loving portrait of Ming China is easily demolished. It’s at least a bit of critical satire, not meant to say anything about China but lots about Germany. Actually, France and Germany. The republic was probably that which was represented by the French Revolution, as exported to Germany–it’s promises of liberation compromised by harsh administration and economic exploitation.

China, nonetheless, represents what Germany needed to resist France: a strong, central authority; elimination of the sovereignty of the princes; administration by the educated (Bildung) bourgeoisie; and reform to create a mass army. China was a unity of will and action that eluded Germany, had made it defenseless. In both cases, the republic would be “the greater tyranny.”

What should the German Empire become? More like China? Bureaucracy and military became lynchpins of the Kaiserreich, the will of the emperor still locked up into the intrigues of the court. It’s perhaps not impossible that the anonymous writer saw a blueprint for Germany’s future in Chinese political traditions.

Insert Carnival Here

2006-10-10T20:09:00.000-05:00

Today should have been the day when the Asian History Carnival was posted here. Alas, I received no submissions--not directly or via Blog Carnival. Some might blame the radiation of bluster coming from the Korean peninsula, but I think people are still reeling from the directoire established in Thailand (see Head Heeb for commentary--HT Far Outliers). The new date is October 12: submit the best Asian blogging from the last month either to rhineriveratearthlinkdotnet (properly formatted), or use Blog Carnival's aggregator. Cheers!

The Age of Arendt

2006-10-09T08:41:00.000-05:00

The world at the centennial of Hannah Arendt:

In “The Origins of Totalitarianism” (1951) she cataloged their characteristics: sweeping ideologies, death and concentration camps, vengeance against imagined conspiracies, imperviousness to political challenge. Together, she wrote, these characteristics “exploded” the familiar concepts of politics and government: “the alternative between lawful and lawless government, between arbitrary and legitimate power.” The lawless was made lawful; the arbitrary became legitimate. All categories were broken down; new ones needed formation. In the future the exception would shape a new rule.
And, to a great extent, with varied and vexing consequences, it has. Whether the world itself has changed (as she proposed), or our interpretation of it has, or both, it is no longer possible to discuss political life without in some way invoking those phenomena that once seemed so exceptional, without forming analogies to them, and without considering Arendt’s concepts that developed around them.

Minding of the Past

2006-10-09T08:10:00.000-05:00

French National Assembly, still believing themselves to be guardians of memory, are on the verge of punishing denial of the Armenian genocide. Sarkozy sees this as a critical step in defining how Turkey enters the EU: at minimim, it must admit the genocide:

"Pour moi, (la reconnaissance du génocide par l'Arménie) ce n'est pas une condition préalable pour rentrer en Europe. C'est le minimum. Ce n'est pas parce qu'on fait son devoir de mémoire qu'on peut rentrer en Europe. On ne pourrait éviter de voter cette loi qu'à trois conditions : la mise en place d'une commission bilatérale et paritaire Arménie-Turquie ; que la Turquie rouvre ses frontières avec l'Arménie ; que la Turquie renonce à sa législation pénale qui interdit de parler d'un génocide", a déclaré M. Sarkozy.

"Real" Africans

2006-10-05T17:04:00.000-05:00

Sharon laughs, but this scares me. White settlers, like the Germans in Namibia, thought they were the real Africans who would put the primitive, tribal, disunited natives, who were not Africans, in their place.

Great Communicators of the Mediterranean World

2006-10-03T10:55:00.000-05:00

Nicolas Ostler raises an interesting point about Ancient Greek Civilization in his book, The Empire of the Word: democracy did not spread along with Greek culture. Beneath the veneer of this celebrated role, Greek culture was a tool of hegemony across the eastern Mediterranean and Mesopotamia. This should raise questions about how "the Greeks" are portrayed in Western Civ courses, whether democracy was really their legacy, recovered by the Renaissance, or appended to the existing institutions of the European free cities.

