Review of Christine MacLeod's Heroes of Invention

MacLeod Review

In her 2007 monograph Heroes of Invention,[1]Christine MacLeod analyses the cultural role that inventors played in British society during the Industrial Revolution. Beginning with the question of why so few inventors are famous today, Macleod charts the rise of inventor’s status from their mid eighteenth century status “synonymous with fraudster, cheat or swindler, effectively a criminal”[2] to their celebration as “a national benefactors by the political nation,”[3]and finally to their decline in favor of heroic “gentlemen of science”[4] at the start of the twentieth century. Primarily using James Watt as an example, though also exploring other famous figures such as Jenner, Arkwright and Davy, Macleod shows that the number of statues, biographies and honors dedicated to inventors increased at an exponential rate following the public acclaim for inventions like the smallpox vaccine, telegraph, steam engine, and balloon flight.  Praises usually reserved only for military heroes were heaped on a number of engineers and mechanics instead. This ubiquitous praise unusually came from all classes with William IV funding a statue of Watt in Westminster Abbey, middle class traders happy to privilege inventors over aristocrats and in one of her most engaging chapters, working class belief that it was the work of the ordinary man that best served the nation. Entering the classic British decline debate, she claims that any technological or economic deterioration from this period is a result of historiography and that the waning British acclaim for the inventor came not from a technological decline but the reduced role of the individual in the increasingly political and entrepreneurial economy.

            Rather than the rather large scope of other texts from this course, MacLeod has a fairly narrow geographical and chronological focus. This serves her quite well as it lends some credibility to her argument since she can concentrate on specific events like the Great Exhibition and reform of the patent system as well as the impact of individual figures on British culture. Additionally, like many other texts from this course, MacLeod draws from an extremely wide array of political, economic and literary texts to prove her thesis. Her conclusions imply that the cultural history of technology is shaped not only by what historical actors think, but also by changes in the technological process. Also implicated is that inventors, by the merit of their individual inventions contributed to political change, rather than previous texts which mostly commented on technological systems. This was true in the case of Jenner’s invention contributing greatly to demographic changes in Britain, as well as the countless inventions that lent might to the military and economic successes of the empire. They also shifted some cultural values, for the first time implying that anyone who displayed the British virtues of hard work, diligence and creativity could ascend to a place of honor.[5] Her text, though extremely interesting does lack slightly in her gender analysis especially since she frequently calls attention to how few females were idolized in statues and biographies.

            There is already a large body of literature addressing the notion of technological and economic decline in Great Britain immediately following the Industrial Revolution. Though widely debated by historians, many consider the rises in American and German political and economic status accompanied a decline in Britain. Martin Wiener in particular has asserted that Britain faced an industrial regression since the time of the Great Exhibition. MacLeod text makes a welcome addition to that body of literature. Her hagiographic look at inventors is definitely unique. Additionally, her use of Carlyle to define heroes and hero-worship was extremely interesting. Since Carlyle’s works were very popular over the course of the entire nineteenth century, she is able to accurately use the actor’s categories to identify the rise and fall of inventors. Biographies, popular in general in Victorian England, emphasizing the priestly, prophetic, and literary qualities of engineers and mechanics reached the point that some even attained celebrity status within their own lifetime. Using Carlyle is an extremely savvy tactic and one of the most enjoyable aspects of the book. Additionally, despite such a wide array of sources, her narrow focus keeps her book very tightly bound. It is an interesting read for anyone interested in economic and business history as well as the history of technology.

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[1] MacLeod, Christine. 2007. Heroes of invention: technology, liberalism and British identity, 1750-1914. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press

