Critique of Penna's The Human Footprint

In his 2010 monograph The Human Footprint, environmental historian Anthony Penna argues that the environment and world history cannot be understood without a billion-year scope. Combining the growing fields of both environmental and world history, he synthesizes the entire history of the earth in about three hundred pages. The first two chapters are entirely pre-historical and address the formation of the modern earth and the evolution of humanoids, ending with the dominance of homo-sapiens.  The remaining chapters are arranged thematically and address the following: Food production, population fluctuation, urbanization, mining/manufacturing, industrialization, trade, energy, and climate. Within each chapter, Penna explains how humans and the environment have interacted historically beginning in the pre-ancient world and ending very close to present-day. He ends his text with a reflective commentary on how “no species has changed the natural world as significantly as Homo sapiens”[1] mainly for the worse.

            Penna’s text fits, as it is largely a historical synthesis, fits within a large body of both world and environmental histories. He draws largely on the environmental work of J.R. McNeill, Vaclav Smil, and Alfred Crosby, the economic studies of T.H. Breen and K.N. Chaudhuri, and even the technological histories of David Nye and Lewis Mumford just to name a few. In his essay “World History and Environmental History,”[2] Kenneth Pomeranz also demonstrates how the study of environmental history can complement the field of world history. While asserting that historical research is generally conducted along regional lines, Pomeranz contends that the environment, which does not recognize political and cultural boundaries, is an ideal lens for examining history from a global perspective. Additionally, since some version of imperialism, state-making, developmentalism and resistance are universal to environmental history over very large periods of time, it allows historians to make very large scale comparisons in their studies. By examining world history through an environmental lens, “reinforce[ing] the still-contested point that the modern world was not simply born in Europe,”[3] scholars are able to examine historical consequences in an extremely far reaching manner, from pre-historical times up to current problems with global inequalities. This is clear in The Human Web as Penna tries to give equal historical importance to issues like ancient mining practices and coal pollution from the nineteenth century.

Penna’s integration of the study of technology with that of the environment is a tactic similar to that of Sarah Pritchard in Confluence, her 2010 book that examines the history of the Rhone River, though there are some major differences. In her book she assumes that not only does the natural world have an agency, but, like in the case of Bruno Latour’s “quasi-objects,” there is no real way to divide the study of nature from the study of humans. Though many historical actors and historians alike have attempted to separate nature from technology, she shows that they are necessarily linked. But in her environmental history she integrates the history of technological systems, “artifacts, practices, people, institutions, and ecologies.”[4] She brands this sort of study to be envirotechincal analysis. The systems that envirotechnical studies analyze encompass not only everything that would traditionally fit within the realm of environmental history, but also all of the social, cultural and political dimensions of the history of technology. By creating this field, she makes clear a concept that many previous historians have implied: the indivisible link between technology and the environments where they are used. Though Penna also makes many of these connections, after his second chapter, he makes distinction between human society and nature as separate entities that are frequently at odds. This could be due to his age. Though Penna was clearly a pioneer in the field, in the generation of world environmental historians like Stephen Pyne, Carolyn Merchant, and Alfred Crosby, later generations of environmental historians such as William Cronon, J.R. McNeill, along with Pritchard start to consider humans as a part of nature that cannot be analyzed independently and really cannot ever be at odds with each other. In fact, they question previous ideas that there even has been a “natural balance” in the environment that could have been interrupted by people.

            This brings up another issue in Penna’s text. Penna’s first two chapters act as a way to show how geological events such as the formation of the Himalayas impacted the long-term climate conditions in the area and therefore the eventual human land use there. The chapters were reminiscent of a high school environmental science textbook. Though they were very interesting, I am not sure that they really contributed to his text. The events that he narrates occurred so long before the existence of people that it is unclear whether or not they contributed to events in human history. Additionally, these chapters assume that historians must accept current science in order to understand history. This is problematic for any historian of science. Almost every scientific paradigm from the past has been disproved and it stands to reason that many of the current scientific paradigms are also culturally and socially determined and do not necessarily represent any objective truth. It also forces a lot of speculation about ‘what could have happened’ in the past without knowing what actually did. This section is especially problematic due to Penna’s stylistic choices. His grammar is especially poor and the quotations from his sources are awkwardly situated within the paragraphs. This gives the impression that he is unclear about the science that he is citing. It also means that the reader is far less efficient and invests more reading time than necessary to understand the content. Another issue with The Human Footprint and environmental histories generally is the fact that they often contain a lot of presentism. The study of environmental history, which became widely popular in the late 1980s, emerged alongside the environmentalist history. This leads to the problem of taking modern concerns and transporting them into the past where they did not really exist. On this note, it can lead historians, like Penna does, into adopting a moral or political stance in their work. Though it does essentially negate any pretense of an objective history, this is not necessarily negative. In fact, it can also make the study of history relevant to many more people and applicable to many of today’s political and social issues. A final issue with Penna’s text is also his attitude of environmental determinism. Penna is not the only historian who engages in environmental determinism[5] but since he begins his narrative so early in earth’s history, it is especially clear in his book. It suggests that there is some measure of inevitability in history; if people are from an environmentally suitable place, they will be economically successful. Of course, this is almost a tautology. In the words of Eric Hobsbawn: “what happened was inevitable because nothing else happened.”[6]

