Emily Whalen, Author at Not Even Past

Modern Islamic Thought in a Radical Age, by Muhammad Qasim Zaman (2012)

Starting with the encounter with European colonialism and modernity in the eighteenth century, Muslims increasingly began to worry that Islam was beset by existential crises as Muslim countries slowly fell under colonial domination. Some thought Islam had stagnated and made Muslims weak; others said true Islam already had the answers to modernity. Consequently, many prominent Muslim intellectuals from the Middle East and South East Asia, like Rashid Rida, Shah Wali Allah, Muhammad Iqbal, ‘Ubayd Allah Sindhi, and Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, insisted over the course of the next two centuries that Islam must in some way rediscover, renew, or reform itself to address the challenges of a changing world. This, of course, raised a host of questions. What needed to be reformed? How should reform be enacted? Who or what had the authority to decide such matters? Were these crises even real?

Muhammad Iqbal was knighted in 1922, by King George V (via Wikimedia Commons)

Muhammad Qasim Zaman takes these concerns as his starting point to examine Muslim contestations of religious authority and “evolving conceptions of [Sunni] Islam” from the nineteenth century to the present day.” At its core, this is a story of inconclusive debates, ambiguity, and cyclical tension as old wounds reopen and close, as lay and traditional religious scholars (the ‘ulama) contest how Islam should be understood and lived. By tracing the contextualized debates of the modern ‘ulama in a comparative, transnational framework, Zaman shows the multifaceted dimensions of internal debate and how this fosters ongoing fragmentation of religious authority in Islam, despite efforts to the contrary. Disposing with an overall chronology or single narrative, Zaman divides his book into the following key thematic issues: religious consensus, ijtihad (i.e. independent analogical reasoning), the common good, religious education, the place of women in law and society, socioeconomic justice, and violence. The problems surrounding these issues have continuously resurfaced within Muslim intellectual and religious circles since the nineteenth century. What links these hot-button, yet seemingly disparate, topics together are the fundamental issues of religious authority, that “aspiration, effort, and ability to shape people’s belief and practice on recognizably ‘religious’ grounds,” and internal criticism among Muslims. Each chapter topic, then, serves as a vehicle through which to explore the interplay between authority and criticism, and what the consequences and implications are for Islamic thinkers and Muslims more broadly.

Countries with Muslim-majority populations (via Wikimedia Commons).

The real world consequences of this battle over religious authority through internal criticism come across strongly in the chapter on violence. For example, the moderate Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the head of the European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR), wrote in his 2008 magnum opus Jurisprudence of Jihad that jihad was only permissible in cases of defense. Zaman shows, however, that this opinion does not align with the majority of classical Islamic jurisprudence, to which Qaradawi claims to faithfully adhere. Furthermore, another prominent moderate, Taqi ‘Uthmani of the Pakistani branch of the Deobandi school, had previously rejected purely defensive jihad in the 1970s and 1980s. In 2009, ‘Uthmani reaffirmed this theory of offensive jihad, adding that it only applied, however, to “formal” Islamic states and not to individuals. This disagreement about jihad conveys Zaman’s central point that is replicated across the other chapters as well. The ‘ulama are active in articulating their views, but who or what holds ultimate authority to resolve these religious problems remains unclear, since even the theory of authoritative scholarly consensus is hotly contested. Ultimately, Zaman argues that greater attention must be given to religious authority as a relational concept, formed by the specificities of the context in which this authority is performed. Abstract authority not only comes into tension with authority as it is practiced in real life, but historical circumstances and individual beliefs shape how Muslims respond to or recognize religious authority. The ECFR, founded in 1997, exemplifies this tension, since on the one hand, it seeks to create a new authoritative consensus around a particular set of ‘ulama, yet on the other hand, it claims not to compete with the authority of the many non-affiliated ‘ulama. The unsettled nature of these debates, Zaman insists, results in an “authority deficit” and persistent fragmentation within Muslim intellectual and religious circles.

Yusuf al-Qaradawi (center) in 2013 (via Wikimedia Commons).

Modern Islamic Thought in a Radical Age is a work of tremendous insight and compelling vignettes. The weakest portions are its introduction and conclusion, which both tend to be verbose and slightly disorganized. It is also unclear at moments whether the author intends to offer a strong overarching argument or to merely “open a new window onto the Muslim religious and public sphere” – one that forefronts debates among the ‘ulama. Thankfully, these are minor problems. While not meant for readers looking for an introduction to Islam, those hoping for a meticulously researched study of the internal religious dynamics of Sunni Islamic thought will find their expectations well met.

Muhammad Qasim Zaman, Modern Islamic Thought in a Radical Age: Religious Authority and Internal Criticism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012).

Mapping Indigenous Los Angeles: A Public History Project

By Caroline Murray

Los Angeles is a city famous for its Hollywood celebrities and traffic, but a new project reveals an often overlooked part of the city’s past and present: its indigenous population, cited as one of the largest among American cities. Mapping Indigenous LA (MILA) brings to life the histories and current dilemmas of LA’s indigenous people in the twenty-first century, instead of leaving them behind in the past.

MILA combats the perception that these communities have disappeared over decades of assimilation and urban growth and exist only in a colonial context. The project disrupts the traditional, chronological narrative of history with its growing number of story maps, each featuring a place or issue of significance for LA’s indigenous groups. The maps contain videos, documents, book recommendations, and other archives that record native histories to give new meaning to locations in LA.

Map of Indian Resources (via MILA).

As MILA digs deeper, beyond the traditional idea of a map, it also works to expand the meaning of indigeneity by including stories not only from the native Tongva, but also other American Indians, Pacific Islanders, and citizens of Latin American indigenous diasporas who migrated to LA. You can explore the native village and springs of Kuruvungna, read about Latin American indigenous festivals, and listen to Tongva Elders reflect on their people’s displacement. You can view modern locations of Indian healthcare and education resources in LA, which many indigenous people struggle to find. MILA doesn’t allow its maps to provide only one definition or narrative; instead, they offer intricate, multifaceted histories that reflect the diversity of LA’s indigenous communities.

tongva_sacred_springs_-_serra_springs_-_kuruvungna_springs

Historic landmark sign marking the location of Serra Springs, called Kuruvungna by the native Gabrieleno Tongva people. The springs were a natural fresh water source for the Tongva people (via Wikimedia Commons).