Western Europe likes to think itself an indirect heir of the Greeks; but the countless modern accounts of what the Greeks were like never ask, much less answer, this question. Rather, they simply trace the processes by which the Greeks produced so many pioneering contributions to Western civilisation, in mythology, politics, literature, the arts, architecture, philosophy and science. Part of the answer is thus given implicitly: for none of their contemporaries has laid by as vast a record of their cultural product as the Greeks— unless one counts the Romans, who chose to build on the Greek work, rather than replace it. Literacy could be seen as the Greeks’ secret weapon.

But this can’t be the whole Answer. After all, literacy was a gift to them from the Phoenecians, who themselves were just the lately travelling sales representatives of a vast Middle Eastern range of literate societies, from Egypt at one end to Babylon and Elam at the other. But unlike the Phoenicians, the Greeks had chosen to use their literacy to record their culture: the ability to read Greek brought a vast range of original works in its wake. The result was that the Greeks had access to ‘the arts of civilisation’ in a way that could only impress others when they came into contact with them. Civilisation, after all, when combined with such delights as olive oil and wine, is apt to be attractive. ...

It is often, somewhat romantically, claimed that Greece’s greatest contribution to subsequent civilisation was the invention of democracy, the highest mechanism invented to realise eleutherIa, ‘freedom’, always a virtue that the Greeks claimed to care for. This is certainly false: false as a theory of what appealed in Greek to outsiders confronted by it, and false as an account of what made Greek capable of spreading so far to the east and west of its homeland. It has already been pointed out that most Greek city-states were never democratic; and the larger states with Greek as their official language, established all over Egypt and much of Asia after conquests by Alexander, were without exception monarchies. They were bureaucratic states, where civic control by concerned citizens was not possibly an ideal. They were also much bigger than any city-states had ever been. When the Greek language spread, it did not carry with it the properties that had possibly been crucial in the original creation of its attendant culture.

Indeed, a major property of Greek culture, throughout its long continuous history since the third century BC has been a wish to hark back to the classical aping their linguistic form as well (as far as possible) as their style and content, but never the excitement of innovation and originality that must have attended their actual writing in the fifth and fourth centuries. Whatever had proved enduring in the Greek language tradition—and leaving aside the question of whether its classics really are the best things ever written—it has far more to do with rigid conservatism than openness to exciting new ideas. If nothing else, the history of the Greek language community shows that conservatism too can be attractive, if something attractive is being conserved.

We can see that what Greek had to offer was highly attractive in the context of the ancient world. Even those whose careers were dedicated to limiting and diminishing Greek influence nevertheless took as much as they could from it ... . The Greeks were undoubtedly the Great Communicators of the Mediterranean world.

But the agents who spread this undoubtedly attractive commodity round the oikouméne, the inhabited world, were seldom actually Greek. The spread of the Greek language is, rather, an object lesson in the effectiveness of hitching a ride. Macedon was beyond the pale of the Greek language community; yet its king planted Greek-speaking colonies all the way to the boundaries of India. Aramaic was the language of Greece’s greatest foe, the Persian empire; yet the two-hundred-year-old use of it as a chancery language across the empire meant that there was a clear model for Greeks to follow in seeding a Greek-based communications network round their newly won domains. Two hundred years later Rome, and with it Latin, was taking the whole Mediterranean rim by storm; yet Greek, the language of colonies in southern Italy, was accepted into a kind of equality with Latin, and went on to become the true cultural milieu of the Roman empire—in the sense that no cultivated inhabitant of the empire could be without it. Two hundred years later still, the new brooms sweeping the empire were mystery religions, especially Christianity; yet although none of them originated in Greece, their language of preference was Greek, and so Greek built an indissoluble link with the greatest movement of the late Roman empire, the Christian Church. By a final stroke of good fortune, this same movement, now specialised as Christian Orthodoxy, turned out to be the key to preserving Greek through four centuries of Turkish domination, after the dissolution of the Roman empire in the east. Greek thus owes its remarkable career to help from its friends, at every crucial turning point of the last 2300 years.

L'Shana Tovah!

2006-09-25T10:28:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year!

