Steve Goddard's History Wire

Hyman Minsky -- Where Are You Now That We Need You??

The New Yorker:

"Twenty-five years ago, when most economists were extolling the virtues of financial deregulation and innovation, a maverick named Hyman P. Minsky maintained a more negative view of Wall Street; in fact, he noted that bankers, traders, and other financiers periodically played the role of arsonists, setting the entire economy ablaze. Wall Street encouraged businesses and individuals to take on too much risk, he believed, generating ruinous boom-and-bust cycles. The only way to break this pattern was for the government to step in and regulate the moneymen.

"Many of Minsky’s colleagues regarded his 'financial-instability hypothesis,' which he first developed in the nineteen-sixties, as radical, if not crackpot. Today, with the subprime crisis seemingly on the verge of metamorphosing into a recession, references to it have become commonplace on financial Web sites and in the reports of Wall Street analysts. Minsky’s hypothesis is well worth revisiting. In trying to revive the economy, President Bush and the House have already agreed on the outlines of a 'stimulus package,' but the first stage in curing any malady is making a correct diagnosis."

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Asian Proverb Applies -- Or What Goes Around Comes Around

The Weekly Standard:

"There is an Asian proverb that says 'sit by the river long enough and you will see the body of your enemy float by.' Something like that must be going through the head of George W. Bush these days, and he probably chuckles at the charge made this week by former President Bill Clinton that Sen. Barack Obama is using the press to funnel smears against his wife, New York's junior Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. How soon the Clintons forget the despicable lows to which they themselves sank in casting aspersions on the honor of George H.W. Bush (Bush 41) in the 1992 presidential campaign.

"During that campaign Clinton's artful dodging of the Vietnam draft was contrasted with the fact that Bush 41 had served his nation as a naval aviator in the WWII Pacific Theater, having been the pilot of TBM Avenger as part of VT-51 squadron aboard the San Jacinto aircraft carrier. The elder Bush flew 58 combat missions by the time he was 20, making him one of the youngest pilots in naval aviation. At about the same age Bill Clinton was writing letters about how he needed to preserve his future political viability, Lieutenant JG George H.W. Bush was dodging anti-aircraft fire in order to reach his assigned targets and drop a load of 500-pound bombs."

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Book Alert / Where Have All The Soldiers Gone?

Where Have All The Soldiers Gone? -- The Transformation of Modern Europe by James J. Sheehan, Houghton Mifflin '07, $26, 284 pages, ISBN #0618353968. Index, bibliography, source notes, b&w images sprinkled through text.

For most of the first half of the 20th century, Europe seemed consumed by military conflict or preparation for conflict. And consequently, in government's continual balancing act between guns and butter, butter lost out, starving nations of revenue needed to support culture and the social structure.

But, as Stanford University historian James J. Sheehan writes, the end of the Second World War changed all that, with European nations "rejecting ballooning defense budgets in favor of material well-being, social stability and economic growth." In the new Europe, he says, "the ability and willingness to wage war no longer characterizes statehood." With armed might still an integral part of America's identity, the United States and Europe drift farther and farther apart.

In a brief interview, the author discusses the thesis of his book:

Q. Now that the Cold War is over and the incubator is gone, is the future of the European civilian state in doubt? Might the soldiers in your title come back?

A. I think civilian values and institutions are too deeply embedded in European life to be easily uprooted. Military values and institutions have lost their hold on Europeans' imaginations. Moreover, Europeans are simply not going to go to war with one another. But Europeans live in a dangerous world, and the future of their civilian states will depend not only on their relations with one another but on how they manage to deal with threats to their security beyond their borders. This has meant a continual dependence on the United States and NATO, which has persisted despite the end of the Cold War and the disappearance of its oppopnent. As far as I know, this has no historical precedent. Of course, the same historical developments that make it necessary for Europeans to rely on the United States also make them uneasy about many American policies."

Q. Some Europeans advocate a European superpower that would be able to act independently of the United States. Do you think this will happen?

A. At least until now, Europeans have been very reluctant to create the institutions and allocate the resources necessary to become a major actor on the global stage. The European Union is not -- nor is it likely to become -- a superpower. It is a super-civilian state that clearly reflects the priorities of its members. The last hafl century has been the most peaceful and prosperous in European history. Europeans, it seems to me, have every reason to try to keep doing what made this peace and prosperity possible."

Out in Paperback / Imperial White

Imperial White -- Race, Diaspora, and the British Empire by Radhika Mohanram, UMinn Press paperback '07, 212 pages, ISBN #0816647801. Index, source notes, no bibliography or illustrations.

In Toni Morrison's iconic novel, Beloved, her character Baby Suggs exclaims, "There is no bad luck in the world but white folks." It is the whiteness of white folks on which this Cardiff University (Wales) professor concentrates in the context of the rise and fall of the British Empire as she examines such questions as "How was the whiteness in Britishness constructed by the presence of Empire? How was the whiteness incorporated into the idea of masculinity? Does heterosexuality have a color? And does domestic race differ from colonial race?"

Mohanram, a feminist of color, doesn't mince words in her analysis, and has little compunction about savaging white feminists, who she says practice a "single-minded brutality towards black feminists..." After one such encounter, she writes, "I, morosely but reciprocally racist, exclaimed to a close (white, lesbian, feminist) friend, 'God, how I hate white women.' I was stunned to see tears welling in her eyes, even as she was silent. The moment passed. Her response cannot be explained away with any knee-jerk responses. No, I didn't feel manipulated into refocusing on her pain rather than mine."

The author divides her narrative into two parts: Part l -- In the Metropole: White Masculinity, The Whiteness of Women, and Victoria's Secret -- the History of White Sexuality; and Part II -- In the South: White Water: Race and Oceans Down Under; Mourning and Melancholia: The Wages of Whiteness; and Dermographia: How the Irish Became White in India.

Thought Lost Forever, Thousands of Robert Capa War Photography Negatives Resurface

The New York Times:

"To the small group of photography experts aware of its existence, it was known simply as 'the Mexican suitcase.' And in the pantheon of lost modern cultural treasures, it was surrounded by the same mythical aura as Hemingway’s early manuscripts, which vanished from a train station in 1922.

"The suitcase — actually three flimsy cardboard valises — contained thousands of negatives of pictures that Robert Capa, one of the pioneers of modern war photography, took during the Spanish Civil War before he fled Europe for America in 1939, leaving behind the contents of his Paris darkroom.

"Capa assumed that the work had been lost during the Nazi invasion, and he died in 1954 on assignment in Vietnam still thinking so. But in 1995 word began to spread that the negatives had somehow survived, after taking a journey worthy of a John le Carré novel: Paris to Marseille and then, in the hands of a Mexican general and diplomat who had served under Pancho Villa, to Mexico City."

And that is where they remained hidden heon of lost modern cultural treasures, it was surrounded by the same mythical aura as Hemingway’s early manuscripts, which vanished from a train station in 1922.

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Indonesian Strongman Suharto Succumbs at 86

The Los Angeles Times:

"Jakarta, Indonesia -- Former President Suharto, an army general who rose to power in Indonesia with the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people and ruled for 32 years over an era of rapid economic growth and extraordinary graft, died today in Indonesia. He was 86.

"Suharto's unyielding opposition to communism won him the backing of the United States during the height of the Cold War, although he was one of the most brutal and corrupt rulers of that era. He governed the world's fourth-most-populous nation with a combination of paternalism and ruthlessness from 1965 until he was ousted in the spring of 1998.

"Like many Javanese, Suharto went by only one name. He had been in poor health for years after suffering several strokes and other ailments. He was rushed to the hospital Jan. 4 with anemia and low blood pressure. Suharto surprised his doctors, and the nation, last week by overcoming a blood infection and making what one physician called a miraculous recovery. But his health suddenly took a turn for the worse again, and by Sunday morning, he had suffered multiple organ failure for a second time."

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Books in Brief

Would that we could review all the books of merit that come in over History Wire's transom. At the least, we feel a responsibility to offer capsule mentions of some you may want to check out for yourself.

Blood Passion -- Organized labor has developed a historical archive of transforming events that both educate union members and spur them to action, such as the iconic Battle of the Overpass, in which labor leader Walter Reuther was badly beaten. Another was the Ludlow Massacre, the subject of Scott Martelle's new book. The author dramatizes a 1914 pitched battle between government militiamen and armed strikers in Colorado, which killed nearly 20 and led to a 10-day guerrilla war along more than 200 miles of the eastern Rockies. It took an Army callup by President Woodrow Wilson to quell the uprising, which claimed another 30 lives. This volume is a good addition to the annals of American class conflict.

A Nation of Sheep -- "It is my hope and purpose in writing this book," writes Judge Andrew P. Napolitano, "thata the good folks who read it will recognize that the government is not their friend, that the gravest dangers to our freedoms lie hidden in a government that haas seized them from us, and that vigilance and adherence to natural law can save us from the power hungry bureaucrats who run the government today." Judge Napolitano, who believes Americans have stood by passively while their basic rights have been stripped away by a central government, says "We're a nation of sheep, being led by a government that's shepherding us all to be shorn, fleeced or worse." He calls for sheep to become "wolves, hungry for change."

Book Alert / The Sisterhood

The Sisterhood -- Inside the Lives of Mormon Women by Dorothy Allred Solomon, Palgrave MacMillan '07, $24.95, 244 pages, ISBN #1403982783. Index, bibliography, source notes, unillustrated.

The presidential candidacy of former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney has brought the Mormon Church under public scrutiny in the same way the Catholic Church fell under the microscope during John F. Kennedy's run for the presidency in 1960. In both cases, we find the public suffering from misapprehensions about the church, its practices and its adherents.

One common misconception, writes author Dorothy Allred Solomon, is that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints treats women poorly by foisting practical and social burdens on them without concomitant freedoms and authority. "Few outsiders are aware of the history of feminine influence and strength within the church: (Church founder) Brigham Young sent a delegation of LDS suffragettes to Washington and encouraged female members to seek education in medicine. The Relief Society, the charitable, female-led wing of the Church, instituted some of the very first medical, cultural and public institutions in Utah."

But what about polygamy, you ask? Solomon writes that multiple wives are outlawed by the mainstream church although practiced by some living "outside the law." All of which is not to say that most women are on a par with men: "In the increasingly conservative traditions of the Mormon Church," observes Solomon, "it is normal for many women to relinquish decision making and the attendant personal power that accompanies it, to the men in their lives." Solomon is a Utah writer who grew up as a child of polygamy and has based her narrative on interviews with contemporary practicing Mormon women.

Book Alert / Democracy's Good Name

Democracy's Good Name -- The Rise and Risks of the World's Most Popular Form of Government by Michael Mandelbaum, PublicAffairs '07, $27.95, 316 pages, ISBN #1586485148. Index, source notes, no bibliography or illustrations.

Democracy as it is practiced in most Western countries -- an amalgam of popular sovereignty and individual freedom -- is of relatively recent vintage, writes Michael Mandelbaum. "Well into the nineteenth century," he says, "the term 'democracy' commonly referred to only one of them -- popular sovereignty -- and a regime based on popular sovereignty was regarded, for historical and logical reasons, as certain to suppress liberty."

Being able to elect one's own leaders while enjoying the kind of liberties vouchsafed by the Bill of Rights, the author argues, has made democracy wildly popular, especially during and since the last quarter of the 20th century. "In 1900, only ten countries could be counted as democracies. By 1975, there were thirty. Today, 119 of the world's 190 countries have adopted democracy, and it is by far the celebrated and prestigious form of government." And yet China, the world's most populous nation, remains outside its grasp.

All of which might suggest that democracy ought to become a universal condition. Yet in a cautionary tone, Mandelbaum reminds us that it was a democracy which brought Hitler to power and that attempts by outside nations to install democracy on foreign soil, such as in the Balkans and Iraq, have led to widespread bloodshed.

But if democracy is such a great thing, why do outsiders reject it? "Genuine democracy," he writes, "and in particular liberty, requires supporting institutions. These cannot function properly unless the people operating them have the necessary skills and habits, which are underpinned by a particular set of values. (And) Institutions, skills and values all take time to develop." Mandelbaum teaches American foreign policy at Johns Hopkins.

Book Alert / Maps -- Finding Our Place in the World

Maps -- Finding Our Place in the World, Edited by James R. Akerman and Robert W. Karrow, Jr., UChicaqo Press '07, $55, 400 pages, ISBN #0226010759. Index, bibliography, scores of color images sprinkled through text.

In the world of communication, nothing is so universally useful as a map. Not only is a picture worth a thousand words, but spatial relationship among objects is a perspective a lot less easily conveyed in narrative. The authors, one a cartographer and the other a map curator, both at the Newberry Library, have amassed an impressive collection of maps and organized them thematically into seven chapters.

They begin with the use of maps for wayfinding, then examine maps charting the world and the heavens. Having studied the macro, they turn to the micro, with maps of specific localities, ranging from an 1836 map of Portland, ME; to a block by block map of Chicago's First Ward in 1894, setting forth color-coded locations of brothels, pawnbrokers, saloons, and lodging houses.

Other chapters explore maps "that represent data from scientific instruments, population censuses, and historical records," demonstrating "how diseases spread, what the ocean floor looks like, and how the weather is tracked and predicted." Lest you conclude that cartographers are grounded firmly in reality, a chapter includes maps depicting such fictional worlds as Hell, Utopia, Middle Earth, and the fantasy game of World of Warcraft. The final chapter examines the impact of cartography on modern society.