THE SINGING REVOLUTION
By William Urban
This documentary was recommended by a friend who was aware of my publications in Baltic history. Indeed, this well-produced story of the peaceful Estonian resistance to Soviet occupation was once central to my career.
The story began in 1939, with the Hitler-Stalin pact that led to a Soviet invasion of the four independent states on the Baltic Sea. Fifty years later it was becoming clear that the Soviet Empire was unraveling, and nobody was tugging harder at the strands than the Estonian people. This little land between the Gulf of Finland and Latvia was threatened by environmental destruction and being overwhelmed by Russian-speaking immigrants. The former was part of Soviet economic policy, the latter a “Russification” that would reduce native languages and traditions to folklore celebrations. If the Soviet economy had produced anything like the results promised by one communist leader after another, or if Russian culture had been perceived as superior to that of the West, the response might have been muted rather than musical. But the Soviet Union never employed a soft touch when a heavy hand would do.
Estonians, knowing well the futility of open resistance, used a music festival to remind people of their ancient heritage. Estonians love to sing, and the festival every five years had worked to keep national feeling alive for over a century. Once, when Communist authorities forbade patriotic songs, the mass choir of 20,000 singers refused to leave the stage until they could conclude the program with national favorites.
In the late Eighties I had come to realize that the Soviet government, struggling to reform a failing system, might soon allow foreigners to visit the Baltic states. It was not practical for me to learn Estonian, much less Latvian and Lithuanian, too, so I studied for two summers to revive my university Russian. (I didn’t revive it all that much, but it helped greatly when I visited the three Baltic states in 1992 and ten years later when I spent part of the summer in the south of Russia.) In 1990, right after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Jackie and I were asked to be the first Americans to teach at the university in Kaunas, Lithuania. When the Soviet ambassador would not give us the visas that Moscow had approved, we went instead to Prague and Berlin, where events overshadowed what was happening in the Baltic States.
Shortly afterward, when American scholars were able to enter the Baltic States, there was no one willing to stay home and edit the troubled Journal of Baltic Studies. With the encouragement of Dean Julian I agreed to take on that task.
Roger Noel was my first co-editor, then later Jim Betts and Ira Smolensky. Eileen Loya eventually agreed to help with the correspondence. No released time from teaching, but with two student assistants we managed to put out six years worth of issues in four years, erasing the accumulated backlog from previous editors.
In 1992 a group of American Baltic specialists went to Riga to meet with administrators of the national universities of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. We explained how western universities operated, then offered them computers and internet connections on two conditions — that everyone have access and that no record be kept of what they wrote. When the rectors protested that their universities were not accustomed to operating in that fashion, our response was, “They are our computers. You can have them on our terms or not at all.” They gave in.
I then spent a month in Tallinn, teaching American history to a very enthusiastic group of Estonian students at a newly founded liberal arts college. Fortunately, I had a suitcase of discarded junior high textbooks contributed by Tom Best, because otherwise there would have been only Soviet texts in Russian. You should have seen the students’ eyes when I said that they could take the books home.
Afterward I made arrangements for the rector of the college to visit Monmouth. He was very impressed. Monmouth College was exactly what he wanted to create in the Estonian capital. Unhappily, President Haywood was not enthusiastic, and two years later President Huseman even less so. Thoughts of what might have been were present throughout my viewing of The Singing Revolution.
Greatness is not achieved through having superior resources, but through seizing the moment. Monmouth College missed the opportunity to become the first liberal arts college with a Baltic connection. Fortunately, the Estonians made the most of their chances.
If you like to see courage and patience rewarded, this is a film for you. The story isn’t over, of course. The Russian bear is still next door (President Medvedev’s name means “bear”), and it is growling.
The Monmouth Review Atlas (August 6, 2009), 4.
Saturday, August 08, 2009
Sunday, August 02, 2009
William Urban: UNCLE WALTER
By William Urban
Walter Cronkite’s death has rightfully provoked reflection on the state of journalism today. He was foremost among that generation of television anchors who projected honesty and accuracy, so that when he said, “That’s the way it was,” that was the way it was. He was, as some have reported, an adult in a medium increasingly populated by children. Spoiled children, too, who were more interested in projecting their version of politics than in reporting.
This version of history is over-simplified. Walter Cronkite had strong views, too. But he did not allow them to appear until he could make a difference by expressing them. As was once said in a different context, “less is more.” If he had expressed his disillusionment with the Vietnamese War at a time when the public still backed it strongly, he would have merely lost the trust of his audience. His terse statement after the Tet offensive caused Nixon to despair, to fall back more and more into alcohol and self-pity.
This is an awkward legacy, because the Tet offensive was exactly what General Westmoreland had said it was — a total disaster for the Viet Cong. The guerillas had come out of the jungles to fight a more or less conventional war, and they were shot to pieces. Henceforth the war was conducted by the North Vietnamese army.
Westmoreland’s statements illustrated the reverse of Cronkite’s personality. He had said so many times that the Viet Cong were being beaten that their momentary display of strength was a game-changer — not only Cronkite, but Congress and the media lost faith in any hope of victory. Westmoreland was soon out, and though his successor managed to stabilize South Vietnam, the American public was saying what was repeated just before the Iraq surge — that the war was lost. There was a peace agreement that the North Vietnamese immediately violated, but the public didn’t care. Congress went so far after Nixon withdrew American forces, then resigned, that it denied the South Vietnamese and Cambodian governments the money, the ammunition and the air cover they needed to survive. Meanwhile, the North Vietnamese had help from the Soviet Union and China.
Walter Cronkite’s experience with war, against Nazi Germany, had been much clearer. The great issue of the Fifties and Sixties — America’s race problem — was a replay of that struggle: America had to break with attitudes that had too much in common with Hitler’s screaming crowds. Vietnam, at the beginning, seemed similarly straight-forward. There was no question that the Communist regime was repressive and brutal. Cronkite left no doubts that the long-term results of a communist victory would be an impoverished, backward, intellectually stunted Vietnam — as proved to be the case. Later he understood that nationalism, not communism, was the driving force of the North Vietnamese, but believed that building a South Vietnamese state was impossible in that multi-cultural region. No one today would imagine that a Buddhist monk burning himself to death would change anything, but in Walter Cronkite’s world, “that’s the way it was.”
