Reading List: Transatlantic History in the Long Nineteenth Century

A few months ago I posted my exam reading list for U.S. Intellectual and Cultural History.

Since then, I have (pretty much) settled my reading list for my second historical field, Transatlantic History in the Long Nineteenth Century.

I am posting that list below, both to provide an example of what a reading list for this sort of field might look like and to provoke some conversation among our readers about what such a list ought to look like.  The subtitles/subject headings in this list are heuristic -- just markers I came up with to help me put the books I'm using into very broad and basic categories.  They may not be the most apt way to describe the subject matter that I have grouped together; they are simply a kind of preliminary scaffolding.  Once I've read through this list, I will no doubt think of different and probably better ways to group these texts.

In the meantime, I would be glad to hear suggestions about alternate titles I should consider.  However, I can't let this list go (very far?) over 50 titles.  I have to draw the line somewhere. 

Drawing the line was a real challenge here.  While the boundary lines between fields and disciplines always reflect the ways in which knowledge is constructed, this exam field covers -- or at least partially sketches out -- a historical subdiscipline that is itself much concerned with redrawing the boundaries of knowledge in such a way as to bring a subject, if not into being, then at least into view.  Both "the Transatlantic" and "the long nineteenth century" cross (some) conventional boundaries of historical specialization.  Holding those two terms in tension, I have worked with my supervising professor for this field to put together a list that makes sense, and that makes sense for me in terms of contributing to the overall coherence of my training as an Americanist and an intellectual and cultural historian.  Moreover, this particular list will provide part of a very solid foundation from which to begin my dissertation.

But first I have to pass these exams.  I'm looking at Fall of 2013 for that.  I'm not looking forward to it.  But when the time comes, I intend to be ready.  Until then, I am still working on settling my final reading list, American Literature from 1789 - ca. 2000.  When I get that all sorted out, I will post it here as well.

So, anyhow, here's my reading list.


Transatlantic History in the Long Nineteenth Century


theorizing/mapping the Transatlantic

Lucien Febvre, et. al., Le Nouveau Monde et l'Europe (Conference proceedings - Rencontres internationales de Geneve) (1954)
Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (1993)
Thomas Bender, editor, Rethinking American History in a Global Age (2002)
Alan Taylor, American Colonies: The Settling of North America (2002)
Bernard Bailyn, Atlantic History: Concepts and Contours (2005)
Thomas Bender, A Nation Among Nations: America's Place in World History (2006)
Jorge Canizares-Esguerra and Erik Seeman, The Atlantic in Global History: 1500-2000 (2006)
Francois Furstenberg, "The Significance of the Trans-Appalachian Frontier in Atlantic History," The American Historical Review, Vol. 113, No. 3 (June 2008)
Jack P. Greene and Philip D. Morgan, Atlantic History: A Critical Appraisal (2008)
Tom Fulford and Kevin Hutchings, eds., Native Americans and Anglo-American Culture, 1750-1850: The Indian Atlantic (2009)
Peter J. Kastor and Francois Weil, eds., Empires of the Imagination: Transatlantic Histories of the Louisiana Purchase (2009)

Forum: Entangled Empires in the Atlantic World (American Historical Review, June 2007)

Epstein, James. "Politics of Colonial Sensation: The Trial of Thomas Picton and the Cause of Louisa Calderon." The American Historical Review 112, no. 3 (2007): 712-41.
Blaufarb, Rafe. "The Western Question: The Geopolitics of Latin American Independence." The American Historical Review 112, no. 3 (2007): 742-63.
Gould, Eliga H. "Entangled Histories, Entangled Worlds: The English-Speaking Atlantic as a Spanish Periphery." The American Historical Review 112, no. 3 (2007): 764-86.
Cañizares-Esguerra, Jorge. "Entangled Histories: Borderland Historiographies in New Clothes?" The American Historical Review 112, no. 3 (2007): 787-99.

slavery and abolition

Thomas Bender, ed., The Anti-Slavery Debate: Capitalism and Abolitionism as a Problem in Historical Interpretation (1992)
Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic (2001)
Christopher Leslie Brown, Moral Capital: The Foundations of British Abolitionism (2006)
Cassandra Pybus, Epic Journeys of Freedom: Runaway Slaves of the American Revolution and Their Global Quest for Liberty (2007)
Seymour Drescher, Abolition: A History of Slavery and Antislavery (2009)
Vincent Brown, The Reaper’s Garden: Death and Power in the World of Atlantic Slavery
(2010)