The American Indian Education story map perhaps best demonstrates all of MILA’s goals. Multiple perspectives color the stories and share different sides of indigenous communities’ complex relationship with American education systems. The pain inflicted by Indian schools, the worry over the loss of native languages, and the hope new cultural programs are bringing to LA can all be felt while exploring the map.

Tongva House (via author).

The maps not only create awareness among non-indigenous people; they almost more importantly provide a digital network for indigenous groups to learn from and relate to each other in ways they might not have before. MILA wishes to add more maps and encourages people to create their own to foster connection between different communities. While the subjects and perspectives in the maps vary, they all communicate a common message from indigenous groups in LA: We are here, and we will be heard.

You may also like:
Cameron McCoy recommends L.A. City Limits: African American Los Angeles from the Great Depression to the Present by Josh Sides (2003).
Erika Bsumek explores several titles related to Navajo Arts and the History of the U.S. West.
Nakia Paker reviews Black Slaves, Indian Masters: Slavery, Emancipation, and Citizenship in the Native American South, by Barbara Krauthamer (2013).

Popular Culture in the Classroom

By Nakia Parker

Popular culture can be a powerful tool in helping students understand history. Music, film, TV, fiction, and paintings offer effective and creative ways to bring primary source material into the classroom. Last fall, I gave a lecture on Black Power and popular culture in an introductory course on African American History. We discussed the influence of Black Power ideologies on various forms of popular culture in the 1960s and 1970s. For example, we compared album covers, such as the Temptations’ 1967 album In a Mellow Mood, which has an image of the group in tuxedos and close-cropped haircuts on the cover, singing Broadway standards like “Man of La Mancha,” with another album cover during the Black Power era with the group wearing dashikis, Afros, and singing socially conscious songs, such as “Ball of Confusion” and “Message from a Black Man.” We listened to James Brown’s “Say It Loud! I’m Black and I’m Proud,” and Nina Simone’s “To Be Young, Gifted, and Black,” and discussed how artists such as Aretha Franklin, who normally did not take a public stand on social issues, would support causes affecting the black community. For example, Franklin posted bail for activist and professor Angela Davis when she was arrested for murder and kidnapping charges. We also talked about how conditions in urban areas and Black Power ideology in the late 1970’s influenced the birth and evolution of rap music and hip-hop culture, from acts such as Run DMC to Tupac to Kendrick Lamar.

angela_davis_enters_royce_hall_for_first_lecture_october_7_1969

Dr. Angela Davis walking to her lecture at UCLA, 1969 (via Wikimedia Commons).

The students were engaged and responded well to the lecture. Many of them commented that considering the Black Power Movement through the lens of popular culture changed stereotypes or misconceptions they previously had of the movement and its proponents. When I asked the class before the lecture what words or phrases came to mind when I said the phrase “Black Power,” some students mentioned the iconic image of John Carlos and Tommie Smith during the 1968 Olympics or they associated the movement primarily with violent rhetoric. In addition, many students’ conception of what constitutes primary sources was expanded. Many were pleasantly surprised to find out that songs and film could be used as primary source material. In fact, for the final project, creating a historical time capsule, many of the students used a song as one of their primary document choices.

Film and literature are useful in teaching history as well. In the same guest lecture, I showed the students brief clips of how African-Americans were portrayed in the films Birth of a Nation and Gone with the Wind, and then compared the two movies’ portrayal of black people as docile and subservient to the scene in the 1975 film Mandingo of the slave Cicero defiantly giving a speech before his execution for leading a slave rebellion. Additional useful films include Saturday Night Fever, which covers more than just disco, addressing topics such as racism, class tensions, religion, and gender dynamics. Apocalypse Now and Born on the Fourth of July encourage students to ponder popular artistic conceptions of the Vietnam War during the 1970s and 80s.

Hattie McDaniel became the first African-American woman to win an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Gone With the Wind (via Logo).

For American history before 1865, literature and art can be used as pedagogical tools. When teaching about the formation of “American” identity during the early republic, for example, students might read the short story “Rip Van Winkle” by Washington Irving. Key moments in the story, such as when Rip Van Winkle wakes from his sleep and is confused when he is chased out a tavern and called a spy after he declares his loyalty to the British king, can highlight the upheaval and changes in the new nation after independence as well as the emergence of “American” literature. When discussing the institution of slavery, listening to slave spirituals or work songs can give students a sense of every day life for the enslaved. Finally, when teaching about how Native Americans were portrayed and stereotyped during the late 18^th and early 19th centuries before the period of Indian removal, a good painting to analyze would be The Murder of Jane McCrea (1804), by John Vanderlyn, or reading sections of James Fenimore Cooper’s 1826 novel The Last of the Mohicans. Both of these sources demonstrate two opposite, but common, views of the time about Indians: as bloodthirsty warriors (Murder of Jane McCrea) or as noble beings, communing with nature (Last of the Mohicans). These images can be supplemented with sources that how Native American life was not static, but adapted to their changing circumstances.

Poster from Last of the Mohicans, a 1920 movie based on James Fenimore Cooper’s novel (via Wikimedia Commons).

As teachers and scholars of the humanities, we constantly need to emphasize the relevance of subjects like history. Using past and present aspects of popular culture as a pedagogical tool is a useful and fun way to remind students why history matters.

The Enemy Within: Cold War History in FX’s The Americans

By Clay Katsky

Those who watch the television show The Americans share a secret with its protagonists: they are not a quintessential American couple living in the suburbs of D.C.; they are, in fact, spies for the Soviet Union. Set against the backdrop of a resurgent Cold War in the early 1980s, this serialized spy thriller and period drama follows the fictional lives of Elizabeth and Philip Jennings, played by Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys, who were born in Russia and trained as KGB officers to be “sleeper” agents in America. Activated when Reagan throws détente out the window, no one suspects that they have two deeply separated lives, one as travel agents who live in Northern Virginia with two young children, and a second filled with spy missions where they don disguises to seduce and assassinate targets and gather intelligence by blackmailing officials and recruiting assets. The dichotomy of their lives is by day marked by their genuine devotion to their children and to each other, and by night by the violent and frequently murderous clandestine missions directed by their Russian handlers. These Americans are not what they seem to be.

