Henry Wiencek, Author at Not Even Past

Omens of Adversity: Tragedy, Time, Memory, Justice, by David Scott (2014)

On October 19, 1983, members of Grenada’s People’s Revolutionary Army assassinated Prime Minister Maurice Bishop of Grenada and seven of his associates, triggering the sequence of events that led to the sudden end of the Grenada Revolution. With the prime minister dead, the hastily established ruling military council unsuccessfully attempted to restore order to stave off the military invasion being planned in Washington, D.C. But just days after Bishop’s death, President Ronald Reagan launched Operation Urgent Fury to save American lives and ostensibly restore democracy to the island of Grenada. Having established their authority, U.S. military officials rounded up the leadership of Grenada’s socialist party, the New Jewel Movement, and the army high command, whom the Grenadian people and the U.S. blamed for the murders. Later known as the Grenada 17, these men and women would be tried, convicted, and sentenced to hang for the deaths of Bishop and his compatriots, despite a lack of credible evidence linking them directly to the assassinations.

In Omens of Adversity, Caribbean anthropologist David Scott wrestles with the connection between time and tragedy, engendered by what the Grenadian people experienced as the catastrophic collapse of the popular movement as they lived on in the post-socialist moment. In the wake of the assassinations and the U.S. intervention, Grenadians who came of age during the revolution and watched its ruin found themselves “stranded” in the present, bereft of hope for the future, and grieved they had to be rescued by the United States, whose power the New Jewel Movement had set out to challenge. Adding insult to injury, the U.S. played a role in the disappearance of the bodies of Bishop and the others, robbing the families of the deceased and the entire revolutionary generation of a chance to mourn the prime minister and the future free of Western hegemony he had embodied. In assessing the socialist experiment in Grenada and its end, Scott argues that although the Grenada Revolution is often forgotten, it is nevertheless a key event in the world history of revolutions because it signaled an end to the possibility of post-colonial socialist revolution and the ascendancy of Western neo-liberalism.

Prime Minister Maurice Bishop of Grenada (Encyclopedia of Puerto Rico)

Traditionally, scholars of liberal political change see trials such as that of the Grenada 17 as markers that signify the transition from the illegitimate old regime to the new transparent liberal order. However, despite the apparent triumph of the Western tradition, the transition to liberal democracy has had its flaws. Using the trial of the Grenada 17 and its aftermath, Scott raises questions about truth, justice, and democratic transitions. The investigation and trial were full of irregularities, including the torture of the defendants. Scott emphasizes that instead of an earnest attempt to secure information and justice, the goal of the 1986 prosecution of the Grenada 17 was to criminalize the NJM leadership and their political ideology. He describes the proceedings as a late Cold War “show trial” crafted to demonstrate what happened to those in America’s “backyard” who sought revolutionary socialist or communist self-determination. Instead of indicting the 17, Scott reframes them as “leftovers from a former future stranded in the present.”

Members of the Eastern Caribbean Defense Force participate in Operation Urgent Fury (Wikimedia Commons)

Although the jury found the Grenada 17 guilty, the anomalies in the investigation and trial meant that the Grenadian people still had questions about what happened and why. Public interest was aroused when a group of high school boys began investigating the disappearance of the victims’ bodies. A truth and reconciliation commission was constituted and began to research the events of October 19 in late 2001. However, these efforts were tainted, too. The report recapitulated the standard narrative of the events, complete with anti-communist biases that demonized the NJM – unsurprising in light of the commissioners’ refusal to meet with the Grenada 17. However, Scott’s reading of the report’s appendices containing statements from NJM leadership shows that a different story could have been told. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that the people of Grenada will ever know the full truth about what happened to Maurice Bishop and the others. After all, in the neoliberal era, the socialist past can only be a criminal one.

Crimes against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves, and the Hidden History of American Conservation, by Karl Jacoby (2003)

by Henry Wiencek

Who actually lived in The Adirondacks, Yosemite, and The Grand Canyon before they became national parks? This is the simple, but compelling, question Karl Jacoby asks in Crimes against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves, and the Hidden History of American Conservation. When we think about preserving nature, Jacoby argues, Americans tend to assume an easy dichotomy between The Evil Poacher vs. The Righteous Park Ranger. But Crimes against Nature tells a deeper history of the rural communities who relied on these lands before their “preservation” and introduces some moral complexity into the story of America’s national parks.

Jacoby’s narrative starts with the legal, cultural and environmental changes taking place during the Progressive Era. As America became increasingly urbanized, many social reformers and politicians feared a dystopian future in which crowded, industrial cities replaced nature entirely. Teddy Roosevelt often spoke about the dangers of “over-civilization” as fewer and fewer Americans encountered the great outdoors. Starting in the late 19th-century, The federal government responded to these anxieties with the establishment of national parks that would protect “wilderness” from human development. These preserved park lands, officials reasoned, would encourage people to “get back to nature” and escape the pollution, disease, and social disorder of urban slums.

