On Environment and Development

Geographic environment can have a vital impact on the manner in which cultures develop. In the western hemisphere, many Native American peoples developed cultures and societies directly influenced by the geography of their home regions. One way of determining the extent to which geography impacts the development of civilization can be gleaned by comparing pre-Columbian American societies. In his 2002 essay entitled "1491,"[1] Charles C. Mann provides several examples, but two in particular show not only how the environment affected Native Americans, but also how Native Americans in turn affected the environment.

In the first example, Mann points out that several tribes of the North American plains did not engage in agriculture or animal husbandry. In his own book Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997),[2] Jared Diamond indicated the key reasons for this lack of farming and herding among the Plains Indians, which were primarily a lack of domesticable species of animals indigenous to the Western Hemisphere and a lack of adaptable crops and arable soil in the specific regions where these Native American lived. However, Mann indicates that, through a combination of controlled burning of vegetation, the Plains Indians ultimately made a conscious choice with long-term consequences for the plains: "In North America, Indian torches had their biggest impact on the Midwestern prairie, much or most of which was created and maintained by fire. Millennia of exuberant burning shaped the plains into vast buffalo farms."[3]

The more controversial and surprising claim that Mann makes, among other writers, is that in the pre-Columbian Amazon, complex civilizations arose despite the lack of key resources such as metals suitable for making tools and suitable soil for regularly harvested crops. Mann notes that the soil on the floor of much of the forest, called terra preta in Portuguese, was actually anthropogenic in nature. Relegated to using only stone tools, which made it too difficult to harvest crops annually, the Amazonian Indians elected to plant orchards instead, which required less work on an annual basis and ultimately had longer-term yield. The results, Mann and other have alleged, is that the Amazon rainforest that exists today and the soil from which it arises were the results of human intervention.[4]

Clearly both North and South American peoples affected their environments during the pre-Columbian era. Omitted from the agricultural revolution as seen in the Old World and in Mesoamerica, Plains and Amazonian tribes both harnessed their farming-unfriendly environments into, respectively, large-scale hunting grounds and orchards. The long-term results could be seen for centuries, although in both cases, conservation ultimately became necessary to prevent extinction of these created ecosystems.

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     [1] Charles C. Mann, "1491," The Atlantic, March 2002, accessed December 9, 2015 http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/03/1491/302445/

     [2] Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (New York: Norton, 1997).

     [3] Mann, ibid.

     [4] Ibid.

Stuff I'm Reading:

The Great Terror: A Reassessment, Robert Conquest

Source Analysis: Terracotta Army

Explanation: In the World History to 1500 class in which I'm currently enrolled, there are two source analysis assignments. Here's the first, on the Terra Cotta Army of Qin Shi-Huang. I used Mary Lynn's Rampolla's guides for source analysis from her Pocket Guide to Writing History.

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Discovered in 1974, the Terracotta Army of Emperor Qin Shihuang of China constitutes an intriguing primary source that can communicate much about Chinese political history during the founding years of the Qin Dynasty. Despite the scarcity of contemporaneous written documents about the army, we can nevertheless glean a great deal about these works as primary historical sources from the statues and objects themselves. In particular, we can determine their fundamental nature in terms of time, place, and materials, and we can draw relatively firm conclusions regarding who created them and why.

Based on where they were unearthed, we know that the Terracotta Army was produced in China. The life-size figures were found in 1974 near Xi'an, which is near where Qin Shihuang established his capital at Xianyang.1 The Asian Art Museum (AAM) Web site notes that the emperor ordered the construction of the burial complex in 246 BCE and that he died 37 years later, so we can definitively date the Terracotta Army to that span of years, in particular because, as the Web site mentions, the project was unfinished.2 We know, moreover, that the army was not intended for use per se; rather, it was intended to be buried along with the emperor, so it formed an essential part of the emperor's burial complex. Thus, it was likely never displayed, so we would not have any idea how contemporaries might have responded to it. Finally, we know the materials from which the army and its materiel were made, including gold, bronze, jade, and of course, terracotta, so we can deduce that the Chinese had by this period developed bronze metallurgy, and the absence of iron weapons indicates dating before the use of iron for swords, although iron metallurgy had already been introduced.3

Because the work was commissioned and because the individual pieces of the army are not signed or otherwise attributed, we do not know the specific identities of the people responsible for creating the army, nor can we compare the army to other works of these artists. That said, the AAM Web site does provide some information. For instance, we are told that the project required "enormous numbers of laborers."4 The site further quotes the historian Sima Qian that these artisans were actually imprisoned within their work area to prevent their divulging the worth of the materials therein.5 If nothing else, this information tells us about the vast discrepancy in the value imputed to the lives of individuals on the basis of their life stations. Finally, the site points out that the individual soldiers in the army have intricately rendered facial features,6 which indicates a high level of skill among the artisans, which in turn demonstrates that they were likely trained in some capacity.

Given that the Terracotta Army was buried, we can be sure that its purpose was not aesthetic or to entertain. Although in considering the army its purpose is fairly apparent, the textbook clearly states, "The terra-cotta army of Qin Shihuangdi [sic] protected his tomb.7 There are two possible ways to interpret this statement. On the one hand, it is likely that this protection is entirely material, i.e., that should someone or something try to disturb the emperor's tomb, the army might scare it/them off. On the other hand, it is possible that the army, as the AAM Web site states, was "intended to protect him in the afterlife."8 In either case, the army makes it clear that the emperor's experience in unifying China following the period of the Warring States alerted him to the ongoing nature of military conflict.

In conclusion, despite a lack of written evidence, the Terracotta Army tells us much about China in the third century BCE and its leader. We can learn from it that bronze weaponry was common, that artisans were talented and perhaps well trained, and that human lives were not treated equally, probably to some extent on the basis of economic inequality. The army provides, thus, an interesting example of a non-written primary source, which while not as direct as a written source is nevertheless informative.

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[1] Jerry Bentley and Herbert Ziegler, Traditions and Encounters, Volume 1: To 1500, 3rd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012), 105.