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Kerri Russell and Matthew Rhys star in The Americans (via FX).

Ultimately, it is Reagan’s hardline against the U.S.S.R. that gives the show context. The first season begins as Reagan assumes the presidency and the third ends with the Jennings family watching his “evil empire” speech together. During the most recent fourth season, a family viewing of the TV movie The Day After, which is about nuclear Armageddon, adds another dimension to a subplot involving powerful bioweapons. The writers of The Americans do a good job of using 1980s popular culture and history to add contextual drama to the show, but sometimes ignore chronological specifics and the technical aspects of espionage tradecraft for the sake of storytelling. Regardless, the late Cold War works well as a general guide for the narrative arc of the series; the escalating tension between superpowers is directly responsible for the increasing drama in the lives of its main characters.

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President Reagan in 1982 (via Wikimedia Commons).

Perversely, The Americans sometimes makes you root for the enemy within. Fueled by terrific performances from Russell and Rhys, the Jennings can come off as sympathetic, and patriotic in their own way. Reminiscent of James Gandolfini in The Sopranos, these are bad people with redeeming qualities. She is an ideologically driven cold-blooded killer who is loyal to her family, while he is more sensitive and compelled by emotion, yet also capable of extreme violence. Both struggle with the conflict between their mission as spies and their duty as parents, which is a major plot device of the show. The tension of the first season is driven by their fear that the FBI will catch them. Right away evading capture is set up as synonymous with protecting their family. The second season expands on the theme of protecting their family from their world – after two other sleeper agents and their young children are murdered the Jennings fear they are next. The danger in the third season comes from within the family, with their daughter suspecting her parents are way more than just travel agents. And in the fourth season an assignment to steal bioweapons puts the whole world in jeopardy, pitting their loyalty to their country against their instinct to protect their children. Making the show about more than just spying and the Cold War, there are strong subplots involving the family’s next door neighbor, the FBI agent who works in the counter-intelligence division, and their daughter’s increasing devotion to Christianity, which comes to a head when she over shares with her pastor. The drama is about the characters, how they develop and how they react to one another in the context of the world around them.

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The images of nuclear destruction in The Day After (1983) were troubling to many American families (via Wikimedia Commons).

In The Americans, history is used as the setting. The show underscores Reagan’s determination to defeat the forces of Communism using clips from his speeches – as Soviet agents, the Jennings find the rhetoric palpable. And at their house, the news always plays in the background at night, helping to give a timeline of events while also highlighting the television culture of the time – pop culture events like David Copperfield making the Statue of Liberty disappear are drawn on to both diffuse the tension and offer social nostalgia. But the headlines are also used to drive the drama. When Reagan gets shot, the Jennings go on high alert because they are not sure if their government was involved; and when Yuri Andropov, their former leader at the KGB, takes power in 1982, they know their lives are about to get busier. The writers incorporate the shift towards renewed hostilities that occurred during the late Cold War in order to give the viewer the sense that the Jennings mission is important. The rivalry between the superpowers could have spun out of control very quickly and at any moment, and the “the Americans” are caught in the middle of it.

The show begins as Reagan kicks the Cold War into high gear in 1981 and it will end with the collapse of the Communist superpower – having been renewed for a final two seasons, the story will be told to its conclusion. The Soviet fear of the Strategic Defense Initiative, Reagan’s anti-ballistic missile “Star Wars” project, is a centerpiece of the first few episodes. In reality, 1981 is too early for the Russians (or even Reagan) to be thinking seriously about SDI, but it works as an easy set up. At that time, however, it was mostly Reagan’s rhetoric that threatened to turn the Cold War hot. Nicaragua comes to the fore in the second season, again a little early in terms of chronology, but it works well because the Jennings’ sympathy for the Sandinista movement helps humanize them. Oliver North is credited as a technical advisor on an episode where the Jennings infiltrate a Contra training base. Empathy for the Jennings continues to build as they assist the anti-apartheid movement during the third season, while meanwhile the seeds of mistrust in their government are sown with the opening of the war in Afghanistan. In the fourth season, as their government pushes them to recruit their own daughter, the Soviet mismanagement of that war feeds their growing disillusionment and dovetails with a risky mission to acquire an apocalyptic bioweapon. While this past season was it’s least historically based, it was also its best because it dealt with larger, more existential issues.

A Soviet Spetsnaz (special operations) group prepares for a mission in Afghanistan, 1988 (via Wikimedia Commons)

The technical focus of the show is on tradecraft, not history. The thrills come from watching the spies operate; and from making dead drops and cultivating assets to planting listening devices and evading surveillance, the Jennings are very busy. But the show’s most exciting aspect is also its least plausible. It is hard to believe that such well-placed agents would be used as workhorses for the KGB. Especially in the first two seasons, the Jennings juggle multiple assignments at the same time and go on a wide variety of missions – simultaneously they are assassins, saboteurs, master manipulators, and experts in surveillance, counterespionage, and combat. As valuable as they would have been to their government, the Jennings are asked to take too many risks and expose themselves too often. But even in its most exaggerated aspects, The Americans feels realistic due to the expert performances from Russell and Rhys, who are so believable in their roles as skilled spies and as doting parents that one cannot help but trust in their inhuman ability to be an expert in anything they need to be.

Two Soviet era subminiature cams. The one to the left is a Kiev-30 (1974-1983), the other one is a Kiev Vega 2 (1961-1964).

Two miniature Soviet spy cameras form the late Cold War (via Wikimedia Commons).

