Book Notes

Karsh, Efraim, Islamic Imperialism: A History, Yale Univ. Press, 2006, 276 pp.

[cross-posted on Albion’s Seedlings]

In the course of the last five years, two explanations for 9/11 have taken pride of place. The first, notably championed by Bernard Lewis, cites the ongoing humiliation of the Muslim world since the decline and fall of the Ottoman Empire. The second, more broadly reflected in a kind of Occidentalism, claims a justifiable rebellion against the interference in Muslim affairs by European powers over the last two hundred years … if not back to the Crusades.

In Islamic Imperialism, Efraim Karsh steps away from the idea of an external force creating tension or dismay in the Arab or Muslim world, and looks at the internal dynamics of Islamic society from its earliest days. Who were Muslims actually fighting over the last 1300 years? Who were their allies? Which Muslims did the fighting? How keen were they to convert their conquered territories? What was their rationale for battle at the time? And how have the rationales changed over time, and been recast retrospectively?

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[cross-posted on Albion’s Seedlings]

Nisbett, Richard E., The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently … And Why, Free Press, 2003, 263 pp.

Previous posts for this blog has drawn on history, political science, technology trends, and a bit of economics. Only occasionally does an Anglosphere discussion turn to the biological or social sciences.

Some time ago, I put forward a proposal that the central unique attribute of the Anglosphere (its “secret weapon”) was its (inadvertent) ideal social structure for optimizing communal decision-making – the so-called “wisdom of crowds” effect. This proposed advantage is a matter of degree, drawing as it does on a universal capacity of humans in groups. Differences, however, even small ones, can have a big impact.
In the course of preparing materials for a website on medical decision-making for patients, I stumbled on a book with additional significance for the debate about the underlying nature of the Anglosphere. This book takes the biggest of “big picture” overviews of human cognition and perception.

Geography of Thought, by eminent U Mich social psychologist Richard Nisbett is a plain-language summary of years of social psychology research that suggest there are profound and substantial differences between the way Asian and Western cultures (and individuals) perceive the world.

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Chaplin, Joyce E., The First Scientific American: Benjamin Franklin and the Pursuit of Genius, Basic Books, NY, 2006. 421 pp.

[cross-posted on Albion’s Seedlings]

Not too long ago, I reviewed Practical Matter: Newton’s Science in the Service of Industry and Empire 1687-1851 describing the impact of Newton’s Principia on the development of public science and technology. That book briefly mentioned the fact that Benjamin Franklin’s influence was dramatically exhanced by the fact that he studied electricity … a subject of great fascination in the mid-18th century in Europe.

Scientific American‘s podcast recently interviewed the author of a new biography of Benjamin Franklin, which looks at his life from the perspective of his science. Harvard professor Joyce Chaplin has written a wonderful book for anyone wondering how science (natural philosophy), politics, and personality blended in the amazing life (and subsequent myths) of Ben Franklin. Note: the book has no association with the famous magazine.

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Cross-posted at Albion’s Seedlings.

This is cool. Andrew Roberts, one of the best English historians of this generation, is about to have his History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900 published. I have not gotten my hands on it yet, but here are two quotes, one from the extract on his website, and the other extracted from a review.

This from the extract: Just as we do not today differentiate between the Roman Republic and the imperial period of the Julio-Claudians when we think of the Roman Empire, so in the future no-one will bother to make a distinction between the British Crown-led and the American Republic-led periods of English-speaking dominance between the late-eighteenth and the twenty-first centuries. It will be recognised that in the majestic sweep of history they had so much in common – and enough that separated them from everyone else � that they ought to be regarded as a single historical entity, which only scholars and pedants will try to describe separately. A Martian landing on our planet might find linguistic or geographical more useful than ethnic factors when it came to analyzing the differences between different groups of earthlings; the countries whose history this book covers are those where the majority of people speak English as their first language.

Yes — this lays out one of the most basic points very succinctly. Most of the people of the Anglosphere are so close to the matter that all we see is the visible differences, which are often just a matter of “ethnographic dazzle” — colorful but fundamentally trivial differences. The more perspective the observer gains, either through cultural distance, passage of time, or geographical distance, the more the similarities and continuities of the Anglosphere stand out. Once you have gained this perspective, proper study of the Anglosphere can begin.

And here is a quote presented in Michael Burleigh’s review: A Maori spokesmen expressed this very well in 1918 as he outlined why his people had fought so courageously for the British Crown:

�We know of the Samoans, our kin: we know of the Eastern and Western natives of German Africa, and we know of the extermination of the Hereros, and that is enough for us. For seventy-eight years we have been, not under the rule of the British, but taking part in the ruling of ourselves, and we know by experience that the foundations of British sovereignty are based upon the eternal principles of liberty, equity and justice�.

An interesting footnote, and chilling foreshadowing that the Maori quoted could not have imagined when he spoke those words in 1918, is that the extermination of the Herero in South-West Africa in 1905 took place under the governorship of Paul Goering — father of Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering.

I’m sure I will have much more to say when I have read the book. And I look forward to what Lex, James, Helen and our other illustrious co-bloggers have to say as well.