Traditionally, we think about European power being built with ships and swords. However, new scholarship uncovers a more nuanced and complex picture. Today, 15 Minute History is joined by Mélanie Lamotte, Assistant Professor of History and French at the University of Texas at Austin. Lamotte is a historian of the French Empire whose work demonstrates the role that sex, race, and labor played in the global expansion of French power during the 17th and 18th centuries.
15 Minutes History – Jean-Paul Sartre In The Arab World
To kick off the new season of 15 Minute History, we talk to Yoav di-Capua, a Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of “No Exit Arab Existentialism, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Decolonization.” Professor di-Capua talks about French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre’s 1967 trip to Egypt and Israel on a quest to understand the region and its conflicts. The trip would challenge and change him — and lead to accusations of betrayal.
This is Democracy: Race & Opportunity in America
This week, Jeremi and Zachary are joined by Dr. Ruth Simmons to discuss her experiences and attitudes toward learning in the context of her new book, “Up Home: One Girl’s Journey.”
Zachary sets the scene with his poem entitled, “If The Leaves Could Speak.”
Dr. Ruth Simmons is the former president of Smith College, Brown University, and Prairie View A&M University — Texas’s oldest Historically Black College and University. She grew up in Grapeland, Texas, the youngest of 12 children born to sharecroppers.
Saving History: Cultural Heritage, Preservation and Public Service
In 2018, I was on a research expedition in Caracas, Venezuela. My days were filled with scheduling visits to libraries and repositories to start research for my dissertation on foreign oil companies and their activities in twentieth-century Venezuela. One sunny afternoon, an old mentor from my undergraduate years invited me to his private club. We were joined by another historian who shared an interest in my Ph.D. research at the University of Texas at Austin.
Sitting beside the swimming pool, our conversation revolved around our respective research projects. It quickly became evident that accessing primary sources in Venezuela posed a significant challenge. To start, there was minimal online information available. Most public and private libraries lacked online repositories accessible to researchers. Furthermore, many of the country’s archives and libraries were in dire condition. Underfunded and understaffed, they needed help to keep their doors open. To make matters worse, they had to limit their weekly operating hours.
Aware of these hurdles, my colleague, Guillermo Guzmán, and I began contemplating ways to preserve the country’s cultural heritage. Over the next few months, we explored various avenues to address this problem. Our attempts to secure funding for digitizing historical collections from the National Assembly (the equivalent of the U.S. Congress) proved futile. It soon became apparent that, as individual researchers, obtaining financial resources for digitization projects was an uphill battle. The logical step was establishing an organization dedicated to preserving the country’s history.
Incorporated in Venezuela and founded in 2021, the Fundación Red de Historia Digital Venezolana, known in English as The Venezuela History Network, simplified the application process for international grants. As this initiative unfolded, we were contacted by the National Academy of History of Venezuela, a prestigious public institution with a rich tradition of physically preserving archival materials and generating new knowledge about Venezuela’s and Latin America’s past. One of its colonial collections, the Civil-Slaves Section, faced infrastructural issues. This repository’s contents document the trials, civil cases, and petitions for freedom involving enslaved Afro-Venezuelans. Severe rains at the end of 2020 had compromised the ceiling where the collection was stored, prompting the archivists to relocate it. This institution sought our assistance in digitally preserving the collection. Through an inter-institutional agreement between the Venezuela History Network and the National Academy of History, we devised a plan to initiate the digitization of the Civil-Slaves Section. We also started looking for international grants. Our best supporter emerged in the form of the Gerda Henkel Stiftung from Germany. Thanks to the generous support of the Gerda Henkel Stiftung in 2022, the Venezuela History Network embarked on a digitization and preservation project for the Civil-Slaves Section.
After eight months of intensive labor, the project concluded. The Venezuela History Network successfully digitized 381 bound volumes and 23 boxes containing unbound documents, totaling 123,800 pages or 61,900 digital captures. This collaborative effort also facilitated infrastructural improvements to the room housing the collection, the acquisition of essential equipment such as scanners and laptops, and the creation of our current website and open-access digital library. Notably, this project allowed our team of paleographers, archivists, and researchers to train in best practices for digitizing historical materials. It’s worth mentioning that neither the Venezuela History Network nor the National Academy of History had any prior experience with digitization and metadata creation. The Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts provided the necessary training to accomplish this vital task.
The successful execution of the digitization project on the history of enslaved Afro-Venezuelans enabled us to reach new audiences. We promoted this new collection through online channels, social media, and public events, such as the one hosted at the Institute for Historical Studies at the University of Texas in Austin in October 2022. This first effort brought forth new challenges as well. In 2023, we were given numerous opportunities to digitize additional historical archives and diversify our collections catalog. Currently, the Venezuela History Network is engaged in at least six ongoing or soon-to-commence projects in collaboration with prestigious organizations like the Modern Endangered Archives Program at the University of California Los Angeles and the Center for Research Libraries through the Latin American Material Project (LAMP) initiative. We plan to create collections covering the history of Cocoa, the private papers of former Venezuelan presidents, two cultural and political magazines from the twentieth century, and an archive documenting the HIV and LGBTQIA+ movements in the upcoming year. These initiatives are collaborative efforts involving public institutions, private individuals, and non-profit organizations. We’ve also presented our mission at universities, local radio and YouTube channels, and even tech events in Las Vegas, of all places! Although we remain a relatively small organization, the Venezuela History Network is eager to establish new partnerships and connect with individuals interested in collaborating with us.