Teddy Roosevelt and naturalist John Muir pose at Yosemite National Park, 1906 (Library of Congress)

But the conservationist impulse to protect “wilderness” from the encroachment of human society, Jacoby points out, wholly disregarded the rural communities that had been living there for generations. Overnight, settlers and residents became outlaws and “squatters” residing on government owned land. The hunting and fishing which had sustained those communities was suddenly “poaching,” a crime that could result in fines or banishment. At the time of the Adirondacks’ preservation, 16,000 settlers lived within what became “preserved” and “uninhabited” land. Even the Grand Canyon at one time provided trails and access to natural resources for local Native American populations.

Map of Grand Canyon National Monument prepared by the National Forest Service, 1907 (Library of Congress)

In order to enforce these new sets of rules, federal and state governments mobilized a bureaucracy of Forest Police to prevent squatting and poaching. Officials set new legal boundaries around “conserved” areas and organized forestland into grids of property ownership. Jacoby argues these efforts to define and protect “preserved” zones oversimplified complex ecological systems and produced unintended consequences. When officials at Yellowstone began hunting predators such as coyotes and mountain lions to maintain animal populations, the number of elk soared, throwing off the park’s delicate ecological balance. Despite the conservationist impulse to preserve nature as it is, park managers were really creating “nature” as it ought to be.

Horace M. Albright, Superintendent of Yellowstone National Park, with bears from the park, 1922 (National Park Service)

Crimes against Nature also details a variety of confrontations that ensued between park officials and the local communities who refused to leave. Setting fires, hunting or even making violent threats all represented forms of resistance against the incursions of the state on rural lands. Although many conservationists regarded these rural populations as fascinating vestiges of a pre-modern world, that nostalgia co-existed with a fierce contempt for their “primitive” modes of subsistence. Conservationists and Forest Police railed against the “irrationality” and wastefulness of rural hunting habits and worried that such behavior would undermine the rule of law.

“View of Tutocanula Pass, Yosemite, California,” by photographer Carleton E. Watkins, 1878-1881 (Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University)

Jacoby concludes that both sides actually embodied distinct, but complementary, American ideals. While conservationists sought to prevent illicit behavior and maintain the rule of law, settlers regarded themselves as rugged individualists pursuing self-sufficiency. In contrast to the simplified narrative of conservation vs. poaching, Jacoby sees a morally complex story unfolding in the wilderness.

Read more on the history of national parks and preservation:

Neel Baumgartner on Big Bend’s “scenic beauty”

Erika Bsumek on Lady Bird Johnson’s beautification project

And watch Blake Scott and Andres Lombana-Bermudez’s short documentary on the history of tourism in the Panamanian jungle

The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa, by Frederick John Dealtry Lugard (1965)

by Ogechukwu Ezekwem

Born to an English family in India in 1858, Frederick Lugard rose to become the colonial Governor of Nigeria, Britain’s most valued African possession. His The Dual Mandate, first published in 1922, became a handbook for all British administrators in tropical Africa, and influenced British colonial policies across the continent. It offered a comprehensive evaluation of the nature and challenges of British rule in Africa.

Lugard asserted that the direct cause of Africa’s partition was France’s search for rehabilitation in north and west Africa, following its defeat in the Franco-Prussian war. This ambition resulted in a scramble between France and Germany for African spheres of influence, to which Britain was “unwillingly” compelled to participate. To shield British spheres of influence from external intrusion, the British Foreign Office declared them as Protectorates. Territories acquired through conquest, cession, settlement, or annexation were designated as Crown Colonies. Apart from east and southern Africa, where the terrain and temperate weather offered convenient habitation to European settlers, the African tropics held few incentives for white settlers. However, the region provided abundant sources of raw materials and markets for manufactured goods.

1897 print depicting a battle between British forces and Mahdist fighters in the Sudan (Library of Congress)

According to Lugard, Britain held a dual responsibility in Africa: administration and economic benefits for the metropole, as well as the “native’s” uplifting. His recommendations for Africa’s governance revolved around three principles – decentralization, continuity, and cooperation. Decentralization at all levels of government, with a strong coordinating authority in the center, allowed for greater efficiency. Continuity was vital because Africans trusted foreigners reluctantly. Therefore, effective British officers should retain their posts without undue interruptions. He also proposed that, during Governors’ annual leaves, they should be represented by a Lieutenant Governor, selected from the Provincial Administrative Staff, rather than the Colonial Secretary. Decentralization and continuity could only be achieved if cooperation existed within the administrative chains, especially between the provincial staff and local rulers. The success of Lugard’s Indirect Rule policy — administration through local chiefs, under the close supervision of British colonial officers — a system that he tested comprehensively in Nigeria, depended on cooperation. He also encouraged local heirs’ education in order to prevent the emergence of a separate educated class that might challenge the authority of accepted rulers. As a way of harnessing the empire’s economic benefits for Britain’s post-World War 1 recovery, Lugard recommended the construction of strategic railways across British Africa. He concluded that British governance offered happiness and welfare to “primitive” peoples. “If unrest and desire for independence exists,” he asserted, “it is because the natives have been taught the value of freedom and independence, which for centuries they had not known.”

