Category Archives: History

Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War by Nathaniel Philbrick

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The Pilgrims sailed to America on the Mayflower in 1620. Mayflower tells the story of the voyage but mainly concerns what happened after the Pilgrims landed. The story ends in 1676 with the conclusion of King Philip’s War between the English and the American Indians (also known as Indians and Americans). 

I didn’t know that the Pilgrims were supposed to land near the Hudson River, not in Massachusetts (that famous meal might have been in Hoboken, New Jersey). I also didn’t know that the Pilgrims landed on Cape Cod and spent a month there before settling in Plymouth. Or that most of them died of starvation and disease. Or that there was a second ship (the Fortune), the arrival of which doubled the population of Plymouth. Or that the Puritans considered marriage to be a civil ceremony, not a religious one, since the Bible doesn’t mention ministers conducting weddings. 

I did know that many of the Pilgrims lived in Holland before coming to America and that they came to America seeking religious freedom for themselves, not for other people. They wanted everyone to practice religion as they did. 

I kept wanting to tell the Indians to be careful. It is surprising to read how much the Indians did for the Pilgrims, how many Indians converted to Christianity, and how many of them were willing to fight with the Pilgrims against other Indians. If only they had known that they were going to be overrun by their new neighbors. But that result was probably inevitable, since America was such a tempting target for colonization by the English, French, Spanish and Dutch. 

The book is unnecessarily long and contains too much detail, too many names, and too many comings and goings. The most interesting character in the book is Benjamin Church, who is considered the unofficial founder of the US Army Rangers. He was an Indian fighter who learned from the Indians and treated them with respect and compassion. 

The Pilgrims were lucky to survive. It might have been better if they hadn’t, since the Indians (the Americans) were in some ways more honorable and civilized than they were. (5/23/11)

The Jamestown Project by Karen Ordahl Kupperman

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I thought this was a book about Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in America. It is actually about much more than that. 

Kupperman describes the history of European exploration, trade and colonization with the Muslim world, Africa and North and South America. She puts Jamestown in its historical, cultural and political context. She quotes an amazing number of primary sources (with their original, often surprising spelling) to show what the English thought of the American Indians, what the American Indians thought of the English, what the Virginia Company wanted the Jamestown settlers to accomplish, what the Jamestown settlers wanted (and rarely got) from the Virginia Company. She explains that Jamestown was only one of many attempts to start a colony in America, that the Indians were quite familiar with Europeans before the Jamestown settlers arrived, and that Captain John Smith had a very interesting life before he met Pocahontas.

Most of the colonists died from disease and starvation. Some were killed by the Indians and some preferred living with the Indians. Kupperman argues that Jamestown eventually proved to be a success because it showed that colonies would only prosper if the colonists had personal incentives to succeed, for example, the prospect of owning their own land. The powerful people who put money into the colonies wanted to find a quick route to China, or gold and silver, or to convert the Indians to Christianity. The people who made the colonies succeed had simpler goals.  (4/29/11)

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann

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According to 1491, as many as 90 million people lived in the Western Hemisphere before the arrival of Columbus. The vast majority of these people died from diseases brought from Europe by the various explorers, traders and conquerors who visited North, Central and South America starting in 1492.

Taking into account recent research, Mann argues that Indian societies were larger, older, more complex and more technologically sophisticated than previously believed. They also had much more effect on the environment, building major cities and transforming much of the countryside for agricultural purposes (even the Amazon basin). The Indians of the Western Hemisphere did not “live lightly on the land”.

In fact, according to Mann, the New World that European settlers eventually encountered, with its dense forests, huge herds of bison and vast flocks of passenger pigeons, was a recent development. The catastrophic effects of disease on Indian populations resulted in certain parts of nature running wild, certain species experiencing explosive growth after the Indians could no longer manage their environment, as they had done for thousands of years before Columbus.  (3/15/11)

A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy by Jonathan Israel

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Israel argues that the Enlightenment was composed of two separate tendencies, a Radical Enlightenment based on the philosophies of Spinoza and Bayle, and a Moderate Enlightenment, partly based on the philosophy of John Locke. The Radical Enlightenment was dedicated to ideals of equality, democracy and universal education. The thinkers of the Radical Enlightenment strongly favored reason and science over religion. They believed that current institutions, both political and religious, including all traces of monarchy and aristocracy, would and should be swept away in a worldwide cultural and political revolution, once the common people had become sufficiently educated.

Israel believes that it was the thinkers of the Radical Enlightenment, such as Diderot, d’Holbach and Thomas Paine, whose ideas gave rise to the revolutions of the late 18th century, in particular the French Revolution. He characterizes the thinkers of the Moderate Enlightenment, such as Rousseau and Kant, as being much more conservative and anti-democratic.

Although Israel’s thesis is convincing, and the book is informative, his prose is repetitious and convoluted. He insists on inserting French phrases that could just as well be translated and includes the same lists of names (Diderot, Helvetius and D’Holbach, for example) over and over again. A Revolution of the Mind is important but not a pleasure to read.  (11/11/10)

It’s Nice When the World Makes Sense

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Even if the underlying facts aren’t so great at all.

Case 1: Paul Krugman ties together two recent stories: how the economic evidence for cutting government spending during a recession is non-existent, and how cutting spending on programs like Medicare and Social Security is the preferred strategy of the rich. It probably won’t make any difference that the scientific support for government austerity during an economic downturn has been demolished, since facts don’t necessarily trump ideology. For the most part, the political class is subservient to the upper class. Marx, who helped generate a vast number of ideologists himself, wasn’t wrong about everything.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/26/opinion/krugman-the-one-percents-solution.html?ref=paulkrugman

Krugman cites the study I wrote about under the title “What the 1% Want from Washington”:

https://whereofonecanspeak.com/2013/04/07/what-the-1-want-from-washington/

Case 2:  According to the New York Times, the Boston police commissioner admitted this week that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (joh-KHAHR’ tsahr-NEYE’-ehv) and the boat in which he hid were both in the 20-block search perimeter all along. It’s not clear why Tsarnaev wasn’t found during the manhunt, but it wasn’t because the boat was 1 block outside the search perimeter, as the Watertown police chief claimed. (See the post below, which includes a transcript of the police discussing where to search.)

In this case, it didn’t make sense that a small army of police failed to search an area 2 or 3 blocks from where the guy dumped his getaway car. What didn’t make any sense now makes some sense. People make mistakes and then make excuses. No shock there.Â