Review of Jeff Alexander's Pandora's Locks

In his 2009 monograph Pandora’s Locks, journalist Jeff Alexander analyzes the effect of the opening of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway on the ecosystem of the Great Lakes.[1] He argues that while this project, which began in 1959, allowed the northern US and southern Canada to shipping powers and therefore greatly aided the economics of the region, it also caused irreparable and costly damage to the ecosystems of the lakes and their surrounding landscapes. In fact, he argues that the tide of invasive species that have been rapidly trickling into the lakes amounts to an environmental disaster well beyond a large oil spill. After all, chemicals can be cleaned up where it is virtually impossible to eradicate healthy invaders without massive collateral damage to the native organisms. Alexander begins his story with the opening of the Erie Canal, initially opening in 1825. This was only the first in a series of projects which sought to open this region up to economic activities. As the ships moved westward they slowly carried foreign invaders from around the world like zebra and quagga mussels, lampreys, Asiatic carp and alefish. Additionally, salmon was intentionally introduced into the region, to replace the dying trout for commercial fishers, but they too suffered from lack of resources. Additionally, the filtering effect of the mussels cleared the water in many areas which resulted in algae blooms and even more damage to the fish and bird populations. It also resulted in the spread of many diseases such as botulism and E.coli in the animal populations but which also pose a great risks to human populations. Throughout the text, Alexander demonstrates times when active measures could have reduced or prevented this damage, but due to cost, lack of foresight and lack of organization meant that this never happened. He addresses the fact that these measures are complicated by the global scope of the problems and the need for international cooperation. Additionally, it is difficult for many to recognize the lakes as unhealthy when the water is so clear and clean looking.

            For Alexander, it is clear that the Great Lakes are examples of Latour’s “quasi-objects,” or hybrids of nature and society. This is especially the case since for Latour, quasi-objects have been rapidly multiplying in more recent history and for Alexander, the human impact on the lakes has been growing exponentially in recent decades. His argument about the exponential damage that humans are inflicting on the lakes also reflects Rebecca Solnit’s claim that disasters have been growing in size and scale in recent history. Like Stephen Pyne in his history of fire, he links environmental to social order. When the environment of the lake suffers, the people living near it suffer also. This hybridization of the history of water with the history of technology has been a growing field in the last decade. In his recent paper on water history, Pete Soppelsa fits Sarah Pritchard’s Confluence and Chandra Mukerji’s Impossible Engineering within the larger context of natural agents in human history. This demonstrates that Alexander’s text is extremely timely and fits theoretically and content-wise with modern historiography. His style is also reminiscent of Joy Parr’s Sensing Changes. Also a North American history, Parr interviewed many people affected by environmental changes in various regions of Canada since the 1950’s. Like Parr, he grew extremely close to his subjects and makes an impassioned plea for the livelihoods of the scientists, fishermen and residents who rely on the lakes every day.

            Alexander’s book is very interesting for many reasons. First, as a journalist, he presents a well-written and comprehensive account of the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway. He also makes the issue relevant for those not living in the Great Lakes region. For example, he notes two Californian scientists who drowned trying to clear quagga mussels from the sanitation system as these mussels from the Caspian Sea continue to move west. He also uses an excellent variety of sources ranging from personal interview to scientific journals, to government archives which makes for very rich evidence. His style while extremely clear and readable does occasionally tread on the alarmist. Though his point is clear that the St. Lawrence Seaway is an ecological and essentially human disaster, occasionally he adds unnecessary sensationalism. For example, early in the text he discusses Marilyn Bell’s swim across Lake Ontario. He mainly focuses on Bell’s almost crippling fear of lampreys which she overcame to finish her swim. He creates a visual of vampiric lampreys attacking her as she swam, only revealing at the end of narrative that the parasitic fish cannot puncture human flesh. Additionally, his work implies that the Great Lakes had a single and stable ecosystem until the start of the nineteenth century, when studies in ecology suggest that environments do not have a single stable balance and never really have. However, this is still an excellent and interesting book which highlights many aspects of actor-network theory in modern history.

