How Not to Stop a Revolution

One of the things that has so impressed me about the Egyptian uprising is how flawlessly it as been conducted. There is no guidebook for how to run a successful revolution. Each situation is unique and there is no telling what tactics will work. We still have no idea how any of this will turn out; the outcome is a complete unknown, something we humans are not too comfortable with. However I am personally very encouraged by the observation that these protesters are showing a remarkable instinct for doing the right thing at the right time. Just when you think they are going down, they surge back stronger than ever in some surprising way. I use the word instinct because these are things that cannot be planned, and their organization is so loose and organic that everything they do seems to be entirely spontaneous and collective. For example, just as it seemed that the protests were stagnating this week, the security forces released Wael Ghonim, Google’s Middle East chief, after detaining him blindfolded and incommunicado for 12 days. He gave a heart-wrenching emotional interview on live television that electrified the nation. The next day we saw the largest protests yet, across the entire country, including many first-timers. The crowd was so large it spilled out of Tahrir Square in Cairo and now has the parliament surrounded. This sort of thing just keeps happening, over and over again. Everything the government throws at them gets thrown back with interest, and the democracy movement gains momentum at every step. I wouldn’t bet against them at this point.

As for the government, they can’t seem to get anything right. Everything they’ve done has backfired on them, though it is the people of Egypt who have paid the real costs. Here are just some of the things that haven’t worked:

• Riot police. This is always the first defense. Unfortunately when they’re on live TV there’s not much they can do against a determined crowd. They kill about 300 people but ultimately fail to deter the protesters.
• Shut down most of the ISPs. Oh yes, that’ll calm the youngsters down. (?)
• Shut down SMS and cell phones. Worse still. Now they have no choice but to take to the streets to find out what’s going on.
• Close the banks and stock market. Presumably to prevent flight of capital, but a great way to further aggravate the populace.
• Shut down trains and public transit. More aggravation.
• Appoint the head of intelligence (i.e. the head torturer) as Vice President. Not a move to instil confidence.
• Announce that you won’t be running for re-election. Like you’ve been announcing for the last 30 years. Whatever. You’re missing the point.
• Blame the “chaos” on the protests. This is where the egregious lying begins. The problem is that when people have been lied to for 30 years they start to catch on. Not all, but most.
• Turn the internet back on. Great! More documentation of human rights abuses reaches the world in real time.
• Blame the protests on foreign influences, foreign media (especially Al Jazeera), the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Mossad, the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus. OK, I made the last two up, but they are just as true as all the others. In reality it is the government that is propped up by foreign powers (namely the US and Israel) and everyone knows it.
• Send guys on starving horses and camels to attack the protesters with whips. First real sign of mental illness in the Mubarak camp.
• Sending police thugs to attack the peaceful protesters with rocks and Molotov cocktails in front of live television. Where to begin? The best part was when the protesters caught a number of thugs and found police ID on them. Busted! The attacks galvanize the protesters and the protests grow.
• Take Al Jazeera off the air and either beat up or arrest every journalist you can find. Great, now they can personally report, in all their home countries, on how brutal the Mubarak dictatorship is. Best move yet.
• Tell the protesters’ parents to call their children home. Unfortunately the parents don’t get the message because they’re busy protesting.
• Give government workers a 15% raise. This means a lot from a man with tens of billions of dollars in personal wealth. He thinks the people can be bought but it’s too late. They’ve tasted freedom and know it’s worth more than all the gold in Switzerland (which is now looking to see if they can freeze any of Mubarak’s assets).
• Since the civil police have been a disaster, get the military police to start harassing and detaining protesters and journalists. At the same time announce that the international media are welcome and protesters will not be harassed or prosecuted (as if detainees ever get to go before a judge anyway). Pants. On. Fire.

The bottom line is that the Mubarak regime has only two weapons in its arsenal: lies and physical force. Both of those weapons can only be used when no one is watching. Now that everyone is watching, neither has any power any more. It is the protesters who have the power now, and it is the same power that Mahatma Ghandi used to free his own country. Satyagraha, or “truth power,” is the power that comes from having truth on your side, from being truth. The Egyptian protesters embody the truth that they are human beings and deserve the same rights as anyone else. They also embody the truth of state brutality in the wounds on their bodies and souls. They don’t even need to speak; they can just stand in place and the truth will come out, and there is no power anywhere that can overcome it.

UPDATE, FEB 11:

A couple more points:

• Drop hints that you’re going to resign, wait until the people are celebrating, and then go on TV and say you’re not resigning. Wait for the violent reaction so you can justify a fatal crackdown. But you don’t know who you’re dealing with. Protests swell to mind-blowing proportions and peacefully surround the state television and radio building and presidential palace.
• Resign. Yup, that works.

Egypt

I haven’t been reading much for the last two weeks because I’ve been absolutely riveted by events in Egypt and the rest of the Arab world. I am glued to Twitter and Al Jazeera day and night, with few interruptions. Unless you’ve been living under a rock (or watch Fox “News”) you know that we are witnessing an extraordinary transformation, not just because of where it is but how it’s happening. We usually think of revolutionaries as men with guns and grenades but these are kids with laptops and smart phones. With the media under state control, opposition parties banned, and even leafleting illegal, the web is the only place Egyptians can organize, and organize they did.