Transatlantic religious/reform movements

Margaret H. McFadden, Golden Cables of Sympathy: The Transatlantic Sources of Nineteenth-Century Feminism (1999)
David Hempton, Methodism: Empire of the Spirit (2005)
Ian Tyrrell, Reforming the World: The Creation of America’s Moral Empire (2010)

rise of nation-states

Ian Tyrrell, "Making Nations/Making States: American Historians in the Context of Empire,"     Journal of American History 86 (3), 1999.
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (2006)
Oz Frankel, States of Inquiry: Social Investigations and Print Culture in Nineteenth-century Britain and the United States (2006)
Ida Blom, Karen Hagemann, and Catherine Hall, eds., Gendered Nations: Nationalism and Gender Order in the Long Nineteenth Century (2000)

commerce, commodities and cosmopolitanism

Mira Wilkins, The Emergence of Multinational Enterprise: American Business Abroad from the Colonial Era to 1914 (1970)
Sean Wilentz, Chants Democratic: New York and the Rise of the American Working Class, 1788-1850 (1984)
Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste (1987)
T.H. Breen, "'Baubles of Britain':  The American and Consumer Revolutions of the Eighteenth Century," Past & Present 19 (May 1988)
Sven Beckert, The Monied Metropolis: New York City and the Consolidation of the American Bourgeoisie, 1850-1896 (2003)
Kristin L. Hoganson, Consumers' Imperium: The Global Production of American Domesticity (2007)
Matthew Pratt Guterl, American Mediterranean: Southern Slaveholders in the Age of Emancipation (2008)

America's emergence as a Transatlantic imperial power

Thomas J. Knock, To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order (1995)
Kristin L. Hoganson, Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars (2000)
Mary A. Renda, Taking Haiti: Military Occupation and the Culture of U.S. Imperialism, 1915-1940 (2000)
David Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society (2004)

Transatlantic cultural / intellectual currents

R.R. Palmer, The Age of Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760 - 1800 (1964)
Thomas L. Haskell, The Emergence of Professional Social Science: The American Social Science Association and the Nineteenth-Century Crisis of Authority (1977)
James T. Kloppenberg, Uncertain Victory: Social Democracy and Progressivism in European and American Thought, 1870-1920 (1986)
David Hackett Fischer, Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America (1989)
Walter Nugent, Crossings: The Great Transatlantic Migrations, 1870-1914 (1992)
Gillis Harp, Positivist Republic: Auguste Comte and the Reconstruction of American Liberalism, 1865-1920 (1995)
Kevin Kenny, Making Sense of the Molly Maguires (1998)
Daniel T. Rodgers, Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age (1998)
Matthew Frye Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race (1998)
Leslie Butler, Critical Americans: Victorian Intellectuals and Transatlantic Liberal Reform (2007)
David Armitage, The Declaration of Independence: A Global History (2008)

French Invasion! Transference Studies and U.S. Intellectual History

In thumbing through a new anthology to commemorate 100 years of the OAH—awkwardly titled, The Organization of American Historians and the Writing and Teaching of American History—I paused to read a short essay by David Hollinger, “The MVHR, the JAH, and Intellectual History: From the Margin to the Mainstream.” He argues that, though intellectual history was often farmed out to scholars in other disciplines—English, philosophy, and political science—it was slowly incorporated into the larger American historiography, at least insofar as the pages of the JAH are representative. Hollinger concludes his essay on an optimistic note, writing that intellectual history eventually (by the 1980s) found a comfortable home in the JAH, pointing to oft-cited articles authored by Daniel Rodgers, James Kloppenberg, and more lately, Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen. Though I tend to think his optimism is misplaced—after all, a few important articles do not a “mainstream” make—Hollinger’s essay has redeeming qualities.