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[1] Alexander, Jeff. 2009. Pandora's locks: the opening of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway. East Lansing, Mich: Michigan State University Press.

McShane and Tarr’s The Horse in the City: Living Machines in the Nineteenth Century

In Clay McShane and Joel Tarr’s 2007 monograph The Horse in the City: Living Machines in the Nineteenth Century,[1] the authors explore the role that horses played in Eastern and Southern American cities. Though they acknowledge the uniqueness of horses, whose domestic and social nature made them fit for a variety of purposes, they claim that the nineteenth century primarily viewed horses as a mechanized and economic tool for city life. Meant as an overview to show the crucial position that horsepower played in city life, McShane and Tarr demonstrate how, over the course of the this period, the presence of horses dominated cities and from breeding until body disposal, were vital to the American economy.

            As an environmental history, this book works particularly well. It definitely shows how interactions, accommodations and negotiations with an animal shaped city life rather than like previous histories, allowing readers to assume that horses were merely passive. As non-human actors, the readers see that horses and mules frequently determine how much they will work, what they will do, and how they were active consumers of human goods and services. They also show that how disease, when of the equine variety, can massively disrupt economic markets. They also demonstrate how non-living agents, like climate, impact what kind of work can be done and what sort of tools will thrive or fail in that environment. However, as an environmental history it is not particularly analytical and in many ways the thesis is very obvious-natural actors like horses are important to human history.

More interesting are McShane and Tarr’s claims that their text is a history of technology. In many ways they succeed. They show how beginning with breeding, many horses are created in artificial hybrids, albeit with a poor understanding of genetics, to be from birth the strongest and most aesthetically pleasing possible. They also show that the production of horses became a major export for the United States, like any other industrial good. They illustrate how fueling, maintenance, and storage of horses (nutrition, health and stabling) were a significant investment for owners who in turn expected to be compensated with output. Likewise, the prevalence of urban horses gave thousands of jobs to city dwellers who worked as farriers, veterinarians, and producers of horse related goods like bridles and feed. They also claim that much like a metal scrap yard, even the waste and bodies parts of dead horses were picked up by enterprising individuals and sold as horsemeat and fertilizer among other things. Their discussion of how horses were used in transportation and in powering machines, leading literally to the term ‘horsepower’ also shows that horses served a technological function. In their conclusion, they even compare the prevalence of courses to cars, the major technological transport of today.

However, much of their book while well-written and extremely interesting does much to discredit their own thesis. They show horses to be very individualistic, whose work output could not be generally quantified since each was different. They also gave examples of drivers such as carters and teamsters who held beauty pageants and decked their steeds in ribbons, recognizing the ‘kindred’ nature that they shared with horses. The growth of veterinary science and the ASPCA also seem to contradict claims that horses were merely seen as machinery. Though likely nineteenth century urbanities recognized that the best way for work output was with healthy animals who were treated well, there were no similar resources for machines. Additionally, though they offer a disclaimer, they do not address the function that horses held in Western cities where smaller human populations and more open space made the role of horses in some cities vastly different than the East Coast.

Though this is an excellent book that succeeds in demonstrating the importance of horses to city life, it does have some failings. As an environmental or economic history, showing how horses directly contributed to American industry, it works extremely well. Additionally, they make several very convincing claims addressing horses as machine-like technological tools. However, based just on the evidence that they present, this seems to be a slight over simplification. Horses, while viewed as economic tools, whose strength was applied in technological ways, were never totally mechanized. This begs a series of questions. Do all non-human agents manipulated by humans fit under the category of technology? Additionally, was it necessary to attempt to categorize horses as machines for them to be convincing technological resources?

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[1] McShane, Clay, and Joel A. Tarr. The Horse in the City: Living Machines in the Nineteenth Century. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007. Print.