[2] Ibid 34

[3] Ibid 91

[4] Ibid 353

[5] Ibid 20

Danish Renaissance Cartography

In the standard historical narrative, the fifteenth century marked a time when science and cartography were closely linked as maps were portrayed as becoming increasingly scientific and accurate reflections of geographical reality.  However, most recent historians have countered this idea, asserting that “cartography is primarily a form of political discourse concerned with the acquisition and maintenance of power.”[1] However, the characterization of a ‘scientific map,’ widely accepted in Early Modern Europe, led to widespread use of maps as political tools in state formation, territorial disputes and boundary negotiations.  A particularly famous example of the authority that political figures gave to maps was the famed Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, which split colonizing rights of the non-European world between Spain and Portugal. After 1494, several different maps emerged placing the Spice Islands on various sides of the demarcation in order for one country or another to assert their sovereignty. However, maps were not only used in determining the shape of the New World, but were quite more often utilized to show the scope of an individual country. Rulers frequently commissioned national maps and cartography “became inseparable from the affirmation of monarchic power.”[2] In Denmark, the political function of maps arose much later in the Renaissance, near the late sixteenth century. Prior to this, though many maps of Scandinavia existed, they were primarily in the domain of Dutch mapmakers who created maps for mass consumption. For the Danish monarchy, maps centralized knowledge of the territory which soon let to a series of political shifts to regain lost territories, improve and expand parts of the country and gave the king a tool for absolutist authority.

                In Monarchs Ministers and Maps: The Emergence of Cartography as a Tool of the Government in Early Modern Europe[3], a series of historians examine the shift in authority granted to maps from the late early fourteenth century when monarchs did not use maps for practical purposes to the early eighteenth century, when maps were common administrative tools.  Examining several different countries, the authors cite centralization of political power as a key reason that monarchs became more interested in maps. Presenting surveys of Austria, the Spanish Hapsburgs, Italy, Spain, France and Poland, they do not address any Scandinavian nation. This does not detract from the book, which is not intended to be an encyclopedia. As such, if does not contrast any assertion that rather than being used because of centralized power, maps in Denmark specifically were used to centralize power due to the unique political position it held in the sixteenth century. Until 1523, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland were united under the Kalmar Union. After breaking up due to internal strife, Christian III settled on the throne of Denmark and asked Marcus Jordon, a mathematics professor at the University of Copenhagen, to map “all the kingdom’s provinces, islands, towns, castles, monasteries, estates, coastlines, and anything else worth noticing.”[4] Political boundaries were not defined and in several cartographic exchanges with Sweden, the earliest maps of self-made government sanctioned maps of Scandinavia were created, though they were often crude, based on Dutch maps, and sometimes drawn freehand. These territorial disputes were not easily settled and in the early seventeenth century Christian IV commissioned expeditions to the North Atlantic to produce maps of Greenland, Iceland, and North America. Before this time, all territorial claims were based on maps created by Dutch cartographers.[5] Both land and sea maps of disputed Danish territory suddenly proliferated in the early years of the seventeenth century. This time of maps, originating in the mid-sixteenth century also initiated a series of events used by the Danish government to consolidate power.

                The first development in the Danish road to absolutism through maps seems disconnected from cartography at first glance. After the dissolution of the Kalmar Union and the resulting civil war, Christian III charged the powerful Catholic bishops with high treason and placed himself at the head of the Protestant Church. This stripped competing territoriality away from people outside the royal family and placed lands, previously sovereign to religious authority, into the hands of the monarchy, giving the king greater claims to Danish land.[6] Then, he began to use maps to create fortification plans for various towns and castles, presumably to stronghold his power. This tradition of fortified city maps continued well into the seventeenth century. At this point, engineers not only used maps to create stronger cities, but also to write in future development of the city. Additionally, in the mid seventeenth century, the Danish government employed land surveys to improve roads, collect taxes and extend a uniform code of law. This period of consolidation culminated in Christian V’s Land Register of 1687 which provided a uniform registration of all Danish territory.[7] This resulted in the state “possessing” the authorship of the cartographic representations and Copenhagen becoming a seat of the state to expand control and power.

Clearly in Early Modern Europe, the role of cartography shifted to be a political tool of the state. According to many scholars, this was due to the overall trend of government centralization in the Renaissance.  Though Denmark did undergo some in the late sixteenth century, the early and mid were characterized by disunification and civil strife.  With the scientific authority granted to maps, especially as they were more frequently authored by the state, maps enabled the throne to achieve the administrative tasks necessary in consolidating power while extending territory in the creation of a new state.

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[1] Quoted in Turnbull, David. "Cartography and Science in Early Modern Europe: Mapping the Construction of Knowledge Spaces." Imago Mundi 48.(1996): 5-24. JSTOR Arts & Sciences VII. EBSCO. Web. 3 Mar. 2011 p. 6

[2] Turnbull p. 16

[3] Buisseret, David. Monarchs, ministers, and maps : the emergence of cartography as a tool of government in early modern Europe / edited by David Buisseret. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, c1992., 1992. UNIV OF OKLAHOMA LIBRARIES's Catalog. EBSCO. Web. 3 Mar. 2011.

