Metahistory. The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth Century Europe. By Hayden White.

Hayden White’s Metahistory presents a unique historical-literary method of analysis. His technique is reductive. White draws together the ideas of various historians, philosophers and literary critics, using their work as a surgical kit for dissecting the narratives of 19^th Century historians. From Roman Jakobson and Claude Levi-Strauss, he obtains the “Theory of Tropes” (metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche and irony). From Northrop Frye comes archetypes in plot structure (comedy, romance, tragedy and satire/irony). Stephen C. Pepper supplies four paradigms of discursive argument (formism, organicism, mechanism and contextualism). Karl Mannheim provides ideological implications which White simplifies to four basics (anarchism, conservatism, radicalism and liberalism).

While one may look at Professor White’s categories, and discover areas where addition or subtraction of one or another element could be useful, the idea of examining historical writing by using literary methods is sound. Historians do not merely provide chronologies of events. They explain events. As soon as one takes the purported facts of a chronology and orders them into a coherent plot, the endeavor becomes literary. It is understandable that historians would resist a characterization of their work as literary. Although it is obvious that investigators of history cannot claim to be doing hard science, they like to think that their writing is based upon evidence; therefore closer to science than literature. In spite of historians’ efforts, personal prejudices and influences (social or historical) will affect their work. White’s surgical kit can be used by students of history as some of the tools to examine a composition. This provides a necessary challenge to the closed world that a historian creates in her book; a challenge that keeps the profession honest.

After a highly theoretical introduction, revealing the tools with which he will reduce a work, White launches into a first chapter that sets the stage. He presents the ironic scholarship of the 18^th Century Enlightenment. After this, he gets down to the business of parsing the works of the following century’s “realist” historians and historical philosophers. These are some of the most fascinating minds of the 19^th Century. The body of the book is illuminating for both the unique methods employed by White and for the brilliant individuals whose interpretations of history influenced Western Civilization from their century onward. Chapter Two focuses on Hegel as a transitional and foundational philosopher of history, ending Part One. Part Two examines the historians Michelet, Ranke, Tocqueville and Bruckhart. Part Three examines the philosophers of history Marx, Nietzsche and Croce.

White does an excellent job of avoiding pitfalls that would distract from exemplifying his theory. There certainly are temptations. It would have been satisfying to skewer the clownish Jules Michelet whose breathy patriotism characterizes France, in the first year of the Revolution, as advancing “through that dark winter [of 1789-90] towards the wished-for spring which promises a new light to the world,” then calls this development “a miracle.” (White, p. 151). His one digression from describing Michelet in literary and theoretical terms is when he comments on “another of those lyrical effusions in which he [Michelet] offended both reason and science.” (White, p. 157). But occasional petulance is understandable when examining Michelet. With Karl Marx, it is always tempting to interject one’s political opinions. But White keeps his head down and remains committed to his task. “My own approach to the study of Marx’s thought moves [political and economic] questions to the periphery of discussion. My aim is to specify the dominant style of Marx’s thought about the structures and processes of history-in-general…even though one may be inclined to do different kinds of things on the basis of a belief in one philosophy’s truth.” (White p. 183).

The work of the speculative philosophers in Part Three necessarily takes one a step away from physical reality to meditate on the abstract. White’s addition of literary criticism draws one further away from applying ideas to the mundane world. For example, when Nietzsche begins discussing the threefold divisions of the forms of historical consciousness (antiquarian, critical and monumental), the reader is placed in an abstract realm where one is no longer looking at the work of individual historians as applied to a subject in the physical world. Once White adds his analysis of Nietzsche’s analysis, examining how the three forms relate to metonymy, synecdoche and irony respectively, we have achieved lift-off and cannot even see the ground due to the philosophical clouds between our skyward analytical vehicle and earth. (White p. 351). The same phenomenon occurs when White explains Croce’s view that “the utterance of any sentence is such that it always changes the entire linguistic endowment of the speech community” and “each successive word transforms retroactively the function of all the words coming before it.” (White p. 390). One must be thinking too abstractly about the importance words, and not concretely enough about their location in real books, to make such a statement. But speculative philosophy always runs the risk of losing its connection to the concrete world.