Alfred Crosby's Children of the Sun

In his 2006 monograph Children of the Sun, historian Alfred Crosby analyzes the global history of human energy dependence, arguing that one of the prime movers of earth’s history has been the quest for more energy sources. Divided into three parts, Crosby’s text starts with three chapters on “The Largess of the Sun.” He argues that all early energy, whether through burning biomass for heat, or using solar energy to grow food, all human activity depended on the sun. The Columbian Exchange also relied on the sun since it is through the sun that wind its created with which to travel the globe. Additionally, the sun allowed certain plants to thrive or die in different environments, in directly causing the Great Potato famine of Ireland and then mass immigration to the US. This was one of his strongest sections, and drew heavily from his earlier and more famous books The Columbian Exchange and Ecological Imperialism. The second portion of his text, titled “Fossilized Sunshine,” addresses the history of fossil fuels and traditional non-renewable resources. Arguing that wind and water mills did not provide enough energy for the growing demand of the late sixteenth century Europe and Asia, with growing wood shortages, people turned to coal for production and heat. Using coal for rail travel also allowed for vast shipping networks of goods. The internal combustion engine and petroleum was an even more efficient medium for energy use and management. He ends this section with a discussion of electricity and its evolution from an entertainment device to a means of execution. His final section, “Energy at the Turn of the Third Millennium,” discusses fusion and fission energy. He concludes with a discussion of the limitations of our energy sources and suggestions that we may need to reexamine our usages.

Crosby’s text is interesting in many ways. First, it is a brief and well-written work on the history of energy usage. Each chapter served as an interesting and uncomplicated introduction to the history of a variety of non-human actors. In fact, whole books can, and have been written on the subjects of his individual twenty page chapters. He actually devotes little energy into creating a sophisticated argument, opting for a very straightforward narrative. Like Stephen Pyne, he addresses these forms of energy in terms of Bruno Latour’s hybrids though in a slightly less effective way than Pyne. For example, despite being a work that expands into pre-history, he does examine the sun and energy in strictly anthropocentric terms. Also like Pyne, his work does threaten to be reductionist, as he essentially asserts that the sun and its various sources of energy are the source of all human history. He is correct in that technically life would not exist on earth without the sun, but it is still a problematic historical claim as there are many other human motivations besides a quest for energy. Additionally, he heavily utilizes the first person plural, which while aiding in accessibility, is also problematic. For example, asserting that “we seized species of wild potatoes”[1] is very imprecise and even ahistorical as there is no way to know who seized those tubers and when and why. However, he does create a nice synthesis of contemporary historical theories, linking environmental history with the history of science and technology similar to that of Joy Parr’s Sensing Changes and Sarah Pritchard’s Confluence. Therefore this could be a useful text for introducing students to envirotechnical history but would not be useful for a serious study of energy history.

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[1] P. 27

Thomas Kuhn’s “Mathematical vs. Experimental Traditions in the Development of Physical Science”

In honor of Joseph Priestley's 279th birthday, I wanted to include a piece on the history of chemistry. However, since I do not have a piece on chemistry laying around and I really have no time to write one, I have opted to add an entry on Kuhn. This very much relates to Priestley since he was one of the last followers of phlogiston theory, protesting vehemently against Lavoisier's new chemistry. Therefore, in line with a Kuhnian Scientific Revolution, during the Chemical Revolution, Lavoisier's chemical theories fixed many anomalies of phlogiston, but were ultimately incommensurable with them and eventually succeeded them.

In his 1976 article “Mathematical vs. Experimental Traditions in the Development of Physical Science,” Thomas Kuhn explores the historiographical question: “Are the sciences one or many?”[1] He begins by presenting the common strengths and weaknesses of historical narratives that choose to accept either answer. Those historians who recognize science as “a loose-linked congeries of separate sciences,” are frequently attentive to the technical details of scientific knowledge, but tend to affix their subjects to modern definitions. Citing the history of electricity, he shows that the study of what is now considered to be electricity did not commence until the seventeenth century and that previous study of ‘electrical’ phenomena like lightning and electric eels were not connected and were not per say, electrical studies. As such, it neglects the contextual influences that actually shape the manner in which the science was produced. The other historiographical tradition presented by Kuhn “treats science as a single enterprise.” The primary criticism that he directs at this practice is the exact opposite of the previous tradition: instead of studying the evolving content of scientific study, they focus on the contextual framework within which it emerged. He then offers a possible solution to this debate by asserting that any historian who wishes to properly address scientific development must attempt to bridge the gap between the two traditional routes, neither assuming science to be one, nor passively accepting the scientific subdivisions set by modern science textbooks.