Early 20th-century European poses with African Pigmies (Wikimedia)

Lugard writes in a clear style. His book is a masterpiece of literature and policymaking, though contemporary readers will find his defense of British colonialism in Africa racist and paternalistic. Firstly, he reiterated the supposed unwilling nature of Britain’s involvement in Africa. He blamed Africa’s partition on French and German rivalry, while ignoring that Britain’s economic interests and national prestige hung in the balance too. Secondly, he argued that Britain practiced a beneficent regime that taught Africans the value of freedom and liberty, hence their desire for independence. He ignored colonialism’s oppressive nature and the shortcomings of British rule, which caused protests against the government. He overlooked the “freedom and liberty” existing in indigenous structures, hence the sustained resistance by Africans against European domination. Lugard’s administrative template rules out an independent Africa, free from British control, at least for the indefinite future. Nonetheless, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa is illuminating for readers seeking to understand the foundations of British colonial policies in Africa.

You may also like Ogechukwu Ezekwem’s review of The Making of Man-Midwifery: Childbirth in England 1660-1770

The End of the Lost Generation of World War I: Last Person Standing

by Andrew Villalon

In 2014, we enter the centennial of one of history’s most terrible conflicts. Originally (and quite appropriately) named The Great War, the four-year conflict claimed roughly eight and a half to nine and a half million lives on the battlefield, not to mention millions of civilian war deaths as well as many millions more who died in related events such as the Russian Revolution and Civil War and the Flu epidemic of 1919.

Not surprisingly, none of the veterans who fought and bled in the struggle has lived long enough to see the centennial. Even if someone found a way to get around army regulations and sign up at sixteen, he or she would have to be 112 today. Consequently, since the year 2000, almost all of the nations that participated in World War I have seen their last World War 1 veterans die off.

Since 2000, there have been an increasing number of news stories about such men as Claude Choules (British sailor), Harry Patch (British soldier), and Frank Buckles (American soldier), all of them male, two of them combat veterans. But as the countdown, and by extension, the die-off continued, the news media finally came to focus more closely on another, somewhat more unlikely candidate for the title “last living veteran of World War I.” In May 2011, with the death of Coules, that title went to his fellow Brit who had not yet received anywhere near as much attention—Florence Green of the Royal Air Force.

Florence Green

Although not the oldest in years at the time of her death on February 4, 2012 (she was “only” 110 while two of her fellow veterans had lived to be 111), Florence Green came closest to making the centennial of any surviving veteran of World War I. Born Florence Patterson in February 1901, she joined the women’s branch of the newly formed Royal Air Force (formerly, the Royal Flying Corps) in September, 1918, two months before the armistice. At the time of her enlistment, she was only seventeen. During her brief time in the military, Patterson worked in the officer’s mess at two air force bases, Marham and Narborough, not far from the England’s east coast. While she was not a combat veteran (few women were), she had, as the British put it, “done her bit” and done it underage and without the prompting of a draft. Her service is one more example of the role women played in WW1 as nurses, shell makers (the so-called girls “canaries” or “girls with yellow faces”), and the thousands who not only kept the home fires burning, but who poured into industry and agriculture, making possible the war effort. Asked what it felt like to be 110, Florence Green is reputed to have replied, “not much different to being 109!” Whether or not the female of the species is deadlier than the male, in this case at least she proved to be the most long-lived—the last person standing.

As the countdown to the centennial of World War I continued, a number of surviving veterans came into the spotlight. These are a few of their stories.

Claude Stanley Choules, last combat veteran (died May 5, 2011; age 110)

Claude Stanley Choules

Born in England in 1901, Claude Choules, came from a broken home. Several older siblings, who had been taken out to Australia, joined the Anzacs and participated in the landings at Gallipoli in 1915. Choules himself started his naval career at the age of 15 when he signed onto a British training ship, having been turned down a year earlier when he tried to enter the army as a bugler. In October 1917, his training completed, he transferred to a British battleship, stationed at the main naval base at Scapa Flow. Although he was too late to catch the one great sea battle of World War I, fought at Jutland in spring, 1916, late in the war his ship did tangle with a zeppelin, making him a bona fide combat veteran. Choules witnessed the surrender of the German High Seas Fleet in November 1918, and the scuttling of that fleet by the German sailors the following June. He continued to serve in the British navy until 1926, when he transferred to the Royal Australian Navy in which he served throughout World War II, finally retiring only in 1955. Having moved to Australia, he would remain there for the rest of his life.

Henry John Patch (better known as Harry), last to have fought in the trenches on the Western Front (died July 25, 2009; age 111)

Henry John Patch

Born in 1898, Harry Patch became known in his final years as “the Last Fighting Tommy” — a nickname given British soldiers as long ago as the nineteenth century, short for Tommy Atkins. He was the last man known to have experienced the horrific trench warfare of the Western Front. In October 1916, at the age of 18, Patch was drafted into the army, too late for the battle of the Somme in which the British suffered 60,000 casualties in a single day, but in time for what many regard as the most horrible battle of the war, Passchendaele or 3rd Ypres, where men and animals actually sank into the mud of Flanders. He was part of the crew operating a Lewis Gun, a rapid fire weapon used in World War I, when on September 22, 1917, he suffered a massive injury from an exploding shell, which instantly killed three of his “mates.” It would be Patch’s last battle; he was still recuperating in Britain fourteen months later when the armistice was signed.