One unique aspect of Penna’s book is his large discussion about the environment in urban history. Though some historians such as Martin Melosi, and Joel Tarr and Clay McShane have recently examined the history of urban environments coming from a history of technology perspective, traditionally, environmental historians have ignored the urban landscape, possibly due to a perception that once urbanized, a landscape no longer has any value as an environmental space.[7] The main ways that historians have embarked on this sort of environmental history is through the examination of waste management, disease control, and the role of animals in history. Penna engages with these topics, explaining the role of both infectious and environmental disease in chapters four, six, seven, and nine; waste management in three, five, six, and seven; and animals in four, five, seven, and nine. He also engages in the growing field of energy history. This was explored at length by Alfred Crosby in Children of the Sun, who basically argues that the history of humanity has been driven by the search for more energy.[8] Though he does explore the use of animal muscle power in industrialization, he does not examine the role of animals as energy storage units. Sam White in particular has shown the value of pigs as energy depositories for excess calories that could be harvested in times of energy shortages. Asian pigs in particular were such valuable resources that they managed to spread all over the world and replace nearly all other varieties of pig. [9]

The Human Footprint certainly offers many ways that one could examine the environment and world history. However, I am not sure that he contributes much new to the field as he only synthesizes the work of others. Of course it is perfectly possible to write an original argument based on the research of others like McNeill and McNeill did in The Human Web, but since Penna’s text lacks any specific narrative other than that people and their environments impact each other. Additionally, large macro-histories present many problems particularly in overgeneralization and even threaten to venture on superficial and essentialist versions of history. This is not necessarily completely negative. The Human Footprint has the capacity to introduce concepts of “big history” and environmental world history to a lay audience or a low-level college classroom, readers who would be unlikely to appreciate a more serious academic work. As such, despite some problem areas, this text could easily have a valuable function for designing a course on the environment and world history.

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[1] Penna, Anthony N. The Human Footprint: A Global Environmental History. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.

[2] Pomeranz, Kenneth “World History and Environmental History,”[2] in Burke, Edmund, and Kenneth Pomeranz. The environment and world history. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. p. 3-32

[3] Ibid 8

[4] Pritchard, Sara B. Confluence: the nature of technology and the remaking of the Rhône. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2011. p. 19

[5] See Jared Diamond, William McNeill’s Plagues and Peoples

[6] Hobspawn, Eric “Marx and History” New Left Review I/143 (January 1987): 39-50 p. 43

[7] Di Chiro, Giovanna “Nature as Community: The Convergence of Environmental and Social Justice” Cronon, William. 1996. Uncommon ground: rethinking the human place in nature. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.

[8] Crosby, Alfred W. Children of the Sun: A History of Humanity's Unappeasable Appetite for Energy. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006.

[9] Sam White, “From Globalized Pig Breeds to Capitalist Pigs: A Study in Animal Cultures and Evolutionary History,” Environmental History 16 (January 2011): 94–120.

Review of Brian Ogilvie’s The Science of Describing

Brian Ogilvie’s 2006 macro-historical monograph The Science of Describing: Natural History in Renaissance Europe¸[1] charts the history of naturalism through four generations of naturalists from the late fifteenth through the early seventeenth century. He begins by explaining that through integrating the traditions of medical humanism, Aristotelian philosophy, and natural philosophy, Renaissance naturalists formed a new discipline dedicated to discovering and describing plants and animals. Through examining evidence culled from published herbals, woodcuts, drawings, correspondence, travel journals and garden plans, Ogilvie successfully outlines the evolution of the practice of natural history through the Renaissance and Early Modern Europe.

In his first chapter, Ogilvie sets the framework for Renaissance natural history. He describes the various geographical settings for naturalists, particularly urban centers in Western and Central Europe,[2] scholarly communal relationships between naturalists,[3] and the preeminence of botany over zoology in the study of nature.[4] For this reason, Ogilvie says he will focus the remainder of his book on botanical studies.[5] Ogilvie begins his narrative in the late fifteenth century when naturalists concentrated their studies on the ancient and medieval understandings of nature.[6] Through studying ancient writers, medical humanists used the methods and accounts of Pliny, Galen, and especially Dioscorides to justify their studies and frame their pursuit of medical knowledge through studying plants.[7] In the mid-sixteenth century, the second generation of Renaissance naturalists drifted towards a different goal. Due to the massive influx of new plants from abroad, they recognized that the ancients had limited access to plant diversity and sought to create their own catalogues of every possible plant[8] through stockpiling massive collections of dried and fresh plant in curiosity cabinets, botanical gardens and herbariums.[9] Finally the third generation moved toward a different approach of studying nature. Facing collections of thousands of new plant species, these naturalists worked on taxonomically classifying the knowledge that their predecessors had had accumulated.[10]