[4] Strandsbjerg, Jeppe. "The Cartographic Production of Territorial Space: Mapping and State Formation in Early Modern Denmark." Geopolitics 13.2 (2008): 335-358. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 3 Mar. 2011. P. 348

[5] Harley, J B, and David Woodward. The History of Cartography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. Print p. 1792

[6] Strandsbjerg, 348

[7] Ibid 353

Wolfgang Schivelbusch's Tastes of Paradise

In his 1992 monograph Tastes of Paradise, Wolfgang Schivelbusch analyzes the role that various stimulants like spices and coffee have played in the social and cultural history of Europe. He arranges his chapters thematically, beginning with the history of spices. He argues that in the Middle Ages, the aristocracy favored heavily spiced dishes. These dishes became a way for the aristocracy to differentiate itself from the lower classes. Spices soon became the most valuable market commodity. He argues that the exploration of the new world was driven purely by the spice trade. However, with the discovery of cheap spices in India and Southeast Asia, the market was saturated and Europe’s palate grew to prefer blander foods. His next three chapters address the more classical stimulants of coffee, chocolate and tobacco. Coffee, he argues widely appealed to the growing Protestant bourgeois in England (and eventually the American colonies), who not only disapproved of alcohol, but also had a work ethic that favored industriousness and activity. The caffeine in coffee was considered to be a moral improvement over alcohol and became a fashionable social beverage. Chocolate, in contrast, became the favored drink of the Catholic aristocracy, who had obtained the drink through their American colonies. Rather than representing industry, chocolate consumption was a symbol of the luxury and languorousness of Catholic elites. Finally, tobacco, another import from the new world, took on social meaning as it evolved from a condemned unhealthy habit to a symbol of high culture to a tool in the women’s civil rights movement.  His final analysis is on the history of alcohol consumption. Though this narrative is treaded throughout the earlier parts of his text, particularly in the ways that coffee and chocolate replaced beer and wine intake in the upper and middle classes, these final chapter examine the social role that liquor and, and later opium played for the working class of the industrial revolution. These intoxicants were condemned by the upper classes, despite rampant use by wealthier bohemians and students, but were so deeply ingrained into the social and cultural fabric of the working class that it was difficult to control.

Schivelbusch’s text is interesting for many reasons. First, it is a very well-written and clearly argued text. His sources are extremely diverse and range from correspondence to shipping logs to recipes. It is unlikely that he would consider stimulants and intoxicants to be active agents in human history. For example, though he addresses the addictive nature of many of these foods, he does no really connect their massive popularity to this quality, but instead to their social and cultural status. Additionally, though he addresses the exotic nature of these goods as contributing to their popularity, he does not really focus on environmental factors that could contribute to their growth and distribution. So while food and drugs could easily be one of the “quasi-objects” described by Latour to understand human history in relation to nature, Schivelbusch would be unlikely to make the same characterization. For many reasons it is reminiscent of the later work of Callum Roberts’ on the history of fishing. Both works heavily suggest that the exploration and eventual colonization of the Americas, Africa and Asia was due largely to desires for food and beverages. Additionally, his argument for the social construction of tastes regarding stimulants and intoxicants reflects the strong social constructivism found in the work of David Barnes. His chapter on coffee and the Protestant work ethic recalls the Weber thesis, which while quite highly regarded in the twentieth century, has recently fell out of favor considering the success of many Asian countries and Catholic Spain.

Schivelbusch’s text, though extremely positive in many ways, is not without problems. For example, his reliance on the Weber thesis, makes his coffee chapter slightly weaker. Though his evidence is good, it seems to be more corollary than causative. Additionally, though his work is intended to focus on Western Europe, the histories of these stimulants in their countries of origin, or even the process in which they made it to Europe is markedly missing. Additionally, his section on spices seems rather weak, consisting only of twelve pages, when he spends so much time and evidence on coffee, alcohol, chocolate and tobacco. Organizationally, though his use of images was helpful and appealing, especially for a cultural history, there placement throughout each chapter was somewhat confusing. This was also due in part to their inconsistent captioning. However, this text is an interesting and well-written social and cultural history of Western Europe and shows the important place that food and beverages can hold in history. 

This Day in History

On this day in history, many important things occurred. The most famous likely is D-Day, or the Allied invasion of Normandy. George Orwell published 1984. The Battle of Midway and the Battle of Belleau Woods were fought during the day. In 1933, the  first drive-in movie theater opened. This is just the tip of the iceberg of events which occurred on June 6th-ranging from the YMCA, Sex and the City, my own birth, and the destruction of the Confederate navy.
I confess, my favorite has always been the Battle of Normandy. I learned about this in the first grade. The teacher asked the class if they knew what the day was. She told them that it was D-Day and wondered if we knew what that meant. Someone raised their hand and said "Today is D--------'s birthday and that it why it is D-Day." She laughed and corrected us. When I learned that my great-uncle, who I never met, left his leg on Omaha Beach, my interest in this event only increased. Eisenhower's gamble turned out to be one of the most successful, if bloody day for the Allies when over 155,000 American, Canadian, and British troops took the coast of France. Though their courage and quick-thinking have been honored probably in hundreds of media venues but we should take this day to remember that it is easy to think about historic causalities  as just numbers. However, if there was ever a single day in Iraq or Afghanistan where over two thousand lives were lost, there would be immediate uproar and perhaps retreat. We need to remember the Greatest Generation who were so willing to give their lives for their country, when a single battle could yield the same causalities of a whole war today. We also need to remember that these men, who would be quite elderly with large families if alive today, were full of the same hopes and dreams that our young men have now, and sacrificed them for a greater cause.

Fukushima-A Year+ later

Thirteen months after the Tohoku earthquake, a series of scholars have analyzed the historical relevance of the disaster in conjunction with the Fukushima nuclear disaster. These scholars general focus on how changes in the environment, like for example, the building of nuclear power plants, can have devastating consequences for local residents. Japan has a particularly unique history with environmental disease. During Japan’s “economic miracle” in the middle of the twentieth century, Japan very quickly became a leader in the global economy. A side effect of this rapid, capitalist development was widespread industrial pollution. A succession of high profile pollution diseases brought this problem to the attention of the public. Throughout the 1970s, citizens reacted with outrage in reaction to allegations that industries like the Chisso Chemical Company were intentionally poisoning the local water supply. This led to a number of strict reforms of industrial pollutants. However, this public outrage over industrial pollution did not extend to nuclear power plants. This was due in part to, until 1999, the lack of fatalities or visible human victims of radiation poisoning. However, that does not mean that people were not suffering-many workers were day laborers who lost their jobs when they exposure levels got too high and would therefore deny their exposure levels to keep their jobs. Workers also had to learn to change their own movements and regulate their own bodies in order to stay as healthy as possible. This theme was also present in Joy Parr’s Sensing Changes¸ where Canadian plant workers changed their body movements to keep their exposure levels down. Another reason that the Japanese public did not get incensed over nuclear power plants despite their inherent riskiness is the complete dependence of the Japanese economy on nuclear power. As Japan has few natural energy resources, nuclear energy is one of the most effective ways of fueling the economy.

A theme in all of these papers is the connection between technology and the environment. It is obvious from the widespread industrial diseases and research on radiation that humans can make changes to their environment with their technological systems which can in turn have devastating health effects. However, it is also clear that far more people have died as a result of the initial earthquake and tsunami and other natural disasters generally than industrial poisoning incidents. These pieces do not argue for any specific policy changes but it seems likely most hope for some sort of middle ground that neither endangers civilians nor reduces the amount of energy diverted to Japan. Another theme from these papers involves the idea of “normal accidents.” Nuclear power plants have been used in Japan since the late 1960s, and though they perhaps have created radiation dangers for the landscape, until Fukushima, there had never been any large nuclear disasters in Japan. However, earthquakes have always been a part of the Japanese environment. As noted by Greg Clancy in Earthquake Nation, earthquakes have created dangerous disruptions to technological innovations. For example, architectural changes in the nineteenth century, while reducing urban fire hazards, caused many deaths when large earthquakes struck. If earthquakes are part of the natural environment of Japan, presumably every accident caused by an earthquake is foreseeable. However, Japan would likely have no other large energy source without these plants. So therefore there exists a struggle between human economy and human safety. It also begs the question of whether or not large scale economic development is really possible without threatening the environment. 