What I find most heartening about this revolution is the hope, love, and joy of the protesters. Tahrir Square in particular is not marked simply by the absence of violence but the presence of joy. Yes there are angry shouts against the Mubarak regime, but there is also a festival atmosphere, complete with music, dancing, and food. When they were being attacked by hired police thugs, they defended themselves with incredible resourcefulness, using whatever they could find in the square. Doctors volunteered to tend the wounded and people smuggled in medical supplies. During times of calm people share food, water, blankets, and there is even a barber working for free. Art is being created right on the street, songs are sung, the dead are remembered, and there has even been one honeymoon and one wedding there. There are people of all ages, from babies to elders, students and professors, workers and professionals, celebrities and civil servants, feminists and niqabis, disabled people, Muslims, Christians, and atheists, you name it, they are there, and they are getting along just fine without police and without the government. It is almost a whole functioning society on its own. It is the new democratic Egypt, and it is spreading outward every day.

The Egyptian revolutionaries are putting us apathetic Westerners to shame. We’ve been standing idly by as banks rob us blind and corporations ship jobs and profits offshore, but the Egyptians are doing something about it. Make no mistake: this is ultimately about money. President Mubarak and his cronies are fabulously wealthy while many Egyptians struggle just to buy bread. This has only gotten worse since reforms to “liberalize trade” were undertaken. His own family fortune is estimated at up to $70 billion (with a B) dollars. He is not violently repressing his people for the fun of it, he’s doing it to maintain his power to maintain his wealth. If you don’t believe that this is about money, check out this short but incisive analysis of the situation as it stood last week:

What Mubarak is about to find out (aside from the fact that you can’t keep good people down) is that you can’t take it with you. It has been reported that he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last summer and probably does not have long to live. When he announced that he wouldn’t run in the next election it wasn’t out of the goodness of his heart, it’s because he’ll probably be laid out in his lavish marble mausoleum by then. So it’s no wonder he’s holding on to power like grim death. He wants to be sent off like a pharaoh, with parades and monuments (and human sacrifice), not in ignominious exile. It remains to be seen which it will be. But the way things are now, with the protests getting stronger and broader every day, the best case scenario for him is looped panegyrics on state TV and a graveside honour guard. Unless he goes soon, he may not even get that much. If I were advising him I would suggest a memorial obelisk instead of a traditional Islamic grave marker—obelisks are harder to dance on.

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Watch Al Jazeera live online.

Twitter lists from NPR, UN Dispatch, and Foreign Policy.

Fast-growing article on Wikipedia.

How it started: We are all Khaled Said.

Even Noam Chomsky is amazed.

NEW: Why Mubarak is Out—On the competing economic forces in Egypt.

O Happy Day!

"War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy

Warning: Spoilers galore!

War and Peace is what the author wanted and was able to express, in the form in which it is expressed.

Such was Tolstoy's view of his mammoth work and indeed the book defies conventional forms. Apparently he worked on it for 5 solid years, and reading it gave me the impression that he started out writing a novel and over time he added in more and more military and historical philosophy. The beginning of the book is all narrative, the end all exposition, as though the balance of his interest tipped progressively from the personal to the theoretical as he worked. Perhaps he was unable to express what he wanted to express in the story and resorted to inserting ever longer essays on the themes he wanted to bring forward. His ideas on war and history are made crystal clear, and the way he portrays the War of 1812 in Russia support them, but I am having trouble figuring out how the personal stories of the characters relate to his theories on war and history.

The foundation of his theorizing is the argument that while conventional history attributes the phenomena of war to the great leaders—Napoleon, Alexander, and so on—a close examination of what actually happens shows that very little of what the leaders order actually gets carried out. The difficulties of communication, unforeseeable circumstances, competition between generals seeking court favours, and the panic (or bravery) of soldiers frustrate battle plans almost entirely. I understand that Tolstoy did painstaking research of all sorts of historical records from that war and found that everyone had a different story of what happened and no one really knew what was going on at the time. It was only after the fact that a general consensus formed, preferably one that showed one's own side off to best advantage.

Tolstoy frequently mocks historians for attributing wins (or losses) in battle to the brilliant (or foolish) tactics of the commander in chief. In his view, what really determines the outcome of a battle is esprit de corps. Whether the soldiers are willing to run into a space filled with flying bullets is what determines who wins. Numbers, weapons, position are unimportant, especially since these cannot be effectively organized and commanded anyway.

