nick blackbourn

Writing ‘Big History’ is quite unfashionable these days, a function of hyper-specialisation among historians. Christopher Lascelles in his new book ‘A Short History of the World’ has bucked the trend and attempts to summarise human history in 160 pages, no easy task.

The book does not offer a unifying theme of human history; there is no ‘theory of history’ here. Instead, Lascelles’ stated goal is to write a ‘short and succinct yet broad overview of the key developments and events in the history of mankind.’ And this goal is met with success.

The book seeks to provide a ‘simplified linear whole’, connecting the bits of history we’re all supposed to know in one self-contained volume. From a quick chapter describing the Big Bang to the evolution of humans (via frogs?!), to a pondering of “what’s next” in a concluding chapter, the reader is taken across millions of years and around the world via Lascelles’ selected historical hotspots.

Those short on time will appreciate this collection of summaries but the real value of ‘A Short History of the World’ is the way its sections are organised and connected. The book largely avoids feeling totally disjointed as it switches between topics and places, and this is what makes the book so easy to read.

There is a heavy focus on people and events, rather than other aspects of history such as everyday life, ideas, and emotions. When nothing ‘important’ happens there seems to be little to report. Furthermore, there is a lot of history left out or oversimplified. But this is not necessarily a criticism; the reader of a ‘short history’ surely understands this limitation. Lascelles has written this book to be short, accessible, yet wide-ranging. These are conflicting goals and with just 160 pages a vast amount of history must be left out.

Lascelles does find space to explore a number of inflection points in history, for example: the defeat of the Moorish army at the Battle of Tours in 732; the victory of the Normans over a weakened Harold at the Battle of Hastings in 1066; the death of Mongol leader Ogedei and the sparing of Vienna in 1241. This serves as a reminder that history is not simply a story to be told. Our world would be vastly different but for luck, untimely deaths, and the weather.

Overall, ‘A Short History of World’ is perfect for a quick read to brush up on the global history you are supposed to know. The reader will become conversant in world history but not an expert. I hope the busy people who this book was clearly written for will use it as a platform for further exploration of themes, periods, or civilisations that piqued their interest in this well-written text.

In a blog post from 2010, Dan Cohen referred to the then brand-new Google Books Ngram Viewer as a ‘gateway drug’ into the digital humanities (http://www.dancohen.org/2010/12/19/initial-thoughts-on-the-google-books-ngram-viewer-and-datasets/). I’ve been playing around with it recently and I’m hooked.

I really like the graph above as it is a great visualisation of a portion of the argument in my dissertation literature review. In it, I argue that the Committee on the Present Danger is too often seen by historians exclusively in the context of the neoconservative movement. The CPD did play an important role in the development of the neocon movement, but this is a narrow interpretation of the CPD’s significance.

Instead, I suggest that the Committee on the Present Danger needs to be better understood for what it was; an organisation that opposed detente and successfully influenced the Carter Administration’s policymaking through re-popularising the ‘Soviet Threat’ in mainstream political discourse. By focusing so heavily on its neoconservative legacy the actual successes of the CPD have been largely ignored since the mid-1980s, when a number of political scientists assessed the influence of the group on the SALT II ratification debate and President Reagan’s initial defense policies.

The Ngram viewer screenshot seems to corroborate this view. Neoconservatism as a topic of interest to scholars has grown steadily from its emergence in the mid-1970s, especially after 2000 when many neocons joined the Bush Administration. Instances of the Committee on the Present Danger in Google Books data, however, peaked in the mid-1980s before a slow decline.

This is not a surprising find. The ongoing importance of the Neoconservative movement would generate more interest from scholars than the CPD. But now that the Committee on the Present Danger Papers are open for research there is an opportunity to more critically assess the centrality of the CPD to the development of neoconservatism.

The CPD was much more than a ‘holding pen’ for neoconservatives, and the purpose of my own research is to better understand the actual achievements of the CPD. Only part of its significance was as a means for neoconservatives to enter debates on foreign policy. Just as important, yet currently under appreciated, was the Committee on the Present Danger’s success in reintroducing the concept of the ‘Soviet Threat’ into mainstream political discourse thus helping end detente, prevent the ratification of the SALT II treaty, and generate support for the higher defense spending of the Reagan Era.

Bradford Martin’s ‘The Other Eighties: A Secret History of America in the Age of Reagan
(Hill & Wang: New York, 2011)’ challenges the dominance of the ‘rise of conservatism’ theme in our understanding of the 1980s.