Patch, who outlived his three wives and two sons, was not only the last surviving veteran to have fought in the trenches, he seems also to have been the most profoundly quotable—at least toward the end, when he was finally willing to speak of his war experiences.

Remembering that moment of terror experienced by so many men on both sides: “If any man tells you he went over the top and he wasn’t scared, he’s a damn liar.”

Characterizing war in general: The “calculated and condoned slaughter of human beings” [that] isn’t worth one life.”

When meeting the last survivor who had fought on the other side at Passchendaele:

Earlier this year [2004], I went back to Ypres to shake the hand of Charles Kuentz, Germany’s only surviving veteran from the war. It was emotional….We’ve had 87 years to think what war is. To me, it’s a license to go out and murder. Why should the British government call me up and take me out to a battlefield to shoot a man I never knew, whose language I couldn’t speak? All those lives lost for a war finished over a table. Now what is the sense in that?

Frank Buckles, last American who served in World War I (died February 27, 2011; age 110)

Frank Buckles

Born in February 1901, the same month as Florence Green, Frank Buckles tried to join up in 1917, the year America entered the war, despite being only sixteen. After being turned down by both the marines and the navy, he managed to convince an army recruiter to take him in. He was told that the fastest way to get to the front was to drive an ambulance, which he did and, as a result, he is not technically classified as a combat veteran. Rising to the rank of corporal, he served as a driver in both England and France. After hostilities ended, Buckles took part in civilian relief operations and escorted captive soldiers back to Germany. Discharged in 1919, he returned to the Unites States where he actually met his former commander, General Pershing, during a dedication ceremony in Missouri.

Following the war, Buckles became a chief purser on passenger liners and cargo ships. In the 1930s, when his ship stopped at German ports, he had a chance to watch the rise of Nazism. In 1940, business brought him to the Philippines and in January 1942, during the Japanese invasion, he was captured. Buckles spent the next three years interred in civilian prison camp from which was liberated only in 1945. He would spend the rest of his life, over six decades, living in West Virginia where he and his wife owned a farm. In February 2008, he became America’s last surviving veteran of the war. Even then, he remained active in the quest to establish a National World War I memorial on the National Mall in Washington DC.

Charles Kuentz, a veteran who fought for both Germany and France (died April 7, 2005, age 108)

Charles Kuentz

At the time of his death, Charles Kuentz was believed to be the oldest surviving veteran of the German army who had fought in World War I. Clearly, that is what Harry Patch thought when the two met and shared their reminiscences at Ypres the year before. Although this was later found to be untrue—in fact, the oldest German soldier was Erich Kastner who died three years after Kuentz at age 107—the case of Charles Kuentz merits attention for another reason.

During the First World War, he fought on the German side and during the Second, he fought (albeit briefly) for the French!

This remarkable about-face in national allegiances resulted from the latest chapter in one of Western Europe’s longest running feuds—the conflict over Alsace-Lorraine. Lying between France and Germany, this territory was considered German until well into the early modern period. However, in the 17th century, the “Sun King,” Louis XIV, seized Alsace for France, while some decades later his successor, Louis XV, added Lorraine. During the next century and a half, the provinces despite the fact that many Alsatians continued to speak of a German dialect, became increasingly French in their outlook. Then came the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71. After the German victory, all of Alsace and a significant part of Lorraine were regained as the spoils of war by the new German Empire. In the succeeding decades, the Alsace-Lorraine question remained a bitter bone of contention in Franco-German relations leading up to the First World War.

Having been born in Alsace when it was German territory, Kuentz was drafted into the German army at the age of 19. Over the course of several years, he fought for Germany on both the Eastern and Western fronts. In November 1918, immediately following the armistice, he joined many other members of the fast disintegrating army when he simply walked away and returned home to Alsace. The following year, the Versailles Peace Treaty that officially ended the war with Germany, transferred the “lost province” back to France. Since Kuentz now opted to embrace French citizenship, he was once again called to the colors in 1939, this time by the French, though on this occasion his military service was short-lived. With the surrender of the Third French Republic following the disastrous campaign of 1940, Alsace once again became German and Kuentz again found himself a German citizen. His son, with the very French name of Francois, joined the German SS and died fighting in Normandy in 1944.

Following the second war, Kuentz once again became a Frenchman and remained one until the end. At his death in 2005, his coffin was draped with the French flag.

Don’t miss more recent NEP articles about World War I:

Read about the mysterious censorship of Wilfred Owen’s personal correspondence

And explore Harry Ransom Center’s incredible collection of WWI propaganda posters

Seeing John Donne Speak: The New Archive (No. 14)

By Henry Wiencek

Ever wish you were actually there to experience a moment in history? What would it have been like to witness British soldiers marching into Concord? Or to hear the German bombers flying over London? The Virtual Paul’s Cross Project believes it can provide that very sensation—or at least approximate it. A group of historians, architects, and sound experts collaborated to digitally reconstruct the sights and sounds of a unique historical moment: London’s St Paul’s Cathedral on November 5, 1622, the 17^th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot by English Catholics to blow up Parliament. Through the power of computer technology, we are present as John Donne—one of England’s most renowned poetic voices—commemorates this traumatic event with a sermon paying tribute to God and King James I.