Ogilvie’s analysis focuses not only on the evolution of the practitioners of natural history from medical humanists to phytograpers to cataloguers between 1490-1590, but also gives some account of who specifically was studying natural history and how they contributed to the larger discipline. He emphasized that no one individual could accumulate such knowledge on their own. In fact, frequently when collecting in the field, the naturalist was accompanied by a team; sculptors, apothecaries, medical students, and painters.[11] Additionally they frequently used the testimony of gardeners, midwives, apothecaries, and peasants for their studies, though these individuals based on their professions, were not part of the scholarly community of naturalists.[12] Furthermore, naturalists were expected to freely share their knowledge and specimens and did so through vast correspondence. This has strong implications for the ways in which knowledge was shared and understood in the Renaissance. By imagining an international community of naturalists that opposed the hierarchy and commerciality of the general society, “unsullied by either servitude or filthy lucre,”[13] natural history was constructed as a liberal art that could be purely and objectively knowledge based.

Ogilvie’s work is comparable to much of the vast literature on botany and the scientific art history in Early Modern Europe. In their book Wonders and the Order of Nature, Lorraine Daston and Katharine Park deliberate the subject of wonder in the integration of art and nature in early modern Europe between 1150-1750 AD. Most of the images that they discuss involve artists using their work as a vehicle to fuse the "wonders of art and the wonders of nature."[14] They describe many botanical paintings that were intended to bring nature to the viewer, similar to Ogilvie’s discussion of naturalists using images to further spread their knowledge. Additionally, in her article “Ad vivum, near het leven, from the life”[15] Claudia Swan's analyzes the claims of "ad Vivum" and "ad Naturam" in botanical books and discusses the evolution of this terminology as it applied to nature illustrations. She also suggests that botanical illustrations that were part of curiosity cabinets would allow viewers to see subjects that instead of being present, when unavailable "were collected by proxy…and deemed capable of standing in for an otherwise unavailable or impermanent specimen."[16] Her article corresponds with many of Ogilvie’s points on how plants were drawn in various herbals, with both fruits and flowers intact. Finally, Daston and Galison’s Objectivity[17], published after The Science of Describing, brings further depth to the topic of untainted studies of botany and bring truth to nature through botanical studies. However, though there are several parallels between this book and others in the same field, since it offers a unique look at natural history in the Renaissance by providing background and charting the evolution of how natural history changed over a century.

Beginning with the humanists in the fifteenth century and ending with the systematic cataloguers in the early seventeenth century, Brian Ogilvie successfully demonstrates the changing progression of natural history over four generations of Early Modern naturalists. He also addresses unique qualities of the botanical community and the invention of new methodology for addressing this knowledge. His book also fits very well within the field of the Early Modern natural history and is an essential read for those interested in Early Modern Science, Early Modern Art, and intellectual history.

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[1] Ogilvie, Brian W. The Science of Describing: Natural History in Renaissance Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. Print.

[2] Ibid p. 63

[3] Ibid p. 54

[4] Ibid p. 49

[5] Ibid

[6] Ibid p. 87

[7] Ibid p. 138

[8] Ibid p. 139

[9] Ibid p. 175

[10] Ibid p. 209

[11] Ibid p. 70

[12] Ibid. 55

[13] Ibid 58

[14] Daston, Lorraine, and Katharine Park. Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150-1750. New York: Zone Books, 1998. Print p. 206

[15] Swan, Claudia “Advivum, near het leven, from the life: Considerations on a Mode of Representation” Word and Image 11 (Oct-Dec 1995)

[16] Ibid 369

[17] Daston, Lorraine, and Peter Galison. Objectivity. New York: Zone Books, 2007. Print

The Standardization of Knowledge in Enlightenment Hospitals

A common perception in the history of medicine, one that embodies the idea of ‘progressive science,’ was that until the 1950’s hospitals were dangerous dens of death to be avoided at all costs, where more died than were cured. A brief examination of the hospital movement in the Enlightenment shows that this was not necessarily the case. Though mortality rates in hospitals were not low by modern standards, during the Enlightenment a “hospital movement” swept through Europe.[1] These hospitals, rather than previous uses as religious institutions that provided segregation and confinement of the chronically ill and impoverished, were tools of both the private sector and the state to invest in the social order and material economy of their societies. Due to rapid population growth and urbanization, health conditions in the early eighteenth century were extremely poor. Fitting with Enlightenment ideals, such hospitals were developed with the premise that sickness could be controlled and even removed from society. Hospitals soon admitted hundreds of patients with the expectation that they could be cured as were also considered valuable tools for medical instruction. Though presently hospitals revolved around teaching medical and surgical students, they were organized for serve as observational tools only which in turn, standardized treatments and behaviors of doctors in Western Europe.