White’s blueprint for examining the literary aspects of historical writing is a useful instrument. It permits the reader to see what cultural devices influence a historian’s prose and ideas. If a narrator has grown-up within an educational system that offers certain limits on written expression, those limits will be evident in that person’s writing style. In addition, the choice of emplotment reveals a historian’s prejudices: If Michelet writes about the French Revolution as a romance, and Burke writes about it as a tragedy, much is revealed about their political perspective and how they are attempting to influence the reader. There are, of course, numerous metahistorical strategies to decipher the influences upon historians of any period; just look at the dominant movements, political systems and critical modes of their times. But White’s focus is of equal value. By the end of his book, the reader is not only presented with a picture of 19^th Century historiography, but also has acquired a set of useful and innovative tools with which to microscopically evaluate some methods and intentions of any historian she chooses to read.

White, Hayden. Metahistory. The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth Century Europe. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973.

A Wicked Company. The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment. By Philipp Blom.

A Wicked Company is a dream book for historically-minded atheists, agnostics, secularists and freethinkers, of various persuasions. It centers around the brilliant salon of luminaries who gathered bi-weekly at Baron Paul Henri Thiry d’Holbach’s home in Paris between 1750 and the late 1780s. These were the crowning years of the Enlightenment, when innovative freethinkers crowded into Paris, inspiring and arguing with each other. Paris radiated their ideas to the rest of Europe. There were numerous regulars and guests of note at d’Holbach’s salon: David Hume, Claude Adrien Helvetius, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Edward Gibbon, Denis Diderot and many others whose ideas shaped this era. Women were notably absent, which is anomalous among salons of the time, when women were hostesses and participants in the most popular gatherings. Despite his many connections with intelligent women, the Baron was unable to see that they could participate in a serious gathering where feelings could be hurt in the cut and thrust of intense exchange. There were limits to d’Holbach’s enlightenment.

The two protagonists of this book whose lives we follow, are Denis Diderot and Baron d’Holbach. They were among the most important and influential atheists of the Eighteenth Century, and their friendship sustained them through a political environment dominated by Catholic clergy, absolutist monarchy and censorship, against which they struggled. Given that one could be arrested for impious views (Diderot was), or even executed (like Jean-Francois de la Barre in 1766), opposition could be risky. The reader is treated to satisfying clandestine schemes by d’Holbach which enraged and undermined religious and political authorities. He regularly wrote anti-theist manuscripts under pseudonyms, smuggled them out of Paris to be published abroad, then had the books smuggled back into Paris to be read by a vast swath of literate society. Diderot, for his part, encoded his project, the Encyclopedie, with countless irreligious definitions, descriptions and diatribes, which evaded the authorities and made it into the most respectable homes, where their meanings were understood by the astute.

Philipp Blom is a fluid narrator; but his citation skills are a bit sloppy. For example, he discusses how d’Holbach’s “first qualms about religion had appeared during his study of geology,” but offers no note to verify this claim. (Blom, p. 96). Endnotes are necessary evidence in any history, but even more important when the subjects are controversial people whose views are still challenged.

Another area where Blom’s enterprise becomes bumpy concerns his thesis. The introduction begins “You can lose for all sorts of reasons,” and describes that “there is something like a stock market for reputations…If Plato’s stock is riding above that of Aristotle…then we are more likely to translate Plato’s thinking into our language.” (Blom, p. ix). He reasons that, since Diderot and d’Holbach’s atheism has been forgotten, this means that their ideas have no currency. Yes, few people know of Diderot beyond his Encyclopedie, and d’Holbach is almost universally neglected. But the notion that “their ideas fell from grace…and were all but written out of history” (Blom, p. ix) shows little understanding of historical processes. To say, in effect, “the good guys lost,” indicates an unsophisticated way of examining history. Among its’ more important functions, history exists to 1) teach about what happened in the past, 2) illustrate human events or people, and 3) show development in the direction of the present. One may certainly delve deeper to find additional uses for the field, but keeping score is not one of the more intricate, useful paths of exploration. If one is seeking immediate gratification where winning and losing are central, I suggest basketball. Rarely, in history, do ideas precipitate immediate cataclysm within a civilization. Discussions regarding religious authority vs science; atheism vs religion; reason vs superstition; are ongoing processes.

