Category Archives: History

American Nietzsche: A History of an Icon and His Ideas by Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen

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Friedrich Nietzsche has probably affected more people than any other philosopher, except Karl Marx. American Nietzsche describes the effect Nietzsche has had on generations of Americans, including philosophers, theologians, journalists and literary critics, as well as ordinary citizens. Many have considered him to be a kind of prophet, or at least a kindred spirit.

Nietzsche expressed strong opinions on ultimate questions, and his aphoristic, feverish style has supported many interpretations. I didn’t realize that he greatly admired Ralph Waldo Emerson and how similar their views were. First came Emerson, then Nietzsche, then pragmatists like William James and John Dewey. Walter Kaufmann made Nietzsche popular again after World War II and Richard Rorty tried to synthesize Emerson, Nietzsche and Dewey, among others. It’s quite an interesting story if you enjoy intellectual history.  (3/25/12)

Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi, translated by Stuart Woolf

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Primo Levi’s memoir of his time in the Auschwitz concentration camp was originally published with the title If This Is a Man. It is written in a matter-of-fact style. The facts speak for themselves.

Levi says that survival was mainly a question of luck, although the captives had some freedom of movement, which allowed many of them to “organize” ways to improve their chances.

Aside from the most obvious questions, this book raises some questions for the reader: How would I react to living in such conditions? How am I reacting to the conditions I’m living in now? 

Levi writes: “It is lucky that it is not windy today. Strange, how in some way one always has the impression of being fortunate, how some chance happening, perhaps infinitesimal, stops us crossing the threshold of despair and allows us to live. It is raining, but it is not windy….Or it is raining, windy, and you have the usual hunger, and then you think that if you really had to, if you really felt nothing in your heart but suffering and tedium,…well, even in that case, at any moment you want you could always go and touch the electric wire-fence, or throw yourself under the shunting trains, and then it would stop raining”.  (3/1/12)

The Scientific Revolution by Steven Shapin

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Historians refer to the changes brought about by such luminaries as Galileo, Descartes, Bacon, Boyle and Newton in the 16th and 17th centuries as the “Scientific Revolution”. The science of the Greeks and Scholastics was replaced by something that looks like science as it’s practiced today.

The theme of this book is that the “Scientific Revolution” wasn’t as clear-cut as historians and philosophers often imply. The scientists of the time disagreed about how science should be conducted. For example, some questioned the value of experimentation. If an experiment contradicted received opinion, many concluded that the experiment was performed incorrectly. Robert Boyle thought that scientists should perform many experiments and describe them in great detail. He never expressed “Boyle’s Law” (pV = k) in mathematical terms. Isaac Newton thought that a single experiment was good enough to allow the mathematical formulation of a law of nature. 

Science was also generally considered to be the “handmaiden of religion”. Showing that nature operated like a vast machine was thought to be evidence of God’s supernatural powers and wisdom. We had to wait for Darwin to show how “mere chance” could write a chapter in the Book of Nature.  (2/9/12)

Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell

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Orwell spent six months during the Spanish Civil War fighting for the loyalist or republican side against the fascists led by Francisco Franco. The fascists, representing the church and most of the military, were attempting to replace the left-wing government that had previously replaced the monarchy. Orwell, along with various socialists, communists and anarchists, fought in support of the existing government, known as the Second Spanish Republic.

The action in the book takes place in the Catalonia region of Spain, in and around Barcelona. Orwell describes trench warfare at the front and street fighting in Barcelona. The trench warfare against the fascists was a miserable experience, distinguished by cold, hunger and filth. Orwell saw relatively little action, although he did participate in one major attack and was later wounded by a sniper. 

The street fighting, unfortunately, was between the communists and the anarchists, who were supposed to be allies against the fascists. The communists took control of the government and then violently suppressed the anarchists and trade unionists, throwing people like Orwell into jail or executing them. Orwell and his wife avoided being captured and returned safely to England, where Orwell wrote this book while the war in Spain continued.

Orwell tries to explain the relationships between the various left-wing factions in Spain, but it is very difficult to keep track of who is who and which group is represented by which acronym (CNT, POUM, UGT, etc.).  He does make clear, however, how journalists misrepresented the situation in Spain, and how the communists in particular used propaganda, as well as violence, to temporarily achieve power. His descriptions of incompetent or disreputable journalism do not seem peculiar to Communism, however, or to the Spanish Civil War: “It is impossible to read through reports in the Communist press without realizing that they are consciously aimed at a public ignorant of the facts and have no other purpose than to work up prejudice”.

The book ends with Orwell safely back home, but glad that he went to Spain, and worrying that his countrymen “are sleeping the deep, deep sleep of England, from which I sometimes fear that we shall never wake till we are jerked out of it by the roar of bombs”. German invaded Poland a year later.  (11/13/11)

The War That Made America: A Short History of the French and Indian War by Fred Anderson

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Professor Anderson is the author of Crucible of War, a 900-page history of the Seven Years War and its effect on North America. This is a shorter version of the same history. It’s not a great book, but it tells an interesting story.

Like most Americans, I know very little about the Seven Years War. For example, I didn’t realize that: the French and Indian War that occurred in North America between 1755 and 1763 was one part of the Seven Years War, which is considered to be the first “world war”; an inexperienced George Washington, leading a troop of soldiers as a representative of England, tried to remove the French from the area now known as Pittsburgh, and this failed attempt was the spark that set off the global Seven Years War; various Indian nations engaged in complex diplomatic relations with both the English and the French, and Indian warriors were crucial  participants on both sides of the war; The Last of the Mohicans was based on a battle and subsequent massacre that occurred near Lake George in upstate New York; the battles fought in America and Canada often involved thousands of troops and sometimes fleets of warships; in 1763 the victorious English formally declared all of the territory between the Appalachians and the Mississippi to be, in the words of one cartographer, “Lands Reserved For The Indians” (we know how that worked out).

According to Anderson, the French and Indian War had two major effects: revolution and westward expansion. The victorious English concluded that they could “exercise power over the colonists without restraint”, while the colonists, having participated in the victory as loyal Englishmen, concluded that they were “equal partners in the empire”. These conflicting views helped set the stage for the American revolution a decade later. And, with the disappearance of the French, the Indians lost an important counterbalance to the English, in particular, access to French-supplied guns and ammunition. The colonists wanted more land and the Indians lacked the power to resist.

Hence, Anderson’s subtitle: “the war that made America”.  (8/2/11)