Review of Cathleen Cahill's Federal Fathers & Mothers

In her 2011 book Federal Fathers & Mothers: A Social History of the United States Indian Service, 1869-1933,[1] Cathleen D. Cahill examines the conceptual framework and objectives around which the US Indian Service were set, then provides a detailed analysis of how federal employees actually practiced these goals. She demonstrates that there was a frequent disconnect between the policy makers intention and the way that the Indian Service was actually implemented. Cahill divides her text into three sections. In the first, she shows how the Reconstruction influenced the development of assimilation policy and how due to concerns about corruption, they subcontracted management to religious groups. The second, and most detailed part of her book detail the everyday lives of “The Men and Women of the Indians Service,”[2] particularly the impact of hiring workers of each gender, both Native and white to administer policy. Finally, she explains how the implementation of the Indian Service for thirty years caused policy changes due to forces both internal and external to the BIA. Using a variety of sources, particularly personnel files for employees, Cahill successfully demonstrates how the complicated, varied, and sometimes contradictory goals and tasks of Indian Services workers collided with the policy makers assumptions and yielded unintended consequences.

Cahill begins by discussing how the post Civil War dealings with former slaves served as a model for Indian policy. They generally agreed that the Indian population should be treated as “wards” of the nation rather than full citizens and in order to make up for past wrongs, the federal government designed programs, implemented at first by Quakers and then other religious groups, that would give Indians the tools to become good citizens while avoiding the dangers of dependency.  She suggests that this was the first program of its kind; rather than repaying soldiers, for example with pensions or land, it instead used national resources to fund social programs aimed at civilizing. Though this required treaty-breaking, it was believed to be the best way to assimilate the native population and pull them out of poverty. They focused most of their educational efforts on idealizing the Western notion of home and family. They believed that physical homes would incentivize capitalist tendencies among and that changing the living arrangement of Indians would alter family relationships, highlighting the necessary gender roles of a white nuclear family. To do this, they hired farmers, craftsmen, teachers and administrators and well as seamstresses, cooks and laundresses so that Indian children and adult males could be educated in English and agriculture and, keeping in expectations about gender roles, the females in laundry and housekeeping.

The largest portion of her book discusses the day to day activities of workers in the Indian Service. She notes that the Indian Service was unusual due to its large reliance on female workers, often in leadership positions, who drew larger salaries and had more independence than any other job. However, hiring women to serve as examples to the Indian population was paradoxical and represented the little opinion that the federal government had for Indians.  First, the kind of women, especially single women who were drawn to the Indian Service were usually not ideal subservient housewives, a quality which would have never let them receive such a coveted job among sometimes fierce competition. Additionally, the authority given to these women over Indian men did not accurately represent the relationship between men and women in normal middle-class settings. In fact, the authority of many of these women were routinely challenged and only kept in place due to the threat of violence, subverting the moral influence that they were supposed to have on Indian women.[3]

Married couples represented a large number of Indian Service workers. In fact, they were highly valued as they could provide an example an ideal married couple to Indians. However, this also led to complications especially as their children were usually not able to attend school with Native children, and in many cases, political manipulations were required to keep both spouses stationed together. The Indian service also drew a large number of Indian workers, usually graduates of either boarding schools or reservation schools who filled every possible position in the Indian service though usually in a place subservient to whites. Though frequently Indians were stationed far from their tribe, they began to identify which each other as Indians and bond through common experiences. Indians used their positions within the Indian Service to try to elevate their community and draw a respectable paycheck without destroying their culture or leaving the Indian community. Finally, due to large groups of single, educated and similarly thinking people of both races and gender living and working together in a fairly close proximity, the Indian Service resulted in a least hundreds of interracial and inter-tribal marriages, which to both many Indians and whites were disagreeable.

Cahill concludes with a discussion of the impact of Progressivism on the Indian Service. While some ideals espoused by Progressivism could have helped complete assimilation, hardening notions of race changed the goal of policy makers from creating a voting, land holding middle class to a racially segregated working class. This resulted in the closing of several boarding schools, emphasizing vocational training and limiting opportunities for educational advancement. This had devastating effects on the entire Native population, especially the thousands of former students who were well educated even by white standards, but overlooked by the federal government. When the Indian Service began to issue pensions to former employees, which created another group of dependent individuals, they frequently excluded Indian workers from receiving benefits. This was especially true of Indian women. She finally remarks that although the Indian Service is characterized by its and ineptitude corruption, which was present in some cases, most employees were effective and had been trained as much as any public school teacher. The Indian Service was simply not prepared for the situation and did not expect many of the consequences of their actions.

