History – Page 25 – artdiamondblog.com

Muckraking Friend of Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson Was “Intrigued by Mussolini” and “Captivated by Lenin”

Source of book image: http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-NV754_bkrvst_DV_20110510153656.jpg

(p. 29) As one of the original “muckrakers,” Steffens wrote newspaper and magazine exposés that gave journalism a new purpose, . . .
. . .
He learned to write and to invest, and within nine years was the managing editor of McClure’s, one of the most popular and prestigious magazines in the country.
He was, as usual, in the right place at the right time. Volatile Sam McClure was transforming his namesake publication into a journal that would rip the veil from American life, forcing readers to confront the corruption that had seeped into every seam of their democracy. The January 1903 issue alone featured an installment of Ida Tarbell’s groundbreaking history of the Standard Oil Company; . . .
. . .
He managed to remain friends with Roosevelt and then Woodrow Wilson . . .
. . .
Intrigued by Mussolini, Steffens was captivated by Lenin, whom he interviewed briefly during the revolution. He became one of the first of that sad little band of Western intellectuals who fell head over heels for the Soviet Union. Unlike most of them, he did not deny the stories of atrocities leaking out of the workers’ paradise. Even more chilling, he simply believed them necessary to bring about the great changes to come. He never wavered from his infamous first impression of the U.S.S.R., “I have seen the future, and it works.” Instead, living comfortably on money he made from the stock market, he insisted that “nothing must jar our perfect loyalty to the party and its leaders,” and that “the notion of liberty . . . is false, a hangover from our Western tyranny.”

For the full review, see:
KEVIN BAKER. “Lincoln Steffens: Muckraker’s Progress.” The New York Times Book Review (Sun., May 15, 2011): 29.
(Note: ellipses added except for the one inside the last quoted paragraph.)
(Note: the online version of the article has the date May 13, 2011.)

The book under review is:
Hartshorn, Peter. I Have Seen the Future: A Life of Lincoln Steffens. Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2011.

Hatfields and McCoys Show that Idleness Begets Violence

Kevin Costner as the patriarch of the Hatfield clan on the HBO miniseries. Source of photo:
http://www.cowboysindians.com/Blog/May-2012/Blasts-From-Our-Past-With-Kevin-Costner/costner-hatfield.jpg

Kevin Costner plausibly suggests that when the productive activities of capitalism and entrepreneurship are not available or sought, people are more likely to let annoyances lead to violence:

(p. 15) Q. What was the root of the feud?

K.C. It’s fair to say that the economics of the time were the provocateurs in this story. I think there was a moment when Hatfield and McCoy would have laid down their guns. But these young guys didn’t have jobs anymore as we moved toward industrialization. They started to have children, and their families doubled in size, and suddenly they had to feed 26. Young men killing young men — it really has a lot to do with the offspring not having enough to do. Look, you’re talking about alcohol and guns, and you’re talking about unemployment, so there’s a reason for the bitterness.

For the full interview, see:
Kathryn Shattuck, interviewer. “Firing Bullets Across a Border And a Bloodline.” The New York Times, Arts&Leisure Section (Sun., May 27, 2012): 15.
(Note: bold in original.)

Lincoln “Would Abhor” Roosevelt’s “Progressivism”

Source of book image: online version of the WSJ review quoted and cited below.

(p. A13) In 1912, . . . , Robert Lincoln uncharacteristically leapt into the arena of national debate to challenge Theodore Roosevelt’s appropriation of his father’s name for TR’s “New Nationalism” agenda. Robert, writing in the Boston Herald, labeled Roosevelt’s progressivism a doctrine that the elder Lincoln “would abhor if living.”

For the full review, see:
RYAN L. COLE. “BOOKSHELF; The Son Also Rises; Prominent lawyer, self-made millionaire, cabinet secretary–Robert Lincoln was more than just his father’s greatest advocate.” The Wall Street Journal (Fri., May 9, 2012): A13.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date May 9, 2012.)

The book under review is:
Emerson, Jason. Giant in the Shadows: The Life of Robert T. Lincoln. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 2012.

Entrepreneur Krupp Was Paternalistically “Benevolent” and Was Skeptical of Capitalism

Source of book image: online version of the WSJ review quoted and cited below.

(p. A13) Harold James, professor of history and international affairs at Princeton University, portrays a vastly different organization in “Krupp,” a painstaking chronicle of a company that traces its roots to a steel foundry in Essen in 1810. Mr. James’s Krupp is a company for which the manufacturing of war matériel was always of secondary interest to that of civilian production. The company might have preferred to concentrate on manufacturing railroad equipment and consumer goods, but in the developing and expansionist German empire of the 19th century, state requirements for the tools of power dovetailed with Krupp’s desire for regular long-term contracts. The result for Krupp was a practical, if not deliberate, focus on armaments.