Clinical instruction in hospitals was not unique to the eighteenth century. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries a few professors of medicine brought their students to hospitals in order to present examples of conditions on which they lectured. Surgeons, apothecaries and midwives had long, deeply entrenched traditions of clinical training but this was new ground for physicians. Since at this time hospitals were places that used the skills of surgeons and physicians, these fields became more blurred than ever before. Additionally, the demand for skilled practitioners in the military required that some standardized venue be used to educate military doctors. Initially at the Royal Hospital in Edinburgh, students were allowed to freely observe the actions of surgeons and physicians until their large numbers proved to be a distraction and inconvenience. Though in London students were allowed free access well into the eighteenth century, since many of their patients were non-paying, the hospital administration at Edinburgh began to rely on revenue from admission tickets as early as 1738, also restricting the hours and rooms that students could visit. For the most part of the eighteenth century, clinical lectures were popular and encouraged among medical students though they were not actually required until 1783.[2] In many hospitals, autopsies were also used for pathological purposes in order to instruct burgeoning students about the effects of certain conditions on anatomy.

Given the very strict purposes of the hospitals to be both centers of research and teaching, as well as rehabilitating institutions to improve the social order and economic efficiency of an area, the type of patients admitted was very specific. First, though hospitals were working to get away from an image of havens for the poor only, some even changing their titles to “infirmaries,” they were still mainly populated by the poor who were more likely to get sick to begin with and could not afford in-home care. However, these poor generally needed to be deemed deserving by an outside sponsor; that is to say, they generally needed to be working individuals with good character. Most hospitals would not even treat venereal disease. Rehabilitating these figures, it was assumed, would ensure that they could quickly return to work without becoming a permanent burden on society. In order to meet these goals, they did not see a practical value investing in those with chronic conditions or serious untreatable injuries. Most patients suffered from acute injuries and potentially non-fatal diseases.  Due to the teaching agenda of many hospitals, administrators often ensured that they maintained a quota of certain types of patients.[3] Patients were sought who displayed an extremely rigidly typical set of symptoms as they were the best suited for teaching purposes.  This set of manner of collecting specific types of patients in order to demonstrate specific disease or treatments meant that for the first time, diagnosis as well as treatment became relatively standardized. Since hospitals around Europe modeled themselves after their neighbors, this because the case internationally.  This standardization as well as the routine nature of autopsies also made hospitals rather than private anatomies schools the main centers for medical research. For the first time, professionals had large collections of people with potentially treatable problems in a single setting who could scarcely object to experimental treatment.

However, perhaps more important than the standardization of diagnosis and treatment, hospital served another purpose in regimenting patient care, establishing a particular tradition of bedside manner, just as regulated as fever treatments. Students, who generally were required to have some knowledge of medicine before embarking on clinical lectures, were able to do little more than observe and occasionally ask questions of patients. Students were forced to adhere to specific types of questions and before speaking to patients themselves, were required to observe the interactions between patients and senior doctors.[4] They were encouraged to be friendly and professional as well as respectful of the patients’ privacy and failure to abide by these precepts could result in expulsion. The development of bedside manner established a particular relationship between doctors and patients, which was not an aspect of medical education before this time. Additionally, since the majority of patients in these types of hospitals were there experiencing an acute and treatable condition, they were generally cooperative and deferential to physicians due to the kind treatments and relative success rate of such institutions, as opposed to the more standard view of doctors in earlier times as skilled men from whom one could buy services.

Though in a standard narrative, the Enlightenment was a relatively stagnant time in the history medicine, sandwiched between the plethora of anatomical discoveries of the previous century and the ‘scientific’ efficiency of the next, clearly this period was important in the development of modern medicine. Not only did it begin a shift from hospitals as religious institutions dedicated to hospice to social institutions hoping to reform disease into submission and place hospitals at the center of medical education and research, it saw the reconciliation of surgical and standard medical education, previously separate fields and lead to the standardization of medical diagnosis, treatment and behavior so that arriving with a fever in Edinburgh, Vienna or Philadelphia would garner patients a similar experience in regards to their health.

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[1] Porter, Roy. 2004. Flesh in the Age of Reason. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. p. 214

[2] Risse, Guenter B. 1986. Hospital life in enlightenment Scotland: care and teaching at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire]: Cambridge University Press.

[3] Risse, Guenter B. 1999. Mending bodies, saving souls: a history of hospitals. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 236

[4] Ibid 253

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.