John Gipkin’s “Painting of Paul’s Cross,” 1616 (the Bridgeman Art Library, New York, and the Society of Antiquaries, London)

The Virtual Paul’s Cross Project starts by digitally recreating St Paul’s Cathedral as it appeared in late 1622. According to one contemporary account quoted on the site, this was a place of great religious, civil, and social importance: a public space where “principal gentry, lords, courtiers, and men of all professions” converged. With the help of Google SketchUp, engineers were able to generate a 360-degree model of that very churchyard, its Romanesque cathedral, and the buildings surrounding it. But it does far more than just depict the physical space—it captures a particular moment in time. You can see the late fall’s dim light and low sun, the smoke rings filling the air from nearby chimneys, even the black birds circling overhead. What emerges is a detailed portrait of the space, the people present, and all the other bits of daily minutia so often lost to historians, yet so critical to shaping the feel of living in a place.

A digital rendering of St. Paul’s courtyard in 1622. (The Virtual Paul’s Cross Project)

The site takes primary accounts of Donne’s speech, the crowd, and even the weather conditions of that November morning and brings them back to life. Users can actually watch computer generated reenactments of the speech—digital renderings of what scholars believe it looked like and sounded like to be in that churchyard as John Donne spoke. In order to faithfully reconstruct the crowd’s auditory experience, sound engineers considered a variety of factors, ranging from Donne’s speaking ability to the acoustic reverberations adjacent buildings likely produced. The reenactments even incorporate a variety of “pre-industrial” sounds that would have been echoing around the London churchyard in 1622. As Donne speaks, you can hear dogs barking, horses trotting, and workmen banging hammers.

Isaac Oliver’s contemporary painting of John Donne (National Portrait Gallery, London: NPG 1849)

The site includes not one, but a variety of video clips, each capturing how the sermon would have sounded from different vantage points. Class differences are even registered. While the distinguished guests sitting above in Sermon House would have clearly received the speech as it echoed through the house walls, more ordinary Londoners at ground level would have heard ambient street noise, chattering people, and crowing animals competing with Donne’s fainter, more distant words. Users discover that the listener’s unique position—both in terms of geography and social rank—created a unique aural experience.

Recreation of Donne’s speech as seen from the Sermon House (The Virtual Paul’s Cross Project)

The Virtual Paul’s Cross Project transforms the text of a speech into a dynamic performance of religious, political, and social meaning. Users can approximate the experience of history unfolding in real time by using more of their senses: listening and looking, and locating themselves in a virtual space. By reenacting the varied sounds of November 5, 1622, this multi-sensory project illuminates the varied social experience of seventeenth-century England. Despite the pageantry and ceremony surrounding it, Donne’s sermon was nothing more than background noise or a few snatched phrases to many ordinary Londoners. The Virtual Paul’s Cross Project elegantly reminds us that there is no one way to hear, see or understand a historical event. It all depends on where you’re sitting.

Watch a portion of the reconstructed sermon from the courtyard:

Or watch it from the Sermon House:

Catch up on the latest from the New Archive:

Victorian tourists exploring the people and places of Egypt

And a website that lets users hear 1920s New York City

The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective, by Robert C. Allen (2009)

by Ben Weiss

Robert Allen’s The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective constitutes an impressively holistic approach in economic history to a topic that can be infinitely multifaceted and is often severely oversimplified. Considering that the causes of British industrialization have been the subject of heavy debate for the better part of a century, if not longer, Allen offers a refreshing infusion of nuance to classic questions in European and global economic history. He provides a well-rounded account of why Britain industrialized without becoming either too technical or too simplistic in its dialogue with other economic explanations.

Allen argues that industrialization occurred in Britain because institutionalized labor costs were comparatively higher there than in other places in the world. The use of coal to provide energy to its burgeoning commercial centers was associated with costs that were drastically lower than those of other industrial contenders. Healthy wages engendered a comparatively well-educated class of laborers, which also helped generate significant technological innovation and investment. Allen contends that his combination of advanced labor and cheaper energy not only explains why the industrial revolution began in Britain, but also why it had to occur there.

Throughout the book, Allen refutes earlier arguments that see science, the Enlightenment, politics, demographic shifts, agricultural movements, and numerous other issues as the singular key factors in industrialization. His discussions of each of these alternate explanations for the industrial revolution systematically detaches, or at least makes an effort to detach, strict causality from each. For many of these accounts, such as the role of agricultural, technology, and population change, he is able to avoid direct confrontation with scholars in his field by incorporating their arguments into his own interpretations of the importance of wage labor and the pursuit of economic opportunity.