Review of Alexandra Harmon's Rich Indians

In her 2010 book Rich Indians: Native People and the Problem of Wealth in American History Alexandra Harmon addresses the historical and anthropological stereotype that Indians in American have always become poorer due to interaction with non-Indians primarily due to a value system that shuns material excess. She argues instead that at every point in American history, some of the wealthiest people in the country have been self-indentified Indians. Since they were the overwhelming minority, they faced criticisms from both other Indians and non-Indians who accused them of greed, hypocrisy, and even of not being real Indians. On the other side, these wealthy individuals usually insisted that they were using their money morally by distributing much to the poor and not spending any more than they needed. Faced with incredible obstacles on either side, their wealth seldom lasted more than a generation or two. Using a combination of anthropological research, newspaper articles, and personal papers, Harmon successfully demonstrates that the relationship between Indians and economic advancement is not as clear as many historical accounts suggest.

            Harmon begins her text with an account of the economic state of the Powhatan confederation in Virginia at the founding of Jamestown in the early seventeenth century. This chapter, though interesting was one of the more troubling in her book. Harmon, in her introduction, suggests that “the attention of this book to Indian views of Indians”[1] is rare and one of its most important contributions to existing literature. By insisting on beginning her narrative at Jamestown, she almost guarantees that she will fail at this particular goal. Due to a lack of written sources, she relies mainly on colonial writings combined with general anthropological theory on the Indians of this region. Though this makes this chapter slightly less credible than her later ones since her assertions regarding Indian ideas of wealth are primarily speculative, she does show that the Powhatan had definite concepts of wealth and power. She uses colonial writings to show that while the Powhatan did of course value food, metal tools and pelts, they also stock piled more recognizable forms of wealth like high quality animal skins, pearls, antimony, and copper. These goods, usually offered as tribute to leadership would ensure that the people were provided for during times of need. The leader, Wahunsonacock, seemed to benefit immensely from his first interaction with settlers, receiving tribute of furniture, cloth, copper and pearls, while sending gifts of food to the starving colonists. In fact, his wealth was so great compared to the settlers that he was frequently accused of greed. Though settlers sent tribute only intermittently, between the dozens of Anglo-Powhatan wars, Wahunsonacock remained extremely wealthy his entire life. His daughter even married an English gentleman, an acknowledgement of his own high standing. However, his son was not able to maintain relations with the settlers who no longer dependant on the Powhatan drove them from their land.

            Harmon’s second chapter was perhaps the most interesting. She takes biographical sketches of a few very wealthy and powerful Indians and uses them as lenses to examine the problems associated with wealth. She shows that for people like Joseph Brant, Molly Brant, Alexander McGilliray and Mary Bosomsworth, their English education and literacy combined with their wealth and appreciation for luxuries put them in an unusual place during the eighteenth century. All of these people of course had close associations with non-Indians early in their lives which may have impacted their economic goals. Bosomsworth and McGilliray had non-Indian fathers; Molly Brant was married to a non-Indian who helped foster her younger brother Joseph. However, they insisted that speaking as leaders of their nations, they were owed funds by the English which they distributed for the sake of their people. They were accused of overstepping in many instances. Though all were criticized by non-Indians, McGilliray also faced resistance from his fellow Creeks, who did not approve of those “crassly concerned with accumulating more wealth.[2] Additionally, due to their education, parentage and Bosomsworth’s spousal choices, they were accused of not really being Indian, hence their interest in wealth. However, in each of these cases, an individual became wealthy, powerful and influential, but their position did not really extend past their children.