Meta-Kreuzband

2006-09-25T09:37:00.000-05:00

After Ralph Luker was good enough the share resources for online newspapers, I thought I should do the same for historical news sources in German (I'll get to French later). Most of these are listed here at the Dept. of the History of Journalism at the University of Cologne--hopefully it will be kept up-to-date:

AustriaN Newspapers Online (ANNO) is easily one of the best sites. It offers visual imprints of numerous newspapers from the 19th and 20th centuries. Unfortunately, contents of the papers don't seem to be searchable. Although these are Austrian newspapers, they are invaluable for the study of German nationalism (and don't forget, Austria wasn't de-Germanized until 1867).
University of Bielefeld offers Zeitschriften der Aufklärung (Journals of the Enlightenment). With over 50 papers, many short lived, and searchable, this is a valuable source for the intellectual history of the 18th and early 19th centuries. Minerva makes it worthwhile.
Bibliothek für Bildungsgeschichtliche Forschung (Library of Research on the History of Images) provides access to pedagogical newspapers and journals. The searchable database is extensive, but not all journals have been digitized. Luckily, instructions are also in English.
Compact Memory offers imprints of Jewish periodicals.
Exilpresse digital has papers published by Germans in exile from Nazism.

For now, there is no good general source for newspapers from Germany, but I'll keep looking.

Too Much Porn in History

2006-09-23T08:23:00.000-05:00

German historians are proving to be a bit prudish. At their conference (Deutsche Historikertag) in Konstanz, where the theme is "the power of the image," Norbert Frei and others called television documentaries "worthless viewing" and "historical pornography." Pretending to satisfy the public's "desire to know," documentaries show series of images that may or may not correspond to the events described in the narration. Moreover, they are dominated by images of private life--peering into the intimate affairs of saints and sinners alike, without truly advancing the public's understanding of events. (This is a sensitive subject after one show that featured films of Hitler's private life and the Wehrmacht exhibit that took photos out of context.)

The problem goes deep. "Who produces the historical images in the present? ... It is hardly ever the historian." Yet historical documentaries dominate evermore the historical consciousness of the public.

Now, I can get a bit skeptical about how historians use visual media, especially in teaching. Films have little place for eras in which film did not exist, unless the film is making a particular point about the past or the question of how the past is imagined is put front and center. I have no use for costume dramas, and I would never use one of my favorite films, Children of Paradise, except to discuss the Occupation of France (not the Restoration, which is depicted in the Film.) Blazing Saddles, though, can lead to some good discussions about race and authority in frontier life.

Norbert Frei, however, should lighten up. Our historical subjects need to give good face. If our politicians must be photogenic, why not our great men and women? Indeed, the onset of virtual acting might allow us historians to makeover our subjects. Imagine presenting WWII as a season of America's Next Top Model, ending in a ~~dramatic~~ fierce walk-off between season-long villain Stalin and surprise finalist Truman down the bombed-out streets of Berlin and Hiroshima.

Supernationalism is Super-particularism

2006-09-23T07:55:00.000-05:00

Tony Judt (Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945) on the personalities of the men who formed the European Coal and Steel Community (precursor to European Community):

It is perhaps worth pausing to remark on a feature of the Community which did not escape notice at the time. All six foreign ministers who signed the Treaty in 1951 were members of their respective Christian Democratic parties. The three dominant statesmen in the main member states--Alcide De Gasperi, Konrad Adenauer and Robert SchumanÂ--were all from the margins of their countries: De Gasperi from the Trentino, in north-east Italy; Adenauer from the Rhineland; Schuman from Lorraine. When De Gasperi was born--and well into his adult life--the Trentino was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and he studied in Vienna. Schuman grew up in a Lorraine that had been incorporated into the German Empire. As a young man, like Adenauer, he joined Catholic associations--indeed the same ones that the Rhinelander had belonged to ten years earlier. When they met, the three men conversed in German, their common language.