After driving home the point that battles are fundamentally chaotic, Tolstoy moves on to the general course of the war, and continues to mock the historians for misunderstanding what happened. The conventional view is that the Russians lost the first major battle on Russian soil, at Borodin, because they retreated afterwards. However Tolstoy's view, and the Russian commander's view, was that the Russians won because they inflicted a mortal wound that was the eventual downfall of the French army, even though Napoleon subsequently marched right through to Moscow unopposed. The wound was more psychological than physical, since the French army still had superior numbers, but so many were lost that day, so far from home, that they started feeling insecure. Their instinct was then to rush to Moscow to feed off its plenty, but when they got there they found the city abandoned. This is one of Tolstoy's other major themes: the Russians won the war because they were Russian. They would not submit to occupation as the Europeans did, so they abandoned their homes and properties and left behind a ghost town. This led to looting and a breakdown of discipline among the French, which further increased their anxiety and eventually prompted their disastrous flight back to France

Tolstoy also makes an interesting point about the fires. The usual story is that the Muscovites burned down their city as they left to starve out the French, but Tolstoy writes that the fires were inevitable because houses simply catch on fire from time to time, more so when there are soldier's camp fires burning all around the city, and with the firefighters gone along with the rest of the native population, there was no other possible outcome but the burning of Moscow. This is not an unimportant point because the inevitability of events is really Tolstoy's main thesis.

Although Tolstoy suggests at several points in the story that historical events were inevitable, and mentions Providence once or twice, it is only in the second part of the Epilogue that he fully explains what he means. There he presents a critique of modern historians who have made only a partial break with ancient historical methods and have failed to embrace the scientific method. He writes that ancient historians attributed historical events to the will of one or more gods who manipulate the desires and actions of human beings. Modern historians reject this view, and transfer the history-making power of will from the gods to humans. The problem with this, according to Tolstoy, is that there is very little evidence that any person's or group's will has any effect on historical events, and it is questionable whether we have any free will at all. He presents examples and lines of argument that suggest that our behaviour is simply a product of our origins and circumstances, and so if we want to explain historical events we simply need to understand the origins and circumstances of all of the people involved and that will explain why they acted the way they did, especially when they acted contrary to their stated values and goals.

Naturally we would all object to the notion that our every move is somehow programmed, but Tolstoy argues that though we feel free, reason suggests otherwise. Modern neuroscience, psychology, and sociology would seem to confirm that our behaviour is at least in part determined by our biology and environment, but we still cannot accept that, and so we live in a paradox. Not being aware of that paradox is what leads historians astray when they try to find the causes of events, but perhaps it is the only way we can live. It reminds me of Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy, in which historians are able to predict events mathematically, but their calculations will only be correct as long as the people involved don't know the predictions. Only those who think they are free can act predictably!

If human behaviour is not free, then, Tolstoy believes, we should be able to describe human behaviour mathematically. Understanding the total complexity of what drives every act of every person is impossible, but it may be possible to express the sum total of group behaviour mathematically and thus derive laws of history. He draws a parallel with natural science in which there are cases where the ultimate cause of a phenomenon might not be known but we can still determine the laws according to which that phenomenon takes place. For example Newton did not know what caused gravity (and I'm not sure we do now!) but he was able to formulate a law of gravity that described the observed attraction between masses. Tolstoy proposes this as the only way forward for a truly modern, secular study of history. I am not at all exposed to the cutting edge of history, but it seems as though Tolstoy's proposal was not adopted, and the study of history continues in much the same way as in his time.

Lest you think the book is all dry, curmudgeonly theory, I should say that it is also a fascinating, entertaining, and moving story. Tolstoy makes his characters come alive by describing their every move in minute detail, but always with a purpose, not simply to fill the pages. Similarly his descriptions of battles and other scenes are so detailed and include all of the senses so that you feel like you're really there. Tolstoy was a master craftsman, of that there is no doubt.

He also has something to say about what it is to be human. Ambition and the desire to understand and shape the world seem to get his characters into trouble, but when they abandon those mental processes they find themselves making the right decisions quickly and instinctively, and finding happiness. This journey is expressed most clearly in Pierre Bezukhov, a tormented spiritual seeker whose experience as a POW cures him (at least partially) of his dreamy nature and he settles down to wedded bliss. Similarly, Nikolai Rostov begins as a rather brainless, hot-headed, glory-seeking young gun, but finds true happiness in providing for his family. Though he operates his estate purely out of self-interest, that self-interest entails taking good care of his serfs, and so they would rather serve him than be freed, and his farm prospers abundantly. This Nikolai seems to be a precursor to reformed reformer Nikolai Levin from Anna Karenina.

As for the women, Tolstoy is very clear: family life is the complete fulfilment of a woman. He has nothing but disdain for women who feign intelligence and talk politics at salon parties. Only all-consuming dedication to one's husband and family can make a woman both natural and happy. Nikolai's sister Natasha is introduced as a thoroughly spoiled and vain girl, but after marriage she "lets herself go" and finds ever-increasing happiness in dedicating herself totally to her husband and children. But what Tolstoy lacks in respect for women's minds he makes up for in respect for women's instincts, which he depicts as always correct and instrumental in reining in the destructive intellectual fancies of their men. Family life is Tolstoy's ideal for men as well. Politics and spirituality are useless exercises, though religion is fine for the women as long as it doesn't interfere with family life.

I think Tolstoy was not quite decided about religion when he wrote the book. His epilogue entreats historians to abandon the notion of God-given free will, but in the story he depicts religion with great respect. As I mentioned before, he sometimes mentions Providence as the ultimate decider of events, and his most religious character, Marya Bolkonsky, is the least flawed and least changed of all his main characters. Her brother Andrei, who loves his sister but rejects religion, has religious experiences during his military service, but it comes to nothing and he dies rather strangely, with hostility towards the living. I understand that Tolstoy changed his views on religion drastically in later life, and perhaps this book reflects some inner conflict on that subject.