Cahills’s book is interesting in several ways. First, she paints a very human picture of the Indian service and based on her sources is able to provide a balanced view of all workers, men and women, Indian and white. She demonstrates that in the case of any social policy, the ideals of policy makers cannot measure up to the realities on the ground. She does bite off slightly more than she can chew, with the final chapters of her book. While the middle is extremely rich and interesting, when she discusses the end of the Indian service and forces that led to its demise, it feels rushed and incomplete. But as a social history rather than a political one, it is an excellent text for anyone interested in nineteenth century history, womens' or Indian history, or History of the American West.

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[1] Cahill, Cathleen D. 2011. Federal fathers & mothers: a social history of the United States Indian Service, 1869-1933. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press

[2] Ibid  61

[3] Ibid  76

Peter Dear’s “Miracles, Experiments, and the Ordinary Course of Nature”

In his 1990 article “Miracles, Experiments, and the Ordinary Course of Nature,” Peter Dear expands on the discussion previously propagated by Robert Merton and Thomas Kuhn dividing scientific methodology in early Modern Europe between Catholic and Protestant countries. According to the standard narrative, during early seventeenth century, scientific practices split between mathematical and experimental traditions. Though there was some overlap with figures like Newton, scientists from a Protestant, particularly English tradition practiced “experimental philosophy,” where scientists on the continent instead focused their attention on mathematical traditions. Dear argues that the behaviors associated with handling miracles in French life, absent in the Protestant belief in the cession of miracles, valued the same inferential practices of universalized experiences found in mathematical sciences ahead of the singular experiences found in English experimental philosophy.

According to Dear, the dominant theory of natural knowledge in the early seventeenth century involved the assumption that true knowledge was sharable through common experience rather than coming from a contrived situation. Therefore when mathematical practitioners such as Pascal performed experimental practices, they discussed them in terms of behavior that happened routinely. For example, when Pascal carried a partially inflated bladder up Puy de Dome, rather than referring to the results as a single experiment contrived by him on that particular volcano, he referred to it generally as a universalized knowledge true on any “five hundred fathom”[1] mountain. The English experimental tradition, in contrast, usually involved recorded experiments in the first person, the circumstances under which it was performed and who witnessed it. For English Protestants, since nothing occurred “outside the laws of nature,” anything thing could be observed in a contrived experiment. However, this was not the case for their Catholic contemporaries. According to a traditional theory of miracles, a miracle was a singular event which occurred outside of “the laws of nature.” It could only occur via divine mandate and life English experiments, in order to be validated, required many witnesses and specific details.

Dear’s account of English experiments and French miracles in seventeenth century Europe shows how religious and cultural attitudes towards miracles shaped scientific dialogue and methodology. In the English tradition, where miracles were non-existent, the most valued form of science was based on a singular artificial experience with several witnesses. In the French tradition, where miracles were regular occurrences of events unexplainable by science, the most valuable scientific truth was that which was universal and shared by any person. His explanation successfully shows how cultural perception of certain phenomena changed scientific practice and theory for French and English scientists in Early Modern Europe.

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[1] Dear, 678

Review of Lincoln and the Indians

In his 1978 book Lincoln and the Indians: Civil War Policy & Politics, David A. Nichols reviews and analyzes the policies towards American Indians characteristic of Lincoln’s presidency. He begins by asserting that past historians have neglected this field due to a misguided belief that the Civil War did not give him time to deal with Indian affairs or that Indian history has been mainly “an antiquarian study, segregated from the major developments of American history.”[1] He divides his book into three general sections. After briefly explaining the state of the Indian System before Lincoln’s election, he explains Lincoln’s policies towards the Southern tribes, particularly the ‘Five Civilized Tribes.’ He then discusses Indian relations in the Northwest, paying special attention to the Dakota War of 1962, and finally summarizes various attempts at reform that were made during Lincoln’s terms. Using secondary sources in addition to an abundance correspondence from major historical actors, Nichols successfully shows that Lincoln used Indian policy and politics as tools for his own career, alternately offering support or indifference as they suited his own political aims.

After a brief sketch highlighting the corruption and bureaucratic problems in the Indian system as it was inherited by Lincoln, Nichols explains the role that Southern tribes played in the Civil War. He argued that due to lack of protection by Union soldiers, offers of legislative representation in the Confederate government, geographical location, and some similar values such as slaveholding and limited federal interference in government, the majority of southern tribes allied with the Confederacy. Some Indian leaders, like Stand Watie, became vital to the Confederate military strategy. Due to the military advantage of holding the Oklahoma Territory as well as the high cost of Indian refugees pouring into Kansas, many of Lincoln’s advisors saw advantages in making a military incursion into Indian Territory. It is here where Nichols begins to paint very human portraits of the characters that he describes. Using their own correspondence, he shows how much progress of bogged down and underfunded due to political infighting and personality clashes between Generals Jim Lane and David Hunter. Due to these conflicts, the Territory never got the aid it needed and the refugees starved and died of infectious diseases while waiting. This problem was compounded later in the war due to the former alliance with the South which made aiding southern tribes a far less sympathetic and very politically dangerous task.