And that was the way it was. With three television networks, each with good international services but only fifteen (later thirty minutes) to cover the world news, one had to fall back on newspapers get in-depth daily reporting and on magazines for more detailed analysis.
Some commentators blame the proliferation of media outlets for the disappearance of centrists like Cronkite. This is certainly at least partly true — today each television network has a specific target audience in mind. Some, like FOX, have a large moderate conservative following; others, like MSNBC, is discovering that liberals don’t watch much television. But also important is “advocacy journalism” which blurs the lines between reporting and usually pushes a liberal point of view. This has been, arguably, harder on newspapers even than on television because conservatives read more papers; radio, on the other hand, has flourished. Radio is something that people can do while working at another task, and, unlike newspapers, it is — if you are willing to listen to the ads — free. Also conservatives have found ways to make their radio programs more entertaining than have liberals; on television, in parodies of the news, the opposite is true. There isn’t much room for the calm reportage of “the most trusted man in America.”
Cronkite had his views. After retirement he let it be known that he often agreed with progressive policies. This reflected his upbringing in the Thirties, when FDR was the idol of the chattering class and Stalin was preferred to Hitler. It was a stance that would have earned him a niche in modern journalism, but nothing like the influence that he once exercised.
Review Atlas (July 30, 2009), 4.
Walter Cronkite’s death has rightfully provoked reflection on the state of journalism today. He was foremost among that generation of television anchors who projected honesty and accuracy, so that when he said, “That’s the way it was,” that was the way it was. He was, as some have reported, an adult in a medium increasingly populated by children. Spoiled children, too, who were more interested in projecting their version of politics than in reporting.
This version of history is over-simplified. Walter Cronkite had strong views, too. But he did not allow them to appear until he could make a difference by expressing them. As was once said in a different context, “less is more.” If he had expressed his disillusionment with the Vietnamese War at a time when the public still backed it strongly, he would have merely lost the trust of his audience. His terse statement after the Tet offensive caused Nixon to despair, to fall back more and more into alcohol and self-pity.
This is an awkward legacy, because the Tet offensive was exactly what General Westmoreland had said it was — a total disaster for the Viet Cong. The guerillas had come out of the jungles to fight a more or less conventional war, and they were shot to pieces. Henceforth the war was conducted by the North Vietnamese army.
Westmoreland’s statements illustrated the reverse of Cronkite’s personality. He had said so many times that the Viet Cong were being beaten that their momentary display of strength was a game-changer — not only Cronkite, but Congress and the media lost faith in any hope of victory. Westmoreland was soon out, and though his successor managed to stabilize South Vietnam, the American public was saying what was repeated just before the Iraq surge — that the war was lost. There was a peace agreement that the North Vietnamese immediately violated, but the public didn’t care. Congress went so far after Nixon withdrew American forces, then resigned, that it denied the South Vietnamese and Cambodian governments the money, the ammunition and the air cover they needed to survive. Meanwhile, the North Vietnamese had help from the Soviet Union and China.
Walter Cronkite’s experience with war, against Nazi Germany, had been much clearer. The great issue of the Fifties and Sixties — America’s race problem — was a replay of that struggle: America had to break with attitudes that had too much in common with Hitler’s screaming crowds. Vietnam, at the beginning, seemed similarly straight-forward. There was no question that the Communist regime was repressive and brutal. Cronkite left no doubts that the long-term results of a communist victory would be an impoverished, backward, intellectually stunted Vietnam — as proved to be the case. Later he understood that nationalism, not communism, was the driving force of the North Vietnamese, but believed that building a South Vietnamese state was impossible in that multi-cultural region. No one today would imagine that a Buddhist monk burning himself to death would change anything, but in Walter Cronkite’s world, “that’s the way it was.”
And that was the way it was. With three television networks, each with good international services but only fifteen (later thirty minutes) to cover the world news, one had to fall back on newspapers get in-depth daily reporting and on magazines for more detailed analysis.
Some commentators blame the proliferation of media outlets for the disappearance of centrists like Cronkite. This is certainly at least partly true — today each television network has a specific target audience in mind. Some, like FOX, have a large moderate conservative following; others, like MSNBC, is discovering that liberals don’t watch much television. But also important is “advocacy journalism” which blurs the lines between reporting and usually pushes a liberal point of view. This has been, arguably, harder on newspapers even than on television because conservatives read more papers; radio, on the other hand, has flourished. Radio is something that people can do while working at another task, and, unlike newspapers, it is — if you are willing to listen to the ads — free. Also conservatives have found ways to make their radio programs more entertaining than have liberals; on television, in parodies of the news, the opposite is true. There isn’t much room for the calm reportage of “the most trusted man in America.”
Cronkite had his views. After retirement he let it be known that he often agreed with progressive policies. This reflected his upbringing in the Thirties, when FDR was the idol of the chattering class and Stalin was preferred to Hitler. It was a stance that would have earned him a niche in modern journalism, but nothing like the influence that he once exercised.