Philip James de Loutherbourg's "Coalbrookdale by Night," which depicts the Madeley Wood Furnaces of Coalbrookdale (Science Museum, London)

Philip James de Loutherbourg’s “Coalbrookdale by Night,” which depicts the Madeley Wood Furnaces (Science Museum, London)

While a few of Allen’s comparisons and data may require more interrogation from the arena of political and cultural history, his attempt to cover as many counterarguments as possible features valiantly throughout the work. Most impressive for an economic history is the way in which domestic British cultural evolution is meticulously addressed. For example, Allen carefully examines the qualitative influence of shifts in agriculture, technology, and literacy rates on generating a willingness to engage in the social and economic opportunities created by energy and labor circumstances in Britain.

Gustave Doré’s “Over London by Rail,” circa 1870 (Wikimedia Commons)

Allen’s book will prove a helpful introduction to the traditional literature of industrialization. Though its argument, which is deeply rooted in economic methodology, may be insufficient for readers who desire substantial political and social explanations, its comprehensiveness in the arena of economic history is admirable. Most importantly, Allen does well to seat his analysis in the current scholarly emphasis on globalization, and in the case of economic history, the global dimensions of commerce. These dimensions help Allen situate the rise of Britain as a core financial power with complicated connections to the global peripheries. Fundamentally, The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective delivers a refreshing account of an old narrative in industrial economic history.

Visitors of the Nile: The New Archive (No. 13)

By Charley S. Binkow

For centuries Egypt has inspired awe in the West. From Napoleon to Anderson Cooper, westerners have found an intrinsic fascination with Egypt’s rich culture, history, art, and politics. Since they first arrived, Egypt’s visitors have tried to capture its incredible landscape and document its complex beauty. The Travelers in the Middle East Archive gives us a comprehensive collection of what these visitors saw and what they chose to record one hundred years ago.

Postcard entitled, “Egypt – Native Women” (Lehnert & Landrock Egypt – Native Women (81) (n.d.).
From Travelers in the Middle East Archive (TIMEA). http://hdl.handle.net/1911/5521)

Between the late 19^th and early 20^th century, explorers took photos, stenciled pictures, and documented all they could see in the Nile Valley. And while these travelers captured grandiose or exceptional images for their catalogues, they were also fascinated with the real, day-to-day life of Egyptians. In this collection, we can see what these explorers saw as noteworthy, what they wanted the world to see, and how they portrayed Egyptian life. This archive is just as much, if not more, about those who documented Egypt as it is about the Egyptians themselves.

Postcard entitled, "Entrance to an Old Native House," 1906 (Lekegian, G. Entrance to an Old Native House (1906). From Travelers in the Middle East Archive (TIMEA). http://hdl.handle.net/1911/20913)

Postcard entitled, “Entrance to an Old Native House,” 1906 (Travelers in the Middle East Archive (TIMEA). http://hdl.handle.net/1911/20913)

The archive has assembled these primary sources and divided its massive collection into thematic subjects. One can peruse Art & Artifacts, History & Politics, and a lot more with exceptional ease. There are beautiful pictures, high quality photographs, and vivid paintings that bring the land to life. I especially like the photographs of the Egyptians doing daily routines, such as women carrying pots or boys and girls on the street. And while there are some stunning portraits of foreign dignitaries, like the British general Sir Reginald Wingate, the best images are of the people whose individual lives often don’t make it into the history books. This collection shows the workers, the poor, and people in mourning. Historians can access photos portraying how ordinary people lived—what they wore, how they walked, who they associated with. But they can also better understand the Westerners who visited. Was the land more than a spectacle to them? What do the drawings say about their creators?

Photograph of Egyptian boys and girls walking down a road, 1911 (Sladen, Douglas Egyptian Boys And Girls. (1911). From Travelers in the Middle East Archive (TIMEA). http://hdl.handle.net/1911/21592)

Photograph of Egyptian boys and girls walking down a road, 1911 (Travelers in the Middle East Archive (TIMEA). http://hdl.handle.net/1911/21592)

In addition to the pictures, the archive has digitized certain key writings. My favorite is E.W. Lane’s An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians from 1836. Just skimming through the pages brings a whole new world to life. You can read about the Egyptian process of child naming, their various beliefs, and their relationships between religion and law. The preface is a worthy read by itself—especially Lane’s account of the serpent eaters!

This archive is incredibly rich and rewarding, filled with a gold mine of primary documents. Click around and discover Egypt for yourself. The more you traverse the website, the more you’ll want to.

The latest from The New Archive:

A database that preserves the sounds of 1920s New York City

And the American Civil War, as drawn by Harper’s Weekly

Visible Empire: Botanical Expeditions and Visual Culture in the Hispanic Enlightenment, by Daniela Bleichmar (2012)

by Christina Marie Villarreal

The European Enlightenment occurred as an ongoing dialogue of ideas—a discourse composed of voices from around the globe. As Daniela Bleichmar demonstrates, southern Europe, long ignored in scholarship on the Enlightenment, had a crucial voice in the conversation.

In Visible Empires, Bleichmar claims that Imperial Spain, more than any other contemporary empire, used visual documents like paintings and maps to make the empire tangible and, in this way, “governable.” Images, she argues, made visible the hidden or secret. Bleichmar highlights the Hispanic World’s investment in knowledge production at the peripheries of empire. She emphasizes how scientific investigations, specifically botanist and natural history expeditions, fit into the Spanish Empire’s attempt to reestablish itself as a European political and economic power in the late eighteenth century. Her findings demonstrate how relationships between the center and periphery of empire were often a matter of perspective.