‘More than 40 percent of American voters demurred from sanctioning this movement, not to mention the roughly 50 percent of voting-age Americans who declined to exercise their right altogether.’ [p. x]

He seeks to demonstrate that there are additional movements that developed in the decade, including the Nuclear Freeze Campaign, environmentalism, the opposition to America’s wars, Feminism; all representing the ‘other’ 1980s.

I was particularly interested in Martin’s chapter on the Nuclear Freeze Campaign. The opposition to nuclear arms control in the 1970s, and in particular the Committee on the Present Danger, clearly oversold the threat of the Soviet Union and while a successful tactic in the short term, inciting such fear was to the detriment of their longer term goals.

The fear of Communism was balanced with a fear of nuclear war, which served not to create lasting support for high defense spending – as was hoped – but instead created a broad constituency for just the reverse; a nuclear freeze and, for many, outright abolition.

The importance of the movement, Martin points out, was that ‘the freeze debate successfully eroded the nuclear priesthood’s aura of expertise and opened up national discourse on disarmament and national security policy.’ [p. 23]

When Ronald Reagan surprised many of his conservative allies by taking seriously his dream of abolishing nuclear weapons while negotiating with Gorbachev in the mid-1980s, it was this movement that had demonstrated (quite literally, on June 12, 1982, with a 750,000 crowd) that he could expect public support.

Martin’s book shows that we should move beyond a characterisation of the 1980s as a simple narrative of the rise of conservatism. Its increase in popularity is true, but it also sparked opposition in a variety of issues, by a variety people, in a variety of locales. And this is an important legacy of the 1980s just as much as the ‘Reagan Revolution’ itself.

See: The Other Eighties: A Secret History of America in the Age of Reagan

Last week at the Ford Presidential Library I came across some fun memos and documents. Transcriptions of official government meetings often begin with ‘[Preceded by small talk.]‘ But when this ‘small talk’ is included it can be quite interesting, and is sometimes pretty funny.

If nothing else, it reminds us that beyond the nuclear stand-off and ideological confrontation, people were dealing with people. Delegations shared jokes and got to know each other. It was an aspect of Cold War diplomacy that is easy to overlook.

I enjoyed reading the ‘small talk’ whenever possible, and here is one of my favourites; a conversation between Henry Kissinger and Leonid Brezhnev on January 22, 1976, in The Kremlin.

Brezhnev: Maybe we could proceed a little faster today.
Kissinger: All right.
Brezhnev: Here is a match. [He lights a match and makes a motion to ignite all his talking papers.]
Kissinger: I thought you were going to bring out your cannon.
Brezhnev: There is a cannon in my office?
Kissinger: You threatened me with it last time.
Brezhnev: As long as America threatens us, we have to threaten America. We now have MIRVed warheads on that cannon. And one is aimed at your house.
Kissinger: I’d better get my dog out of there. [Laughter]
Brezhnev: [Looks through his papers] You have an enormous number of forces. Horrors! I can’t imagine where you get them all. And so many in Europe.
Kissinger: If your generals count like our generals Mr. General Secretary, there will be an amazing computation.
…
Brezhnev: Earlier Dr. Kissinger said he was afraid of me. I want to say I’m afraid of him. So I guess I’d better give him more of these cookies, to make him kinder. [He passes over a plate of snacks.]

I was on a panel last night presenting some ideas on online social networking for historians. Here is a summary:

I don’t see myself as an expert, but I also think that no-one can be. Social media tools are just that, tools. They can be used in different ways to different ends by different users. That is the strength of all these platforms. I was asked how my online involvement had benefitted me as an academic. Clearly, the relevance of online social networking to the history profession was not apparent to everyone, but I hope I explained why it most certainly is.

Building networks and creating communities can only help the historian. Twitter, for example, doesn’t have to be – and shouldn’t be – a discussion on what you had for lunch. There is already a community of historians who are happy to connect and help each other. I’ve discussed research methodologies, shared links, been sent relevant research material, and vented through twitter. In essence, I’ve collaborated with other historians online, and that’s important. I’m also certain this level of collaboration will increase with time and as my own understanding of what can be done online improves.

My own journey was a long one, perhaps stereotypical. I joined. I watched. I dabbled. I participated. I’m now all in. It’s clear, as with most things in life, that the more you put in the more you get out.

I look forward to more and more historians taking the plunge and building their online communities. Historians have a lot to offer not just each other, but a much wider audience. Getting online and participating in communities is something every historian should be doing to share their skills and expertise. Good things will happen. It’s not something that might be worth doing in the future, it’s something to do right now.

Historians of the world unite (online)!