Review Atlas (July 30, 2009), 4.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
William Urban: FROM EGYPT TO BABYLON
By William Urban
This book by Paul Collins, a curator at the British Museum, is subtitled The International Age 1550-500 BC. It differs from traditional histories of the ancient world in that it is not centered on the Bible, but on archeology. Archeology is not new — Monmouth College had its Classical Collection well over a century ago. About that same time a Monmouth College alum arranged to have one of the three plaster copies of the Canopus Stone sent to Monmouth (the other two copies went to the Louvre and the British Museum); it is on display in the Hewes Library, which has also a nice collection of newer donations. Charles Speel taught Biblical Archeology for decades, Bernice Fox kept Latin and Greek alive through the decades following the nationalization of the women’s colleges in Egypt where many Monmouth College graduates had taught, and I was hired to teach Greek and Roman history. Tom Sienkewicz organized a local chapter of the American Institute of Archeology that has been strongly supported by a series of Monmouth College presidents and deans. Each year he brings in a half-dozen nationally-known speakers to talk about their work in the field — talks that are open to the public — and for several years now students have given programs about their summer experiences in various digs. He takes students each year to Italy, Greece, or this coming May, with Cheryl Meeker, to Troy. The students I have taken to the great museums of western Europe are always enthusiastic, as have been the local high school Latin students my wife took to the museums in Chicago.
This prepared me well to follow the complicated stories in Paul Collin’s book. In his first chapters the societies are well-known — Egypt and Mesopotamian states (modern Iraq) — but quickly new states come to the fore — Assyria, the Hittites — then yet newer ones which reflect the results of modern excavations. Archeologists have become expert at reading inscriptions, particularly the boastful claims of rulers to have conquered neighboring cities; this is one basis of Collin’s political history. Archeologists can also identify imported goods, thus allowing them to recognize when trade or tribute bring foreign objects to a site. By comparing the quantity of foreign goods in various city ruins, and looking through the garbage dumps and what fire and looting have left, archeologists can see when economic times were good and bad.
Collin’s overview of the rise and fall of states is densely written. His is not a book for those who like a straight-forward plot line. If you want good stories, read the Bible, but many names will be familiar to those who do know the Old Testament. This ancient world is very different from the present Middle East. There were no Arabs, no Turks, no Kurds, and the Hebrews show up only from time to time. Moses, who left no archeological evidence, gets a single line; Solomon and David only a few more. Older histories emphasized the fact that the Hebrews were at the crossroads of Egypt and Mesopotamia, but Collins describes fully how many armies marched across these roads. Assyrians rampaged through the region century after century, Hittites moved in, the Sea Peoples destroyed coastal cities.
Greeks don’t get much more coverage than the Jews. The Trojan War is barely mentioned, and Homer’s heroes are truly marginal figures to the great narrative of the mainland empires. When the Persians finally conquered everyone else, they brought order, unity and good government until they ran into the Greeks (a story which viewers of the cartoon-like 300 will recognize, or maybe not). Collins perhaps should have used Persians in his title instead of Babylon, but Babylon is much better known to potential purchasers.
It’s not an easy book to read, but the illustrations are first-rate. No one who works through the text will ever see Egypt as eternally stable and unchanging, but it may not be easy to look at the pictures and see exactly what changed — art resisted change even as the empires of the pharaohs evolved.
This is a story of brutal wars, famines, epidemics and climate change. Some may find in these depressing records a reason for despairing of the human condition — can we ever learn to avoid the mistakes of the past, or are we doomed to defending ourselves forever against evil and aggressive men, a new one always appearing as soon as we defeat the last? Abject surrender seems to work as badly as fighting overwhelming odds, and political choices are always problematic. Others may find solace in comparing our own comparatively minor problems to those of the distant past, but it may help to remember that between the years of disaster and suffering there were long periods of peace when people planted trees and vines, plowed fields and built cities. Without the belief that life must go on there would have been no artifacts for archeologists to dig up.
Review Atlas (July 18, 2009), 4.
This book by Paul Collins, a curator at the British Museum, is subtitled The International Age 1550-500 BC. It differs from traditional histories of the ancient world in that it is not centered on the Bible, but on archeology. Archeology is not new — Monmouth College had its Classical Collection well over a century ago. About that same time a Monmouth College alum arranged to have one of the three plaster copies of the Canopus Stone sent to Monmouth (the other two copies went to the Louvre and the British Museum); it is on display in the Hewes Library, which has also a nice collection of newer donations. Charles Speel taught Biblical Archeology for decades, Bernice Fox kept Latin and Greek alive through the decades following the nationalization of the women’s colleges in Egypt where many Monmouth College graduates had taught, and I was hired to teach Greek and Roman history. Tom Sienkewicz organized a local chapter of the American Institute of Archeology that has been strongly supported by a series of Monmouth College presidents and deans. Each year he brings in a half-dozen nationally-known speakers to talk about their work in the field — talks that are open to the public — and for several years now students have given programs about their summer experiences in various digs. He takes students each year to Italy, Greece, or this coming May, with Cheryl Meeker, to Troy. The students I have taken to the great museums of western Europe are always enthusiastic, as have been the local high school Latin students my wife took to the museums in Chicago.
This prepared me well to follow the complicated stories in Paul Collin’s book. In his first chapters the societies are well-known — Egypt and Mesopotamian states (modern Iraq) — but quickly new states come to the fore — Assyria, the Hittites — then yet newer ones which reflect the results of modern excavations. Archeologists have become expert at reading inscriptions, particularly the boastful claims of rulers to have conquered neighboring cities; this is one basis of Collin’s political history. Archeologists can also identify imported goods, thus allowing them to recognize when trade or tribute bring foreign objects to a site. By comparing the quantity of foreign goods in various city ruins, and looking through the garbage dumps and what fire and looting have left, archeologists can see when economic times were good and bad.
Collin’s overview of the rise and fall of states is densely written. His is not a book for those who like a straight-forward plot line. If you want good stories, read the Bible, but many names will be familiar to those who do know the Old Testament. This ancient world is very different from the present Middle East. There were no Arabs, no Turks, no Kurds, and the Hebrews show up only from time to time. Moses, who left no archeological evidence, gets a single line; Solomon and David only a few more. Older histories emphasized the fact that the Hebrews were at the crossroads of Egypt and Mesopotamia, but Collins describes fully how many armies marched across these roads. Assyrians rampaged through the region century after century, Hittites moved in, the Sea Peoples destroyed coastal cities.