Fortunately, one can ignore the simplistic thesis and enjoy an immensely well-told true story of glittering discussions, by important cultural figures, in Europe’s then central city; as well as appreciate the intrigue of secretly disseminating banned works under the nose of intolerant authorities. A Wicked Company is an intellectual and cultural treasure that offers inspiration to freethinking people in the present. Diderot and d’Holbach show us that there have been predecessors dedicated to rational thought and scientific method; who created enclaves of reason amidst superstition and ignorance, and struggled to enlighten the world.

Blom, Philipp. A Wicked Company. The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment. New York: Basic Books, 2010.

American Bloomsbury. Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work..

The fields and homes of 1850s Concord, Massachusetts proved to be some of the most fertile ground for US writers and thinkers. A literary group which included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Louisa May Alcott, developed there. Transcendentalism was the romantic, nature-oriented philosophy, that moved all of them (Hawthorne negatively). They lived and wrote in close proximity and communication with each other. Their relationships ranged from romance, to infatuation, to deep friendship to intense repugnance. It always affected their writing.

Some fascinating, but perhaps mythical, theory cited by the author, suggests that “genius clusters” of special individuals form when “circumstances, political conditions, landscape, and community forces sometimes come together to create an unusual concentration of talent.” (Cheever, p.5). While this is an entrancing notion, the circumstances that created this collection of talent are far more mundane, as the author later illustrates: Emerson paid for it. He had a fortune obtained from his first wife and an eye for talent. All of the above mentioned writers were, at one time or another broke. Emerson sought interesting, inspiring company, in his distant home and paid for housing. Regardless of how this community arose, what is important is that it did. The happy result was that a number of talented people had the opportunity to live near and influence each other.

The book is divided into four parts; though what distinguishes the breaks between parts is hard to tell. However, within these parts are short, 4 to 7 page “chapters” that are primarily episodes in the lives of the people discussed, presented from their perspective. This allows Cheever to weave a narrative that includes all the points of view of the different players; a method that she crafts masterfully. She will even present the same scene from a different individual’s viewpoint, without it feeling redundant given that she is presenting different emotions and thoughts through different eyes. This is especially helpful in a book that focuses upon relationships, both romantic and platonic, since the emotions and interpretations of relationships and their effects are always personal.

Susan Cheever is particularly well-suited to this internal, relationship-based form of history writing. As the daughter of author John Cheever, she is well acquainted with memoirs of famous writers, and is not shy about depicting personal details. Her best-selling Home Before Dark talks about her father’s bisexuality; her personal memoir Note Found in a Bottle recounts the influence of alcoholism in her life. She has exhibited bold honesty and self-revelation in these memoirs. One could expect no less in her discussion of iconic writers who are not family. Cheever capably describes the jealousy between Emerson and Hawthorn over Margaret Fuller (as well as the reactions of their respective wives); Hawthorne’s anti-social leanings; A. Bronson Alcott’s unwillingness come down from the philosophical clouds and provide for his impoverished family, the non-violent Transcendentalists being “seduced by the false authority of John Brown” (Cheever, p.6); and numerous other scandalous or questionable occurrences in the Concord community. While she is enchanted by this group of writers, she is realistic about them as people and is used to tossing-up dirt.

There are few flaws in Cheever’s otherwise personable and artful style. She inserts some unnecessary, distracting personal paragraphs concerning her own trips to Concord. She has a tendency towards hyperbole. Her chapter introducing Margaret Fuller is entitled “The Sexy Muse;” which is fun, but demeans and sensationalizes that writer. She calls Walden “the first American memoir” (Cheever, p.125). But there are numerous precursors (importantly Joseph Plumb Martin’s memoir of his time as a Revolutionary soldier, which preceded Thoreau by 30 years and is cited by historians today  http://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/joseph-plumb-martin ). She claims “in April of 1847, Fanny Longfellow had been the first woman to deliver a child with the aid of ether” (Cheever, p. 148). But “on January 19, 1847…James Young Simpson, a Scottish obstetrician, administered diethyl ether to facilitate delivery of a child to a woman” ( https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/c/caton-blessing.html ). But these are minor hiccups in an otherwise well-written history.