For all three, as for their Christian Democrat colleagues from bi-lingual Luxembourg, bi-lingual and bi-cultural Belgium, and the Netherlands, a project for European cooperation made cultural as well as economic sense: they could reasonably see it as a contribution to overcoming the crisis of civilization that had shattered the cosmopolitan Europe of their youth. Hailing from the fringes of their own Countries, where identities had long been multiple and boundaries fungible, Schuman and his colleagues were not especially troubled at the prospect of some merging of national sovereignty. All six member countries of the new ECSC had recently seen their sovereignty ignored and trampled on, in war and occupation: they had little enough sovereignty left to lose. And their common Christian Democratic concern for social cohesion and collective responsibility disposed all them to feel comfortable with the notion of a trans-national "High Authority" exercising executive power for the common good.

But further north, the prospect was rather different. In the Protestant lands of Scandinavia and Britain (or to the Protestant perspective of a North German liki Schumacher), the European Coal and Steel Community carried a certain whiff authoritarian incense. Tage Erlander, the Swedish Social Democratic Prime Minister from 1948-68, actually ascribed his own ambivalence about joining to the overwhelming Catholic majority in the new Community. Kenneth Younger, a senior adviser to Bevin, noted in his diary entry for May 14th 1950--five days aft learning of the Schuman Plan--that while he generally favoured European economic integration the new proposals might "on the other hand,. . . be just a step in the consolidation of the Catholic "black international" which I have always thought to be a big driving force behind the Council of Europe." At the time this was not an extreme point of view, nor was it uncommon.

None of this was particularly new: the proximal origins of Adenauer and Schuman has been commented on a lot, a efforts to turn Schuman into a Catholic saint, although fruitless, have highlighted the Catholic predisposition to such organizations. This formula--people from the margins acting on de-nationalized, religious idealism--reflects, however, how and when European integration succeeds. Appealing to a common European identity does not succeed as well as working from the boundaries of nation-states, where identities arise more from common experiences rather than concepts of national unity. Supernationalism is super-particularism: the leading elements are the periphery, where conflict is not only more prevalent, but so is the desire to avoid conflict.

[ETA] How funny is it that German, the language that was upheld as a sign of national belonging and sovereignty, was used in this internationalist fashion.

"A nation simply is"

2006-09-20T22:41:00.000-05:00

Step outside the nation to study nation: Andrew Ross points out the potentially radical act of studying nation and nationalism:

Hobsbawm points to the need to step outside, so much as possible, the ideology one studies (teaches), which should prevent the historian from directly contributing discursively to nationalist ideology.

Andrew's comments, however, reminded me of others by Friedrich Meinecke about his more famous mentor:

The 'nation' belongs to the basic concepts that [Leopold von] Ranke's overall view of history employs, concepts that are so remarkably fruitful because he never demands too much of them, never misuses them for an overly simple classification of historical material, and because he knows that they have no absolutely clear limits of application. When he uses them, he always hints at their origins, which keep blending continually into the infinite. Only a talent as unusual as his, only a mode of thinking simultaneously empirical, philosophical, and artistic could dispense with sharp, clear limits and firm categories without becoming blurred and unclear. A study undertaken with ordinary scholarly means cannot do without them and must make use of concepts such as 'cultural nation,' 'political nation,' 'liberal idea of the national state,' 'conservative idea of the national state,' and so forth--concepts that Ranke would probably never have used, although his historical writings lead to them often enough and are rich in observations that can easily be fitted into such categories.

One of the problems that I have with studies of nationalism is that they cannot often escape, though they strive to, basic assumptions about the legitimacy and primacy of nation. Ranke's outlook reveals how completely infused history is with nationalism, especially one in which pre-determination outweighs self-determination and culture is treated as nearly identical to nation, and the ease with which such studies can legitimize what they seek to historicize.

Asian History Carnival

2006-09-20T22:33:00.000-05:00

This month's is here. Next month's is here.

That's right. If you clicked onto the link for next months, you returned back here. So, if you have anything for the Asian History Carnival, send it to rhineriver-at-earthlink-dot-net, formatted properly, of course.