            After explaining how Lincoln’s policies affected southern tribes, Nichols gives what is likely the most solid evidence for his thesis when discussing Lincoln’s reaction to the Dakota War. The Dakota War in 1862 was likely begun after a confrontation between some Sioux men and some settlers, which resulted in five deaths.  Arguably, this stemmed from the consistently corrupt and unfair trade practices in the region which were cheating the Sioux out of their government annuities and causing tremendous hunger and hardship in the region. The reaction was several battles fought between the US Army, white settlers and the Sioux. When, in December, the last Sioux surrendered, over one thousand people, including women and children were kept as political prisoners. Most of the men were sentenced to death with very little due process. Lincoln, who needed to give the order for execution, delayed his decision for some time. Politically, either choice would be negative. Some missionaries like Henry Whipple, declared that most of the men sentenced were innocent, and that in this situation, charity was called for. Additionally, such a large mass execution would undoubtedly hurt the public image of the US and perhaps give European countries and excuse to offer aid to the Confederacy. However, the fevered situation of Minnesotans meant that if he did not approve the execution, he would lose many votes. His final compromise was extremely politically savvy. He elected to execute only thirty eight Sioux, while a fraction of the number sentenced, still the largest mass execution in US history. Thus he managed to placate humanitarians. However, he also allowed for the Sioux to be removed from their land in Minnesota, opening up new territory for white settlers and ensuring that his charity did not cost him votes. Once this matter was resolved, he did not return to it and left dozens of the prisoners to die in jail.

            Finally Nichols concludes his text with several chapters on reform attempts during Lincoln’s presidency. He discusses the failures of militarism in Colorado and New Mexico as well as the continued corruption in the federal bureaucracy of the Indian system. He also summarizes the various attempts of reformers like Whipple, Lane, John Pope, William Dole, and Morton Wilkinson. He discusses Lincoln’s initial endorsement of Indian reform in 1962[2] which was overshadowed by more vital national goals like the Manifest Destiny and racist attitudes affecting politicians including Lincoln. Eventually, by 1865, despite the large disturbances in the Indian system like the Dakota War and the Civil War, the system returned to normal, neither helped nor hindered in particular by Abraham Lincoln.

            Nichols’ book is interesting in many ways. He provides very interesting context for American Indian History and shows that it should not be segregated from Civil War history. His book as also very well written and his copious quotations from correspondence allow the reader to connect with many actors who are not as well known as Lincoln, particularly Whipple and Lane. He does lack perspective from the Indians, attempting to speak for them through humanitarians, but this is a deficit that he acknowledges in his introduction.  He also has a slight tendency to turn the Indians that he does discuss into victims. This may be fitting in most of his narrative, but his discussion of the Southern tribes involvement in the Civil War, it slightly minimizes the intelligence and value of the soldiers in the Army of the Trans-Mississippi and other Indian troops, especially considering that Watie was the last Confederate General to surrender. However, this book was extremely successful in providing a clear history of federal-Indian relations during the civil war and is a valuable text for anyone who studies American history.

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[1] Nichols, David A. Lincoln and the Indians: Civil War Policy and Politics. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1978. Print. p.

[2] Ibid p 144

Resource Tip: The National Academy of Sciences' Biographical Memoirs

If you are doing research on the history of modern science in America, this is a great research tool. The National Academy of Sciences’ Biographical Memoirs[1]are short biographical articles on the lives of deceased members of the National Academy of Sciences. Written by “those who knew them or their work,” it has amassed over 1400 biographies since 1877. It includes persons in several different fields of science all which fit into the following categories: Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering and Applied Sciences, Biomedical Sciences, Behavioral and Social Sciences and Applied Biological, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences. Since membership in the National Academy of Sciences is needed to be included in the collection, most featured scientists completed the bulk of their work in the United States. Though some women such as Margaret Meade and Barbara McClintock are given entries, the overwhelming majority are male. This is likely due to the fact that most prominent female scientists of the last century are still living. Each article begins with a brief summary of their early life and then quickly enters into their education and career development, dedicating the most space to their contributions to American science. The tone and obvious connection that the authors have to their subjects implies that the biography is intended to be a eulogy. The entire collection is available online as PDF files at the National Academy of Sciences website, where the articles are listed alphabetically as well as searchable by keyword.  Currently since not all deceased members have full articles, it is possible to join a mailing list that will send updates as new memoirs are posted.

The complete Biographical Memoirs can be found at: http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/online-collection.html

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[1] National Academy of Sciences (U.S.). 1877. Biographical memoirs. Washington: National Academy of Sciences.

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.