Greeks don’t get much more coverage than the Jews. The Trojan War is barely mentioned, and Homer’s heroes are truly marginal figures to the great narrative of the mainland empires. When the Persians finally conquered everyone else, they brought order, unity and good government until they ran into the Greeks (a story which viewers of the cartoon-like 300 will recognize, or maybe not). Collins perhaps should have used Persians in his title instead of Babylon, but Babylon is much better known to potential purchasers.
It’s not an easy book to read, but the illustrations are first-rate. No one who works through the text will ever see Egypt as eternally stable and unchanging, but it may not be easy to look at the pictures and see exactly what changed — art resisted change even as the empires of the pharaohs evolved.
This is a story of brutal wars, famines, epidemics and climate change. Some may find in these depressing records a reason for despairing of the human condition — can we ever learn to avoid the mistakes of the past, or are we doomed to defending ourselves forever against evil and aggressive men, a new one always appearing as soon as we defeat the last? Abject surrender seems to work as badly as fighting overwhelming odds, and political choices are always problematic. Others may find solace in comparing our own comparatively minor problems to those of the distant past, but it may help to remember that between the years of disaster and suffering there were long periods of peace when people planted trees and vines, plowed fields and built cities. Without the belief that life must go on there would have been no artifacts for archeologists to dig up.
Review Atlas (July 18, 2009), 4.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
William Urban: EMPIRES OF THE SEA
By William Urban
Economic and political growth and decline are much on people’s minds nowadays. Since gazing into the future is about as effective as staring into a crystal ball, looking in the past gives us at least some perspective.
This history by Roger Crowley — subtitled “The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World” — is a trilling read about the climatic struggle between Christendom and Islam that had begun five hundred years earlier, with the Turks almost overwhelming the Byzantine Empire, then the crusaders driving all the way to Jerusalem, then the long Muslim offensive across the Sea and into Europe. There is nothing particularly new in the account, except perhaps to realize how much there is to learn about events that every historian is vaguely aware of having taken place, but does not quite know how to fit into other important events of that era — the Protestant Reformation, the Dutch Revolt, the religious wars in France, and the Great Armada.
What Crowley demonstrates is that all these better-known events were less important than the threat represented by the Ottoman sultan, Suleiman the great. From his siege of Vienna in1529 to the battle of Lepanto in 1571, it appeared that Suleiman would press deeper into Catholic Europe, solidifying his hold on Hungary and the Balkans, raiding coastal villages in Italy and Spain (with considerable help from the Catholic king of France), and interrupting trade. Many more white Europeans were being carried into African slavery than Africans were to servitude in the New World.
Crowley does not absolve Christian Europe from all blame for this. The Knights of St. John (a Catholic military order) used their base on Rhodes for pirate attacks on Muslim shipping until Suleiman captured it in a dramatic siege in 1522, then made Malta into the center of their operations. All sides — neither Christendom nor Islam being completely unified at all times — required prisoners to row their war galleys; those slaves, chained to their seats, hardly knew whether to hope for victory or defeat whenever two naval forces clashed — if their ships were sunk, they went down with the vessel, but what other hope of freedom was there? Ransom was possible, but only if one had rich relatives.
One has to feel sorry for poor Spain at this moment. Phillip II was paralyzed by fear of another naval disaster such as Djerta in 1560 that had opened his coasts to attacks by Moorish pirates; he struck back at domestic Moors who had converted to Christianity, believing they were aiding the pirates; he allowed his general in the Low Countries to commit atrocities against Dutch Protestants, believing that this would restore religious unity and peace; and one day he would take care of Queen Elizabeth, who was allowing her pirates to attack Spanish fleets bringing gold and silver from the New World, gold and silver Phillip needed to prosecute, half-heartedly, the war with Suleiman.
There were heroes at Lepanto. Don Juan of Austria, as Phillip’s illegitimate half-brother was known, was young, but he had the personality to inspire soldiers and was intelligent enough to listen to his elders’ advice (and wise enough to tell when to ignore it). He was made commander of the quarrelling Christian states which provided ships and had secretly ordered their commander to avoid battle. Then there was the pope, who provided the money to pay the soldiers and who stiffened the backbones of politicians and generals alike.
Crowley has written a timely book. Only a few years ago Harvard historian Samuel Huntington provoked controversy by predicting that our next conflict would not be a war between states, but a clash of civilizations. Foremost of these clashes, but not the only place where western secular and democratic institutions would be challenged, was with Islamic fundamentalism. Crowley shows that the crisis of the mid-sixteenth century was much more serious than ours today, if that is indeed what we have. A divided West somehow met the challenge. The West has largely forgotten this struggle, but not the Muslim world — it was western naval supremacy, not only in the Mediterranean, but in the Indian Ocean, that led to the political and economic decline of the Ottoman Empire. When that empire collapsed in 1918, the most important symbol of Islamic unity was shattered.
Al Qaida wants a return to the glory days of Suleiman, only this time with Arabs, not Turks, in charge. Its leaders would do well to read this book, too, since the Ottoman sultans understood that power and prosperity resulted from good government, not the enthusiasm of zealots.
Review Atlas (July 16, 2009), 4.
Economic and political growth and decline are much on people’s minds nowadays. Since gazing into the future is about as effective as staring into a crystal ball, looking in the past gives us at least some perspective.
This history by Roger Crowley — subtitled “The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World” — is a trilling read about the climatic struggle between Christendom and Islam that had begun five hundred years earlier, with the Turks almost overwhelming the Byzantine Empire, then the crusaders driving all the way to Jerusalem, then the long Muslim offensive across the Sea and into Europe. There is nothing particularly new in the account, except perhaps to realize how much there is to learn about events that every historian is vaguely aware of having taken place, but does not quite know how to fit into other important events of that era — the Protestant Reformation, the Dutch Revolt, the religious wars in France, and the Great Armada.