From the manufacturer’s perspective, the emphasis on war matériel did not consign Krupp to the ranks of belligerent militarists; it was just smart business. “The purpose of work should be the common good,” founder Alfred Krupp once said, or at least that quote graces a statue the company erected after his death in 1887. All through the 19th century, Mr. James says, the pursuit of profit was less central to the Krupp mission than building a solid enterprise within a framework of social responsibility. As early as 1836, Krupp established a voluntary health-insurance program for its workers. By the middle of the century, life-insurance and pension plans had been instituted. Workers’ hostels and company hospitals were constructed. In exchange for this paternalistic benevolence, Krupp expected complete loyalty from its work force and vehemently opposed the slightest hint of union organization or political activity among its employees.
“Alfred Krupp perfectly fits the mold of the heroic entrepreneur,” Mr. James writes. “Profoundly skeptical of joint-stock companies, banks, and capitalism in general, but also of big-scale science and modern research methods, he was a genius at extending to its utmost limits the possibilities of the craft entrepreneur.”

For the full review, see:
JENNIFER SIEGEL. “BOOKSHELF; Heavy Industry, Burdened Past; The company’s 19th-century founder said it was devoted to the “common good.” In World War II, it worked hard for the Third Reich.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., April 17, 2012): A13.
(Note: the online version of the interview is dated April 16, 2012.)

James Morrison Was a “Retailing Genius”

Source of book image: online version of the WSJ review quoted and cited below.

(p. A13) Morrison was not an inventor-capitalist but a retailing genius, more Sam Walton than Steve Jobs. He catered to England’s growing consumer class by diversifying his wares and, in his ever-growing network of shops, introducing luxurious showrooms. He was a disciple of volume, seeking “high turnover, small profits, and quick returns.” He sent his traveling men not to find buyers, as was typical, but to find the best suppliers. Advantageously purchased in bulk, goods would sell themselves. Morrison’s buyers were specialists, anticipating the practices of later department stores. He kept his finger on the pulse of fashion and on “market making” events. Legendarily, he was never caught short of black crepe when a member of the royal family was ill. “The Duke of York has died most conveniently,” he once quipped while tallying profits.
The “Napoleon of shopkeepers” went on to found his own merchant bank and accumulate a prodigious investment portfolio, much of it in American bonds. Strategic lending to broke aristocrats greased Morrison’s way into Parliament, where he served as a “radical Whig,” championing political reform and free trade.
. . .
. . . Morrison conducted both his retailing and his banking business with impeccable transparency. The investments he sold were honestly structured, and the risks he ran were his own, backed by sufficient collateral. Morrison’s was an era before bailouts, an era of some moral luck but little moral hazard. Markets rose and fell with reasonably predictable effects. For him and many of his contemporaries, credit remained a personal matter of the highest consequence. In this, alas, a character such as Morrison now seems more alien than familiar.

For the full review, see:

JEFFREY COLLINS. “BOOKSHELF; King of the Shopkeepers; The lessons of a merchant prince and a brilliant retailer whose wool, linen, silk, thread and lace flew off the shelves.” The Wall Street Journal (Mon., March 5, 2012): A13.
(Note: ellipses added.)

The book under review is:
Dakers, Caroline. A Genius for Money: Business, Art and the Morrisons. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012.

Faraday and Einstein Were Visual and Physical Thinkers, Not Mathematicians

Source of book image: http://www.rsc.org/images/Faraday_Chemical_History-of-a-Candle_180_tcm18-210390.jpg

(p. C6) Michael Faraday is one of the most beguiling and lovable figures in the history of science. Though he could not understand a single equation, he deduced the essential structure of the laws of electromagnetism through visualization and physical intuition. (James Clerk Maxwell would later give them mathematical form.) Albert Einstein kept a picture of Faraday over his desk, for Einstein also thought of himself primarily as a visual and physical thinker, not an abstract mathematician.
. . .
Faraday’s text is still charming and rich, a judgment that few popular works on science could sustain after so many years. Though he addresses himself to an “auditory of juveniles,” he calls for his audience to follow a close chain of reasoning presented through a series of experiments and deductions.
. . .
. . . : “In every one of us there is a living process of combustion going on very similar to that of a candle,” as Faraday illustrates in his experiments.
In his closing, he turns from our metabolic resemblance to a candle to his deeper wish that “you may, like it, shine as lights to those about you.”

For the full review, see:
PETER PESIC. “BOOKSHELF; Keeper of the Flame.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., January 7, 2012): C6.
(Note: ellipses added.)

Book under review:
Faraday, Michael. The Chemical History of a Candle. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press 2011.