            Harmon’s next two chapters each address the Five Tribes, first antebellum, then during the gilded age. She discusses how before relocation some wealthy members of the Cherokee Nation have very large tracts of successful farmland. These men generally supported the rest of their community but also accepted money from the US Treasury. As part of his strategy to force federal involvement in Indian affairs, Jackson claimed that the wealthiest people among the Five Tribes were mostly “White citizens of the tribes” who were not protecting and supporting the “poor, unsophisticated Indians.” [3] However, Cherokee leaders such as John Ross and Elias Boudinot countered Jackson’s accusations and in their pleas for further financial support assured non-Indian audiences that they lived by “ethical standards that White Americans promoted but did not always observe.”[4] In her chapter on the gilded age, Harmon asserts that around the country more and more Americans became obsessed with wealth accumulation. In the Oklahoma Territory, the Cherokee and Creek nations experienced unprecedented wealth particularly due to cattle ranching and railroad speculation. Though these men never were as wealthy as many New England millionaires, they still have annual incomes of over a million dollars. However they were again accused of greed by fellow Indians and by non-Indians who still observed many Indians in poverty. Their solution was allotment and some formerly wealthy and educated men who did not register found themselves out of all of their land and money.

            Staying in Oklahoma, Harmon next addresses the Osage Oil Owners from the beginning of the nineteenth century. During the 1920’s the Osage were actually the wealthiest people per capita in the world with an average annual income of about forty thousand dollars. This presented a problem as typical of any population who suddenly receive a great deal of wealth, the Osage began to spend it on what seemed like frivolous things like cars, jewels and other extreme luxuries. This orgy of spending was criticized widely by newspapers who accused Indians of not “Planning in advance”[5] as well as not understanding what to do with money. They viewed the large parties-held outside, cars-used to carry pigs, and jewelry-worn with traditional clothes as evidence that wealth did not make Indians civilized. Likewise, more and more Osages were becoming wealthy as mixed bloods soon over populated the full bloods. This created arguments among several Indians and whites together about how Indian one must be to reap the benefits of Osage oil. However, this wealth did not bring them power as equally the US BIA decided to restrict the amount of money that that the Osage could receive in order to stop their immoral spending behavior.

            Harmon’s final two chapters address reclamation and then casinos. “Riches Reclaimed” is perhaps the most puzzling chapter in this book as did does not really address that sort of wealth from the rest of the book. This chapter instead addresses the growing realization that Indians in the twentieth century were generally quite poor and that reservations were generally impoverished with low life expectancy. It also addressed the war on poverty in the 1960’s and the initial hopes that Indians would be one of the targeted populations, before leading into the sovereignty movement. Indians nations began receiving tracts of land, larger oil revenues, as well as water, fishing and hunting rights. Though controversial among many non-Indians, again making accusations of greed these actions, while somewhat enriching the nations, did little to actually create personal wealth. Indeed, though many nations benefited from these changes, few individuals actually became wealthy as a result. Her chapter on casinos again addresses how, in the 1970’s tribes began to build casinos, skirting around state law. These casinos, since they were not subject to the same sorts of taxes and regulations as non-Indians one in Atlantic City or Nevada, were extremely successful. However, echoing the arguments of history, non-Indians have accused the owners of greed and misspending. Indians have likewise made the same accusations. Many point out that those who benefit most from casinos look more white than anything else. Harmon shows that the conflict over Indians and casinos is not a new problem.

            Harmon’s text is very interesting on many fronts. First, she is telling generally familiar stories to the reader, simply examining then in the light of the morality associated with wealth for Indians and non-Indians. She shows that for Indians, attaining wealth was complicated. If they remained poor, they were condemned for non-assimilation, ignorance and laziness, yet in these cases, when they became wealthy they were accused of being greedy and not even really being Indian. They were also accused by fellow Indians of these same things. They on the other hand, insisted that they were only taking what they had a right to, that they were generous with their neighbors and that they were not, unlike white Americans, concerned with stockpiling wealth for its own sake. This attitude reflects similar morality preached by wealth white Americans. What person would insist that they did not deserve their wealth and that they were not generous to the poor? After all, most white Americans in history have been Christian, a religion which likewise urges people to reject materiality. However the most interesting point in her books comes in the conclusion. Harmon suggests that most people think that Indians should be too noble and connected with non-material things to want wealth. However, there is not much noble able passively starving and dying of illness. Additionally, Indians are not fools-of course they will not reject something that is beneficial to them. Otherwise, even in the beginning with the Powhatan in Jamestown or the Creeks in GA, Indians would have not bothered to even bring food to the intruding colonists.

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[1] Harmon, Alexandra. Rich Indians: Native People and the Problem of Wealth in American History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010. Print. p.10

[2] Ibid 87

[3] Ibid 125

[4] Ibid  129

[5] Ibid 184

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.