What Crowley demonstrates is that all these better-known events were less important than the threat represented by the Ottoman sultan, Suleiman the great. From his siege of Vienna in1529 to the battle of Lepanto in 1571, it appeared that Suleiman would press deeper into Catholic Europe, solidifying his hold on Hungary and the Balkans, raiding coastal villages in Italy and Spain (with considerable help from the Catholic king of France), and interrupting trade. Many more white Europeans were being carried into African slavery than Africans were to servitude in the New World.
Crowley does not absolve Christian Europe from all blame for this. The Knights of St. John (a Catholic military order) used their base on Rhodes for pirate attacks on Muslim shipping until Suleiman captured it in a dramatic siege in 1522, then made Malta into the center of their operations. All sides — neither Christendom nor Islam being completely unified at all times — required prisoners to row their war galleys; those slaves, chained to their seats, hardly knew whether to hope for victory or defeat whenever two naval forces clashed — if their ships were sunk, they went down with the vessel, but what other hope of freedom was there? Ransom was possible, but only if one had rich relatives.
One has to feel sorry for poor Spain at this moment. Phillip II was paralyzed by fear of another naval disaster such as Djerta in 1560 that had opened his coasts to attacks by Moorish pirates; he struck back at domestic Moors who had converted to Christianity, believing they were aiding the pirates; he allowed his general in the Low Countries to commit atrocities against Dutch Protestants, believing that this would restore religious unity and peace; and one day he would take care of Queen Elizabeth, who was allowing her pirates to attack Spanish fleets bringing gold and silver from the New World, gold and silver Phillip needed to prosecute, half-heartedly, the war with Suleiman.
There were heroes at Lepanto. Don Juan of Austria, as Phillip’s illegitimate half-brother was known, was young, but he had the personality to inspire soldiers and was intelligent enough to listen to his elders’ advice (and wise enough to tell when to ignore it). He was made commander of the quarrelling Christian states which provided ships and had secretly ordered their commander to avoid battle. Then there was the pope, who provided the money to pay the soldiers and who stiffened the backbones of politicians and generals alike.
Crowley has written a timely book. Only a few years ago Harvard historian Samuel Huntington provoked controversy by predicting that our next conflict would not be a war between states, but a clash of civilizations. Foremost of these clashes, but not the only place where western secular and democratic institutions would be challenged, was with Islamic fundamentalism. Crowley shows that the crisis of the mid-sixteenth century was much more serious than ours today, if that is indeed what we have. A divided West somehow met the challenge. The West has largely forgotten this struggle, but not the Muslim world — it was western naval supremacy, not only in the Mediterranean, but in the Indian Ocean, that led to the political and economic decline of the Ottoman Empire. When that empire collapsed in 1918, the most important symbol of Islamic unity was shattered.
Al Qaida wants a return to the glory days of Suleiman, only this time with Arabs, not Turks, in charge. Its leaders would do well to read this book, too, since the Ottoman sultans understood that power and prosperity resulted from good government, not the enthusiasm of zealots.
Review Atlas (July 16, 2009), 4.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
William Urban: HONDURAN HEADACHES
By William Urban
It would have been easy to miss the “military coup” in Honduras last week. Michael Jackson was all that radio, television and the print media wanted to report on. Besides, who can locate Honduras? But it was quite an event: President “Mel” Zelaya, once a conservative businessman but now a protégé of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, was determined to be reelected in spite of the constitution limiting him to one term — he claimed that only his strong leadership could eliminate crime, the drug traffic and general governmental instability. When he asked for a special referendum to amend the Constitution, his Congress refused to go along; when he announced that he was holding the referendum anyway, the Supreme Court said that it was illegal. When he proceeded with his plan, the Court ordered the military to arrest him and escort him out of the country. Once Zelaya was in neighboring Costa Rica, the Honduran Congress then appointed his legal successor as president until the fall election.
Well, all hell broke loose. You can’t do that! Military coups are the sort of thing that military dictators used to do. First came denunciations from Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, then from Barack Obama (who had just announced that it was not American policy to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries—like Iran). Then came the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and practically everyone else. No one seemed to be bothered by Zelaya’s unconstitutional acts. Chavez, after threatening to send the Venezuelan army to set things right, provided an airplane that took him to New York and Washington, then circled the Honduran capital’s airport but was unable to land. He presumed that crowds would welcome him, then install him in office again. Shots were fired when the crowd tried to surge through a security fence. Zelaya landed first in Nicaragua, where troops are supposedly being prepared for war, to confer with Daniel Ortega, then in neighboring San Salvador, a nation that in 1969 had fought a war with Honduras over a soccer match. This war was more serious than it sounds, but practically everything in Central America is.
We have become accustomed to Latin American presidents coming to office with less than a majority of the votes, then pushing for radical changes, even illegal changes. First was Castro, though he hardly counts, since he seized power by overthrowing Batista (not everyone’s favorite democrat, but much like today’s strongmen who stuff the ballot boxes: “he’s an elected president!”). Then came Salvador Allende of Chile, then Ortega of Nicaragua, then Chavez, who has sponsored look-like strongmen all across the region — most notably, Boliva, Peru and Equador — and has stirred up trouble in Mexico and Columbia. To protect himself from American intervention, Chavez is buying Russian fighter aircraft and welcoming visits by Russian warships.
Our best hope of weakening this crowd is in keeping the price of oil low. It is amazing how oil seems to attract crooked autocrats; the higher the price per barrel, the greater the corruption and the propensity to make trouble (as Saddam Hussein and Iran clerics, and Saudi religious zealots have all demonstrated in various ways). Dealing with our drug problem would help, too.
So, what are we supposed to do about Honduras? It is indeed awkward when an army has to escort a president out of office. Just think how hard it was for Illinois to get rid of Blago. What is South Carolina supposed to do with Mark Sanford? — probably the same thing that Arkansas did with its philandering governor (who didn’t get into real trouble until later, when he lied to a grand jury); the same thing that the people of Massachusetts did with its politician who swam away from a sinking car and didn’t bother to tell the police until the next morning; or how the citizens of Idaho have dealt with a senator who has a “wide stance.” That is, we’ll ignore it. The Hondurans couldn’t do that. A raw grab for power has to be dealt with. If there is a mob in favor of Zelaya, there is an even bigger one ready to resist his return.