In History, Documenting Your Sources Matters More than Your Credentials

George Dyson. Source of photo: online version of the NYT interview quoted and cited below.

(p. D11) BELLINGHAM, Wash. — More than most of us, the science historian George Dyson spends his days thinking about technologies, old and very new.
. . .
Though this 58-year-old author’s works are centered on technology, they often have an autobiographical subtext. Freeman Dyson, the physicist and mathematician who was a protagonist of Project Orion, is his father. Esther Dyson, the Internet philosopher and high-tech investor, is his sister. We spoke for three hours at his cottage here, and later by telephone. A condensed and edited version of the conversations follows.
. . .
. . . today you make your living as a historian of science and technology. How does a high school dropout get to do that?
Hey, this is America. You can do what you want! I love this idea that someone who didn’t finish high school can write books that get taken seriously. History is one of the only fields where contributions by amateurs are taken seriously, providing you follow the rules and document your sources. In history, it’s what you write, not what your credentials are.

For the full interview, see:
CLAUDIA DREIFUS, interviewer. “Looking Backward to Put New Technologies in Focus.” The New York Times (Tues., December 6, 2011): D11.
(Note: question bolded in original; ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the interview is dated December 5, 2011.)

Dyson’s most recent book is:
Dyson, George. Turing’s Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe. New York: Pantheon Books, 2012.

“The Astaires’ Defiant New World Optimism”

Source of book image:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/513pEMI-LeL._.jpg

(p. C6) The Astaire universe was made of crazy joy, that guiltless worldview unique to the art of the American 1920s. The Astaires’ trademarked exit was the gleefully mischievous “runaround,” in which they trotted about the stage in ever increasing circles as if joined at the hip, expanding their geometry till they reached the wings and vanished. It was goofy and expert at once, a way of defining musical comedy as the state of being young, cute and in love with life.
. . .
“For all their jazz-fueled modernity,” Ms. Riley writes of the Astaires’ London réclame, they were “anti-modernist.” This pair was more than sunshine. The sheer zest with which they frisked through a show ran “counter to High Modernism’s pervasive sense of the instability of the self and the universe.” This was the time, Ms. Riley notes, of “The Waste Land,” “Ulysses,” “Vile Bodies.” Art was in despair. But the Astaires’ “defiant New World optimism” proved a remedy: meeting cute, assuming disguises and high-hatting the blues with fascinating rhythm. It’s a very American notion: that a strong foundation in popular art creates a positive worldview in general. Call it the audacity of charm.
. . .
They don’t make shows that way anymore, and Ms. Riley’s book is thus a resuscitation of a naive but perhaps more authentically native showbiz, an art of natural forces. “The Astaires” is a salute to an America at ease with itself and doing something wonderful in the song-and-dance line that seemed, for a time, like the hottest thing in the culture.

For the full review, see:
Kathleen Riley. “BOOKSHELF; Sibling Revelry.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., March 3, 2012): C6.
(Note: ellipses added.)

The book under review is:
Riley, Kathleen. The Astaires: Fred & Adele. New York: Oxford University Press, USA, 2012.

“Innovation and Invention Don’t Grow Out of the Government’s Orders”

“”You can have democracy no matter what level of development. Just look at the Arab Spring.”- Zhou Youguang” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. A5) BEIJING. EVEN at 106 years old, Zhou Youguang is the kind of creative thinker that Chinese leaders regularly command the government to cultivate in their bid to raise their nation from the world’s factory floor.
So it is curious that he embodies a contradiction at the heart of their premise: the notion that free thinkers are to be venerated unless and until they challenge the legitimacy of the ruling Communist Party.
Mr. Zhou is the inventor of Pinyin, the Romanized spelling system that linked China’s ancient written language to the modern age and helped China all but stamp out illiteracy. He was one of the leaders of the Chinese translation of the Encyclopaedia Britannica in the 1980s. He has written about 40 books, the most recent published last year.
. . .
His blog entries range from the modernization of Confucianism to Silk Road history and China’s new middle class. Computer screens hurt his eyes, but he devours foreign newspapers and magazines. A well-known Chinese artist nicknamed him “Trendy Old Guy.”
. . .
THE decade-long Cultural Revolution that began in 1966 wiped out Mr. Zhou’s lingering belief in communism. He was publicly humiliated and sent to toil for two years in the wilderness.
. . .
About Mao, he said in an interview: “I deny he did any good.” About the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre: “I am sure one day justice will be done.” About popular support for the Communist Party: “The people have no freedom to express themselves, so we cannot know.”
As for fostering creativity in the Communist system, Mr. Zhou had this to say, in a 2010 book of essays: “Inventions are flowers that grow out of the soil of freedom. Innovation and invention don’t grow out of the government’s orders.”
No sooner had the first batch of copies been printed than the book was banned in China.