[2] "Archaeology," Asian Art Museum Web site, accessed December 1 2015, http://www.asianart.org/exhibitions_index/archaeology.

[3] Bentley & Ziegler, ibid, 56.

[4] "Archaeology," ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Bentley & Ziegler, ibid, 106.

[8] "Immortality," Asian Art Museum Web site, accessed December 1 2015, http://www.asianart.org/exhibitions_index/immortality

Chinese Dynasties: Qin vs. Han

It is difficult to isolate the primary reasons why the Qin Dynasty of China failed after only a few years while the subsequent Han Dynasty persisted for 400 years. However, it does appear as if one of the factors was the guiding philosophy of the rulers. Whereas the Qin Dynasty was guided by Legalism, the Han Dynasty was guided by Confucianism.

Legalism, as the textbook authors note, was a philosophy that emphasized the minimization of the division of labor into two streams: agriculture and the military.[1] Moreover, the Legalists believed in "clear and strict laws" to facilitate this stratification of society, providing both the expectations for citizens and the punishments if they fell out of line.[2]  While Legalism was useful in unifying China under a single government for the first time, it lent itself easily to authoritarianism, with the Qin Emperor Qin Shihuangdi ultimately instituting capital punishment for mere criticism and engaging in massive book burnings.[3] Although Emperor Qin was able to maintain rule until his death, the dynasty collapsed soon thereafter. It is possible to surmise that the arming of the peasantry through the militarization of the state played a role in the dissolution of the Qin state. Moreover, the expropriation of farm land from the hereditary aristocracy[4] likely stoke resentments, resulting in score-settling in the absence of a strong ruler. Given that Legalism contributed to both policies, it can be said that Legalism ultimately contributed to the destruction of the Qin Dynasty.

In contrast, the Han Dynasty's rulers emphasized Confucianism over Legalism. In making this choice, the rulers implemented a ruling philosophy that stressed the importance of obedience to political authority (embodied in part in the principle of li), as well as benevolence and loyalty in the rulers themselves (embodied in ren).[5] Finally, Confucius advocated a system of education to reinforce these values. The result under the Han Dynasty was another centralized state with a large bureaucracy that also engaged in land redistribution but that nevertheless showed a more humanitarian face and thus commanded greater respect from its subjects. When social disorder arose under the Han Dynasty, it did so more out of the economic inequality that arose over time than out of resentment against governmental cruelty. Plus, the longer-term success of its agricultural policies resulted in rapid population growth,[6] which in turn gave rise to greater societal complexity and the consequent innovation expected in such an environment.

The extent to which Confucianism was recognized as a factor in the success of the Han Dynasty is testified to in Confucianism continuing to be a major philosophical school of thought in China through the 20th century. Although with the advent of Mao, Confucianism  was at least officially superseded by Marxism, it has nevertheless continued to show its impact on Chinese society and culture. The comparative insignificance of Legalism historically speaking further proves this point.

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1. Jerry Bentley and Herbert Ziegler, Traditions and Encounters, Volume 1: To 1500, 3rd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012), 104.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid, 105.

4. Ibid, 104.

5. Ibid, 101.

6. Ibid, 112.

Final Exam: 1492 vs. the Present

Explanation: This was my final exam essay for my World History 1500 to Present class. Got an A!

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In 1492, the world was bifurcated. On the one hand, the so-called Old World of Africa and Europe for the most part had interconnected economies through trade routes and maritime commerce, complex societies, and political systems characterized mainly by monarchy. On the other hand, the Americas were isolated, with few societies in contact economically, a large proportion of people still hunting and gathering, and monarchy limited to only a few places. However, with the Columbian Exchange begun in 1492 and the consequent historical developments, the world has converged economically, politically, culturally.

Economically, the looting of gold and silver from the Americas was among the first impacts of contact between the hemispheres. The increase in hard currency drove prices up and also funded further colonial endeavors that further drove a fledgling trans-Atlantic trade. One example is the growth of the sugar trade based on the introduction of coffee to the European market. Because sugar must be farmed in tropical climates by workers accustomed to such conditions, Caribbean plantations drove the market for slavery.

With the Industrial Revolution in Europe, economic growth grew more than ever before, consequently linking hemispheres even more closely. The freeing of human industry from agriculture due to industrialization gave rise to further technological innovation, culminating in the digital economy of today. Compared to 1492, when markets in Belgium and the Amazon basin were totally unrelated, now all markets affect one another due to electronic banking, international investment, and free trade pacts from the late 20th century.

Politically, the Eastern Hemisphere was characterized by monarchies. Agriculture had given rise to food surpluses, in turn giving rise to divisions of labor, urbanization, and concentration of wealth. Large agricultural entrepreneurs who benefited from economies of scale amassed economic and political power, culminating in a hierarchical structure with a monarch on the top. The Western hemisphere, limited by fewer cultivable crops and animals suitable for husbandry, developed monarchies in only a few areas, maintaining a very large proportion of hunter/gatherer societies, characterized politically by fierce egalitarianism.

Contact between hemisphere, based as it was on clear economic and, thus, political inequality, resulted in the extension of monarchy to the Western Hemisphere in the form of empire. However, between the American Revolution and the final throes of decolonization in the post-World War II period, in most cases, political sovereignty was established such that new, independent states were established. Since World War II, in particular, democratization has been the norm, at least in theory. The republican form of government or, at the very least, constitutional monarchy has become commonplace, although certain areas of the world have found the transition more difficult than others.

Culturally, the world was arguably more diverse in 1492 than it is today. Cultures were distinctive in the Eastern Hemisphere on a roughly continent-wide basis, with Europe characterized by a culture steeped in Christianity, the Middle East in Islam, the Far East in Buddhism, etc. Outside of major world powers, languages were largely non-written and quite numerous. This was particularly the case in the Western Hemisphere, where only a handful of languages had any written form. Similarly, religion in the Western Hemisphere had not yet been influenced by Abrahamic faiths, which then as now made up a plurality, if not a clear majority, of professed religious faiths.