One thing he was not conflicted about was the horror of murder. It seems that part of his seeking to understand history is to understand how such large numbers of people can so deliberately set about killing each other so horribly. Every time someone is killed or maimed in the book, he uses vague language to convey the mind's unwillingness to acknowledge murder and death—something happened to the soldier's leg, or they put something in the pit. This horror of killing is especially emphasized in the firing squad scene, in which the soldiers, though doing their duty and carrying out a form of justice, come away with faces like criminals.

As I said in the beginning, it is hard to relate the characters to Tolstoy's thoughts on history, but the last scraps of the narrative may be a clue. There we see Pierre beginning to revert to his dreamy, scheming nature, and Bolkonsky's son begins to sound very much like the father he never knew in wishing to distinguish himself publicly in some way. Perhaps the message is that though our circumstances may change and bring us closer to a natural way of life (i.e. family life), we still cannot help our nature and will continue to act according to its dictates for our entire lives and throughout the generations.

If you feel daunted by the size of War and Peace, I assure you that it is easy reading, no doubt much easier than reading this post! Though one can occasionally get bogged down in Tolstoy's theorizing, most of the book is an engrossing narrative animated by very human characters. It certainly is long, but it is written in a straightforward way, and Tolstoy's vivid descriptions make you feel like you are watching the action in person rather than reading about it. So if you're Feelin' Chunky this year, do give War and Peace a try!

The Antikythera Mechanism

I love it when people, places, things, or events recorded in ancient texts turn out to be real and exactly as described. Two thousand years ago Cicero wrote twice about seeing geared devices that predicted the movements of celestial bodies, but modern scholars thought he was making it up. The ancient Greeks couldn't possibly have invented such advanced machinery. Or could they?

Here is an x-ray of one of the original pieces:

New Scientist has a very thorough article on the discovery and reconstruction of this machine. I found the last section the most interesting:

Historians have often scoffed at the Greeks for wasting their technology on toys rather than doing anything useful with it. If they had the steam engine, why not use it to do work? If they had clockwork, why not build clocks? Many centuries later, such technology led to the industrial revolution in Europe, ushering in our automated modern world. Why did it not do the same for the Greeks?

The
answer has a lot to do with what the Greeks would have regarded as useful. Models of people and animals, like those of the cosmos, affirmed their idea of a divine order. Gadgets like Hero's were also used to demonstrate basic physical laws in pneumatics and hydraulics.

. . .

Rather than being toys, devices like the Antikythera mechanism were seen as a route to understanding and demonstrating the nature of the universe - a way to get closer to the true meaning of things. To what better use could technology be put?

via Mirabilis

Another Stolen Painting Returned

A day after posting about a documentary on the Nazi theft of art during World War II, there is news that another stolen painting is being returned to its rightful owners. The Centre Pompidou has given Matisse's Le Mur Rose to a UK charity that supports emergency medical services in Israel, as per the bequest of the deceased inheritor of the painting. This return is particularly meaningful because the Nazi official who took it was in charge of supplying the death camps with poison gas. Now the painting will be auctioned to fund services that will save lives. How appropriate.

The Rape of Europa

PBS recently aired a riveting documentary called The Rape of Europa, about the theft of artworks by the Nazis during World War II. I knew before that the Nazis had stolen art from the countries they conquered, but I didn't realize it was on such a massive scale. It is estimated that 20% of all Western art was taken away by the Nazis during the war. That's more than the collections of the Louvre, the British Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum combined. Most of it was soon recovered by the Allies, but there are still 100,000 pieces known to be missing. The real number of stolen artworks may be even greater but those who might claim them were also taken away and never heard from again.

It started with the Anschluss, and the looting of art galleries owned by Jews in Vienna. "Looting" isn't exactly the right word, though. These were carefully planned and organized bureaucratic operations. They had shopping lists, and they maintained an air of legitimacy by declaring that property without owners could be confiscated by the government. Of course we all know what happened to the owners.

Poland was hit particularly hard because, as a Slavic nation, it was slated for complete annihilation. Warsaw was systematically levelled, but not before half a million books and works of art were taken away, many of which have not been returned. When the Nazis reached Paris they found the Louvre empty, and they didn't want to antagonize the French by searching for the state art collection, so they concentrated again on Jewish art galleries, and sent boxcar after boxcar full of precious artworks back to Germany.

The scale of the plunder in Russia, another Slavic land, is mind boggling. Although the Russians made heroic attempts to evacuate the Hermitage and other museums, they lacked time, and over a million works of art were taken. To add insult to injury, historic sites were destroyed during the German retreat, including Tolstoy's home, the Pushkin estate, and the Tchaikovsky museum. The Russians later retaliated by taking German artworks, which they still retain as a sort of compensation for the loss of life and heritage caused by a war they didn't start.

The purpose of all this plunder was mainly to fulfill Hitler's grandiose vision of creating the greatest art museum in the world. He wanted to turn his home town of Linz into a world arts center, with theatres, libraries, numerous art galleries, and, of course, his mausoleum. Only "pure" art would be allowed; no "degenerate" modern art, or art by Jews, Slavs, or other "inferior" peoples. It wasn't just Hitler, though. All of the Nazi elite were involved and built up their own vast personal collections as well.