It is not hyperbole to say that the Transcendentalists were one of the most important literary and philosophical movements in US history. They challenged the puritanical morality and rigidity of their time with innovative, liberating styles and ideas. This book on their personal lives and connections provides a reader with insight on the creative processes and unique interactions which permitted that innovation. Susan Cheever is not an academically-trained historian. But her slim book permits a picture of this ground-breaking community that surpasses the efforts of many academics in its’ ability to vividly portray the Concord community. Sometimes the personal iconoclasm of an author allows her to show aspects of historical, iconoclastic personalities that are missed by more traditional historians.

Cheever, Susan. American Bloomsbury. Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2006.

The Thirty Years War. Europe's Tragedy. By Peter H. Wilson

The Thirty Years War was a tragic, devastating series of conflicts between 1618 and 1648. Its death toll was between 5,000,000 and 8,000,000 lives in an area of central Europe (the Holy Roman Empire), which contained a population of 26,000,000. Many of the casualties were not among natives to the Empire. All major European countries became involved for their own gain, and contributed soldiers to the war. The outpouring of violence and greed was only compounded by hypocrisy among the combative parties: Protestants and Catholics both claimed to have been advancing their interpretation of a myth about a non-violent Jesus. The effects of human suffering, opportunistic religious hypocrisy and material destruction, created catastrophic harm which stunted progress in Western Civilization on several fronts.

This period and subject present the problem of an unwieldy mass of information. One must consider the motivations and actions of political, cultural, religious and military entities across Europe. In addition, the personalities and goals of key monarchs, aristocrats and generals, must be taken into account. Finally, all of these factors are not just contained within a daunting 30 year period, involving three generations of continent-wide players. They also involve influences that began with the Reformation of the 14^th Century, and contain ramifications for centuries following the conflict. As a result of this scope, it is possible to have as many interpretations as there are historians, each selecting a focus that contributes to, (or confuses), a vast puzzle.

Peter H. Wilson is a diligent, intelligent historian who has funneled a vast swath of information into a 900 page book. He divided his book into three parts. The first part explains the war’s origins, and conditions affecting the Holy Roman Empire, from the 15^th Century up until 1618. Part Two is a chronological study of the war period (1618 – 1648). The third part “examines the war’s political, economic, social and cultural impact and longer-term significance.” (Wilson, p. xxii).

This historian presents a traditional focus, in that he studies the political leaders: monarchs, generals, political ministers and territorial princes. Given the breadth and depth of this conflict, it is important to narrow one’s view, unless one is planning to make a life’s work of this topic, producing a couple dozen volumes. In contrast with Wilson’s perspective on leadership, a historian of Howard Zinn’s persuasion would examine the history of the Empire’s common citizens. A historian of Barbara Tuchman’s persuasion would include more cultural elements, some iconoclastic individuals and sub-cultures of obscure variety. The difference between Wilson, versus Tuchman or Zinn, is that the latter two were always careful to point-out that their view did not encompass the entirety of the subject. Wilson is not so careful.

For example, a major contention of this author’s is that the Thirty Years War “was not primarily a religious war.” (Wilson, p. 9).  Repeatedly, Wilson illustrates that leaders, used the conflict to gain power, land, wealth, titles and advantage over others. Often a Catholic or Protestant leader would use a religious rationalization as propaganda for their aggression. But the historian presents cogent reasons concerning why these declarations of faith were a smokescreen for the leader’s greed. It is a fine catalog of individuals’ motivations that have nothing to do with their branch of Christianity. And so Wilson comes to the universal conclusion that the war was not primarily religious. Of course, a mature reader understands that the power players of any period care mainly about power. Even today, we see that Saddam Hussein’s former Ba’athist generals who are now leading ISIS care little about Jihad, but will use fundamentalist justifications for their actions. However, while the desires of political leaders were a major factor in the conflict, they were not the only factor. A historian whose project centered on the influences of clergy and sects of each branch of Christianity might reach a different conclusion about the role religion played. A researcher studying local populations of one or another faith, who observed civilians massacring communities of an opposing confession, prosecuting “witches,” talking about the war as a divine punishment, might also conclude that religion was more important. A scholar whose examination began with the Reformation might see the Thirty Years War as a logical conclusion to that event, thereby making religion central. A conflict this prolonged, this complex and this multi-cultural, defies universal statements created from the examination of one element.