Since Columbus's arrival in the Americas, the story has been one of decreased diversity, although of course diversity persists to some extent. Christianity was undoubtedly triumphant in the Western Hemisphere. With the exception of a handful of sizable Hindu communities in the Americas arising from the diaspora of workers from India in the 19th century, Jewish communities strewn about as a consequence of international trade, and far more recent communities of peoples of other religions, including Islam, due to more open immigration policies, the Western Hemisphere has established populations with overwhelmingly Christian -- and in Latin America, overwhelmingly Roman Catholic -- populations. In addition, the Western Hemisphere (and post-Colonial Africa) now uniformly speaks European languages: Spanish, English, French, Portuguese, and Dutch.

Consequent with the political and economic superiority of the United States since the end of World War II (if not longer), a pervasive culture marked by consumerism has become common in much of the world. Because the U.S. is the world's largest consumer base and because it has the world's largest gross domestic product, the production and trade of goods worldwide has taken on a focus on America and Americans, with clear multiplication of American commercial products (blue jeans, Coca-Cola, McDonald's, etc.). Although there has also clearly been a backlash against this trend, it is not that it will end anytime soon.

In conclusion, a world largely divided by hemisphere in 1492 has, in the five hundred years since then, become a more unified world economically, politically, and culturally. Markets are more independent than ever before, with international trade touching every continent and, as a result, affected virtually everyone's lives. Democracy has by and large replaced other forms of government, particularly absolute monarchy, although it is unclear how well it has succeeded in some places vs. others. Finally, contact between hemispheres had the cultural consequences of the spread of European languages and religions, and in the most recent century, American consumer culture. Whether international capitalism, democracy, and a triumphant Western/American culture will persist into the currently century is currently unknown, but it is clear that the clock cannot be turned back to the way it was before 1492. If change comes, it will be further progression, rather than devolution.

On Atrocities

Armesto-Fernandez refers to the 20th century as a "century of atrocities" for quite literal reasons, with the author tying the term directly to the two major world wars fought over the course of the century. Certainly, if we examine the century chronologically, we can see that there was an uncommon amount and level of violence in the 20th century, surpassing both previous centuries and the 21st century thus far in both size and scope. Tracing the "long century" that Armesto-Fernandez formulates from 1898 (Spanish-American War) to 2010 (global financial crisis), we can isolate three historical events/periods -- World War I, World War II, and the post-colonial period in the developing world -- to demonstrate the extent to which the 20th century was marked by atrocities, using the specific lens of genocide.

World War I was expected to be a short war by those who engaged in it, but it dragged on for four years and ended up taking millions of lives due to the tactics with which it was fought. However, it was also marked by being the first modern war in which one of the belligerents engaged in genocide. The Ottoman Turks, angry at pre-war European demands for Ottoman reform on the basis of Europeans' shared Christian faith with the Armenians, fearful of Armenian collusion with invading Russian forces, and angry at limited but damaging attacks on Ottoman military positions by the Armenian Liberation Front guerrilla organization decided in April 1915 to eliminate the Armenian population of Anatolia through mass deportation, deliberate starvation, murder, torture, and rape. At least half a million Armenians died, but perhaps three times that many. The Armenian genocide also reflected the 20th century implementation of extreme nationalism. The Young Turk movement that seized power in the Ottoman Empire in 1908 was marked by Turkish nationalism that sought to united Turkic peoples throughout Asia and "Turkify" non-Turkish ethnic minorities through language policy and forced conversion to Islam. The atrocities committed against the Armenians represents only the most extreme example specific to the Young Turks; Greeks and Assyrians were also ethnically cleansed between 1898 and 1923.

If the Ottoman genocide of the Armenians was motivated in part by Turkish nationalism, then the Holocaust that occurred during World War II was an even more extreme example. The Nazis' nationalism was more radical that the Ottomans', complicated by the militant authoritarianism of fascism and what Saul Friedländer has called the Nazis' "redemptionist anti-Semitism." While the Nazis would likely have been satisfied to deport all of Europe's Jews elsewhere, it was Hitler's miscalculation on the Eastern Front in the war with the Soviet Union that ultimately led to genocide. Beginning in the summer of 1941 but culminating in final decision making that winter, roughly six million Jews were consigned to extermination, as well as other racial and political enemies, including Soviet POWs, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, and the political left. In so far as the war crimes committed by the Nazis with the invasion of the Soviet Union determined the ferocity of the Soviet counteroffensive and the resolve of the Soviet people to continue to fight, it could be argued that the industrialization of warfare worldwide during the 20th century had the consequences of causing the Nazi-Soviet war to be long and drawn out, with genocidal consequences for Jews caught between the two regimes.

Although the Cold War of 1944 (Yalta) to 1991 (fall of the USSR) was a period during which major wars were avoided and the major genocidal campaigns that accompanied the world wars similarly avoided, only three years after the Soviet Union was dissolved did Hutu extremists in control of the government commit genocide against the Tutsi minority in that country, with a death count again numbering at least a half million. The Rwandan genocide, recent as it was, is perhaps the least completely understood of these three genocides, but it can fairly be said that radical ideology and protracted warfare, as seen in the earlier examples, played key roles here. The decision of the extremists in the government and army to engage in genocide was both the direct result of a radical nationalist ideology among a minority of Hutus, but it was also a decision made in the context of a civil war -- a point often omitted from discussion. A Tutsi militia constituted of exiled Rwandans had invaded Rwanda four years earlier and committed horrendous war crimes, and the genocide against Tutsis in 1994 was in part a reaction borne of fear of the ongoing civil war resulting in Tutsis overthrowing the government establishing a supremacist government over the majority Hutus -- which was, in fact, the status quo under the old monarchy abolished in 1959. Sadly, the backlash in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide resulted in precisely what these Hutu extremists feared. Paul Kagame's Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front seized power in 1994 and has remained in power ever since, with dire consequences for any Rwandan who dares question the wisdom of Kagame's authoritarian rule.