The lengthy remainder of Kuhn’s article is his own solution about how to divide the specifically the physical sciences into two groups: the classical or ‘mathematical’ physical sciences rooted in ancient Greece, astronomy, harmonics, mathematics, optics and statics, and the ‘Baconian’ or experimental disciplines of magnetism, electricity, and heat.[2] This narrative is interesting, accomplishing two primary feats. He successful offers an example of a historical narrative that takes the ‘middle ground’ of historical traditions, recognizing science as neither one nor many by showing distinctions between scientific disciplines while also showing external forces that allowed for their interactions. Additionally, he gives convincing narrative of how two entirely incommensurable traditions of scientific practices each contributed to the growth of physical sciences during the Scientific Revolution. Though he does not address other fields of science such as different biological traditions, medicine, or alchemy, his stated purpose was to provide his audience with an account of the physical sciences without extending much further.

Kuhn’s article is not free from criticism. In the epilogue of his Optics in the Age of Euler, Casper Hakfoort attempts to apply Kuhn’s thesis to his own study of Enlightenment optics, and while not arguing with Kuhn’s historiographical assertions, he argues that rather than sorting the physical sciences into two traditions, he adds a third division: natural philosophy. He cites Descartes’ work as being neither an extension of the Aristotelian traditions which governed the classical tradition nor resembling the growing experimentalism of Baconian science.[3] He contends that in the field of optics, studies were split between his three proposed traditions and believes that in general, it is more reasonable to source modern physics to the synthesis of all three traditions rather than, as Kuhn does, argue that modern physics came from the adoption of mathematical methods by the Baconian tradition.[4] HF Cohen, in his monograph The Scientific Revolution, also offers Kuhn several critiques. Like Hakfoort, Cohen refers to Descartes as a figure and optics as a discipline that do not fit strictly within Kuhn’s divisions. Additionally, he questions other figures and fields addressed by Kuhn like Galileo and statics that he contends do not neatly fit into Kuhn’s categories of physical science. Additionally, he notes that Kuhn mainly disregards the mechanical revolution which could be another tradition within the physical sciences leading to modern physics.[5]

Despite his critics, Kuhn’s attempt to reconcile two vastly different historiographical traditions is laudable, not only as a study of Early Modern physics, but more importantly as a novel, for its time, manner to examine the existing divisions between scientific disciplines. By using Kuhn as a model, historians can not only replicate his studies of physics, finding their own sweeping divisions but also apply his method to life sciences, chemistry, technology, and medicine. Using this template, perhaps on a larger scale, historians can more richly elucidate historical accounts rather than holding to older methods of studying either technical advances or social context.

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[1] Kuhn, Thomas S. "Mathematical vs. Experimental Traditions in the Development of Physical Science." Journal of Interdisciplinary History 1st ser. 7 (1976): 1. Print.

[2] Ibid p. 6

[3] Hakfoort, Casper. Optics in the Age of Euler: Conceptions of the Nature of Light, 1700-1795. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Print. p. 181

[4] Ibid p. 191

[5] Cohen, H F. The Scientific Revolution: A Historiographical Inquiry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. Print. 131-133

March 2nd 1972- Pioneer 10 launched into space

I would like to post something that is not a book review in honor of this day in history. Today I would like to celebrate  the day that forty years ago, NASA launched Pioneer 10 into space. This probe, which sent earth vital information and photos, was the first spacecraft to explore the outer planets. It left the solar system in 1983 radioing back the first data on interstellar space and continued send information back to NASA until the end of its mission in 1997. At the time, it had traveled over six billion miles.
But the future of Pioneer 10 is truly exciting. Headed toward the Taurus constellation, it is scheduled to pass close to the star Ross 246 in the year 346000 AD. Famous astronomer Carl Sagan designed a small plaque bolted onto the plaque that includes a drawing of a man and woman, a star map of our sun as well as the direction traveled by the probe. This message, intended for extra-terrestrials, will alert them to the existence of Earth.
We can for hope four things in the future of this inevitable encounter.
1) Humans still look similar to the images on the plaque after many thousands of years of evolution
2) The aliens do not want to conquer earth and eat our flesh, but like the Vulcans, come in peace
3) We have not already been exterminated in this future year, either by our own doing or another hostile alien nation from the Andromeda galaxy.
4) The rapture will not have occurred.