Overall, The Americans is a highly engaging and richly thought out show set in the waning years of the Cold War. It is very exciting to watch two highly trained KGB operatives as they navigate the complexity of staying ideologically loyal to their cause while raising an American family and living a lie. People who remember the 1980s firsthand will enjoy the references and set pieces, and anyone who likes spy thrillers will be instantly hooked on the slow boiling but constant action and drama. It will be interesting to see how the upcoming fifth season incorporates the Able Archer war scare, when the Soviets mistook NATO war games for the start of real life a nuclear engagement. Will it be the Jennings who witness an increase in late night pizza deliveries to the Pentagon and report back to Moscow that nuclear war is imminent? They seem too savvy to drop the ball like that. But what will happen in the end? Will they survive or be caught by the FBI, or will they get called back to Russia to be punished for some failure or perceived disloyalty?

Read more by Clay Katsky on Not Even Past:
Kissinger’s Shadow, By Greg Grandin (2005)

Trauma and Recovery, by Judith Herman (1992)

By Augusta Dell’Omo

For Judith Herman, “to study psychological trauma means bearing witness to horrible events.” A professor of clinical psychiatry at Harvard University Medical School and a founding member of the Women’s Mental Health Collective, Herman is best known for her research on complex post-traumatic stress disorder, particularly with victims of sexual and domestic violence. In her own words, Trauma and Recovery is a book about “restoring connections” between individuals and communities and reconstructing history in the face of a public discourse that did not want to address the horrors of sexual and domestic violence. Herman begins her work by situating it in the feminist movement and the “forgotten history” of traumatic disorders, describing the cultural and political factors that have continually prevented psychological trauma from being recognized effectively by the public. From there, she enumerates not only the symptoms of traumatic disorders, but argues that only by renaming sexual, domestic, and violence traumas as “complex post-traumatic stress disorders,” and treating victims as suffering from this specific disorder, can victims truly “recover.”

Trauma and Recovery has been recognized as a groundbreaking psychological and historical work because it forces the reader to come to terms with the underlying traumas that permeate society and the ways in which a culture of oppression furthers the protection of the perpetrators. While Trauma and Recovery is over two decades old, its argument seems particularly fresh in the context of current national conversations on the status of victims of sexual assault, particularly in university settings, and their treatment in society. A close reading of Trauma and Recovery forces us to examine our own biases and the historical precedents that have colored our treatment of victims today.

hqdefault — Judith Herman in a 2002 interview (via YouTube).

Herman argues that the study of psychological trauma is not governed by consistency, but rather “episodic amnesia,” in which the stories of the victims became public for brief periods of time before diminishing into the background. She points to three key moments: the treatment of “hysterical women” in late nineteenth-century France, the treatment of shell shocked soldiers in England and the United States after the First World War, and finally, the public awareness of sexual and domestic violence that took place during the feminist movement in Western Europe and North America. For Herman, one of the consistent elements in all three cases was a culture of societal neglect, in which the victim is rendered invisible and discredited, a horrifying tendency that seems to have continued into American society today.

nach_gasangriff_1917 — British soldiers after a German chemical weapon attack in 1917 (via Wikimedia Commons).

Herman follows with a description of trauma, stating that it overwhelms the victim, removing control, connection, and meaning. Individuals display hyperarousal, intrusion, and constriction, sometimes at levels so extreme they force an alternative state of consciousness to form, so that the victim can actually cope with their reality. This alternative state of consciousness, Herman argues can manifest in a variety of ways including multiple personality disorder, amnesia, and “sleep walking.” One of the most persistent elements Herman describes is “intrusion,” in which traumatized individuals cannot resume the normal condition of their lives due to the repeated interruption of the trauma. These symptoms occur because of a rupturing of the “inner schemata.” This is paramount for understanding both individual and societal trauma: for the individual, their trauma disrupts their inner schemata of safety, protection, and trust in the outside world.

Throughout Trauma and Recovery, Herman delineates the ways in which the societal context can affirm and protect the victims by giving voice to the disempowered, but can also deny the victims through silencing and rejection. Indeed, Herman states that denial is often the default state of society, in which the active process of “bearing witness” instead “gives way to the active process of forgetting.” These ideas of “bearing witness,” and forcing vocalization of events are similar to the work of religious, ethnic, and racial minorities in the face of traumatic genocide, oppression, and destruction. The active construction of a truthful narrative helps survivors to “re-create the flow” of memory, transform the recollection, and mourn that traumatic loss. In Herman’s final section, the emphasis on “truth” becomes paramount: only through a truthful understanding and representation of events can individuals and society come to an understanding of psychological trauma.

5827890190_26a0466f91_b — A culture of victim-blaming still shapes the experience of trauma (via Richard Potts).

Herman’s Trauma and Recovery was a groundbreaking work that forced society to reckon with the nature of trauma and proved how understanding trauma can help us comprehend some of the most damaged groups in society. Herman’s research is critical in the historical understanding of how to bring truth to individuals and groups that societies have passively or actively chosen to repress. Furthermore, she raised interesting questions about constructing historical narrative when dealing with both perpetrators and victims and she showed how the collective memory of a society can hide atrocities that have been committed. Herman states in her afterword, that she sees the culture of victim blaming and repression of the heinous crimes of sexual violence as disappearing. However, lawsuits against universities about willful ignorance and discrediting of sexual assault survivors’ testimonies exposes Herman’s final claims as too optimistic. If nothing else, her work inspires historians to pursue a more active understanding of painful truths and charges us to side with the victims of violence to establish truth and justice, for which, she says, there “can be no greater honor.”

Judith Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror (New York: Basic Books, 1992)

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Jimena Perry explores violence and historical memory in Colombia’s museums.

Americans Against the City, By Stephen Conn (2014)

By Emily Whalen

“Have you ever lived in the suburbs?” New York City Mayor Ed Koch asked in a 1982 interview for Playboy magazine. The interviewer had asked the famously witty Koch if he would ever consider a gubernatorial campaign for the state—if Koch won the race, it would mean a move away from the Big Apple and to the governor’s mansion in semi-rural Albany. “It’s sterile,” Koch continued, “It’s nothing. It’s wasting your life, and people do not wish to waste their lives once they’ve seen New York!”