Bleichmar makes use of the long ignored and beautiful visual archive of botanical paintings produced by Spanish expeditions around the Atlantic. She reads these centuries-old detailed depictions of flora and fauna to stress the relevance of vision to governing of the empire. For Spain, these illustrations provided visual evidence of worlds across the sea and of our ability to understand nature. They buttressed Spain’s ownership of the unseen. The Spanish metropole also used this method to understand the racial compositions of distant populations. New Spain’s casta paintings and Peru’s taxonomical illustrations gave the metropole a window into their kingdoms abroad. Simultaneously, the project supplied the peripheries of empire with the agency to codify their populations. While knowledge of its far-off inhabitants gave the metropole a sense of discovery and ownership, the power to produce pictures of their world gave people on the periphery power of their own.

An image from "Flora Huayaquilensis," a visual collection of South America's plants as seen by Spanish botanist Juan José Tafalla during a 1785 expedition through Peru and Chile. ([Juan Tafalla], “Flora Huayaquilensis,” ourheritage.ac.nz | OUR Heritage - See more at: http://otago.ourheritage.ac.nz/items/show/7696#sthash.r8R9WHhx.dpuf)

An image from “Flora Huayaquilensis,” a visual collection of South America’s plants seen by Spanish botanist Juan José Tafalla during a 1785 expedition through Peru and Chile. ([Juan Tafalla], “Flora Huayaquilensis,” ourheritage.ac.nz | OUR Heritage)

During the Enlightenment, intellectuals and others contested and refined the themes of art, science, and knowledge using visual representations. The “correct” representation did not always come from the center or metropole but, as Bleichmar explains, it was often difficult to tell where in the empire botanical Enlightenment projects began. Indeed, knowledge moved in multiple directions. Bleichmar explores how some naturalists understood colonial agendas in ways that differed from the intentions of the Spanish metropole. Consider Basco y Vargas’ pepper initiative in the Philippines. He prioritized his local economic goals over the philosophical inquiries coming from Spain. In this case, the periphery directed knowledge production as Basco y Vargas determined what botanical investigation to support.

Allegiances and relationships to a “center” thus differed depending on local context. However, by suggesting “the goal of this intensive natural history investigation… was nothing less than to rediscover and reconquer the empire at a time of intense crisis,” Bleichmar seems to suggest that Spain held more control over the direction of knowledge production. In addition, the author admits that the only a limited audience saw or studied the visual illustrations produced by enlightenment botanist. These minor inconsistencies leave the reader with a lingering question: to what extent did “visual” knowledge shape the empire at large?

Botanical drawing from “Flora Huayaquilensis” (Pinterest/Carlos Adanero)

Aside from images, Bleichmar also examines the tremendous written archive that preserves the voices of botanist and economists. While historians typically use images in their work without fully exploring the significance they held for their creators, the author’s examination of written sources provides the reader with a fuller understanding of the botanical illustrations. Paired with Bleichmar’s engaging prose, Visible Empires constitutes a thorough interpretation of southern European Enlightenment and provides a fine example of a historical investigation achieved with beautiful visual sources.

More books on Early Modern science:

Jorge Cañizares Esguerra’s review of Shores of Knowledge: New World Discoveries and the Scientific Imagination

Laurie Wood’s review of The Discovery of Jeanne Baret: A Story of Science, the High Seas, and the First Woman to Circumnavigate the Globe

Hearing the Roaring Twenties: The New Archive (No. 12)

by Henry Wiencek

Ultimately, the task of any historian is to piece together the experience of another time—to understand what it was like being on the streets of Paris in 1789. Photographs, primary documents and personal recollections offer important glimpses, but one digital history site specifically wants to understand how it sounded. “The Roaring Twenties”—a collaboration between Emily Thompson of Princeton University and Scott Mahoy of the University of Southern California—compiles audio files and written noise complaints from 1920s New York City to capture the utter cacophony its residents experienced. Arranged by sound type, geography and timeline, this database is a new type of documentary and experiential history—recreating what the Roaring Twenties sounded like.

A screenshot of the “Sounds” section (The Roaring Twenties)

The variety of noises that 1920s New Yorkers endured is astonishing. Click on any of the listings in the “Sound” section and you’ll get the brief history of a particular sound: its source, its location, its formal noise complaint (if such documentation existed) and, in many entries, a contemporary piece of footage capturing the actual noise. It is remarkable to visit the utterly different sonic world these videos capture. While many of the auditory sensations caught on film would be familiar to present day residents—sirens, construction and honking cars—actually hearing (and seeing) them feels like entering a parallel universe. For the individuals seen on camera, all that rattling, whistling and yelling would have been the ordinary context for daily life; yet to us, it is exotic and bizarre.