Grueling Memories

2006-09-14T06:56:00.000-05:00

Ah, the decennial millet gruel transport between Strasbourg and Zurich, which commemorates the friendship between cities on the Upper and High Rhine plateaus. (Via Getty Images)

Actually, it is another case of fond medieval reveries awakened in the nineteenth century. The Swiss cantons, alarmed by the relentless shelling of Strasbourg during the Franco-Prussian War, sent envoys to negotiate aid for the citizens. Their generosity was remembered in the context of older Trans-Rhenish relations, especially relevant to the independence of free cities in the Holy Roman Empire, but in their short-term represented resistance to German nationalism. Bartholdi took this theme for one of his panels on La suisse secourant les douleurs de Strasbourg pendant la siège de 1870.

From the city you will conquer the earth

2006-09-12T22:27:00.000-05:00

Here is a poem from René Schickele, Großstadtvolk (City Folk), that I translated for my dissertation. Like many of the Alsatian expressionists, Schickele resituated Heimat in order to arrest the power that it had defining the nation as an artifact of völkisch culture. Here, Schickele rebukes the urbanites who fly off in search of the sources of culture, reminding them that the city pulses with the traditions of ritual and the modernity of technology, combining both while dominating the countryside where they vacation.

Großstadtvolk

No, here should you remain!
In these oppressed Mays, dull Octobers.
Here should you remain, because it is the city
That celebrates desirable festivals
Of power and that promulgates numbing edicts
Of power that like machines, whether we like it or not, drive us.
Because from here armed trains burst forth
On death-dulled rails
That conquer the countryside
Each and every day.
Because here is the source of desire
Bubbling in waves that press on the napes of millions,
Source that beats on the backs of millions,
In the comings and goings of the millions
Up to the most distant shores.
Here should you remain!
In those oppressed Mays, dull Octobers.
No one should drive you out!
From the city you will conquer the earth.

Random Notes

2006-09-11T07:50:00.000-05:00

I'm stealing bandwidth from Konrad Lawson. This picture, which I believe is the Catholic Cathedral of Reykjavik, is an interesting example of neo-Gothic architecture: the elements of the medieval cathedral, reduced to their essentials, absence of decoration, the vertical lines that emphasize the height (in absence of spires). For a different interpretation, see Reykjavik's other cathedral. Konrad has some interesting post on his stopover in Iceland (here, here, here).

Gothic Is it the "desperate but somehow empowering feeling of loneliness" I was talking about the reason Reykjavik seems to be a mini-gothic capital of the world? Or is there just some kind of gothic get-together going on this week?

Freedom for the Dictionary: The latest battleground in France's memory wars is the Petit Robert, the prestigious, multi-volume dictionary that adorns the bookshelves of those who care about French and have the space to house it. The complaint? The definitions of colinisation and coloniser (colonization and to colonize, respectively) whitewash France's imperial legacy, being "in the spirof ot the loi 25 Fevrier 2005, evoking a positive role of colonization." Two groups have called for a boycott. Pierre Assouline point out that the dictionary and lexicography in general, although they "cannot claim absolute neutrality, detached and unaffected by all ideological imprints," definitions mark use, and thus "evolve with society and the mentalities they reflect." Freedom for the dictionary, just like the historians' cry for the freedom of their own profession from political intrusion from any side.

No Bible-Thumping in Early Church: Phil Harland has the story.

NOLA and Katrina: Joel at Far Outliers was kind enough to put a little extra into a post about government failures in face of Katrina, noting that the federal government had devolved control (as well as resources) to the states in Mississippi Valley for flood control in the mid-19th century. Interesting point, but I think the question still needs to be asked: why have cities become so powerless in the modern era? Where once they waged war, now they cannot sweep the streets. Why are they incapable of initiating major public works projects? (And cities are almost nothing without water control.)

Corrections Department: Frog in a Well's Alan Baumler sets the record straight on the Shanghai textbook without Mao.

Mouths of Babes

2006-09-09T10:40:00.000-05:00

For the last two weeks Elias has constantly babbled. Not the urgent crying, or even the more restrained complaint that sounds like Chet Baker playing "My Funny Valentine" (although Elias has more soul while achieving the same pathos). These are whole sentences, replete with rhythm, stress and cadences. He even says the words "hi" and "momma."