The last chapter, “Experiencing War,” is a complete departure from the rest of the book. Up until that point, the focus was on the leaders. The last section is a grab bag of issues not covered in the narrative of the first two sections. It includes personal testimonies of commoners, the impact of print media, military-civil relations, and a number of other matters having less to do with leadership. Its presence is incongruous. It appears as if the author was conscious of omissions made necessary to maintain focus upon the chronology of leaders’ motives and actions. A more appropriate final chapter would have articulated patterns, or narrower conclusions, about the individuals in power.

The Thirty Years War. Europe’s Tragedy is a useful, highly informative illustration of motives and actions by those in power during the conflict. If it is a reader’s goal to examine this puzzle piece of the war, Wilson’s book is a fine choice. Of course this leaves a lot of research on the shoulders of a bookworm who aspires to a more whole or general understanding of this period. But we are, after all, non-fiction readers. It is one of our pleasures, compulsions and goals, to accumulate knowledge. This is just another opportunity.

Wilson, Peter H. The Thirty Years War. Europe’s Tragedy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009.

Havelock Ellis. A Biography. By Phyllis Grosskurth

Havelock Ellis was a late Nineteenth Century physician whose writings had a humanizing, freeing influence on the sexually-repressed societies of Europe and North America. Regarding a couple’s private sexuality, he encouraged play and sexual fulfillment for women. Publicly, Ellis counseled reform of divorce laws, acceptance of masturbation and dissemination of birth control information. Also, Ellis saw lesbians and gays as a natural part of humanity, during a time when they were condemned by society as (at best) mentally ill, or (at worst) evil. These open, permissive values not only reduced suffering for people willing to read his works, but also pointed the way towards our contemporary acceptance of human sexuality.

Phyllis Grosskurth writes a typical birth-to-earth biography. There is nothing innovative about the organization of her book. However, it is prodigiously researched, employing the most important primary sources concerning Ellis’s life. Grosskurth estimates that she has examined “well over twenty thousand” unpublished letters while preparing this volume (Grosskurth, p. xi). The list of libraries, private collections and personal papers she perused is equally impressive.

Despite the author’s dedication to her project, she has few illusions about her subject. Ellis was a peculiar man. He became famous during his lifetime, with numerous friends, admirers and lovers; but this British scholar was shy, passive and required a great deal of time alone. Sexually, he preferred urolagnia (Grosskurth, pp. 227-8), and was frequently incapable of sustaining an erection (Grosskurth, p. 94). Mercifully, the descriptions of his carnal life are opaque. While his books on human sexuality were instructively explicit, his letters (wherein information regarding his proclivities resides) are more typical of the age than his books, and merely allude to erotic activity. But there are advantages to Ellis’s peculiarity: If the norm, in late Victorian England, was suffocating repression concerning physical relations, then it may be that an atypical individual outside of that norm was better suited to present alternatives that were liberated and liberating. Also, a person whose own sexual practices were condemned by society would be less likely to condemn the practices of others. Ellis rarely expressed urolagnia as anything but an abnormality. Conversely, he put his less than stellar potency to good use. He proposed couples have open communication about likes and dislikes, offering suggestions, beyond coitus, that contribute to close erotic relationships.

By the early Twentieth Century, Freud had eclipsed Ellis as the chief authority on human sexuality. The Viennese doctor had many critics who disagreed with his conclusions. But most people were willing to recognize Freud’s genius and the superiority of the psychoanalytic method over anything that had come before. Though Ellis receives little recognition for the freedoms we have, his contribution was not insignificant. Throughout the bio, Grosskurth vividly depicts Havelock Ellis’s flaws. But she also shows him as a loving person, who saw how self-abnegating conventions around sex were inflicting harm on individuals and societies. He also saw a way out: In Ellis’s own words to his wife, “I am not a God, but only a very human creature, full of defects & always failing, & with limitations & peculiarities & shyness & reserves—a creature that has always been liable to be wounded at a touch. I cannot alter my nature & I do not think anything is gained by hiding things & pretending, but that it is best in love to be open” (Grosskurth, p. 338). This is what Ellis brought to the exploration of sexuality: openness, self-reflection, vulnerability and honest communication. By emphasizing these humble qualities in his life and writing, he helped to break-down the walls of fear, repugnance and silence that those of his generation had built around the human body.