A formal complaint Louise P. Jenkins of Manhattan filed with the New York Commissioner of Health in 1933 regarding the sounds of fire engines (The Roaring Twenties/NYC Dept. of Records/Municipal Archives)

Screenshot of the formal complaint Louise P. Jenkins filed with the New York Commissioner of Health in 1933 regarding the sounds of trucks in her Manhattan neighborhood (The Roaring Twenties/NYC Dept. of Records, Municipal Archives)

In order to provide a spatial context for this historical soundscape, the “Space” section arranges each sound entry onto a map of the city. Manhattan has the highest concentration, but you can find yelling newspaper vendors, saxophone playing neighbors and noisy radios in every borough. Many of these sounds reflect the unique cultural and ethnic character of New York’s neighborhoods: there is a Kung Fu demonstration on Chinatown’s Mott Street; an “Ol’ Clo'” Jewish peddler looking for clothing to buy on the Lower East Side; and ferry boat whistles along the Battery promenade. They also reveal an industrial city at work. Gotham echoed with dynamite blasting, steel factory operations, riveting, and boring machines.

Screenshot of the “Space” section, which arranges different sounds onto a map of New York City (The Roaring Twenties)

But look closer and you’ll discover many sounds that will complicate our assumptions about what a “modern” industrial city sounded like. In 1930, Mr. W.C. Mansfield filed a noise complaint about an Upper West Side horse stable. That same year saw multiple complaints for rooster crowing in upper Manhattan as well as several sites in the Bronx. And in 1932, Mr. Arthur Campe of Brooklyn informed the city about one Mr. Johnson’s “noisy chickens.” New York did not just contain a diversity of sounds, but also a diversity of economies and lifestyles—both industrial and pre-industrial. Even as the jackhammering of factories and construction projects rang through the air, the neighing of horses and crowing of roosters were present as well.

Screenshot from the video "Fire Engines, and Children at Play" (The Roaring Twenties/NYC Dept. of Records, Municipal Archives)

Screenshot from the video “Fire Engines, and Children at Play,” circa 1928-30 (The Roaring Twenties/NYC Dept. of Records, Municipal Archives)

Books can elegantly describe trends like industrial growth and urbanization, but “The Roaring Twenties” goes deeper by uncovering the sonic minutiae that accompanied them: a noisy bakery on Ogden Avenue in the Bronx; dairy wagons bothering J. J. Cohen each day in upper Manhattan; or the early morning racket created by live poultry aboard the NY Central Railroad cars along Riverside Drive. And these sounds are not just pieces of trivia. They exhibit people, machines and animals projecting their unique way of life into the sonic atmosphere. This compelling and very addictive site captures New York City at its noisiest, most contested and loudest.

Catch up with the latest New Archives:

The Civil War, as seen by the artists of Harper’s Weekly

And an economic, demographic and oceanic history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade

The Making of Man-Midwifery: Childbirth in England 1660-1770, by Adrian Wilson (1995)

by Ogechukwu Ezekwem

Adrian Wilson writes an interesting chronicle of man-midwifery’s emergence in England. His research is based on an exhaustive analysis of manuscripts, newspapers, and the memoirs of surgeons, physicians, and midwives. He not only explains the rise of men in an otherwise female-dominated field, but explores the practice of traditional midwifery. Prior to the mid-eighteenth century, childbirth, from labor to the lying-in chamber (a darkened room where the mother rested for one month after delivery) was an exclusively female space. With few exceptions, male surgeons only intervened to extract a possibly dead baby in order to save a mother’s life. They achieved this operation through the use of hooked instruments, such as the crotchet and forceps, which mutilated the baby. While midwives delivered living babies, male practitioners brought forth dead ones. By the mid-1740s, surgeons increasingly used the forceps and vectis to achieve successful births. The male sphere, thus, moved from traditional obstetric surgery to the new “man-midwifery.” The need for instruction on the forceps’ effective use soon resulted in the emergence of lying-in hospitals that increasingly gave men access to normal births.

The establishment of a “lying-in-fund” induced poor mothers to submit themselves as teaching specimens to man-midwives. By 1750s, the lying-in hospitals became a permanent feature of England’s hospital system. Its hierarchy elevated the man-midwife over the midwife. By the nineteenth century, man-midwives assumed a new name, obstetricians, and received “onset summons” in lieu of midwives. Gradually, midwives learned the use of the forceps in order to match their male rivals. In 1902, after a protracted struggle, midwives gained professional status and normal deliveries returned to their realm.

1811 Thomas Rowlandson cartoon lampooning England’s male midwives (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, France)

The loophole in Wilson’s impressive text lies in his conclusion that women’s choices spurred the rise of man-midwifery. He neglects the fact that women were merely reacting to a new development that offered more positive results in cases of difficult births. Lying-in hospitals offered few options for poor women as man-midwives already dominated these facilities from their early years. Wilson’s conclusion also undermines the power of newspapers and other publications in constructing social behaviors. From the 1740s, midwives were criticized for failing to summon the man-midwife and his forceps at the onset of labor. These public criticisms by prominent man-midwives influenced collective attitudes. Thus, understanding the rise of man-midwifery requires looking beyond women’s choices to broader developments in society. Nonetheless, Wilson’s book offers a fascinating read for anyone interested in the evolution of midwifery and reproductive health.

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