Koch’s bluntness likely closed the door to a potential governorship, despite his popularity among urban constituents. During Koch’s long tenure as mayor (1978-1989) most Americans harbored distinctly anti-urban attitudes, preferring the serenity and monotony of suburban life over the clamor and chaos of the “greatest city in the world.” In fact, as Stephen Conn argues in Americans Against the City, the story of American anti-urbanism—a generalized distaste for the dirt, diversity, and disarray of the city—stretches across the nation’s history. According to Conn, since the end of the Civil War, the American political and physical landscapes have been deeply interrelated. Where and how we live shapes our political attitudes and expectations. Focusing on the material, social, and cultural elements of living habits inside and outside the city, Conn argues that the anti-urban strain in American culture—manifest in the growth of suburbs and decentralized cities—relates directly to a mistrust of centralized government. Progressives in the 1920s saw the dense cities of the Northeast as workshops where the problems of governance could be perfected. Yet by the end of the Second World War, that optimism had faded. Cold Warriors and their successors on both ends of the political spectrum tried to reclaim their independence from big government by rejecting urban life. Conn links the decline of “urbanity” (a sense of collective responsibility and tolerance) in modern politics to this national decentralization—the “hustle and bustle” of a true city provides “lessons in civility and diversity” that once enriched our political process. As Americans fled to suburbs, urbanity—and civility—plummeted.

new_york_city_aerial_view_1919 — New York City in 1919 epitomized the benefits and problems of urban life (via Wikimedia Commons).

Beginning with Frederick Jackson Turner (whose 1893 essay “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” Conn describes as “a Mid-Westerner’s revenge on…an overbearing East Coast.”), Americans have been skeptical of cities. Conn examines how a sense of exceptionalism convinced many Southerners and Westerners in the late 19th century that urban centers like New York City and Chicago posed a threat to American values, like ruggedness, self-sufficiency, and independence. Furthermore, city-dwellers at the turn of the century faced real problems, such as unsanitary living conditions, corrupt political machines, and overcrowding. Yet the solutions that urban-skeptical reformers offered didn’t address these issues; instead, most of these projects aimed to push people out of cities. The problems of the city, according to people like Benton MacKaye, arose from the density and variation of urban life and would not follow Americans into nature. MacKay designed the Appalachian Trail, the 2,200-mile hiking trail extending from Maine to Georgia, in 1921 in the hopes that city-dwellers would follow it out of the urbanized Northeast and, after finding a more wholesome existence, never return.

appalachian_trail_heading_to_double_springs_gap_from_clingmans_dome — The Appalachian Trail (via Wikimedia Commons).

As suburbs proliferated across the nation, Conn argues, they sustained “decentralized cities,” where whites and other privileged groups left urban centers at the end of the work day and returned to homogenous housing developments. “Most suburbs,” Conn explains, rather than developing a unique culture, “functioned to reject the city while simultaneously taking advantage of it.” Decentralized cities like Albuquerque, NM relied on federal government spending for growth, largely for maintaining and constructing roads, despite the anti-government attitudes of their citizens. Other decentralized cities in the Midwest, like Columbus, OH, embarked on “urban renewal” schemes in which the living history of the city fell victim to commercial development. In 1979, city leaders demolished Columbus’s historic train station to make way for a convention center and parking lot. “Beyond expressing their contempt for trains,” Conn argues, “those who ordered the building torn down expressed their contempt for Columbus’s past.” Dismissing the benefits of city dwelling, and the importance of a city’s history, anti-urban sentiments poisoned most urban renewal schemes of the late 19th century.

800px-union_station_mural_by_gregory_ackers_columbus_ohio_1987 — This 1987 mural by Gregory Ackers depicts Columbus’ historic Union Station. In 2014, new construction on the lot blocked the mural from public view (via Wikimedia Commons).

Conn looks at many cities across the country in his history of anti-urbanism, including a place familiar to Texans: Houston. Houston city leaders refused to accept federal zoning requirements throughout the 20th century, even when it meant passing on attractive funding opportunities that would enrich public governance and culture. During the Cold War, Houston’s elite saw nefarious designs behind the push for federal zoning laws. “Zoning was part of a transitive property that led straight to Moscow: zoning = planning = government interference = Stalinism,” Conn relates. Affluent, white residents believed that the free market, not public regulation, would solve Houston’s successive housing crises. Yet, because housing areas were largely segregated by color, privileged Houstonites ignored the problems their poor and marginalized neighbors faced, all while undermining public programs designed to improve general welfare. The elites “simply could not acknowledge that the ‘market’ does not function the same way for all Americans.”

Houston also serves as an example of how modern “gated communities” attempt–and fail–to cultivate the vibrant urbanity lacking in decentralized cities. Communities, Conn demonstrates, are just as much about exclusion as inclusion, and the gated oases of suburbia represent “exactly the opposite of city life.” The gated communities suggest “a society where social ties have frayed, where we simply do not trust each other and do not even want to make the attempt.” That exclusion—in Houston, as in Greenwich, CT—often follows racial and socioeconomic lines.

aerial_indian_creek_near_dallas_6039814731 — Sprawling suburbs, like Indian Creek outside of Dallas, characterize many cities of the American Southwest (via Wikimedia Commons).

Americans Against the City pays close attention to both liberal and conservative anti-urbanism throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Conn describes the “hippie” communes and environmental movements of the 1970s as “essentially different versions of white flight” from urban issues. Yet toward the end of the book, Martin Anderson (one of President Reagan’s most important economic advisors) and the New Right bear the brunt of Conn’s criticism. These men largely promoted policies based on the idea that the market is more democratic than public government, while simultaneously benefitting from federal access and funding. Fighting against public spending on services and entitlements, Anderson helped entrench the now-prevalent idea that the government has no “role to play in promoting the general welfare, except as it enhances private wealth.”

Americans Against The City stands as a well-researched and provocative history of the ideas and politics rooted in our physical environment. Conn’s easy writing style and fascinating evidence make the book a pleasure to read. His conclusions resonate with the contemporary moment and offer a new explanation for the fraying political consensus. Suburbs, Conn explains, disconnect us from our geography–disassociating our work lives from our personal lives, our futures from our histories. As a result, although Americans are more mobile than ever, we feel detached from our political geography. This disruption lies at the heart of a creeping polarization in our political discourse, canceling out opportunities for compromise and eroding a sense of collective responsibility. The values of democratic government, Conn reminds us, arose from urban milieux. It remains to be seen whether they will survive in the suburbs.