The Role of Facts in History and in the Physical Sciences

In his book What is History? E.H. Carr examines the role that historical facts play in historical method. He begins by asserting that many 19^th and early 20^th century historians sought an “ultimate history,”[1] an all inclusive canon, solving all previous historical problems. Their ideal method was studying and processing historical facts empirically without examining their own motivations or even the agendas of their sources. He explains that good history should acknowledge the context in which it was written and that historical facts are in fact subject to the prejudices of the historian. The relationship between the historian and his[2] facts marks the biggest divide between research methods in physical sciences and history. For historians, not only are facts disputable, but their discovery is not the end goal of a historical work. For physical scientists, as Bruno Latour and Thomas Kuhn contend, facts generally remain undisputed and the discovery of new facts is the primary goal of such scientists.

For Thomas Kuhn in his The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, the history of scientific inquiry is composed of a series of paradigms or sets of practices that define a scientific discipline in any particular time. For Kuhn, facts emerge as part of “normal science,” or scientific observations that confirm or perpetuate the standing paradigm. Though it is probable that scientific facts reflect the partialities of physical scientists, it is generally accepted in the scientific community that if science is practiced properly according to a widely accepted methodology, all scientists will reach the same factual conclusion. Additionally, facts are determined as correct by how well they fit within the set paradigm. Any observation that does not fit is identified as an anomaly and is either shelved or forced to fit the paradigm before it can be classified as a fact. Once a fact is determined, it generally goes unquestioned until a new a scientific revolution comes about. The goal of physical science is, consequently, to gather as many facts as possible to support a paradigm, which in itself is a grand-scale fact.[3]

The stationary nature of scientific facts is explored further in Bruno’s Latour’s sociological study of Science in Action. Latour determines that science is composed of a series of “black boxes.” He defines a black box as a scientific fact that despite its complexity, controversial history, or its relationship to the networks holding it in place only its “impact and output count.”[4] Once the relevant observations and associated social and scientific information is gathered and generally agreed upon by sets of allies, they become a black box which is never again questioned or ‘reopened’ unless a significant anomaly emerges. Though Latour describes massive commercial and academic networks behind scientific research, future scientists accept the resulting ‘fact’ usually unconcerned by agendas and external motivations that could have influenced the final product.[5] Future scientists then use the black boxes as a foundation upon which to build further black boxes.

According to Kuhn and Latour, scientific facts are a series of observations that once they  either support an existing paradigm or acquire a sufficient number of allies, they  remain static and immovable. They are also the broad-spectrum end goal of scientific practice. It is even frequently assumed by physical scientists that the entire natural world is composed of “facts” and it is the responsibility of the scientists to “discover” and present them, unfiltered, to the rest of society. Conversely, according to Carr, facts for historians are changeable and complex. Like in science, the identity of facts is determined by their relevance, but in history, that is decided by the individual historian. Additionally, although facts are an essential part of history, they alone do not comprise history. History is, instead, shaped by the interaction of historical observations and their relationship to the historian. Yet despite the differences between historical and scientific facts, it would be erroneous to ignore paradigms within historical study which, despite having a more varied interpretation of fact, still has tenable rules for what is acceptable in the larger historical community.