In conclusion, it is clear that the 20th century was a century of atrocities. The three genocides discussed here -- the Armenian genocide, Jewish Holocaust, and Rwandan genocide -- all occurred during that century and all involved radical nationalist ideologies. In the case of the Holocaust, industrialization also played an essential role. Were these the only incidences of mass killing to have occurred during the 20th century, the point would be made, but events in modern-day Namibia, Guatemala, Burundi, the Balkans, Bangladesh, Cambodia, East Timor, and elsewhere emphasize the point even more. While it is true that genocidal violence occurred in previous centuries, the sheer scale of the killing of civilians during the 20th century is unique.

On Modernization

Introductory note: I have perhaps never written so many five-paragraph essays in my life...

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Felipe Armesto-Fernandez is quite open in the textbook in stating that the term modernization is "strictly speaking, meaningless"[1] because its definition can change according to place and especially time. However, with regard to the nineteenth century, it can at least be said that modernization can be characterized in part by the political, social, and cultural movements that arose internationally over the course of that century, even if these movements had specific national manifestations and varying levels of success -- as well as cases of countries that avoided them entirely. Among the movements that characterized modernization in the nineteenth century, militarization, nationalism, and constitutionalism were among the most important, not only because of their immediate effects but also because of their longer-term consequences.

Militarization is a fairly self-explanatory term, and it can fairly be said that, during the nineteenth century, militarization was primarily the consequences of industrialization: in so far as countries industrialized, they militarized. The quintessential example of a state that heavily militarized over the nineteenth century is Germany. Although it had been heavily victimized by Napoleon as a loose confederation of states, the militarization of the Kingdom of Prussia spread to other German states until, upon unification, the German Empire was among the most heavily militarized states in Europe -- so much so that it played key roles in international diplomatic/military crises (e.g., the Moroccan crisis of 1905) than it would have ever in the past. In contrast, those states that failed in militarization were by and large those states that lost wars to other militarized powers. For instance, while Egyptian and Sudanese potentates formed armies during the nineteenth century, both areas were eventually brought under British control, owing to the latter's superior military strength. China, different from Germany, the Egyptians, and Sudanese, did not militarize as a consequence of not industrializing. The anecdote that Armesto-Fernandez offers of a Chinese general consulting oracles before facing British warships is emblematic of such rejectionism.

Nationalism is a more difficult term to define, although I have personally favored Benedict Anderson's idea of a nation as an "imagined community," unified by language, culture, and geography.[2] In many cases, the experience of colonialism was a direct factor in causing nationalism to emerge. A true success story of nineteenth-century nationalism is Italy, which (like Germany, which also successfully implemented a nationalist agenda) was  a conglomeration of smaller states -- under the rule of Austria, France, and Spain -- until united in the 1860s. The emergence of the Kingdom of Italy as a regional power was a direct consequence. In contrast, any nationalist movement for which a state failed to materialize can be considered an example of failed implementation of nationalism. Here, prominent examples include the minorities of Spain, primarily the Basque and Catalonian peoples, although it bears mention that neither group's nationalist movement died out. The United Kingdom, itself united under a single monarch in 1603 and then under a single government in 1707, largely ignored nationalism as a trend during the century, in part because it already had established a national identity before the nineteenth century began, accomplishing this goal in part by emphasizing a British identity over an English, Scottish, Welsh, or Irish identity (although certain peoples -- Scottish highlanders, e.g., were omitted). It might be argued that this is nationalism nevertheless, but it is a civic nationalism, rather than the ethnic nationalism that characterized the nineteenth century.

Constitutionalism, the emphasis on the rule of law rather than the rule of human beings, was most successful in the United States, where a constitution ratified in 1789 remains in effect to this very day. That constitutionalists, reacting to tyranny in the form of British taxation without parliamentary representation, were successful in throwing off the yoke of rule from the metropole provided evidence to other states that such a movement was feasible. However, some states, such as the Ottoman Empire, failed to implement constitutionalism. Although attempts were made throughout the nineteenth century by the Turks to adopt constitutional government, these efforts were generally short-lived and followed by the sultanate receiving its previous power, usually somewhat enhanced. Finally, some states did not bother with constitutionalism at all. For example, the Russian Empire elected instead to maintain an autocratic state under a tsar. Despite the abolition of serfdom and quasi-constitutional reforms under Alexander II, the tsar's assassination and the subsequent despotic rule of his son and grandson -- Alexander III and Nicholas II -- resulted in Russia still being an absolute monarchy by the end of the century.

The consequences of these movements seem clear. The consequence of militarization is war. It is no accident of history that the militarization of virtually all European states during the nineteenth century culminated in a major military conflict soon after the century came to a close. The consequence of nationalism is oppression because it is fundamentally unprepared to address the problem -- or even the existence -- of ethnic minorities, resulting in programs of forced assimilation, expulsion, and genocide -- consider the genocide of Armenians that accompanied World War I. Finally, the consequence of constitutionalism seems to be democracy.  The longer that constitutionalism remains in effect, the more likely it is that democracy will expand rather than contract. Consider here the case of the United States, which has expanded its franchise from perhaps 20% of Americans (property-owning, 21-year-old white men) being able to vote in 1789 to universal suffrage, including of the working class, non-whites, women, and people subject to military conscription. Thus, we can see that the long-term consequences of the nineteenth century trends of militarization, nationalism, and constitutionalism had substantial effects on the twentieth century and beyond.

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[1] Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, The World: A History, vol. 2, 3rd ed. (New York: Pearson, 2015), 732.
[2] Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Verso, 2006).

Mesopotamia vs. Egypt

Here's the first discussion post for my SNHU-117 class.