What Killed Albert Einstein?

On April 17, 1955, Albert Einstein’s abdominal aortic aneurysm burst, creating internal bleeding and severe pain. He went to Princeton Hospital but refused further medical attention. He demanded, “I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially; I have done my share, it is time to go. I will do it elegantly.” In the early morning hours of April 18, the on-duty nurse heard him say a few words in German, which she could not understand, and then Einstein died.

The Daily Princetonian front page on 18 April 1955 — *The Daily Princetonian* front page on 18 April 1955. Source: the Mudd Manuscript Library blog.

Dr. Janos Plesch, a physician and long-time close friend who occasionally treated the physicist, thought that syphilis caused Einstein’s deadly abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA). He said that Einstein was “a strongly sexual person” who enjoyed the company of numerous women even while married. Dr. Plesch conjectured that AAAs usually have a syphilitic origin. Why, he thought, would it be so unreasonable to assume that Einstein contracted syphilis on one of his escapades? Some authors have echoed Plesch’s claim, repeating it as undoubtedly true because it came from a close confidant of Einstein. But numerous studies, both before and after Einstein’s death, show that the connection between syphilis and AAAs is small. According to a study in 2012, only around 1% of untreated late vascular manifestations of syphilis result in an AAA in the descending aorta, the kind Einstein had.

Also, no evidence of syphilis was ever reported in Einstein’s body, including his famously dissected brain. These facts do not definitively disprove that Einstein had syphilis, although it appears very unlikely, but they do beg the question: Is there a more probable explanation for why Einstein developed his deadly aneurysm? Strangely, though many scholars eagerly investigate every facet of Einstein’s life, few or none have analyzed the cause of his death.

Einstein's brain before dissection in 1955 — Einstein’s brain before dissection in 1955. Source: *Discover*

The type of aneurysm that Einstein had is statistically linked with being old and male. However, the majority of people developing an AAA also have a history of smoking. Only lung cancer is more closely associated to smoking among tobacco-related diseases. In an analysis of risk factors for AAAs in more than three million individuals, 80% of people who developed the aneurysm were smokers. Another systematic study found that current smokers were 7.6 times more likely to have an AAA than nonsmokers. The aneurysm’s prevalence and size are strongly linked to the amount of smoking one does, and Einstein was a heavy pipe smoker for decades.

Einstein’s doctors ordered him to stop smoking during his various illnesses. He sporadically obeyed. When friends gave him gifts of tobacco during these brief periods of abstinence, Einstein would open the gift, sniff to enjoy the aroma, and then give it away to someone else. But Einstein always succumbed to the overwhelming temptation of his beloved vice. He often resorted to taking tobacco handouts from friends. Dr. Plesch especially felt sorry for the needy, embarrassed Einstein and provided him with a steady supply of tobacco and cigars despite the orders of Einstein’s other doctors and second wife, Elsa.

Einstein and his second wife, Elsa. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

During his doctors’ smoking bans, when Einstein walked to the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, where he had worked since 1933, the old physicist picked up cigarette butts from the street and filled his pipe with bits of discarded tobacco. He initially walked to the Institute across from the nearby meadow, but he switched routes because the street offered more abandoned tobacco. Einstein tried to summon the courage to openly defy the bans, but he worried about offending his doctors.

In late 1948, Einstein had life-prolonging surgery to keep his AAA from bursting. The surgeon wrapped cellophane around the aneurysm. A photograph of Einstein leaving the hospital after surgery shows him inside a car with a pipe in hand. Soon after, Einstein became a lifetime member of the Montreal Pipe Smokers Club and wrote to its president, “Pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in our human affairs.”

The famous physicist in 1933.
Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Images of iconic figures associate smoking with intelligence: Einstein, Oppenheimer, Freud, Sherlock Holmes. The pipe gives them a pensive aura. Einstein depended on smoking—not for his genius, as some writers claim, but as a repetitive set of actions to soothe and comfort. For Einstein, this was a tolerable trade-off for his health and, ultimately, his life.

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.

The Museum of Sour Milk: History Lessons on Bulgarian Yogurt

One evening this summer, I found myself careening down a country road at breakneck speed to the town of Studen Izvor on the Bulgarian border with Serbia. Stunning scenery enveloped a string of thinly populated towns, some peppered with socialist-era industrial ruins that somehow added to the charm. Edit, the wife of my friend and colleague Kiril, drove like a bat out of hell. The trip, after all, was Edit’s bright idea. She knew I was interested in the history of food in Bulgaria and so planned this little day trip for the three of us. But we were running late and there was no way that we were going to make it to the yogurt museum before closing time. We had lingered too long over a meal in a traditionally themed restaurant on the edge of Sofia, the Bulgarian capital, where I had ordered a rather salty filet of “brain” in the interest of culinary adventure. Clearly agitated, Kiril put in a call to the museum from the speeding car, pleading with the museum staff to stay open late for the “visitor who had come all the way from America.” Of course, they waited.

The Museum of Bulgarian Yoghurt in Studen Izvor. — *The Museum of Bulgarian Yoghurt in Studen Izvor, near the western border of Bulgaria (via author).*

Finally, we pulled into the museum’s small gravel parking lot with a dramatic spray of pebbles. As we ascended into the sleepy mountain village with our Sofia license plate, the few elderly inhabitants followed us with their gaze from their courtyard perches. A Bulgarian woman, with a few family members in tow, warmly greeted us, and we profusely apologized as they led the “American visitor” and her Sofia entourage into the small, freshly painted rooms of their brand-new museum. The yogurt museum is one in a string of small food museums—along with one for honey and beans—that are scattered across rural Bulgaria. Created with EU funds, they are part of a larger effort to develop “sustainable tourism” through local attractions that are depicted on the freshly published tourist maps of Bulgaria available in any Sofia kiosk. While the tourist draw is…well, still minimal, for me the museum of yogurt or “kiselo mliako” (literally, sour milk) was pure inspiration! A starting point to dig deeper into the history of this critical ingredient in the Bulgarian (and now global) diet.