Grosskurth, Phyllis. Havelock Ellis. A Biography. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1980.

Religion, State and Paths to Power. The Confidence Game Persists.

Four thousand years ago, the Babylonians believed that their kings were appointed by their gods to lead them. “Many of the texts composed for royal rituals lay great emphasis on the state-like organization of the pantheon which had a clearly defined hierarchy and areas of responsibility like those of ministers.” Ellil (and later Marduk) “presided over the divine assembly and conferred kingship.” (Leick, p. 102). Beliefs such as this come as no surprise to evidence-based thinkers. In the context of the western culture from which the majority of readers descend, we are familiar with a history where Cardinals of the Church were “Princes of Rome” who possessed great tracts of land and fought wars to maintain their wealth. Where the Church sold indulgences to increase its’ profits. Where kings, backed by clergy, claimed their authority came from God. The point of commonality, between an earlier agricultural society of the Fertile Crescent and this later one of Medieval Europe, is the treatment of religion as a path to power. These agreements between king and clergy have always been a con game. Kings understood that having a religion propagandize their divine right to rule, made the job of exploitation easier. Religious leaders understood that if they attached themselves to a powerful leader and became the state religion, wealth and influence would follow.

Conditions have changed markedly since those times. The beliefs of the Babylonian state religion exists only in clay cuneiform tablets. Europe long ago exchanged its kings and state religions for secular republics. But Christianity is still the dominant religion in the west, and dominant religions are still a path to power. Among the Catholic branch of Christianity, the sexual domination of children and the breadth of cultural influence are examples of the currency of power. Not to forget that actual currency remains immeasurably important: the Catholic Church is still one of the wealthiest organizations in the world. Among the Protestant branch of Christianity, there is also the clamor to expand influence in the public sphere. The United States in particular is infested with holy policy wonks attempting to replace Evolution with Creation, push prayer into the schools and interfere in a woman’s private decision concerning whether or not to terminate a pregnancy. Despite numerous media exposés of greed and sex scandals among the Protestant clergy, their flock is still just that: a group of sheep being fleeced of all their cash and all of their independence of thought. Of course the sophistication among some of the worshippers has changed. Who among evidence-based Atheists and free-thinkers has not conversed with a Christian of some stripe who understands scientific method? How many internet conversations have you had where a believer felt that their Christianity was a private affair that made them a more compassionate person, but they didn’t hate you for thinking differently? Unfortunately the existence of reasonable, dare I say humanistic, Christians does not mean that the institution to which they give money is anything more than a mercenary flim-flam. The anecdote of one rational individual, or one church that is not seeking to force itself on the public sphere, does not vindicate the systemic intentions of a vast institutional convention.

From Babylon, to Medieval Europe, to the present, the con endures. The institution continues to seek power and influence. It is unlikely to fail anytime soon. Their propaganda is more appealing: Eternal life with your cosmic daddy after you die. In heaven you can eat all the candy you want and not get diabetes. Whatever you fantasize is yours; and you get to share it with all of the people and pets you now mourn. So what do we offer: when you die, your brain ceases to function. All you ever thought you were just switches-off forever and you rot in the dirt. In a tough world where most people are willing to accept pretty silly, unverifiable myths, that help them deny some hard facts, who do you think is going to attract the larger numbers? The best we can do is offer an alternative based on evidence. Those who are intrepid and educated enough to accept reality over superstition, will affect and expand our community. As long as we don’t become attached to evangelizing our views, as long as we do not require others to think as we do, we will not become frustrated or disheartened. We’ll leave that discouragement to the opposition. The very existence of a vocal, informed community, devoted to evidence-based ideas, stands as a bulwark against the domination of power-hungry swindlers peddling myths. We’ve gained a lot of ground in the past couple of millennia, evolving from governments based upon divine kingships and clerical power to secular republics. Let’s defend it.