President Obama must know how disastrous it would be to send in troops to reinstall a leftist strongman who flouts the constitution and the courts — both the Left and the Right would be angry. Most likely, the president will just not invite the acting president to any photo ops at the White House. After the election in the fall we’ll pretend that nothing happened and that the president is responsible for setting it all right. Meanwhile Latin Americans are preparing to act on their own. It could be a real headache.
Review Atlas (July 13, 2009), 4.
It would have been easy to miss the “military coup” in Honduras last week. Michael Jackson was all that radio, television and the print media wanted to report on. Besides, who can locate Honduras? But it was quite an event: President “Mel” Zelaya, once a conservative businessman but now a protégé of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, was determined to be reelected in spite of the constitution limiting him to one term — he claimed that only his strong leadership could eliminate crime, the drug traffic and general governmental instability. When he asked for a special referendum to amend the Constitution, his Congress refused to go along; when he announced that he was holding the referendum anyway, the Supreme Court said that it was illegal. When he proceeded with his plan, the Court ordered the military to arrest him and escort him out of the country. Once Zelaya was in neighboring Costa Rica, the Honduran Congress then appointed his legal successor as president until the fall election.
Well, all hell broke loose. You can’t do that! Military coups are the sort of thing that military dictators used to do. First came denunciations from Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, then from Barack Obama (who had just announced that it was not American policy to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries—like Iran). Then came the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and practically everyone else. No one seemed to be bothered by Zelaya’s unconstitutional acts. Chavez, after threatening to send the Venezuelan army to set things right, provided an airplane that took him to New York and Washington, then circled the Honduran capital’s airport but was unable to land. He presumed that crowds would welcome him, then install him in office again. Shots were fired when the crowd tried to surge through a security fence. Zelaya landed first in Nicaragua, where troops are supposedly being prepared for war, to confer with Daniel Ortega, then in neighboring San Salvador, a nation that in 1969 had fought a war with Honduras over a soccer match. This war was more serious than it sounds, but practically everything in Central America is.
We have become accustomed to Latin American presidents coming to office with less than a majority of the votes, then pushing for radical changes, even illegal changes. First was Castro, though he hardly counts, since he seized power by overthrowing Batista (not everyone’s favorite democrat, but much like today’s strongmen who stuff the ballot boxes: “he’s an elected president!”). Then came Salvador Allende of Chile, then Ortega of Nicaragua, then Chavez, who has sponsored look-like strongmen all across the region — most notably, Boliva, Peru and Equador — and has stirred up trouble in Mexico and Columbia. To protect himself from American intervention, Chavez is buying Russian fighter aircraft and welcoming visits by Russian warships.
Our best hope of weakening this crowd is in keeping the price of oil low. It is amazing how oil seems to attract crooked autocrats; the higher the price per barrel, the greater the corruption and the propensity to make trouble (as Saddam Hussein and Iran clerics, and Saudi religious zealots have all demonstrated in various ways). Dealing with our drug problem would help, too.
So, what are we supposed to do about Honduras? It is indeed awkward when an army has to escort a president out of office. Just think how hard it was for Illinois to get rid of Blago. What is South Carolina supposed to do with Mark Sanford? — probably the same thing that Arkansas did with its philandering governor (who didn’t get into real trouble until later, when he lied to a grand jury); the same thing that the people of Massachusetts did with its politician who swam away from a sinking car and didn’t bother to tell the police until the next morning; or how the citizens of Idaho have dealt with a senator who has a “wide stance.” That is, we’ll ignore it. The Hondurans couldn’t do that. A raw grab for power has to be dealt with. If there is a mob in favor of Zelaya, there is an even bigger one ready to resist his return.
President Obama must know how disastrous it would be to send in troops to reinstall a leftist strongman who flouts the constitution and the courts — both the Left and the Right would be angry. Most likely, the president will just not invite the acting president to any photo ops at the White House. After the election in the fall we’ll pretend that nothing happened and that the president is responsible for setting it all right. Meanwhile Latin Americans are preparing to act on their own. It could be a real headache.
Review Atlas (July 13, 2009), 4.
Sunday, July 05, 2009
William Urban: WORLD HISTORICAL
By William Urban
This phrase, a rough translation of the German adjective “welthistorische,” means more to me than to most historians. That is because long ago, in a world that hardly exists now, I studied history in Germany. The phrase means an event that changes world history, not just in one country, but for everyone — a clean break with the past, an opening into a new era.
I did not encounter the term first in Germany, but at the University of Texas, from professors who had studied German history. In the sense of the term, there were events like the French Revolution that everyone needed to know, because their impact was so great that everything which followed seemed to be but a distant echo — like the insane fellow who dressed liked Napoleon and had a self-image of grandeur. Those were the days! Who today has even heard of Napoleon, except perhaps as an expensive brandy? And insane fellows are probably not connoisseurs of fine liquors.
We live today in the beer era — common, cheap, and the container easily disposed of; in fact, it is more common simply to pitch a can into the trash than to reluctantly and lovingly place it there. The same is true of the many potentially World Historical events of our times. They come at us so fast and so quickly that we have no time to savor them. Looking back through the clutter of rapid change, a few stand out.
The First World War — the war to end all wars — ended European world domination. It took twenty years to demonstrate that the colonial powers had bled themselves to death on the battlefields of France, but Europe had sacrificed not only its young men, but its capital and much of its self-confidence. It was surely the World Historical moment of the twentieth century. But no. The Second World War was even more costly in human lives and humane values. Nazism and Japanese militarism were destroyed, but new evils came in.
Then came the Cold War, the collapse of American will in Vietnam, Cambodia and Berkeley, with the imminent triumph of Communism, only to have such expectations end up with the Berlin Wall falling in 1989, then the collapse of Soviet Communism and the evolution of Red China into something completely unexpected — an amalgam of state authority and capitalism that made China into a producer of goods for the world and the number one polluter of our times.