Bulgarian yogurt served in a traditional dish. — *Bulgarian yogurt served in a traditional dish (via Wikimedia Commons)*

While yogurt is consumed in much of the world, in Bulgaria, it is a staple, often a part of breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert. It is used as the base of cold soups and sauces with garlic or herbs or with honey as a simple dessert. The per capita consumption is roughly 27 kg, which is 4 times that of the US. Though most often sold and eaten plain, unlike in the US, it never says “plain” on the label. And indeed, Bulgarian yogurt is far from plain—even in its barest of forms. With choices commonly available of cow, goat, sheep, or water buffalo—the consumer is usually choosing by the distinct flavors of region, season, or animal rather than added fruit or other flavors. Much of the flavor comes from the way it is produced, in small local farms, largely in mountainous areas, with grass-fed and free-range animals. In part, what makes it so delicious is that you taste the terroir (as the French would say of wine, cheese, and other products), that is, the soil, air, plants, and general characteristics of the locale where the product originates.

*Stamen Grigorov in 1918. He served as a medical officer in the Bulgarian Army during WWI (via Wikimedia Commons).*

But the cult of yogurt in Bulgaria is not just about the flavor. It is also about the health effects of its unique bacterial flora. The visit to the little museum—which stayed open just for me—revealed the details of a key chapter in the history of yogurt. The village of Studen Izvor was the hometown of Bulgarian scientist and physician, Stamen Grigorov (1878-1945) who in 1905 first discovered and viewed through a microscope the bacteria used for the fermentation of milk into yogurt. Grigorov, apparently had brought a number of ceramic urns of the “sour milk” from Bulgaria to Geneva, where he earned his PhD in medicine under famous microbiologist Dr. Léon Massol (1838–1909). With Massol’s urging Grigorov presented his findings at the famous Pasteur Institute in France in the same year. The particular variety of bacteria was named Lactobacillus bulgaricus in his honor, often followed by (Grigorov) in early scientific references.

*Ilya Mechnikoff in 1908 (via Wikimedia Commons).*

A number of sources wrongly credit Russian immunologist Ilya Metchnikoff (1845-1916) for the discovery, as he was at the Pasteur Institute in 1905 and shared in the general enthusiasm for Grigorov’s discovery. Mechnikoff became famous for his work on immunology and aging and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1908. Metchnikoff, though, was intrigued by the prevalence of centenarians in Bulgaria—people who lived to be over 100 years old—and famously linked this phenomenon to the consumption of yogurt. He is also credited with popularizing yogurt in turn of the century Europe and the US.

The process of milk fermentation originated among the Turkic herding tribes of Central Asia, who brought it to the Balkans with the Ottoman advance in the fourtheenth and fifteenth centuries. Until the twentieth century, its consumption was rather limited to the geographical extent of Turkic influence and beyond to South Asia. Grigorov’s discovery and Mechnikoff’s writings created a sensation in the growing US “health food” movement in the early twentieth century. Dr. John Harvey Kellogg—the well know vegetarian and proponent of whole grain foods—jumped on the bandwagon. Kellogg advocated the regular consumption of yogurt for cleaning your colon from the “putrefaction” caused by consumption of flesh. He also gave himself regular yogurt enemas, noting that if you “balance your intestinal flora” you will “live as long as the rugged mountain men of Bulgaria.”

I read more about Grigorov and yogurt or “kiselo mliako” (literally sour milk) after returning to Sofia. In contrast to Mechnikoff, Grigorov, chose to live out most of his life as a country doctor in Studen Izvor, where he continued to conduct research. Grigorov is remembered by few people inside or outside of Bulgaria, but his name does come up frequently in histories of yogurt and probiotics—from Wikipedia to a plethora of books on the subject. The yogurt museum—though probably visited by few—is a monument to his name.

*The author outside the Museum of Bulgarian Yogurt (via author).*

Because I arrived late, the museum was out of the yogurt usually offered to guests for an on-site tasting. I was not disappointed, as I had come to look more than taste and there was no lack of yogurt at any and every shop or restaurant in Bulgaria. Indeed, back in Sofia, I decided to do a taste test of local yogurts sold at a specialty shop for “local and organic” dairy products. Such shops are a recent response to the inroads of companies like Dannon and the growing commercialization of dairy products in the post-socialist period. I bought three containers of plain yogurt—cow, sheep, and goat. All three were delicious with quite distinct flavors, but the sheep’s yogurt was my hands-down favorite. Of course it might have been the season, the region, or who knows what else.

Policing Art in Early Soviet Russia

by Rebecca Johnston

On August 18, 1921, Anatoly Lunacharsky, the People’s Commissar of Enlightenment, wrote a letter to Jozef Unszlicht, a founding member of the Cheka, the Bolsheviks’ revolution-era secret police that eventually morphed into the KGB. As Commissar of Enlightenment, Lunacharsky was accountable for the educational, artistic, and creative development of all of Soviet Russia. In this capacity, he was responsible for government relations with the creative intelligentsia. The Cheka, on the other hand, was one of the early Soviet artistic community’s most formidable enemies. The letter is a request to Unszlicht for the release of art historian and critic Nikolai Punin, who had just been placed under arrest.

Anatoly Lunacharsky (via Wikipedia)

It was not unusual for Lunacharsky to write pleas such as this one on behalf of members of the intelligentsia who had been arrested or otherwise harassed by the Soviet government. He was known as a relatively liberal Bolshevik, a bleeding heart who advocated for countless artists and writers, many of whom he counted as friends. The commissar was especially close with Punin, whom he put in charge of the visual arts division of the Commissariat of Enlightenment in 1918. Indeed, it would have been rather shocking if Lunacharsky had not written a letter in defense of his own employee. As Punin’s boss, he would have wanted to show his loyalty and support. As a friend and intellectual supporter, he would have wanted to show his genuine desire to see Punin released and cleared of spurious charges. Luckily for Punin, he was in fact released from prison about a month after Lunacharsky sent his letter of appeal. Luckily for us, he kept a copy of that letter, which today can be found at the Harry Ransom Center at UT Austin.

Original letter from Lunacharsky (Marked “Copy” in the top right).