One of the heroes of this tale is French art historian Rose Valland. She was the curator of the Jeu de Paume museum, which became the holding point for artworks being taken to Germany. Unbeknownst to the Nazi officials in charge of transporting the artworks, Valland understood German, and so she heard where the works had come from and where they were going. Every night she wrote down, from memory, everything she had heard. She passed information to the French Resistance so they could avoid blowing up any trains that were carrying art. After the war her records were instrumental in recovering stolen artworks, and she received many honours from her nation and even received a medal from West Germany.

If you missed The Rape of Europa, there are quite a lot of related resources online and in print. You can view the film's trailer at the main website. The filmmakers have also created an educational website which presents a great deal of information and multimedia content on the major themes of the film. The companion book, Rescuing Da Vinci, has its own website, and there is also a website that looks specifically at the role of the Monuments Men, American servicemen whose job it was to protect and repatriate art and architecture during and after the war. The book that inspired the film was The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War, by Lynn Nicholas.

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, Gascoyne-Cecil Style

Here's a charming portrait of family life at Hatfield, home of Prime Minister Robert Gascoyne-Cecil [1830-1903]:

Endowed with the first marchioness's force of character, and the second marchioness's intelligence and money, the Cecils sailed into their Victorian and Edwardian heyday. Hatfield became one of the most famous houses in England. Balls and garden-parties were held in profusion.... Huge house-parties were given there constantly. To have six guests staying in addition to the family was called 'having no one in the house'. Meals were  eaten in the great hall in summer and in a new upstairs dining-room in winter; sofas and armchairs spilled all down the long gallery; high politics were discussed in the library. So as almost everything else. The prime minister, his wife and seven children (and later his grandchildren) were like nobody else, but very much like each other. They were lively, argumentative, absent-minded, untidy and full of fun and ideas, which they expressed in a curious staccato voice peculiar to the family. Children were expected to join in the conversation and have their own opinions.

The Victorian Cecils were not sensitive to beauty. There are some country houses, like Uppark, where generation after generation had the gift of buying pretty things and creating harmonious interiors. The nineteenth-century Cecils lacked this gift entirely (and probably didn't want it). Many alterations were made at Hatfield in this period; perhaps none of them were actively ugly, but on the other hand none were very sympathetic.

The one exception was the gardens (the original Jacobean gardens had vanished entirely) and even these owe much to later and less philistine generations.... Even here the prime minister's lack of interest in how things looked is in evidence. Asphalt paths, as in a municipal garden, run through the woods. The prime minister, when old and overweight, had them laid so that he could ride through the grounds on a tricycle. In a broad-brimmed hat and a cloak he would puff slowly along, with a child or footman there to push him when he got stuck.

—Mark Girouard, Historic Houses of Britain

Good Sir Sidney

The Sidneys occupy a very special place in English history. They were not an old family. They were one of a small group of families whom the Tudors raised to power and made their inner circle of ministers and advisers. The Dudleys, Herberts, Greys, and Cecils were also in the circle, but the Sidneys stood a little apart form the others. This was partly because they were unusually intelligent and well educated, were writers themselves and discriminating and generous patrons of other writers and men of learning; but this could also be said of others in the circle. The distinctive quality of the Sidneys was that they were unusually honest.

Most successful Elizabethans were unashamedly on the make. They did as well as they possibly could out of bribes, jobs, perquisites and fiddles. They aimed to make a great deal of money, and often succeeded. Sir Henry Sidney, the son of the Sir William who was granted Penshurst, was in a different class. He served Elizabeth faithfully for many years, mostly as Lord President of Wales and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He won a reputation for just and generous rule; and he lost rather than made money.

—Mark Girouard, Historic Houses of Britain

It's not often history turns up such just and honest leaders. It's nice to know it's possible, even during the most corrupt times.

Dipping in Brighton

In 1750 Dr Richard Russell published a book in which he announced a startling new discovery: dipping the body in salt water helped cure certain diseases. A rush to the sea began which has never stopped. At first it was entirely for medical reasons. Invalids were seized and dipped in salt water by muscular female 'dippers' and 'bathers'...

—Mark Girouard, Historic Houses of Britain

As somewhat of an invalid myself I find the idea of being seized and dipped into the North Atlantic rather alarming, but as I reader I found this passage quite funny. This book seems to be full of the dry British wit that I enjoy so much. Who knew that a musty old coffee table book could be so amusing?

Magna Carta, Mini Palaces

In the seventeenth and eighteenth cenuries kings were at the height of their glory. All over Europe they acquired more and more power, so that in France Louis XIV could announce, with splendid effrontery: "I am the state." One of the ways they showed their power was in their palaces. Versailles is and always was the most famous example, but Versailles was only one of hundreds of palaces that sprang up like mushrooms all over Europe. It wasn't only kings and emperors who built them; every tin-pot German prince or Italian grand duke had to have his own version of Versailles, complete with fountains, avenues and interminable vistas in all directions.