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[1] Carr, Edward H. What Is History? New York: Knopf, 1962 p 3

[2] Though I acknowledge that many historians and scientists are female, for the purposes of this paper I will retain the use of the male pronoun

[3] Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970

[4] Latour, Bruno. Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1987 p.3

[5] Ibid

Examining Joel Kaye’s “The Impact of Money on the Development of Fourteenth-century Scientific Thought"

In his article “The Impact of Money on the Development of Fourteenth-century Scientific Thought,” Joel Kaye examines the social context of the rise of money in the fourteenth century and its subsequent impact on scientific thought. He argues that in this new monetized world, money’s use as a technological tool for measurement lead to the new science of calculationes whose practitioners devised intricate systems to measure qualities as well as the development of latitudo formarum as an instrument of relation and representation. In order to support his argument he evaluates medieval writings, particularly those of Nicolas Oresme whom he argues provides a direct link between the rise of money and the science of calculationes.

Kaye begins by establishing the fourteenth century as the pivotal time in the monetization of Europe. He argues that the unstable economic situations of war, plague, and famine forced people to have a heightened awareness of the shifting values of money and marketable goods. During the Hundred Years War, the kings of both French and England began to recognize the fiscal requirements for warfare and increasingly worked to secure money for wars. They frequently secured money by debasing the coinage of the realm which led to sharp fluctuations in values and prices. This obliged all people who wished to avoid being on the wrong side of rising prices to pay close attention to the changing values in the marketplace. The plague also had economic influences as many came into multiple inheritances and lead to an increase in per capita wealth. This encouraged the further development of money conscientiousness on all sectors of society. Even the Church was not excluded from monetization. Due to a rise of lavish displays and papal wars in the fourteenth century, the papacy became so concerned with financial matters that they established the Apostolic Camera to manage the Church’s money. Because the Church and the government were the most frequent career destinations for university graduates, the scientific elite could not be unaware of the market place.

After establishing the social context for the monetization of Europe, Kaye begins to relate the use of money to the higher process of intangible conceptual thought. In the middle of the fourteenth century, around the same time as the rise of money, many English natural philosophers began to apply quantitative rules to solve philosophical problems. Any quality capable of an increase or decrease was considered measurable. This included things such as love, joy, pain, friendship, heat, and a vast number of others. This idea of subjective concepts given an objective value was also applied to the use of money. Rather than value being subjective to barter, commodities took on a fixed value. Wages also took the subjective concept of the worth of time and labor and applied a monetary value to it. The Church, in its attempts to raise funds began to apply values to particular sins and years in purgatory. In its sale of indulgences, the Church was measuring intangibles, such as sins and forgiveness in terms of money.

Kaye then offers the medieval treatise De moneta by Nicolas Oresme as proof of the link between monetary and scientific thought as the proof for his thesis. In his work, Oresme argues that value of money is in its function as an instrument of measurement. He believed that it was a technological advance that allowed values to “become capable of the most easy comparison.”[1] Since all goods had a value in terms of their cost, or their position on a common scale, “every saleable item is at the same time a measured item.”[2] Oresme also argued against the manipulation of money which limited its function as an instrument to determine value. Thomas Aquinas and other medieval philosophers also believed that “the instrument of money was invented in order to give a numerical statement to human need.” Oresme also was very influential in developing a system of lines to measure a variety of qualities under a common standard of measurement. Kaye then ends his paper with the observation that though the model of measurement was very prevalent, very few philosophers actually ever measured anything. This is perhaps due to the fact that measurements could only find relationships between things, and never their absolute value. Be that as it may, Oresme represents one of several fourteenth century philosophers who devised conceptual systems to measure seemingly immeasurable qualities, and who recognized the power of money to quantify human need.

Kaye’s article is an interesting analysis of the phenomenon of the monetization of Europe and the simultaneous rise of calculationes to measure philosophical concepts and qualities. However his primary piece of evidence is that Oresme wrote both on money and on measurement of other qualities in separate papers. He definitely proves that there is a correlation in the fourteenth century between money and measurement, but does not offer compelling evidence that one caused the other. If he had offered some evidence of philosophers themselves linking monetization and the rise of measurement, his article would be stronger. As he says, his conclusions “require further textual testing and research.” [3]However, his paper was an excellent introduction to medieval monetization and the science of calculationes in the fourteenth century.

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[1] Joel Kaye  “The Impact of Money on the Development of Fourteenth Century Scientific Thought” p. 258

[2] Ibid p. 260

[3] Ibid P. 264