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One similarity shared by ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia was government in the form of monarchy. It is likely that they shared monarchy because they both were agricultural societies. The textbook authors argue that monarchy gave rise to surplus wealth, which in turn gave rise to class distinctions, including "ruling elites."[1] It is likely that competition among members of ruling elites for increased power resulted in the evolution from rule by elite groups to rule by elite individuals. As also noted in the textbook, patriarchy accompanied urbanization -- which arose with agriculture because of the ability to sustain larger populations due to surplus food -- because of the emergence of motherhood as the principal social role in increasingly militarized and physical work-intensive societies.[2] These trends assured that almost all monarchs were male.

A key difference between the two societies was related to the aforementioned issues, but also to geography. This difference was that political power was centralized in ancient Egypt but not in Mesopotamia; i.e., whereas the latter has several kings of individual city states, the former had only a single pharaoh at a time, beginning with the Old Kingdom. The sociologist Michael Mann has argued for an ecological explanation: the concentration of resources in the river valley meant that  communication networks could only run north with the river, thus limiting opposition to consolidation.[3] In addition, raw materials for weapons lay only to the east in the Sinai, so whoever controlled the river controlled those resources as well. In contrast, the existence of two rivers in Mesopotamia allowed for a broader settlement area and more even distribution of resources and wealth. Therefore, it was much more difficult for individual monarchs to consolidate broad bases of economic, military, and political power.

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     1. Jerry Bentley and Herbert Ziegler, Traditions and Encounters, Volume 1: To 1500, 3rd ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012), 2-3.
     2. Ibid, 14-15.
     3. Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power, vol. 1, new ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 110-112.

On the Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution had an enormous impact on the world's economies. However, it is clear from looking at the economies of the world today that some countries were impacted less than others, and some not at all. However, not all of the countries that did not industrialize failed in undertaking the process; rather, some of these countries opted out of the process entirely. By examining three countries that succeeded, failed, and opted out of the industrialization process -- the United States, India, and the Netherlands, respectively -- we can determine the factors that determined these outcomes.

The United States offers an example of successful industrialization, and the key factors in this success appear to be combined aspects of population and economics. Fernandez-Armesto notes that, despite very large-scale immigration to the United States over the course of the 19th century, the U.S. nevertheless remained underpopulated, and countries with small workforces are more conducive to industrialization. The remaining factors of industrialization in the U.S. were chiefly economic. Industrialization increases supply, and as economists are wont to say, "supply creates its own demand."[1] Part of this demand in the United States was the government itself, which funded public projects that relied on industrialization -- e.g., the railroads -- and to fund these projects, the U.S. government increased the money supply. As Fernandez-Armesto notes further, the key factor that prevented such a monetary policy from becoming grossly inflationary was probably increased production and trade. Thus, industrialization in the United States was successful finally because it became a self-perpetuating process.

In India, the chief force preventing successful industrialization was colonialism. By the 19th century, India had already been in the process of being colonized by the United Kingdom, and this process would intensify over the course of the century with power transferred from the British East India Company to the government. However, the reasons for failed industrialization in India were ultimately also economic. Because the British expropriated goods produced in India, it had the effect of decreasing demand for those goods, thus depriving India of a key factor that drove successful industrialization in the United States. Moreover, Fernandez-Armesto reports, the British laid a heavy tax burden on India, thereby decreasing the money in circulation among Indians, entered into direct competition with Indian-owned textile mills that were less industrialized, thereby driving down the price of textiles, and finally passed protectionist tariffs on Indian-produced goods, thereby eradication any remaining demand for Indian-produced textiles. Fernandez-Armesto links these policies to a mass exodus of Indian laborers to elsewhere in the British Empire for work, causing native Indian owned and run businesses to collapse. Clearly, industrialization in India for the Indian economy failed -- although just as clearly it did not fail the British.

Finally, in the Netherlands, industrialization was largely avoided. Fernandez-Armesto offers the Netherlands as the quintessential example of a country that largely did not industrialize because it did not have to. While its neighbor Belgium became arguably the most industrialized country in Europe, the Netherlands continued through much of the 19th century to be a primarily agrarian economy. Fernandez-Armesto reports that the Netherlands retained an agrarian position despite having an empire (in Indonesia) and having extensive long-range trade -- two factors that should have favored industrialization. Ultimately, the Netherlands opted out because it worked in a sort of economic partnership with Belgium, with the former supplying food to the latter, and the latter supplying industrial goods to the former. Thus, the Netherlands'  position of opting out, like the success and failure of the United States and India, respectively, is informed by economics also -- here, the case of economic cooperation yielding a sort of symbiosis between the two countries. 

In conclusion, we can see that economics was the chief driver in how well, how poorly, or whether at all countries adopted industrialization. The United States, although blessed with the idea situation of underpopulation of workers, truly benefitted from a self-perpetuating system of industrialization driving demand and vice versa. India failed in industrializing because its economy was exploited to the greatest extent possible by its colonizer, the United Kingdom. Finally, the Netherlands opted out of industrializing because it could rely on the economic symbiosis it enjoyed with Belgium. While these conditions would ultimately change in the 20th century, with service economies largely replacing industrial economies, by the end of the 19th century, clear patterns of industrialization had emerged worldwide that would persist for some time. 

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[1] John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, University of Missouri-Kansas City Web site, accessed November 19, 2015, http://cas.umkc.edu/economics/people/facultypages/kregel/courses/econ645/winter2011/generaltheory.pdf, p. 22 

Work in Progress: Timeline of Sicilian-Arab Interaction

By of explanation, next week I'll be starting a new course at SNHU -- HIS-117, World Civilization, Prehistory to 1500. The term paper for this course asks that the student write a paper on intercultural interaction, so I decided to return to a topic I started researching a few years back in hopes of perhaps writing novel (I didn't) -- the Muslim invasion of Sicily in 827 CE and the subsequent founding of the Emirate of Sicily. Today I made a tentative timeline for the period, which is below. More to follow.