The English kings ranked very low in this palace-building league, but not for lack of trying. At various times they had plans on the grand scale drawn up for new palaces in Whitehall, Greenwich, Richmond, Hyde Park, Winchester, Kensington and Hampton Court; but they could never raise the funds to build them. This failure was a direct result of their inability to make themselves all-powerful monarchs on the continental model. To do this they had to control parliament, but parliament refused to be controlled. Charles I tried, and lost his head; James II tried and lost his throne.

—Mark Girouard, Historic Houses of Britain (a delightful out-of-print thrift shop find)

Die Bücherverbrennung

Tonight is the 75th anniversary of the Nazi book burnings, die Bücherverbrennung. On May 10, 1933, the German Student Association, prompted by official propagandist Joseph Goebbels, organized the burning of 35,000 "un-German" books in university towns throughout the country. Most of the books were written by Jews, making this an act of cultural genocide, and a harbinger of the Holocaust.

You can see a chilling video of the book bonfire at the Opernplatz (now Bebelplatz) in Berlin and hear Goebbel's address to the Nazi youth at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. The website also has a good overview of the event and an online exhibition. When Books Burn is another good online exhibition, hosted by the University of Arizona Library. Do take a few moments to learn about this dark moment in human history.

Where they burn books, they will also burn humans in the end.
—Heinrich Heine

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
—George Santayana

via Kimbooktu

Novel Punishment

It seems I come from a long line of literacy advocates. Here is a bit I read about my great-great-grandfather, who commanded of the 62nd U.S. Colored Infantry (also called U.S. Colored Troops) at the end of the American Civil War.

Armies run on rules and regulations and any infraction of discipline at Brazos Santiago was punished by time in the guardhouse. For men in the 62nd USCT there was a more novel punishment. Any soldier caught playing cards was required to take a book and, while "standing in some prominent position in the camp," forced to "learn a considerable lesson in reading and spelling"—twin causes the regiment's White officers had been advocating since the 62nd's creation.

—Jeffrey William Hunt, The Last Battle of the Civil War: Palmetto Ranch

Apparently General Grandpa (as I call him) did quite a bit of work with the Lincoln Institute (now Lincoln University) of Missouri after the war. The school was established by the 62nd and 65th USCT for the benefit of freed slaves, and both (white) officers and the troops contributed financially to its establishment. There is a news story about it at the Hannibal Courier-Post and Lincoln University has a short blurb about it as well.

Way to go, Grandpa.

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UPDATE: I found some of the literacy-related orders from the 62nd US Colored Infantry:

Morganzia, La. July 3rd 1864

All non-Commissioned officers of this command who shall fail to learn to read by or before the 1st day of January 1865 will be reduced to the ranks and their places filled by persons who can read. In the position of Sergeants preference will be given to men who can both read & write and are otherwise good soldiers. All soldiers of this command who have by any means learned to read or write, will aid and assist to the extent of their ability their fellow soldiers to learn these invaluable arts, without which no man is properly fitted to perform the duties of a free citizen.

Brazos Santiago, Texas. October 29th 1864

Hereafter when any soldier of this command is found to be, or to have been, playing cards, he will be placed, standing, in some prominent position in the camp with book in hand, and required then and there to learn a considerable lesson in reading and spelling: and if unwilling to learn, he will be compelled by hunger to do so. When men are found gambling in any way, the money at stake will be seized and turned into the Regt. Hospital fund. No freed slave who cannot read well has a right to waste the time and opportunity here given him to fit himself for the position of a free citizen. This order will be read twice to this command, and copied in each order book.

Brazos Santiago Texas January 25th 1865.

The Regimental Council of Administration having appropriated Fifty Dollars for the purchase of premiums for the encouragement of the enlisted men of this Regiment to learn to write it is hereby ordered. That a gold pen be given to the Sergeant in each Company, who shall learn to write the best by the fourth day of July 1865. That a gold pen be given the Corporal in each Company who shall learn to write the best by the 4th day of July 1865. That a good book be given the private of each Company who shall learn to write the best by the 4th day of July 1865. These rewards to be publicly given by a committee chosen as mentioned in orders.

Source: Buffalo Soldiers and Indian Wars

Did it work? You bet:

In his Farewell To Arms Ceremony, to the 62nd United States Colored Infantry on January, 4, 1866, Ringwald Texas, Colonel Theodore H. Barrett, stated, with the utmost of pride that, "of four hundred and thirty one men, ninety-nine have learned to read and write under-standingly; two hundred and eighty-four can read; three hundred and thirty-seven can spell in words of two syllables and are learning to read, not more than ten men have failed to learn the alphabet." [ibid]

Obviously those numbers are cumulative, not additive, but they add up to one of the highest literacy rates among African-American soldiers at the time. Pretty impressive considering the harsh conditions and abuse they were often subject to.

From the Archives of the New York Times

I mentioned a couple of days ago that the New York Times was making its online archives available free of charge. I took advantage of that today to look up the news story about a famous American Civil War battle that my great-great-grandfather led (and lost) for the Union. The news story is mentioned in The Last Battle of the Civil War: Palmetto Ranch, by Jeffrey William Hunt, which I've finally started reading. Apparently the account published in the Times wasn't terribly accurate, and as it came weeks after Appomattox, it was not a welcome in the North as a reminder of the slaughter that everyone was hoping to put behind them. As uncomplimentary as the story is, I can't get over the wonder of being able to read it on my computer, 142 years later. Wow.