So what are we to make of this? Are these events to be remembered by future generation? Or global warming? Or the panic over global warming? Or merely the dizzy speed of change in every respect, with backward countries sprouting skyscrapers, digging subways, and choking on automobile fumes? Are any of these World Historical moments?
These are the questions I asked myself as I watched the videos from Tehran. Not so long ago it seemed that we were facing Islamic radicals advancing on every front. Now they are being beaten back in Iraq, in Pakistan, and maybe in Iran. In retrospect world historical events seem inevitable. At the time they usually come as a surprise — business as usual. When Kermit Roosevelt went to Tehran in 1953 and rented a mob to overthrow a politician who had come into power by use of a mob, or in 1979 when Jimmy Carter sent clear signals that we would not support the shah, no matter what might come his removal, they could not imagine how this would play out in 2009. They were, after all, not setting world historical events in motion. Today President Obama is probably right to keep American hands clean — at least in public. He comes out of the Chicago school of politics, and we know what that means — one doesn’t survive by being a patsy. But is what is happening in Tehran inevitable? Or, perhaps, is inevitability something we only perceive afterward?
Mostly likely, the Iran revolution will fail. Just as did the Tiananmen Square demonstrations of 198. Alas, there is no room here today to discuss this. But I am aware that some readers will ask, “why ‘alas?’” This is a reasonable response — generally, world historical events mean trouble for everyone. But what is happening in Iran could be good news. Who knows? Regime change might happen. It might even inspire North Korean leaders to rethink their plans. Though I won’t hold my breath on that one, I never expected the Soviet Union to disappear the way it did.
The historian can explain world historical events afterward, but beforehand he can only suggest possible courses that highly unpredictable people might choose to take. Or he can fall back on Tolstoy, who said that while generals get armies to the battlefields, they have almost no influence on what happens afterward.
Monmouth Review Atlas (July 2, 2009), 4.
This phrase, a rough translation of the German adjective “welthistorische,” means more to me than to most historians. That is because long ago, in a world that hardly exists now, I studied history in Germany. The phrase means an event that changes world history, not just in one country, but for everyone — a clean break with the past, an opening into a new era.
I did not encounter the term first in Germany, but at the University of Texas, from professors who had studied German history. In the sense of the term, there were events like the French Revolution that everyone needed to know, because their impact was so great that everything which followed seemed to be but a distant echo — like the insane fellow who dressed liked Napoleon and had a self-image of grandeur. Those were the days! Who today has even heard of Napoleon, except perhaps as an expensive brandy? And insane fellows are probably not connoisseurs of fine liquors.
We live today in the beer era — common, cheap, and the container easily disposed of; in fact, it is more common simply to pitch a can into the trash than to reluctantly and lovingly place it there. The same is true of the many potentially World Historical events of our times. They come at us so fast and so quickly that we have no time to savor them. Looking back through the clutter of rapid change, a few stand out.
The First World War — the war to end all wars — ended European world domination. It took twenty years to demonstrate that the colonial powers had bled themselves to death on the battlefields of France, but Europe had sacrificed not only its young men, but its capital and much of its self-confidence. It was surely the World Historical moment of the twentieth century. But no. The Second World War was even more costly in human lives and humane values. Nazism and Japanese militarism were destroyed, but new evils came in.
Then came the Cold War, the collapse of American will in Vietnam, Cambodia and Berkeley, with the imminent triumph of Communism, only to have such expectations end up with the Berlin Wall falling in 1989, then the collapse of Soviet Communism and the evolution of Red China into something completely unexpected — an amalgam of state authority and capitalism that made China into a producer of goods for the world and the number one polluter of our times.
So what are we to make of this? Are these events to be remembered by future generation? Or global warming? Or the panic over global warming? Or merely the dizzy speed of change in every respect, with backward countries sprouting skyscrapers, digging subways, and choking on automobile fumes? Are any of these World Historical moments?
These are the questions I asked myself as I watched the videos from Tehran. Not so long ago it seemed that we were facing Islamic radicals advancing on every front. Now they are being beaten back in Iraq, in Pakistan, and maybe in Iran. In retrospect world historical events seem inevitable. At the time they usually come as a surprise — business as usual. When Kermit Roosevelt went to Tehran in 1953 and rented a mob to overthrow a politician who had come into power by use of a mob, or in 1979 when Jimmy Carter sent clear signals that we would not support the shah, no matter what might come his removal, they could not imagine how this would play out in 2009. They were, after all, not setting world historical events in motion. Today President Obama is probably right to keep American hands clean — at least in public. He comes out of the Chicago school of politics, and we know what that means — one doesn’t survive by being a patsy. But is what is happening in Tehran inevitable? Or, perhaps, is inevitability something we only perceive afterward?
Mostly likely, the Iran revolution will fail. Just as did the Tiananmen Square demonstrations of 198. Alas, there is no room here today to discuss this. But I am aware that some readers will ask, “why ‘alas?’” This is a reasonable response — generally, world historical events mean trouble for everyone. But what is happening in Iran could be good news. Who knows? Regime change might happen. It might even inspire North Korean leaders to rethink their plans. Though I won’t hold my breath on that one, I never expected the Soviet Union to disappear the way it did.
The historian can explain world historical events afterward, but beforehand he can only suggest possible courses that highly unpredictable people might choose to take. Or he can fall back on Tolstoy, who said that while generals get armies to the battlefields, they have almost no influence on what happens afterward.
Monmouth Review Atlas (July 2, 2009), 4.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
William Urban: WHY STUDY HISTORY?
By William Urban
Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book The Black Swan, the Impact of the Highly Improbable is an interesting read. The title comes from the long-held assumption that all swans were white, an assumption that remained true until Europeans made it to Australia, where swans were Black. They always had been, even back when Europeans assumed the all swans were white. Taleb moves on from this starting point to demonstrate that much of what we believe is not necessarily so, but also that it is dangerous to expect that what we know about the past or the present will be of much use in the future.