For the full story, see:
SHARON LaFRANIERE. “THE SATURDAY PROFILE; A Chinese Voice of Dissent That Took Its Time.” The New York Times (Sat., March 3, 2012): A5.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the article has the date March 2, 2012.)

Carnegie and Twain Opposed Roosevelt’s Imperialism

Source of book image: http://www.chinarhyming.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/51Hr-aIgESL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

Marxists and others on the left often claim that big business is the main force behind U.S. imperialism. Is it not ironic that the most imperialistic U.S. President was the anti-big-business “progressive” Teddy Roosevelt who was vehemently opposed by big businessman Andrew Carnegie?
Mark Twain is sometimes accused of insufficient sympathy with the downtrodden. Those who so accuse, misunderstand his message. He too opposed Roosevelt’s war on the Filipinos.
(Carnegie and Twain’s friendship is discussed in David Nasaw’s biography of Carnegie.)

(p. 13) There was within the United States a strong and vocal anti-imperialist movement, which included former President Grover Cleveland, Andrew Carnegie and Mark Twain, but it struggled to tamp down the country’s growing expansionist zeal, and to compete with the energy, tenacity and bulldog ambition of one man in particular: Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt, who in just six years rose meteorically from New York City police commissioner to president, nurtured a deep and unshakable contempt for what he called the “unintelligent, cowardly chatter for ‘peace at any price.’ ” Not only had the “clamor of the peace faction” left him unmoved, Roosevelt wrote, it had served to strengthen his conviction that “this country needs a war.”
. . .
Although Roosevelt moves in and out of Jones’s narrative, disappearing for long stretches, he still manages to steal the spotlight, just as he does in every book in which he appears. When McKinley dragged his feet before sending troops to Cuba, Roosevelt sneered that the president had “no more backbone than a chocolate éclair.” In the Department of the Navy, Roosevelt gleefully took over while his boss was on summer vacation, anointing himself the “hot weather secretary” and crowing to a friend that he was having “immense fun running the Navy.” In Cuba, after choosing his regiment of Rough Riders from 23,000 applicants, he ordered his famous charge up Kettle Hill wearing a custom-made fawn-colored Brooks Brothers uniform with canary-yellow trim.

For the full review, see:
CANDICE MILLARD. “Looking for a Fight; At the Turn of the 20th Century, Theodore Roosevelt Set Out to Transform the United States into a Major World Power.” The New York Times Book Review (Sun., February 19, 2012): 13.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the article is dated February 17, 2012 and has the title “Looking for a Fight; A New History of the Philippine-American War.”)

The book under review is:
Jones, Gregg. Honor in the Dust: Theodore Roosevelt, War in the Philippines, and the Rise and Fall of America’s Imperial Dream. New York: New American Library, 2012.

The Nasaw book on Carnegie mentioned in my initial comments is:
Nasaw, David. Andrew Carnegie. New York: Penguin Press, 2006.
(Note: the pagination of the hardback and paperback editions of Nasaw’s book are the same.)

Hunter-Gatherers Suffered Violence, Famine and Disease–No Idyllic Golden Age

(p. 44) The warfare death rate of 0.5 per cent of the population per year that was typical of many hunter-gatherer societies would equate to two billion people dying during the twentieth century (instead of 100 million). At a cemetery uncovered at Jebel Sahaba, in Egypt, dating from 14,000 years ago, twenty-four of the fifty-nine bodies had died from unhealed wounds caused by spears, darts and arrows. Forty of these bodies were women or children. Women and children generally do not take part in warfare – but they are (p. 45) frequently the object of the fighting. To be abducted as a sexual prize and see your children killed was almost certainly not a rare female fate in hunter-gatherer society. After Jebel Sahaba, forget the Garden of Eden; think Mad Max.
It was not just warfare that limited population growth. Hunter-gatherers are often vulnerable to famines. Even when food is abundant, it might take so much travelling and trouble to collect enough food that women would not maintain a sufficient surplus to keep themselves fully fertile for more than a few prime years. Infanticide was a common resort in bad times. Nor was disease ever far away: gangrene, tetanus and many kinds of parasite would have been big killers. Did I mention slavery? Common in the Pacific north-west. Wife beating? Routine in Tierra del Fuego. The lack of soap, hot water, bread, books, films, metal, paper, cloth? When you meet one of those people who go so far as to say they would rather have lived in some supposedly more delightful past age, just remind them of the toilet facilities of the Pleistocene, the transport options of Roman emperors or the lice of Versailles.

Source:
Ridley, Matt. The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves. New York: Harper, 2010.