652: First Arab attack on Sicily
732: Battle of Tours
739: Berber Revolt
750: Abbasid (Shia) Revolution
800: Aghlabids given rule of Ifriqiya
827: Battle of Trapani
831: Emirate of Sicily proclaimed
902: Conquest of Sicily complete
909: Rise of Fatimids (Shia)
948: Kalbid dynasty established
973: Zirids take control in Ifriqiya
1048: Zirids become independent in Ifriqiya
1053: Last Kalbid dies
1061: Norman conquest begins
1071: Normans conquer Sicily
1121: Almohads in Ifriqiya
1146: Norman attack Ifriqiya
1171: Ayyubids conquer Cairo
1229: Hafsids in Ifriqiya
1240: Last Muslims expelled from Sicily
1250: Mamluks conquer Cairo
1261: Abbasids reinstated in Ifriqiya
1300: Liquidation of Lucera

On Slavery

The institution of slavery had broad implications far beyond the obvious result of millions of sub-Saharan Africans being forcibly recollected to the western hemisphere. These implications were political, cultural, and economic in nature and can be seen throughout the eighteenth century. They include the catalyzing of the independence movement in the British colonies of North America, the racial intermarriage and the resultant institutionalization of racism in Europe and the Americas, and the emergence of a triangular trans-Atlantic trade among the Americas, Africa, and Europe. 

Politically, a major event in the eighteenth century was the emergence of the United States of America in the aftermath of a war for independence fought by British colonists in North America against the monarchy. Although the role of slavery in this independence might not be immediately apparent, slavery did play a key role. Although slavery had been legal for some time in the British colonies, it had particularly grown in the southern colonies, which had developed a plantation economy and therefore relied rather heavily on slavery for their economic viability. Fernandez-Armesto writes that the ruling by a judge in the United Kingdom in 1772 outlawing slavery, while welcomed in some of the colonies, was viewed with suspicion and fear by those colonies that relied on slavery for their well-being. He notes further than virtually the whole black population of the colonies sided with the British in the war for independence, likely as a result. While it is likely that the colonists would have sought independence for other reasons, slavery nevertheless contributed in a significant way to the desire for independence.

Culturally, the mere presence of a substantial black population in places where they had not lived before led to changes. In much of the western hemisphere, the intermingling of racial groups gave rise to large populations of people of mixed race. Along with this demographic change came significant linguistic changes. African languages, native American languages, and European languages melded first into pidgins to facilitate trade and then into full-fledged creole languages. However, at the same time that racial intermingling began, laws against such relationships were passed, although Fernandez-Armesto stipulates that these laws often sought to preserve sexual inequality as much as racial inequality. In Dutch Surinam, he reports, women were subjected to corporal punishment for fornication with black men, but not vice versa. Racism ultimately increased as both a cause and an effect of fear of the corruption of white womanhood.

Economically, slavery likely had the greatest impact of all, with this impact taking on a truly intercontinental scale. People of European descent in the western hemisphere operated plantations that required slave labor for their economic viability. Western Africa served as the reservoir for slave labor, and Europeans who operated the slave stations along the coast of western Africa became wealthy through the slave trade. This wealth, in turn, greatly enriched the nations from which those Europeans came -- primarily the United Kingdom but also the Netherlands and France. As a result, these countries grew in their economic influence, not to mention their military and political influence. By the time the eighteenth century ended, a well-established triangular trade with stations in the Caribbean, western Europe, and west Africa, with slaves transported from Africa to the Caribbean, agricultural products transported worldwide from the Caribbean, and money earned from trading in slaves transported to Europe. Although, as noted above, the British began to intimate a move away from slavery in the 1770s, it was largely as the result of expanded colonial endeavors, primarily in India, that the British were able to finally abolish slavery in the 1830s.

In conclusion, it is clear that slavery had widespread political, cultural, and economic consequences. From its important role in inspiring British colonists in North American to seek independence to the rise of a multiracial population in much of the western hemisphere, the backlash against this so-called miscegenation, and the increasingly economically lucrative interrelatedness of Europe, Africa, and the Americas, slavery was a truly transformative factor in the eighteenth century. Although slavery would be abolished in most of these places by 1890, its consequences can still be felt today.

On the Columbian Exchange

The period of global interaction inaugurated by Columbus's arrival in the Western hemisphere lay the groundwork for much of the social, cultural, and political changes worldwide in the 16th and 17th centuries. These changes were either developments resulting from this interaction or reactions against it. Specific examples include demographic changes Brazil, the political transformation of Russia, and the closing of Japan to the west.

Slavery was a major driver of demographic change in the 16th and 17th centuries, and Fernandez-Armesto discusses at length how the need for agricultural labor in the tropical regions of the western hemisphere with pre-existing ability to tolerate extreme heat and humidity drove the slave trade to increase exponentially over the period under discussion. In Brazil, the influx of black slaves from sub-Saharan Africa by nominally Christian plantation owners, under the careful eye of Catholic missionary organizations, resulted in a syncretic effect on black religious belief. The confraternities that arose, which Fernandez-Armesto calls "lay brotherhoods" dedicated to "black artistic vocations and religious devotion … centered on the cult images."[1] The author then goes on to describe how, rather than having a placating effect on slaves, Black Catholicism was a motivating force for self-empowerment even within the obviously strict confines of slavery.

Politically, global interaction affected the role of government in Russia under the guiding hand of Tsar Peter the Great. Fernandez-Armesto notes that Peter modeled his political reforms on what he observed in central and western Europe while traveling incognito, modeling his new capital city of St. Petersburg on the Baltic Sea on the rapidly growing cities of Amsterdam, Paris, and London. Not coincidentally, these cities were all capitals of metropoles of large empires that enriched themselves through colonialism. Peter observed the influx of wealth into these cities and countries and, in emulating them, introduced Russia permanently into the community of European nations, both as member of military alliances and as a trade partner.