The Permanence of Parchment

When I watch documentaries about archaeology (which is often) I wonder what archaeological evidence our culture is going to leave behind. What will remain of our civilization in a thousand years, or three thousand years? The pyramids will undoubtedly still be here, and very likely the Acropolis, the Colosseum, the Great Wall of China, and countless other structures and artifacts made of stone and perhaps pottery, if conditions are right. But what of our buildings and artworks? Wood burns, steel rusts, pigments fade, and plastic (eventually) disintegrates. Concrete is the only durable material we regularly build with, but even it will fall apart if exposed to the weather, and the way we use it certainly won't give a favourable impression of our aesthetic values.

It seems strange to me that the most powerful and wealthy civilizations that have ever existed can't seem to afford to build with beautiful stone. When was the last time a stone building was erected in your city, or even your country? Is there anyone carving our stories into friezes and columns, or at least painting them into plaster? No, our stories are printed on paper—thin, fragile paper. And for the last 150 years or so, our stories have been written on the worst kind of paper, acidic tree-pulp paper, which is now busily dissolving itself on our library shelves.

Things have improved somewhat with more books being printed on neutral and alkaline papers, but even cotton paper, which can last for centuries, can't match the durability and longevity of parchment. The skins of calves and lambs have proved to be a most reliable medium for transmitting human art and knowledge, sometimes even more reliable than stone and plaster. I've been reading The Geometry of Love by Margaret Visser, a peripatetic history of the church of Sant' Agnese fuori la mura in Rome. Time and again Visser describes how burial places, altars, shrines, mosaics, carvings, even entire basilicas have been preserved only in written records. Weather, wars, and recycling have damaged the art and architecture of early Roman Christianity, but books and scrolls have survived to tell their tale. Learning this astonishes me, but perhaps I shouldn't be astonished. Perhaps a book is a much easier thing to preserve than a building or a marble inscription.

Here is an example. Visser describes how Pope Damasus I (366-384) had marble inscriptions in a purpose-made calligraphic alphabet placed in various martyr's shrines around Rome. It was not until 1728 that the first more-or-less intact example was discovered (on the underside of one of the paving stones in Sant'Agnese fuori la mura), but about sixty more had long been known of from medieval manuscripts, copied from earlier manuscripts. I wonder if Pope Damasus could have imagined that parchment would be, for the most part, more durable than marble?

In truth, the longevity of parchment is probably entirely dependent on the continuity of a tradition that values and preserves human knowledge. I have heard many stories of how Christian monasteries preserved and copied ancient books and scrolls from many traditions through times of upheaval and persecution. But monasteries are in precipitous decline—I'm not sure we can look to them to preserve even the best of the vast literary output of humanity.

What about secular libraries? Civilizations have made remarkable efforts to preserve written records—the libraries of Nineveh and Alexandria come to mind—but when those civilizations fell, their libraries fell with them. Will today's libraries still be standing in a thousand years? We've seen what has happened to Iraq's national library in the course of a mere "regime change." Large, centralized libraries are as vulnerable as any building in times of change. But perhaps with the whole-hearted dedication of librarians like Saad Eskander of Iraq, they will survive somehow, and future civilizations will be able to know and learn from us.

May 18: International Museum Day

Ever wondered what the official definition of a museum is? According to the 23,000-member International Council of Museums,

A museum is a non-profit making, permanent institution in the service of society and of its development, and open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits, for purposes of study, education and enjoyment, material evidence of people and their environment.

This year the theme of International Museum Day is "Museums and Universal Heritage," which emphasizes the "individual and collective responsibility for global heritage."

ICOM's International Museum Day has high purpose in promoting access to museum collections to focus on how cultural diversity and universal heritage go hand in hand. ICOM is inviting the world's museums and their communities to show how, as a member of a family, neighborhood, tribe, nation, ethnic group or religion, and as public citizens, on all levels, we are separately and together responsible for sharing and protecting our respective and common heritage. [source]

Interestingly, museums are struggling with some of the same pressures and trends as public libraries:

Worldwide, the role of museums within society seems to be changing fundamentally and rapidly. Educational work as well as economic considerations are becoming predominant features among the 5 main tasks - collection/acquisition, conservation, research, education/communication and exhibition - by which museums are being defined according to the ICOM Statutes. Acquiring and collecting objects and material no longer seems to be the primary basis of museums’ work and consciousness. Communication and dialogue with visitors is becoming increasingly important, including new media (visualisation vs. verbalisation). But the act of preserving heritage with a universal view is more than economic or political expectancy. Contextualisation of objects / collections vs. uncritical adoption of social tendencies and fashions remains a key issue. [source]

I live near a pretty good museum and their big exhibit right now is relics from the Titanic, a certain money-maker as we head into tourist season, but pretty irrelevant from a cultural perspective. My personal, cranky, view is that the only reason people are so fascinated and horrified by that particular shipwreck is because a lot of wealthy people died, and in the same way as a lot of rabble. Plenty of other great ships have gone down with more loss of life, but they weren't built for luxury and so the elites weren't traumatized and those ships were forgotten. However newsworthy the sinking of the Titanic might have been 95 years ago, it doesn't seem like a good use of 6 months of prime exhibition space in what is supposedly B.C.'s official museum. What about bringing out a few of the 10 million objects crammed into the collections tower? (I've been in there—it's so tight you have to step outside to inhale.) I'm sure they have enough good material in there for 60 years worth of exhibitions that might actually teach tourists something about the place they're visiting.