In my capacity as a historian, these achievements have illuminated a profound truth: that we can do more as activists, historians and social entrepreneurs. History should serve a purpose beyond academia. In my case, I am contributing to the digital preservation of my country’s history. What’s more, through our open-access library, the Venezuela History Network is bringing history directly to the people, facilitating their reconnection with their own past.
The digital copies retained by our partners after each project’s completion ensure that, even if circumstances change in the future, the historical collections we are digitizing will endure. To further this cause, we also extend our assistance to local partners in getting their collections online. Admittedly, this isn’t a definitive solution. Our current scope of work remains confined primarily to Caracas and its surrounding areas. There exist numerous archives and libraries in other provinces that find themselves helpless. The country urgently requires substantial investments in the infrastructure and human capital of libraries and archives to genuinely safeguard our cultural heritage. In the meantime, the Venezuela History Network is endeavoring to fill this void, leveraging every bit of experience we gain to assist in this monumental undertaking. Through local and international alliances, we hope that new organizations and groups will join us in this titanic effort, hence the word network in the name of our institution.
The need to provide reliable and easy access to historical materials is crucial. Communities and individuals alike want to discover and access their own histories. If you’re a historian or another type of scholar with a drive or calling to contribute to the world of history, follow your instincts, get organized, and embark on collaborative work with your community. Your impact, however small, will leave an enduring legacy for generations to come.
Marcus Golding is a Ph.D. candidate in the History department. He holds a B.A. in Liberal Arts from Universidad Metropolitana in Caracas, Venezuela, and a M.A. in Latin American Studies from Georgetown University. Born and raised in Venezuela, Golding’s research interests as a Ph.D. student include business and labor histories in Latin America during the Cold War and the cultural, social, and economic influences of US petroleum businesses in the region and in Venezuela specifically. Marcus is also the co-founder of the Venezuela History Network, an organization focused on the digitization of archives at risk in Venezuela and the promotion of the digital humanities in general.
The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.
3 Great Books About Commodity History
From the editors: Since its creation, Not Even Past has published hundreds of reviews covering a wide range of periods, places, and issues. In this series, we draw from our archives to suggest three great books focused broadly on a single topic.
In this article, we present three fascinating and important studies related to Commodity History.
Commodity history rose to prominence as an analytical perspective that sees beyond the economic value of things and uses them to examine wider social, political, and ecological trends of continuity and change. Due to the global nature of contemporary commodity chains, following a single commodity from its production through distribution to consumption often results in a global narrative. No wonder, then, that many scholars have adopted commodity-centered methodologies as a way to think beyond the nation-state.
The three books collected here masterfully express the power of commodities to tell stories about people, ideas, institutions, and ecological systems. Sven Beckert’s now classic work narrates the emergence of global capitalism through the growing popularity of cotton; John Soluri uses banana cultivation in Honduras to trace patterns of ecological change and trade with the United States; Finally, Seth Garfield explores the cultural symbolism of Guaraná to Brazilian society.
Taken together, the three reviewers – Edward Watson, Felipe Cruz, and Heidi Tinsman– share some eye-opening remarks about the analytical power of commodity history.
Edward Watson writes:
“Sven Beckert places cotton at the center of his colossal history of modern capitalism, arguing that the growth of the industry was the “launching pad for the broader Industrial Revolution.” Beckert follows cotton through a staggering spatial and chronological scope. Spanning five thousand years of cotton’s history, with a particular focus on the seventeenth to twentieth centuries, Empire of Cotton is a tale of the spread of industrialization and the rise of modern global capitalism. Through emphasizing the international nature of the cotton industry, Beckert exemplifies how history of the commodity and global history are ideally suited to each other. Produced over the course of ten years and with a transnational breadth of archive material, Empire of Cotton is a bold, ambitious work that confronts challenges that many historians could only dream of attempting. The result is a popular history that is largely successful in attaining the desirable combination of being both rigorous and entertaining.”
Read the full review here.
Felipe Cruz writes:
“With the banana monoculture spreading along the Honduran north coast, the importance of workers and pathogens as two principal actors in this book comes to light. The advent of the Panama disease, which was not a problem in dispersed small scale farms, but now spread like wildfire in massive plantations, brought about monumental changes. Soluri very meticulously documents the scientific struggle to fight the disease and its correlation to market pressures in the North American market. Because it was easy for the fruteras to get land concessions from the Honduran government, and because they failed to solve the problem through the creation of hybrids, the companies set about shifting plantation grounds to escape the disease, a land grab with great impact on the north coast and its availability of fertile soils.”