However, as noted, not all of the changes wrought by global interaction were marked by positive reactions. Fernandez-Armesto discusses how, unlike in the Americas, where Christianity was largely embraced by the population, Christianity was unsuccessful in penetrating Japan because the Japanese leadership suppressed its practice. He mentions this suppression in the context of both an increasing closing of Japan to the west, reporting that the government "practically forbade its subjects to travel overseas,"[2] as well as Japan's resultant embrace of Buddhism and its melding withindigenous ancestor worship. Fernandez-Armesto nevertheless notes that Japan's rejection of the west and westerners did not negate its imperial endeavors or economic growth. The latter factor transformed Japanese politically, such that the power of the samurai declined, while the shogunate emerged, with the shoguns playing roles similar to the empowered nobility of the European monarchies or the mandarins of the late Ming Dynasty in China.

Clearly the global exchange of the post-Columbian period had enormous effects worldwide, politically, socially, and culturally. Politically, economic transformation as a result of colonialism resulted in the tsardom of Peter the Great in Russia and the shoguns in Japan. Socially and culturally, the rapidly shifting demographic nature of the western hemisphere resulted in the rise of a unique form of Christianity that stood in contrast to its European original, while the same religion was rejected in Japan in favor of more "authentic" Asian forms of belief. While it cannot be conclusively stated that these changes would not have occurred without the global exchange following 1492, it is unlikely to have happened as rapidly and pervasively without it.

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[1] Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, The World: A History, vol. 2, 3rd ed. (New York: Pearson, 2015), 511.

[2] Ibid, 446.

Stuff I'm Reading

The Shaping of Modern America: 1877-1920, Vincent P. DeSantis
The Muslims of Medieval Italy, Alex Metcalfe

On "1491" by Charles C. Mann

By way of explanation, I'm current taking a course at the Community College of Philadelphia for transfer to the history program at SNHU. The course is Global History II, which covers 1492 to the present. The below is my short paper for the first week of class.

The assigned reading (see footnote 1 below for the link) was an essay published in The Atlantic in 2002, in which the author, Charles C. Mann, fleshed out some of the concepts that would eventually appear in his 2006 book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus.

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In his article "1491,"[1] Charles C. Mann attempts to demonstrate the extent to which our typical assumptions about pre-Columbian life in the Americas might be wrong. To prove his points, he brings to bear mostly the opinions of experts in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, and history, discussing the largely academic controversies that have arisen over the course the last half-century in determining, among other factors, the native population figures of the continent, the causes of the fates of these peoples, and the extent to which the ecology of the Western Hemisphere interacted with native Americans. He also uses some personal experiences to make his points. Mann is ultimately successful in making his case, although it is unclear whether his representation of opposing points of view is complete or wholly accurate.

For instance, Mann's article engages the academic controversy over population data immediately, as he sets the point of view of the archaeologists Clark Erickson and William Balée that "Indians were here [in the Beni province of Bolivia] far longer than previously thought … and in much greater numbers"[2] against that of the anthropologists Betty J. Meggers and Dean R. Snow, who argue that the former's arguments lack evidence and are based on wishful thinking. The essay culminates in the dispute over the origins of the Amazon rain forest, with Meggers's position of native Amazonian societies dependent on soil with poor yield and thus limited in population size for Malthusian reasons compared to Anna C. Roosevelt's conclusion that the rain forest was both exploited for its rich soil (which Roosevelt, an archaeologist, excavated) and partially created by the choice of native people to plant orchards rather than more regularly rotated crops.

Mann's own position in this ongoing debate is not overtly stated but can be gleaned from certain details in the essay. For instance, it is with the aforementioned Balée and Erickson that Mann visits Beni himself, and he provides a firsthand account of Painted Rock Cave to present Roosevelt's opinion and that of the anthropologist/botanist Charles R. Clement, who agrees with her. In contrast, Meggers's opinion, while presented in direct quotations, does not benefit from such a specific setting, which seems to validate more the reports of Roosevelt. To his credit, Mann presents Meggers's rebuttal of Roosevelt as well meaning, motivated in part by conservationism,[3] but his emphasis of the negative tone of her rebuttal -- at turns calling Roosevelt's work "extravagant" and "defamatory"[4] -- leaves the impression that her argument is overly emotional and, thus, inferior.

If nothing else, Mann provides in "1491" a solid overview of the battleground that has arisen over these opposing claims.  In this sense, the essay is enormously successful. Moreover, as a person with some interest in pre-Columbian cultures, I found the essay downright fascinating. In the end, however, I was left to wonder whether the presentation was entirely fair. The impression finally left, as well written and gripping as the article might be, is that the positions of scholars such as Meggers and Snow are outdated and, more importantly, that their resistance to new ideas is mean-spirited and petty. While this impression does not detract from the overall entertainment value of the essay, it does leave open the question of how well Meggers's and Snow's argument might succeed if assessed a bit more fairly.

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[1] Charles C. Mann, "1491," The Atlantic, March 2002, accessed October 27, 2015 http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/03/1491/302445/

[2] Ibid.

[3] Not stated by Mann directly but likely unavoidable to perceive given her surname is that Roosevelt is the great-grand-daughter of Theodore Roosevelt, who made no small contribution to conservation.

[4] Mann, ibid.

On Paris and History

One of the moral dicta of history is the famous one from George Santayana: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." The advice is clear: history is told in part to teach of what went wrong in the past so we can avoid it in the present (and future). So far, so good.

The terrorist attacks yesterday in Paris afford us an unfortunate opportunity to consider Santayana's famous advice. The right and left have lined up in response to this outrage with their respective chants of closed borders, anti-Muslim rhetoric, Eurocentric panic, etc. (the right), and religion of peace, not all Muslims, look-at-Syria-what-do-you-expect, etc. (the left). I virtually always come down on the side of the left, and even in this case, in which I think it's obvious that Islam as a religion has the capability of being exploited for its inherently violent content -- just like, it absolutely bears mentioning, Judaism and Hinduism -- I still tend to come down that way. I would hate to see Muslim refugees turned away at the borders of Europe, and I would also hate to see Europe experience a wave of right-wing nationalism in the face of attacks such as these.

