Book Notes

Five Years A Dragoon: ’49 to ’54 and other Adventures on the Great Plains. Percival G. Lowe (1905) reprinted 1965 University of Oklahoma Press Norman

[cross-posted on Albion’s Seedlings]

One of the great dramas of the late 19th century was the rapid American transition from self-absorbed isolationism to globe-trotting bravado in the last decade of the 19th century. Part of the story is the buildup of muscle and self-confidence which the American public and American military acquired during the development of the West. The vast scale of the American continent, its settlement and policing, was to absorb the energies of America through most of the 19th century. After somber hints to Napoleon Bonaparte from Thomas Jefferson, the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 was to add 282,000 square miles to the United States, almost 22% of its ultimate continental extent. Settlement of the Missouri drainage west of the Mississippi was initially quite slow. With the discovery of gold in California in 1849 however, the wagon trails from Saint Louis, Missouri were striking off in greater and greater numbers each year. Five Years a Dragoon may seem a strange subject for a chicagoboyz book review but it describes the American military experience for an ordinary soldier during a period when European nations could ignore American activities except for the border clashes in Maine and Oregon (settled effectively, if not amicably, by treaty with Great Britain). Percival Lowe was an enlisted man and writes in a lucid clear style reminiscent of US Grant’s autobiography. Without a military reputation to enhance, his accounts of the period from 1849 onward in the region from Kansas west to the Rocky Mountains are notable in many ways.

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Kurzweil, Ray, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, Viking, 2005, 672 pp.

[cross-posted on Albion’s Seedlings]

Every twelve to eighteen months, according to the common interpretation of Moore’s Law, the performance of our computers (measured against a fixed cost) doubles. It has done so for decades, and shows every indication of continuing for decades more. In the early 90s, chess grandmaster Kasparov disparaged computer chess programs. Yet a few years later, in 1997, Deep Blue (a fearsomely specialized computer built by IBM, running 256 customized modules) beat Kasparov. Five years later, Deep Fritz (running on eight ordinary networked personal computers) reached a draw with the then reigning grandmaster, Vladimir Kramnik. Sometime within the next few years, software running on ordinary PCs will reach a chess ranking of “2800,” and effectively pass all human players for good. For decades, during the early development of computers, the dream of a chess-playing program was seen as a fantasy or delusion. But the people watching the development of such programs, in tandem with the changes in information technology and material science, were actually watching two different curves and predicting two different futures.

On the left, the linear progress of chess programs appeared pathetic for decades, but then suddenly the machines began beating novice and then mid-level players. As the “knee” of the development curve was reached, progress shifted from pathetic to awesome in a relative eye blink. Mapping development on a logarithmic plot during those bleak decades, however, such progress was both predictable and apparently inevitable. Computing pioneer Ray Kurzweil has spent the last four decades thinking about the implications of such logarithmic curves across the fields of computation, science, and economic development and developed a general Law of Accelerating Returns. Readers of Jim Bennett’s Anglosphere Challenge will recognize the significance of exponential development on the Anglosphere’s relative advantage in coping with rapid change. Kurzweil has now created a comprehensive presentation of the Singularity concept that is revolutionary in its implications and central to thinking about the Anglosphere.

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[cross-posted on Albion’s Seedlings]

Computer scientist and mathematician Vernor Vinge is credited with inventing the term “technological singularity,” a moment of impending accelerating technological change so profound that “seeing beyond” the point isn’t possible. Vinge’s ideas have been widely discussed, and a recent book by Ray Kurzweil called the The Singularity is Near documents many supporting trends in computation and scientific development suggesting that a Singularity is entirely likely. In late 2004, Jim Bennett further proposed that the English common law countries have a unique cultural advantage in dealing with rapid change and with any Singularity that might appear. So how does Professor Vinge view the Singularity at the moment?

Fortunately, in addition to his academic activities at the University of Californa (San Diego) [UCSD], Dr. Vinge is a famous science fiction writer and winner of four Hugo awards. His latest novel is called Rainbows End. Though I’ve not read his earlier books, a positive review and podcast on Rainbows End by the Instapundit encouraged me to give it a try.

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[cross-posted on Albion’s Seedlings]

The success of Europe, and especially the Anglosphere, in the last few centuries has kept historians busy, pondering just why and when the Europeans made such an impact on the world.

Not surprisingly, the theories of causality often mirror their times. Way back when, European success was seen as religious and cultural vindication. Later, it was seen as a genetic or perhaps geographic predisposition. At the dawn of the 20th century, as non-Europeans and radical philosophers got an opportunity to make suggestions, earlier “gifts” were turned on their heads and proclaimed as intrinsic “evils.” Thus Europeans, and by extension, the Anglosphere, were successful specifically because they were monstrous in comparison to other human beings — more cruel, more greedy, more lacking in humanity (specializing in anarchy, greed, and heresy … to quote one witty Amazon.com reviewer). European destruction was therefore a solemn obligation and no doubt ordained by higher powers, real soon now.

As the wheels of history ground on during the 20th century, and people (both European and non-European) had a chance to ride the hobbyhorses of fascism, communism (and perhaps socialism) into political and economic oblivion, a more intellectually useful historical theory was needed. Europe and the Anglosphere was showing a distressing tendency toward further prosperity. The intellectual solution, particularly with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and orthodox communism in China, was to claim that the entire question of European success was based on a false premise. The truth was … Europe was never the centre of anything much. And if it was, it was only a relatively recent event that is passing quickly now from the historical stage. Eurocentrism was therefore obscuring both the global achievements of other peoples and cultures and its own transitory significance.

In a nutshell, three views of Europe: (1) Good, (2) Bad, or (3) Indifferent.

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Kelly, Jack, Gunpowder: Alchemy, Bombards and Pyrotechnics: The History of the Explosive That Changed the World, 2004

[cross-posted on Albion’s Seedlings]

Cross-fertilizing with an earlier review of Macfarlane and Martin’s Glass: A World History, “Gunpowder” tracks technological change across a wide sweep of historical time and space from the perspective of one material. Most people can quote chapter and verse of conventional wisdom about gunpowder. The short form is “invented in the East, brought to fruition in the West.” While generally correct as far as it goes, the actual details of gunpowder’s history in both East and West justify Kelly’s detailed effort at a work for the public (without a forest of footnotes). And suitability for the public should be emphasized. At 250 well-written pages, this is a quick and enjoyable read that will whet your appetite without entirely slaking it. It does have the feel of a series of vignettes or magazine articles recast as a book. But fortunately, from the Anglosphere perspective, the content justifies attention.

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