Ok, ok, he does not yet know the meaning of "hi" and "momma." He is imitating us, but as part of a sophisticated conversational babble that seems to reflect not only his mood, but the joy of discovering speech itself. Interacting with him is too much fun; just ask the circle of friends who will surround him and imitate his every sound.

Many people have asked me when and how I will introduce foreign languages to young Elias. It’s seem rather early to start imposing the conjugations of irregular verbs when he is just discovering his ability to speak (no matter how brilliant I insist he is). I have no plan, and no good advice, on how best to raise a baby with two languages (except by necessity). My only plan is to keep exposing him to it: hear me speak French, read French, listen to French, rather than requiring him to know it, so that he has some passive knowledge when the time comes. [BTW, Konrad Lawson has an excellent post about code switching and Soviet gulags, called Losing your Language.]

For those reasons, I watched François Truffaut’s Small Change (L’Argent de Poche), the very first French film that my parents took me to see. It’s a story of children living in the middle of ‘70s France, somewhat meandering in its plot (the only thread of a story is the ‘new boy,’ who survives on petty theft and is subjected to abuse at home). French cinema has produced numerous charming films about childhood and youth, most coming after WWII with its baby boom: La Maternelle, Jeux interdits, Au revoir, les enfants, ... . Truffaut even explored his own troubled youth in a brutal film, Les quatre-cents coups (The 400 Blows).

Small Change gives the feeling of following the children through their lives: wandering the streets of an old French town, telling dirty jokes about priests and nuns, sneaking into the movie theater, giving themselves haircuts and pocketing the money from their parents, and trying to pick up girls. Watching the film, I hope Elias picks up the language and not the tricks and jokes.
Several times in the film, the language of children becomes an issue. Certainly, the children speak differently than the adults: they communicate their joys and discoveries, tending less to pass information, discuss strategies, and try to convince others to something for them. Two scenes in particular grabbed me.

In the first scene, a young girl refuses to go without her handbag to a fancy restaurant. The bag, shaped like an animal, is ratty and soiled, and her parents insist that they would be embarrassed if she were to take it with her. They offer instead one of her mother’s more elegant (more adult) handbags. She refuses. The parents leave her, alone, in their apartment and eat out together. And in one of the movies funniest scenes, she takes a megaphone, goes to the window and repeatedly says, "I’m hungry!" This causes a scandal in the apartment bloc: instead of teaching a lesson to the girl, she turns her parents into neglectful guardians. Immediately, a basket of fine foods is hoisted up to her room.

Throughout the conversation with her parents, the young girl says "ça m’est égal." Literally "it’s the same to me," it has different meanings depending on context and usage (although it’s usually translated as "I don’t care"). Repeating "ça m’est égal," the girl obviously voices her obstinance, and perhaps in that sense, it has a stable meaning. The subtitles, however, reveal the subtleties: each instance of "ça m’est égal" is translated differently. The girl makes good use of the instability, turning the phrase into a wild card that strengthens her arguments, much that same way that a teenager might use "whatever" to express boredom, carelessness, and lack of opinion all at once.

The other scene is a news reel watched by patrons at a movie theater: the story of an incredible whistler. The news reel goes into the man’s past, to the time when he was conceived by an American soldier and a French woman in the enthusiasm of liberation. Neither parent capable of speaking to one another, the child’s linguistic future was at stake. But rather than chose between the two languages, or even a neutral language, he chose to whistle. He whistled when he was hungry; he whistled when a girl showed affection to him. Whistling allowed him to transmit his desires, but it did not allow him to communicate. He alienates everyone around him. As an adult, his whistling wins him notoriety, but he remains, expressively, a child whose words are music without content to the world around him.

Despite the issues of precision and communicability, the film made me appreciate the simple pleasures that Elias takes in making noise, in expressing himself without having to find the mots justes.

Moving on up

2006-09-07T22:59:00.000-05:00

Andrew Ross, who writes at Air Pollution and is a friend of this blog (especially as a fellow Gallicist), has been invited to join Revise and Dissent. Kudos! Go read his first post: most commonly used texts in history of sexuality courses.