At the same time, I recognize that, at least for those people who perpetrated the attacks and their sympathizers, their values are deeply at odds with the hard-won standards of the west, and I don't apologize for believing that, in a struggle between maintaining those standards and helping people in need, the former is more important than the latter in the long term. That said, I do believe that this position is a liberal one -- individual rights and freedoms are sacrosanct. You have the right to say what you want and no right not to be offended. But I digress.

What does history tell us about Muslim fundamentalist terrorist violence against the west? Curious about this particular question, I did some Googling to see what I could find. Among the first sources -- and, it turns out, more reliable -- I found was one from the PBS web site, which indicated that the current problem of terrorist committed by Muslims against western people and targets didn't begin very long ago; rather, PBS dates its advent to 1968, with the vast majority of terrorist acts committed by members of one national group -- Palestinians -- against civilian and government targets in western Europe. The problem with viewing these attacks as Muslim fundamentalism is that the groups carrying out these attacks all began as part of the PLO, which is an explicitly secular organization. In fact, one of the key militant Palestinian leaders during this period -- George Habash, head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine -- was Christian.

So at least part of the equation we're seeking to solve doesn't fit here. Yes, there were Muslims committing acts of terrorism against the west in 1968, but they weren't doing so as Muslims, and that's an important distinction.  Also, given the sheer amount of global unrest in 1968, it ends being somewhat unsurprising that there was Palestinian violence in this year -- and it becomes doubly less surprising when one considers that Israel had begun its occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem the previous year.[1]

The PBS site makes clear that there was not the onset of terrorism committed against western targets and westerners until 1979, which is a bit of a watershed year in the history of Muslim fundamentalism, since it was the year in which the Islamic Revolution occurred in Iran, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, and the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, was seized by guerrillas. Since 1979, there have been relatively regular attacks on the west by actors expressly wanting to be considered Muslim. Since 1991, coincident with the power vacuum created by the collapse of the USSR, it has intensified. Since 2001, it has intensified further. So we're not talking about a long and involved history of Muslims attacking the west in terrorist attacks. We're talking about less than fifty years. That alone should indicate something about whether Islam is inherently in a conflict of civilizations with the west. Clearly, if it were, we'd have had a big problem a much longer time ago -- the religion itself is more than a thousand years old.

The other side of the equation concerns Muslim emigration to Europe. Bearing in mind that, for hundreds of years, there have been Muslim-majority countries in Europe (Bosnia and Albania), if we consider the countries with the largest Muslim populations today that did not have indigenous Muslim populations a hundred years ago -- Germany, France, the U.K., Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Greece,[2] Austria, Sweden, and Denmark all have populations that are both at least 2% Muslim and that number at least 200,000 Muslims -- it's not as if there is some one-to-one correlation between having Muslims living as a notable minority in one's country and suffering from terrorism.

On top of that, it's not as if Muslim immigration to Europe is a brand new thing. It began with decolonization, which began (in the case of the U.K. with Pakistan) 68 years ago. It picked up in the 1950s and 1960s (Algerians emigrating to France, e.g., with continued decolonization), in part to meet labor needs (e.g., Turks emigrating to Germany). Following a bit of a clampdown on immigration after 1974, since 1988, emigration to Europe of Muslims has increased again, contributing to the current levels.

If it seems there's a connection between increased terrorism beginning in the late 1980s to early 1990s and increased Muslim immigration to Europe during the same period, that's because there is. The problem with assuming a cause-effect relationship between the two is that these two phenomena are both effects -- the cause was the collapse of the Soviet Union. The key thing to remember is that correlation does not imply causation.

To summarize, Muslims have been immigrating to Europe for a long time -- much longer than there has been a specific issue of terrorism committed by Muslims "in the name of Islam" against westerners. If the mere presence of Muslims in the west were the core of the problem, it would have been a problem decades ago. This is not to say that there are not Muslims currently living in the west with values radically different from those of most westerners, and that fact is not limited to those who actually act on their ideologies and that this is not something of a problem. But it is to say that anyone offering a "clear solution" like stopping Muslims from immigrating to Europe isn't looking at the bigger picture. Nor, for that matter, are they bearing in mind Europe's own home-grown "Christian" terrorists who, while perhaps less theatrical in their actions, were no less deadly.[3]

What happened yesterday is a terrible, awful thing for which there is no explanation or excuse. We ought not compound that horror by enacting policies that don't make sense.

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[1] It's also not very surprising because 1968 was the year that Yasir Arafat arose as the primary figure in the Palestinian leadership, although he would not official become the leader of the PLO until the following year.
[2] Greece has always had a Muslim minority, but it's become more notable in recent years.
[3] I think here of the actions of certain Irish republicans, the Basque Euskadi ta Askatasuna, etc.

So I'm Blogging Again

After 15 years out of graduate school and nearly a decade of not blogging, I've decided to take up blogging again as a way of working out ideas as I pursue a bachelor's degree in history at Southern New Hampshire University, where I have taught as an adjunct in the Literature Department for a couple of years.

To some extent, I've been studying history for a long time already. In 2000, I was invited to become a board member of the Holocaust History Project, which was established by the late Harry W. Mazal, OBE, to aid Prof. Deborah Lipstadt of Emory University in defending herself against a spurious libel suit brought against her by David Irving for her having stated in her book Denying the Holocaust that Irving is a Holocaust denier. (She won.) I had apparently attracted the attention of some of the existing board members debating Holocaust deniers in Usenet.

Since then, I earned something of a reputation as a person who refutes (and fights with) Holocaust deniers. I'm now reformed (more or less), and when I feel the need to respond to deniers, I'll do so here, perhaps simu-blogging over at Holocaust Controversies, where last I blogged. But I'll also be using this blog to post assignments for my coursework (once graded), respond to stuff I'm reading, etc. So if that kind of things interests you, then please come back.

Stuff I'm Reading:
The Indians in American Society, Francis Paul Prucha
Finland's War of Choice, Henrik O. Lunde
Hitler's Spanish Legion, Gerald R. Kleinfeld