For a document so seemingly obscure, Lunacharsky’s letter allows us to peer into both the tumultuous intellectual environment of the early 1920s and the broader story of the Communist Party’s persecution of the intellectual class. Punin’s arrest was not an isolated incident – he was one of more than 800 intellectuals picked up as part of the so-called Tagantsev conspiracy. This conspiracy was one of the earliest experiments in mass terror orchestrated by the Soviet secret police. It was intended to intimidate the intelligentsia, who, lacking peasant or working class backgrounds, were widely suspected of disloyalty to the revolutionary government. In this unnerving environment, the commissar had to strike a tone that was at once professional, personal, and, most importantly, ideologically correct, as the Bolsheviks understood that to be. Impressively, he manages to check of all of these boxes in his short letter.

It begins with the personal – noting contact with Punin’s wife and his long acquaintance with the arrested poet. Lunacharsky goes on to characterize Punin as possessing one of the most ideologically necessary personal traits: “[he] has worked with extraordinary loyalty and productivity, attracting the hatred of bourgeois artistic circles.” To be praised as a loyal and productive communist actively despised by the bourgeoisie was the best defense one could hope for when arrested for supposed counterrevolutionary activity. Lunacharsky concludes his appeal by putting his entire life and career on the table: “For my part, I ask the V.Ch.K. [Cheka] to immediately deal with Comrade Punin’s case and I personally give you my every guarantee, both in the name of the Commissariat of Enlightenment and in my own name.”

Of particular interest is what he omits. Punin was an easy target for arrest because he had worked to preserve Western artwork from destruction at the hands of radicals seeking to purge the new Soviet state of all “bourgeois” art. However, Lunacharsky’s only reference to the charges against the critic is: “there can definitively not be any talk of any sort of treason on his part,” and that the whole affair is obviously a “misunderstanding.” Lunacharsky does not even mention the art. He denies the Cheka the legitimacy of acknowledging that the preservation of Western art could be an offense that would merit arrest.

Der bekannte Sowjet-Kriegskommissar Unschlicht gestürzt ! Der bekannte Sowjet-Kriegskommissar Unschlicht wurde plötzlich seines Amtes enthoben

Józef Unszlicht in June 1930 (via Bundesarchiv. Bild 102-09893)

The fact that Lunacharsky addresses Unszlicht gives us a chance to consider this curious but relatively lesser known historical figure. The Cheka is typically associated with its infamous founder and director, Felix Dzerzhinsky. Unszlicht, however, is of particular interest to cultural historians because of his profound personal paranoia concerning the creative intelligentsia. In response to another of Lunacharsky’s interventions, Unszlicht admonished the Commissariat’s “utterly impermissible attitude toward foreign travel by our artistic forces,” many of whom, he claimed “are waging an overt or covert campaign against us abroad.” Coming from someone in charge of military intelligence, as Unszlicht was, this assessment was a far cry from reality. There was a peculiar logic to Bolshevik repression that still puzzles historians nearly a century later. It would be interesting to see Unszlicht’s response to this letter (if one exists), whether or not he tried to justify the arrest, and if so, on what basis. A mention of the preserved Western art would have indicated some degree of internal logic; citing trumped-up charges of “sabotage” or something similar would indicate a different motivation altogether.

Nikolay Punin and Anna Akhmatova in Leningrad, 1927. Photo by Pavel Lukhnitsky via Monoskop.

Perhaps most intriguing, though, is the journey of the letter itself from revolutionary Russia to Austin, Texas. It sits in the Ransom Center among Punin’s diaries and select correspondence with his common law wife, the fearless poet Anna Akhmatova, who eventually attracted far more attention from the secret police than Punin. According to a note in the Ransom Center’s records, Punin separated these documents from the rest of his papers precisely to keep them away from Akhmatova. The poet’s works had been subject to censorship for years and Punin feared that his papers would also be censored if she found and kept them. Punin apparently decided that the most prudent course was to give these love letters and other documents to his more recent wife, Martha Golubeva. The documents passed through a few more hands within the family until 1974, when they were sold to the Ransom Center to fund Golubeva’s daughter’s ex-husband’s escape from the Soviet Union. The emotional gymnastics involved in these exchanges testifies to both the fraught nature of intellectual life over five decades of Soviet history and the value placed on intellectual property. Tragically, although that value began as an emotional and intellectual product, it was ultimately recast as a monetary one – one of the many ironies of life in this anti-capitalist state.

Read more by Rebecca Johnston at Behind the Tower.

Documents referred to in this article can be found in

The N.N. Punin collection at the Harry Ransom Center, RLIN# TXRC-99-A9.

Soviet Culture and Power: A History in Documents, 1917-1953, eds. Katerina Clark and Evgeny Dobrenko with Andrei Artizov and Oleg Naumov (New Haven, Yale University Press, 2007), pg. 11.

Document Translation

(handwritten) COPY

To V.V.Ch.K. Comrade Unszlicht

Copy to P.Ch.K. Comrade Semenov

[From] R.S.F.S.R.

People’s Commissariat of Enlightenment

18 August 1921

No. 6002

Moscow

On August 3rd IZO Director Comrade N.N. Punin was arrested in Petrograd. The circumstances that led to his arrest are known to me not only from the words of his wife but from the words of your colleague, Comrade M. O. Brik, highly valued by both you and I. Personally I’ve known N.N. for a long time. He entered into Soviet service immediately after the revolution and since that time has worked with extraordinary loyalty and productivity, attracting the hatred of bourgeois artistic circles. During his tenure, Nikolai Nikolaevich [Punin] has become closer and closer to the communists and has become one of the main proponents of communism in Petrograd’s artistic community. There can definitively not be any talk of any sort of treason on his part. Here we have a clear and entirely regrettable misunderstanding. For my part, I ask the V.Ch.K. [Cheka] to immediately deal with Comrade Punin’s case and I personally give you my every guarantee in this regard, both in the name of the Commissariat of Enlightenment and in my own name.

People’s Commissar of Enlightenment A. Lunacharsky

(handwritten) Corresponds with original: Russian Museum Head of Affairs N. Mankof

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