Read the full review here.
Heidi Tinsman writes:
“Guaraná: How Brazil Embraced the World’s Most Caffeine-Rich Plant is a luminous social biography of a single Amazonia fruit. Historian Seth Garfield re-invigorates the abiding relevance of the history of commodities as an entry point into Latin American history. As a history of consumption, science, and national mythology, the book invites readers into new terrain in the social life of things. Garfield explores guaraná’s many meanings and pathways over three centuries as it was transformed through Indigenous knowledges, European colonization, modern state-building, and the story of capital. By mid-twentieth century, guaraná had become Brazil’s iconic national soda, famous for its golden hue and energetic punch. Garfield traces the many transnational dynamics and flows that shape guaraná’s uses and meanings. But the book as a whole keeps Brazil and Brazilians center stage. ”
Read the full review here.
This is Democracy: Wildfires
This week, Jeremi and Zachary are joined by guests Randy Denzer and Dr. Alison Alter to discuss the increasing incidence of wildfires in the United States and what efforts have been made to mitigate them.
Zachary sets the scene with his poem entitled “When the Fire Comes.”
Randy Denzer has more than 30 years in the fire service and is one of the highest certified and qualified wildland firefighters in central Texas. He retired last year as an operations Battalion Chief with the Austin Fire Department (AFD). During Randy’s career at the Austin Fire Department, he wrote many wildland response policies for the AFD. Randy currently sits as an appointed member of the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) Wildland Fire Fighting Taskforce Committee in Washington DC.
Dr. Alison Alter is the elected representative for District 10 on the Austin City Council. She was first elected in 2016. Among other issues, wildfire prevention is one of her priorities. She has worked closely with various stakeholders to improve wildfire prevention and community resiliency around Austin.
This Is Democracy: Impeachment in Texas
This week, Jeremi and Zachary are joined by Joe Jaworski to discuss the recent acquittal of Attorney General Ken Paxton by the Texas Senate, as well as the potential fallout and ramifications that may come of it.
Zachary sets the scene with his poem entitled “A Bad Sonnet for a Bad Man.”
Joe Jaworski is a third-generation Texas trial attorney and former Mayor of Galveston, Texas. He has served as a law clerk to the United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit, and he has spent 32 years in private practice as a trial attorney, mediator, and legal commentator.
This Is Democracy: Strikes by Autoworkers
This week, Jeremi and Zachary are joined by Dr. William Jones to discuss the history of labor unions and the current ongoing strike by the United Auto Workers union.
Zachary sets the scene with his poem entitled “From The UAW Picket Line.”
William Jones is a professor of history at the University of Minnesota, where he is a leading scholar of workers, unions, and race in the United States. Prof. Jones is the author of: The Tribe of Black Ulysses: African American Lumber Workers in the Jim Crow South (2005) and The March on Washington: Jobs, Freedom and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights (2013).
This Is Democracy: Israel and Hamas
This week, Jeremi and Zachary are joined by Peter Beinart to discuss the ongoing conflict between Israeli and Palestinian forces and the destruction left in its wake.
Zachary sets the scene with his poem entitled, “For the Children of Israel, and the Ones Who Will Try to Forget.”
Peter Beinart is Professor of Journalism and Political Science at the Newmark School of Journalism at the City University of New York. He is also Editor-at-Large of Jewish Currents, an MSNBC political commentator, a frequent contributor to The New York Times, and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Foundation for Middle East Peace. He writes the Beinart Notebook newsletter on https://substack.com. His first book, The Good Fight, was published by HarperCollins in 2006. His second book, The Icarus Syndrome, was published by HarperCollins in 2010. His third, The Crisis of Zionism, was published by Times Books in 2012. Beinart recently published an important essay in the New York Times (October 14, 2023): “There is a Jewish Hope for Palestinian Liberation. It Must Survive.”
IHS Discussion: Loosening the Grid: Ideas for Mapping Human Experience
Anne Kelly Knowles (University of Maine) and Levi Westerveld (Norwegian Coastal Authority & Arctic Permafrost Atlas) co-present “Loosening the Grid: Ideas for Mapping Human Experience,” the keynote address for the Institute for Historical Studies’ research theme of 2023-2024, “Experiencing Place: Interrogating Spatial Dimensions of the Human Past.”
GIS has become the tool of choice for making maps of many kinds, yet its underlying architecture and design defaults are poorly suited to mapping the qualities and uncertainties of experience. Knowles and Westerveld will explain how Holocaust survivor testimonies pushed them to find alternatives to coordinate geography and how their current work builds on their first experiments with topological mapping.
Presented by:
Anne Kelly Knowles
McBride Professor of History, University of Maine; and
Co-founder, Holocaust Geographies Collaborative
https://umaine.edu/history/people/dr-anne-kelly-knowles/
https://holocaustgeographies.org/
Levi Westerveld
Environmental Consultant; Senior Engineer & Geographer, Kystverket – Norwegian Coastal Authority; and Editor, Arctic Permafrost Atlas
https://www.leviwesterveld.com/