Leick, Gwendolyn. The Babylonians. New York: Routledge, 2003.

From Absolutism to Revolution: 1648 - 1848. By Herbert H. Rowen.

In Europe, between 1648 and 1848, crucial progress was made via a difficult path of learning and action. From Absolutism to Revolution eponymously defines that progress. But there is a lot that the book contains which the title cannot. This is not simply a political story about our fitful western transition from monarchy to democracy. It is also a retelling of how our thinking changed.

Rowen does not begin his account with a political treatise; he begins with Sir Isaac Newton. Therein is an important distinction between this and other histories on the topic of socio-political development towards greater freedom. What Newton represents is the Scientific Revolution of the Sixteenth Century. This seemingly non-political revolution challenged established notions and static thinking. The “absolute truths” of Judeo-Christian Europe were beginning to be challenged by a non-belief-based, empirical, experimental way of looking at the world. Once the answers to how the world worked were no longer satisfied by the phrase “God made it this way and any questioning is blasphemy,” then any number of ideas could be called into question. All kinds of traditional plans for humanity, based on argument from authority alone, were open to reinterpretation. Even the Divine Right of Kings, with their alleged authority from God, was up for debate. Well…at least according to some people these notions were up for debate. It is not as if the floodgates of free thought were now open and flowing unhindered. The entrenched interests of Church, King and Aristocrat, who benefitted greatly from maintaining argument from authority over argument from experience and experiment, initially resisted even the suggestion that a debate was allowable. Therein lay a tension that unfolds throughout the book in terms of both concept and action.

Since this book is as much about changing ideas as it is about changing society, Rowen offers a structure that addresses this premise. The book is divided into four sections: 1) “The Age of Louis XIV,”(1648-1715), when absolutism was at its height and the foundational challenging ideas were being formulated and  expressed. 2) The “Age of Enlightenment” (1715-1789), when a public sphere in opposition to the royal sphere had been firmly established and was gaining traction. 3) “The Age of Revolution” (1789-1815), covering the French Revolution, through Napoleon’s era of conquest to his final defeat and examining the response in the rest of Europe. 4) “The Age of Restoration” (1815-1848), examining the reactionary period of monarchical power, along with the democratic or forward-thinking ideas which survived in that period and developed into guiding principles that resulted in the revolutions of 1848.

Most of the writing is not Rowen’s. He allows the proponents of conservativism and progress to speak for themselves. At the beginning of each section, the author presents a short synopsis of activities, and debated ideas, in the time period discussed. He then presents short chapters, each introducing a key individual, whose ideas and influence were central to the period and issues of the chapter. A one or two paragraph biography is followed by a selection of that writer’s best work. In this way, the reader is able to acquaint herself with both the important individuals and the opposing ideas of a given time period. There are 78 prominent figures, each with an associated writing, or collaborative document (like French Revolution’s “The Declaration of Rights).

Significantly, none of the writers are of non-white descent and only one (Catherine the Great) is a woman. While it is true that women and minorities did not fill the halls of power in a predominantly white Europe, there were considerable contributions made by those groups which are overlooked. It is surprising that Rowen fails to include African European voices in his section on ending slavery. Notable women, like Mary Wollestonecraft and Mme de Stael, who contributed importantly to the ideas of their times, are similarly ignored. From Absolutism to Revolution was written in 1963, in the United States. Even though there was an active movement for African American equality, and discussion of “the woman question” among universities, these notions apparently did not filter into Professor Rowen’s mind in a way that affected his work.

It is impressive that the historian permits important personages to speak for themselves, rather than coloring the picture with his own narrative. Rowen thusly offers his audience an opportunity to read, at length, pivotal primary sources by crucial, historic people. In this way, the words and people come alive in their contexts, revealing the impact of resolute individuals and the transformational importance of ideas.

Rowen, Herbert H. (ed.). From Absolutism to Revolution: 1648 – 1848. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1963.