My colleague on EUReferendum is an expert on what I blithely refer to as “toys”. The subject is of great importance to all those interested in the Anglosphere and his recent piece bears reading and discussing. Alas, the conclusions he comes to with regard to Britain are very depressing.
Anglosphere
Heather — The Fall of the Roman Empire
[cross-posted on Albion’s Seedlings]
Heather, Peter, The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History
Earlier this year, I spent some time reading about global economic patterns. William Lewis’s book “The Power of Productivity: Wealth, Poverty, and the Threat to Global Stability” [reviewed here] was a great comparative introduction to the internal dynamics of national economies. Among nations over 10 million, the US has a per capita income (at purchase price parity) roughly 20% more than the next in line (Canada) and roughly 25% above the rest of the G7. Its “differential” with most of the other nations of the world is literally insurmountable. This economic gap is driven by long-standing economic dynamism (and therefore productivity) which is widely “diversified” across industrial sectors. And the “osmotic” pressure of immigration drawn by both that prosperity and individual freedom is relentless.
Amy Chua’s book “World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability” [reviewed here] presents her argument that much of the world’s economic activity is controlled by “market-dominant minorities” (MDMs) and as democratic values take hold, there is often a conflict with the power of those minorities in dangerous ways. More dramatically, she proposes that the US is effectively now a global “market-dominant minority” which controls global values and activities in ways that are often not in the best interest of many entrenched or traditional power bases in the industrial and non-industrialized world.
Even more recently, I had a chance to read Moises Naim’s “Illicit: How Smugglers, Traffickers, and Copycats are Hijacking the Global Economy,” [reviewed here] which looks at illegal traffic in humans, drugs, guns, information, and cash from a neutral or economic perspective. His investigations suggest that illicit trade is growing much, much quicker than legitimate trade thanks to reduced costs of communication and transportation. And law enforcement is falling behind, when it is even cognisant enough to spot the new forms of illicit trade.
Taken as a set, these three books suggest sobering times ahead. The patterns they describe are deeply engrained in our modern world and guide world events as the tides would a boat. We can also add to this list Tom Barnett’s book "The Pentagon’s New Map"
Current events in Israel/Lebanon, and the recent debates over immigration in the US, have reawakened an interest I had several years ago in Roman frontier studies … an interest which led to intensive visits to the Hadrianic and Antonine Walls in England and Scotland, respectively. In the course of doing a little research on the German-Roman frontier (sussing out yet another guided tour for 2007) I came on a citation for a new book on the fall of the Roman Empire.
Since my knowledge of the “Fall” was sketchy and dated at best, I was long overdue for a refresh … and it turns out that this “New History” of the fall of the Roman Empire is very much worth the effort.
The Lost Constitution
[Update: I have been working on this for quite a while, but after having posted it, I was disturbed to see that I had bumped down Lex’s post about the horrible bombings in Mumbai. I have friends from there, and they have people they love there. I can only hope they were spared. God bless India. May St. Thomas watch over the people he loved.]
I am still trying to organize what I’m finding out about early Anglospheric political thought, and while I’m more confused than when I started, I came across some early evidence of republican social contract thinking in America. In 1638, John Locke was only five years old. In May of that year, Rev. Thomas Hooker preached a sermon at the town he and others had recently founded: Hartford, Connecticut. The text of the sermon has been lost. The only surviving record is the notes taken by Henry Wolcott:
text Deuteronomy I 13 choose you wise men and understanding and known among your tribes and I will make them heads over you captains over thousands captains over hundreds 50 10
doctrine that the choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by Gods own allowance
2 doctrine the privilege of election which belongs to the people it must not be exercised according to their humors but according to the blessed will and law of God
3 doctrine they who have power to appoint officers and magistrates it is in their power also to set the grounds and limits of the power and places unto which they may call them
1st of I – I reason because the foundation of authority is laid firstly in the free consent of people
2 – reason because by a free choice the hearts of the people will be more enlarged to the love of the person and more ready to yield obedience
3 – reason because of that duty and engagement of the people
Source: Connecticut History on the Web – Colony Readings (scroll down near end, no in-page anchors)
Also Separated at Birth?
I’ve been working from time to time on the issue of where the Anglosphere differs from the rest of the West, and where the US differs from the rest of the Anglosphere. While I was doing that, I thought it might be interesting to compare the central documents that came out of the twin revolutions in America and France. Both had to deal with the problems of avoiding both anarchy and despotism; reconciling the interests of the individual with those of the collective interest; and the inherent tension between liberty and equality. What follows is my attempt to match the first 10 amendments to the US Constitution, called the Bill of Rights after its English predecessor from 1689, with its French counterpart, the Rights of Man.
Jacob & Stewart – Practical Matter: Newton’s Science in the Service …
[cross-posted on Albion’s Seedlings]
Jacob, Margaret C. and Larry Stewart, Practical Matter: Newton’s Science in the Service of Industry and Empire 1687-1851
This book is a small gem. Well-written, modest in size, and tightly focused for the general reader, it describes the deep ties between Anglosphere civic culture and the development of modern science and industry. I stumbled on the title, as occasionally happens, when browsing through the bibliographies of other books, looking for interesting titles.
Professor Larry Stewart (Univ. Saskatchewan) wrote a book in 1992 called “The Rise of Public Science: Rhetoric, Technology, and Natural Philosophy in Newtonian Britain, 1660-1750
And it is that public angle that intrigued me and suggested a good Anglosphere fit. As an alternative to hunting down those older books, I decided to buy a more recent book co-authored by Jacob and Stewart, and get a sense of the authors’ arguments. If “Practical Matter” is any gauge, these authors deserve addition to a “watch list.” This little book has a premise that is both fascinating yet powerfully straightforward.
What was the impact of Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica