I do apologize for the major break in my schedule, but circumstances do intervene.
Still let me wax poetic a little about history.
Or rather I would if there was a strong tradition of history poems nowadays. It's sad that this noble tradition seems in decline or if found in disarray.
Alack, alack, alack.
And what of poetic history plays? Whatever happened to those? Are they just a memory of history?
Just a momentary aberration?
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
But let me call at least for a revisiting of great history poems and plays.
For when history stirs your soul,
What magnificence shall emerge?
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
The Great Companion of Man
War. I was tempted to do a bad pun, like starting out with: war what is it good for, etc. But that seemed disrespectful, especially given the context in which that song was written (that's one of the burdens of knowing the history behind these songs, I imagine the many comedic videos, such as the Rush Hour trailer, were likely (although not necessarily) made by people who weren't thinking about the historical context of the song (Just to given some more exact information the song in question is "War" by Edwin Starr, written in 1970 in protest of the Vietnam War)). (Actually one of my annoyances with many journalists is their disrespectful use of puns, like for example saying the cultural changes in China are a "Cultural Revolution," I mean it's somewhat forgivable if the article focuses on the differences between the Cultural Revolution and Chinese culture today, but really...)
Actually writing about war is always a dicey endeavor, but people have written about it and in many, many different ways. You can take a funny angle to it (MASH, Hogan's Heroes, etc.), a satirical angle to it (Dr. Strangelove, etc.), a tragic angle to it (Letters from Iwo Jima, etc.), a triumphant angle to it (Glory, etc.), and there are more ways of looking at war. In fact, I say with a decent amount of certainty that war can be written from any perspective of the human experience, because war is so central to the human experience. That's a bit of a weighty, vague sentence, but essentially, war is when humans dispose of some or all of the basic rules of conduct in pursuit of some goal put higher than not only their lives, but the lives of entire peoples.
Yet, the human experience should not be reduced to war. Often that is the prelude to the common 19th century belief that war was not only the great companion of man, but his essential lover. No, humans can pursue just goals just as passionately and just as successfully within the rules of society that prevent such catostrophic conduct. In fact, if one of those just goals is the appreciation of the beauty of the human spirit, war is best avoided.
But one would be naive, and again, disrespectful to ignore war and its impact on history. Wars are often decisive events in the shaping of people and states, and when they are not, that is an immensely important fact unto itself. And thus the historian must be familiar with war, must not flinch from blood nor from horror, and must stare into the abyss, taking care not to let the abyss penetrate his soul.
With that melodramatic introduction, let me give some quick facts for those who enjoy or find useful quick facts. Here is a brief summary of the wars of the United States of America (I apologize that many of the conflicts are generalized, I will try to go into them more particularly later, but I ended up spending more time than I planned covering the general essence of the historian and war).
1775-1783 - The American Revolutionary War
1783-1794 - Conflicts and Rebellions related to the establishment of the US federal and state governments
1798-1800 - Quasi-War
1775-1900 - Wars with various Native American powers, often connected with the wars with Britain, intensifying in 1865-1900
1812-1815 - War of 1812
1846-1848 - Mexican-American War (some might include the Texas Revolution 1835-1836 as part of this, although Texas was not part of the US till 1845)
1861-1865 - American Civil War
1893 - Semi-Intervention against Hawaii
1898 - Spanish-American War
1898 - 1913 - Philippine-American War (till 1902) and suppression of remnants
1903 - Semi-Intervention against Columbia for Panama
1916 - 1917 - Punitive Expedition against Mexico
1907 - 1933 - Latin American Interventions
1917 - 1918 - World War I
1918 - 1920 - Russian Intervention
1941 - 1945 - World War II
1945 - 1981 - Cold War Conflicts
1950 - 1953 - Korean War
1959 - 1975 - Second Indo-Chinese War (Vietnam War, Cambodian and Laos Interventions)
1979 - Grenada Intervention
1982 - 1984 - Lebanon Intervention
1991 - Persian Gulf War
1992 - Somali Intervention
1994 - Haiti Intervention in support of Aristite
1995 - Bosnian Intervention
1998 - Iraq Bombing Campaign
1999 - Kosovo Intervention
2003 - Liberian Intervention
2004 - Haiti Intervention - escorting Aristite out of the country
2003 - Current - Iraq War
Sorry for the briefness, but I got carried away with the intro. I hope to expand on all of this later, but till then, the History is out there.
Actually writing about war is always a dicey endeavor, but people have written about it and in many, many different ways. You can take a funny angle to it (MASH, Hogan's Heroes, etc.), a satirical angle to it (Dr. Strangelove, etc.), a tragic angle to it (Letters from Iwo Jima, etc.), a triumphant angle to it (Glory, etc.), and there are more ways of looking at war. In fact, I say with a decent amount of certainty that war can be written from any perspective of the human experience, because war is so central to the human experience. That's a bit of a weighty, vague sentence, but essentially, war is when humans dispose of some or all of the basic rules of conduct in pursuit of some goal put higher than not only their lives, but the lives of entire peoples.
Yet, the human experience should not be reduced to war. Often that is the prelude to the common 19th century belief that war was not only the great companion of man, but his essential lover. No, humans can pursue just goals just as passionately and just as successfully within the rules of society that prevent such catostrophic conduct. In fact, if one of those just goals is the appreciation of the beauty of the human spirit, war is best avoided.
But one would be naive, and again, disrespectful to ignore war and its impact on history. Wars are often decisive events in the shaping of people and states, and when they are not, that is an immensely important fact unto itself. And thus the historian must be familiar with war, must not flinch from blood nor from horror, and must stare into the abyss, taking care not to let the abyss penetrate his soul.
With that melodramatic introduction, let me give some quick facts for those who enjoy or find useful quick facts. Here is a brief summary of the wars of the United States of America (I apologize that many of the conflicts are generalized, I will try to go into them more particularly later, but I ended up spending more time than I planned covering the general essence of the historian and war).
1775-1783 - The American Revolutionary War
1783-1794 - Conflicts and Rebellions related to the establishment of the US federal and state governments
1798-1800 - Quasi-War
1775-1900 - Wars with various Native American powers, often connected with the wars with Britain, intensifying in 1865-1900
1812-1815 - War of 1812
1846-1848 - Mexican-American War (some might include the Texas Revolution 1835-1836 as part of this, although Texas was not part of the US till 1845)
1861-1865 - American Civil War
1893 - Semi-Intervention against Hawaii
1898 - Spanish-American War
1898 - 1913 - Philippine-American War (till 1902) and suppression of remnants
1903 - Semi-Intervention against Columbia for Panama
1916 - 1917 - Punitive Expedition against Mexico
1907 - 1933 - Latin American Interventions
1917 - 1918 - World War I
1918 - 1920 - Russian Intervention
1941 - 1945 - World War II
1945 - 1981 - Cold War Conflicts
1950 - 1953 - Korean War
1959 - 1975 - Second Indo-Chinese War (Vietnam War, Cambodian and Laos Interventions)
1979 - Grenada Intervention
1982 - 1984 - Lebanon Intervention
1991 - Persian Gulf War
1992 - Somali Intervention
1994 - Haiti Intervention in support of Aristite
1995 - Bosnian Intervention
1998 - Iraq Bombing Campaign
1999 - Kosovo Intervention
2003 - Liberian Intervention
2004 - Haiti Intervention - escorting Aristite out of the country
2003 - Current - Iraq War
Sorry for the briefness, but I got carried away with the intro. I hope to expand on all of this later, but till then, the History is out there.
Friday, June 6, 2008
The art of revision
One of the greatest insults among historians, or one of the greatest badges of honor for historians of a certain stripe, is revisionist.
The revisionist's essence is that they rebel against old research, which they believe is ideologically slanted beyond any worth, by creating all new research and a new point of view on the history, which, despite a usual protestation of less bias than the past, somehow agrees with their ideological point of view.
The essential flaw of revisionist in its purest is that they discard all the old research and create history so ideologically slanted that it's almost impossible for those not sharing the ideology to read it without a burst of vomit shooting up their stomachs.
But to be fair, the revisionist is usually correct, to a lesser degree though, about the bias of the old research, and moreover the revisionist often has new research that has a few gems of useful information.
In the end though, I object terribly to any throw out all the old movement, and revisionism is one of them. There are so many points to object to, but I think I covered most of the major ones in my description. My point essentially is that old, consensus research, while biased often, usually has at least some worth that should not be discarded.
Having said all that, let me come to the newest bit of revisionism. Although revisionist usually belong to the left-wing of politics, they also inhabit the right-wing, and this figure belongs firmly in the latter. Pat Buchannan has written a history book that to a greater or lesser extent almost certainly belongs in the revisionist column. Since I've been dealing with essences largely so far, let me get to the essence of his book. WWII could have been avoided if we just let Nazi Germany take Poland.
I have to say I don't have his argument down precisely, you can check it out on Amazon.com if you'd like. I may read it, but I might find that I can only stomach a summary. The key problem with his logic I think, or if not with the logic of his book, the logic of much of his rhetoric, is that he assumes strong nations have the right to sacrifice weak nations.
Morally, that's monstrous, geopolitically, that will cost you in terms of bitterness and the future changing position of countries.
But just to strike at one argument to shoot at his book, without even reading it, admittedly, and if someone has read it and like to shoot this argument down, feel free to:
Nazi Germany was part of the Axis pact with at the time. Even if Germany would have been satisfied with Poland (which it wouldn't have been), other Axis powers such as Italy and Hungary were moving on their own territorial ambitions, notably Greece and Transylvania. It is very hard to imagine that Yugoslavia would not get involved in the mix, and then the European geopolitical situation would be reduced to this:
Portugal, Spain, France, Britain, Scandanavia, Switzerland, Axis powers, USSR. Envision that for a second, and realize that you have there Hitler lying surrounded by passively or actively hostile enemies with very rebellious territories barely under his control. It is hard not to imagine the war widening.
But to attack something further. Pat Buchanan combines in his argument that the reason why WWII was so sad, is because it cost Britain its empire. Screw the British Empire. It did provide some marginal improvement in SOME situations, but it was an oppressive, exploitive regime and it needed to fall.
The Cold War was awful, it really was, but you can't let that get you nostalgic for colonialism and imperialism. Imperialism was just wrong Pat. It was just wrong.
The revisionist's essence is that they rebel against old research, which they believe is ideologically slanted beyond any worth, by creating all new research and a new point of view on the history, which, despite a usual protestation of less bias than the past, somehow agrees with their ideological point of view.
The essential flaw of revisionist in its purest is that they discard all the old research and create history so ideologically slanted that it's almost impossible for those not sharing the ideology to read it without a burst of vomit shooting up their stomachs.
But to be fair, the revisionist is usually correct, to a lesser degree though, about the bias of the old research, and moreover the revisionist often has new research that has a few gems of useful information.
In the end though, I object terribly to any throw out all the old movement, and revisionism is one of them. There are so many points to object to, but I think I covered most of the major ones in my description. My point essentially is that old, consensus research, while biased often, usually has at least some worth that should not be discarded.
Having said all that, let me come to the newest bit of revisionism. Although revisionist usually belong to the left-wing of politics, they also inhabit the right-wing, and this figure belongs firmly in the latter. Pat Buchannan has written a history book that to a greater or lesser extent almost certainly belongs in the revisionist column. Since I've been dealing with essences largely so far, let me get to the essence of his book. WWII could have been avoided if we just let Nazi Germany take Poland.
I have to say I don't have his argument down precisely, you can check it out on Amazon.com if you'd like. I may read it, but I might find that I can only stomach a summary. The key problem with his logic I think, or if not with the logic of his book, the logic of much of his rhetoric, is that he assumes strong nations have the right to sacrifice weak nations.
Morally, that's monstrous, geopolitically, that will cost you in terms of bitterness and the future changing position of countries.
But just to strike at one argument to shoot at his book, without even reading it, admittedly, and if someone has read it and like to shoot this argument down, feel free to:
Nazi Germany was part of the Axis pact with at the time. Even if Germany would have been satisfied with Poland (which it wouldn't have been), other Axis powers such as Italy and Hungary were moving on their own territorial ambitions, notably Greece and Transylvania. It is very hard to imagine that Yugoslavia would not get involved in the mix, and then the European geopolitical situation would be reduced to this:
Portugal, Spain, France, Britain, Scandanavia, Switzerland, Axis powers, USSR. Envision that for a second, and realize that you have there Hitler lying surrounded by passively or actively hostile enemies with very rebellious territories barely under his control. It is hard not to imagine the war widening.
But to attack something further. Pat Buchanan combines in his argument that the reason why WWII was so sad, is because it cost Britain its empire. Screw the British Empire. It did provide some marginal improvement in SOME situations, but it was an oppressive, exploitive regime and it needed to fall.
The Cold War was awful, it really was, but you can't let that get you nostalgic for colonialism and imperialism. Imperialism was just wrong Pat. It was just wrong.
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