I didn't mean for this to turn into a rant. I suppose museums wouldn't have to host these travelling road shows if more people went to them, so I encourage you all to visit your local museum and explore the history of where you are.

Mess-O'-Potamia II

Reading about the dawn of civilization has been fascinating. According to my Encyclopedia of World History by Peter Stearns, civilization has the following features:

1. large concentrations of people, usually cities, in central areas (even though the majority of settlements remained rural);
2. hierarchical social and political structures, usually with states and priesthoods;
3. economic specialization and organized societal division of labor; and,
4. formal methods of permanent record keeping using some form of writing.

The history of Mesopotamia also suggests that civilization makes large-scale war and conquest both possible (e.g. wheeled chariots) and worth-while (portable spoils). The first civilization developed in Sumeria, lower Mesopotamia, around 3300 BCE. It was a scattering of independent city states that grew up around regional temples. They were run by priests and semi-democratic citizen councils. Through trade their technologies spread from the Indus to the Nile, and harmless neolithic tribes became conquerers of the people who made their civilizations possible. This is the thanks you get for inventing writing!

The first conquerers (2334 BCE) were the Akkadians led by Sargon I. His daughter, Enheduanna, was installed as high priestess and is the first known author. She wrote hymns to the Inanna, the virgin goddess of love, fertility, and war. The Akkadian Empire is considered the first true state as it separated religious and governing powers. It only lasted about 200 years, however, and was followed by a brief Sumerian renaissance in which local rule was re-established. After that, Sumeria was finished as both upper and lower Mesopotamia were conquered, invaded, and ruled by a succession of outsiders.

The most famous of the subsequent empires is the Babylonian Empire, which united upper and lower Mesopotamia, and left behind the Law Code of Hammurabi, which was literally "set in stone"—no small feat in a place where stone had to be imported. Babylonia was the largest state yet and made significant advances in astronomy and mathematics, as well as preserving the Epic of Gilgamesh on some of the huge number of cuneiform tablets they left behind. They too were conquered, however, and the war machines rolled on as before.

Next up: Mesopotamian art!

Mess-O'-Potamia

I read this while finishing up the chapter on ancient Mesopotamian history:

…and Mesopotamia was once more divided between rival peoples who flowed into it from all sides.

—J.M. Roberts,  The New History of the World

Plus ça change…

Sumer-time and the living is easy...or is it?

I dragged myself away from the ballet barre and climbed back on the history horse today. I was surprised to read this about the early Sumerian civilization of southern Mesopotamia:

In the midst of the uncertainties of Mesopotamian life, some feeling that a possible access to protection existed was essential. Men depended on the gods for reassurance in a capricious universe. The gods—though no Mesopotamian could have put it in these terms—were conceptualizations of elementary attempts to control environment, to resist the sudden disasters of flood and dust-storm, to assure the continuation of the cycle of the seasons by the repetition of the great spring festival when the gods were again married and the drama of creation was re-enacted. After that, the world's existence was assured for another year.

—J.M. Roberts, The New History of the World

Didn't these people know that they were, by far, the most wealthy and advanced civilization in their region (and on the planet, though they couldn't have known that)? Didn't they know they lived on extremely fertile land that was also blessed with an abundance of domesticable plant and animal species? Did they not see their population growing and the extent of their occupation of the Tigris and Euphrates floodplains expanding?

The early Sumerians had every advantage over their more primitive neighbours, and yet they seem to have had a great anxiety about their survival. Every regional center had its own god with its temple, and these became the seeds of the first monumental structures and the first cities. Writing seems to have developed out of a need to record the size of crops brought to the temples. Life revolved around the gods who could bring either abundance or destruction.

I wonder if this was a cultural holdover from neolithic times when survival was much more difficult and people had little control over their food sources and little organized protection against enemies—like people who are born poor and continue to pinch pennies even after acquiring wealth. Was it perhaps because they knew they were "cheating" nature with their agriculture and irrigation and were worried that the gods would be angry at this violation of the natural order? Were they insecure about their new abilities to produce food and govern large populations and so needed support from higher powers?

Or is it just human nature to always want more? We in the "First World" are, as the name suggests, in the same position as Sumer was 5000 years ago, yet our litany of complaints about the supposed rigors of our lives is endless. I haven't read Gilgamesh yet but I understand it is about a great king who wanted immortality. It wasn't enough that he was one of, if not the wealthiest person that ever lived; he wanted it forever. Of course he was denied, but that doesn't seem to have stopped his culture or the ones that followed it from desiring ever more wealth and security. Five thousand years have passed and we still don't seem to know when enough is enough.