This is quite a challenge to the historian. Not that it will change the way we act day to day. Not like the difference caused by a decision that it didn’t matter whether we stopped at red lights or not. But what Taleb is saying is that the likelihood of an improbable event — someone else running a red light — is higher than we expect. Past observations should not be simplistic, based solely on our own experience, but sophisticated, based on statistics.
Changes occur swiftly, even suddenly. Every driver knows how routine driving can be, especially in a small town where the principal danger is running into a stop sign. But your day can be literally ruined when somebody absent-mindedly runs past that stop sign into you. Texting has increased that likelihood significantly, especially when the driver is making a turn on Broadway.
The implications of Taleb’s observation are great. One might assume that the economy will go rolling along year after year, that one’s job will continue unchanged until retirement, and that one’s health will remain good (a bit overweight, a bit out of shape, but still okay), but Taleb says, “Not so fast! You’re living in a fool’s paradise.”
It’s not that the public is composed of fools. But every new business that becomes a success is one that many people have studied and decided was unlikely to make money. What people choose to do is something safe — low risk and low earnings. Those who win big (or lose equivalently) take on improbable enterprises. As Bruce Williams says on the radio, “Running your own business is the most exciting thing you can do.” Also the scariest.
Which is one reason that bad economic times can be good for people. Not everyone, but for those who had been stuck in the safe but slow lane of life and now find themselves having to choose between the fast lane and lying down in it. Black Swans are also opportunities.
Why do we not recognize the likelihood that something unexpected will happen? Because we are hard-wired to make sense of our environment. If we didn’t automatically look for predictability, we’d hardly be able to get through a day. For better or worse, we usually drive on auto-pilot; otherwise, we’d all be like student drivers, being so careful that if we were distracted, we’d overreact and crash into something. (Teenagers love to text, too.)
Now what is the historian to do with Taleb’s insight? Some might conclude that names and dates can now be forgotten. As if that was the heart of history. Names and dates are the stuff of which the narrative is made. No names, no story. But what is important is how we got where we are, and why we hold the attitudes we do. That is, why we believed that all swans were white. Marxists and religious fanatics use history as a political tool to tell their partial narrative and to point the inevitable way to the future. It is these people, not ordinary historians, who will be confounded by Taleb. If they read him, which is unlikely — people chose to read whatever confirms their view of the world, not confuse it.
And there’s the rub. Historians are like everyone else, taking the easy way, no risk way out. Only those who take on the improbable — making history fun, interesting and informative — will prosper in hard times. Marxists will think that hard times are good for them, but improbable as it might sound, their message is most popular among those for whom life is good — well-educated people who have few worries about the future. Just lots of guilt. How’s that for having lots of fun?
Review Atlas (June 25, 2009), 4.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book The Black Swan, the Impact of the Highly Improbable is an interesting read. The title comes from the long-held assumption that all swans were white, an assumption that remained true until Europeans made it to Australia, where swans were Black. They always had been, even back when Europeans assumed the all swans were white. Taleb moves on from this starting point to demonstrate that much of what we believe is not necessarily so, but also that it is dangerous to expect that what we know about the past or the present will be of much use in the future.
This is quite a challenge to the historian. Not that it will change the way we act day to day. Not like the difference caused by a decision that it didn’t matter whether we stopped at red lights or not. But what Taleb is saying is that the likelihood of an improbable event — someone else running a red light — is higher than we expect. Past observations should not be simplistic, based solely on our own experience, but sophisticated, based on statistics.
Changes occur swiftly, even suddenly. Every driver knows how routine driving can be, especially in a small town where the principal danger is running into a stop sign. But your day can be literally ruined when somebody absent-mindedly runs past that stop sign into you. Texting has increased that likelihood significantly, especially when the driver is making a turn on Broadway.
The implications of Taleb’s observation are great. One might assume that the economy will go rolling along year after year, that one’s job will continue unchanged until retirement, and that one’s health will remain good (a bit overweight, a bit out of shape, but still okay), but Taleb says, “Not so fast! You’re living in a fool’s paradise.”
It’s not that the public is composed of fools. But every new business that becomes a success is one that many people have studied and decided was unlikely to make money. What people choose to do is something safe — low risk and low earnings. Those who win big (or lose equivalently) take on improbable enterprises. As Bruce Williams says on the radio, “Running your own business is the most exciting thing you can do.” Also the scariest.
Which is one reason that bad economic times can be good for people. Not everyone, but for those who had been stuck in the safe but slow lane of life and now find themselves having to choose between the fast lane and lying down in it. Black Swans are also opportunities.
Why do we not recognize the likelihood that something unexpected will happen? Because we are hard-wired to make sense of our environment. If we didn’t automatically look for predictability, we’d hardly be able to get through a day. For better or worse, we usually drive on auto-pilot; otherwise, we’d all be like student drivers, being so careful that if we were distracted, we’d overreact and crash into something. (Teenagers love to text, too.)
Now what is the historian to do with Taleb’s insight? Some might conclude that names and dates can now be forgotten. As if that was the heart of history. Names and dates are the stuff of which the narrative is made. No names, no story. But what is important is how we got where we are, and why we hold the attitudes we do. That is, why we believed that all swans were white. Marxists and religious fanatics use history as a political tool to tell their partial narrative and to point the inevitable way to the future. It is these people, not ordinary historians, who will be confounded by Taleb. If they read him, which is unlikely — people chose to read whatever confirms their view of the world, not confuse it.
And there’s the rub. Historians are like everyone else, taking the easy way, no risk way out. Only those who take on the improbable — making history fun, interesting and informative — will prosper in hard times. Marxists will think that hard times are good for them, but improbable as it might sound, their message is most popular among those for whom life is good — well-educated people who have few worries about the future. Just lots of guilt. How’s that for having lots of fun?
Review Atlas (June 25, 2009), 4.
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