Hollinger divides U.S. intellectual historiography into two sets of working assumptions. On the one hand is the type perfected by Merle Curti, who studied intellectual history alongside social history, or “general ideas that had broad popular appeal.” On the other is the sort practiced by Perry Miller, who differed from Curti “in the technical detail [he] devoted to the most highly developed of philosophical, theological, and political theoretical discourses.” This latter current also distinguished itself from the former in that, not only did it mirror European intellectual history in its close attention to highly specialized intellectual discourses, it also studied how European thought helped shape American thought. Though Hollinger is respectful of Curti (and his students, such as John Higham), he clearly favors Miller’s type of intellectual history. He makes this position clear by criticizing Louis Menand’s The Metaphysical Club (2001), the methodology of which he relates to Curti’s, or even more closely, to Daniel Boorstin’s and Henry Steele Commager’s. “Menand offered an unreconstructed American exceptionalist 1950s-style interpretation of the pragmatist intellectuals of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.” Hollinger compares The Metaphysical Club unfavorably to James Kloppenberg’s Uncertain Victory (1986), which “demonstrated commandingly that the deeply Protestant culture of post-Civil War New England was but one of several sites in the industrialized world for the simultaneous development of a historicist sensitivity to uncertainty and of a recognition of the instrumental character of concepts.” In short, Hollinger seems to think transnationalism is crucial to the study of intellectual history (though, in his work, I would argue, his subjects are more transnational than his approach).

While withholding comment on “the promise and peril” that transnational history holds for intellectual history, I am fascinated by that variant we might call “transference studies.” Daniel Rodgers wrote one of the best such books: Atlantic Crossings. Another great book in this genre is George Cotkin’s Existential America. I look forward to reading two new books situated as histories of intellectual transference: Martin Woessner’s Heidegger in America and Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen’s American Nietzsche: A History of an Icon and His Ideas (which builds on her aforementioned JAH essay, “Conventional Iconoclasm: The Cultural Work of the Nietzsche Image in Twentieth-Century America.”) While daydreaming about my next research project, I sometimes think it would be a lot of fun to write “Marx in America” (has nobody written this?!)

I recently read another history of intellectual transference, François Cusset’s excellent French Theory: How Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, & Co. Transformed the Intellectual Life of the United States (English edition translated by Jeff Fort). Cusset’s thesis is that ideas which originated in France in the 1960s and 1970s crossed the Atlantic and were reinterpreted for an American context in the 1980s and 1990s. Ironically, just as French intellectual life grew weary of “French theory”—the label pinned on the collective, so-called poststructuralist thought of Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, Kristeva, Baudrillard, Lyotard, Lacan, Althusser (despite the fact that they hardly produced an undifferentiated mass of thought)—American intellectual life grew ripe for a French invasion. But, as Cussett makes abundantly clear, the American appropriation of French theory was a productive misappropriation.

In the process of some original thinking on how French theory meant something different across the Atlantic, Cussett makes a more familiar argument—familiar, at least, to readers of Terry Eagleton, Fredric Jameson, Nancy Fraser, and other Marxist critics of poststructuralism and postmodernism: French theory was recoded in the United States as “cultural studies,” while largely ignoring the market forces of culture. Its acolytes engaged in “detailing clothing styles and coded lingos as forms of rebellious expression with little or no consideration of social positions and contexts; debating sex wars and gender norms with hardly a mention of the profitable commodification of femininity as today’s ultimate existential product; praising Madonna as a postfeminist icon, or denouncing her as a traitor to feminism, but without ever mentioning her marketing tactics; and, more generally, pointing at symbolic discriminations without analyzing the culture industry as a whole, with its endless ability to absorb negativity, exploit margins, swallow and recycle criticism, and gradually shift from mass promotion to a more timely marketing of differences…” (xvi)

One of the advantages of reading a French historian of the United States is that there is much to learn from his necessarily comparative approach. For example, in his introduction, Cusset reveals a split between French and U.S. intellectual history (which helps explain why French theory made such a mark in the United States well after its influence had ebbed in France). Long settled debates in France continued to rage on American campuses, in the form of the culture wars. Thus, when physicist Alan Sokol—made famous when Social Text published his 1996 hoax article, “Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity”—carried his attack on postmodernism’s “disdain for facts and logic” to France, in the form of a book he coauthored with Belgian physicist Jean Bricmont, Impostures Intellectuelles, it was greeted with some mild controversy but mostly with confusion. The French misread Sokol because they could not decipher the context from which terms such as the following arose: cultural studies, constructionism, posthumanism, multiculturalism, canon wars, deconstruction, “political correctness.” These were particularly American debates, owing to particular problems that arose from American academic life.

There’s a lot more to examine in this compelling book. For example, Cusset convincingly explains why French theory made its most lasting mark on the fields of feminist and queer theory. (Think Judith Butler and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick.) Perhaps I’ll save that for my next post. For now, I’d like to leave you with a few questions: do you like histories of intellectual transference? Pros and cons? Which do you like? Dislike?

French Invasion! Transference Studies and U.S. Intellectual History

In thumbing through a new anthology to commemorate 100 years of the OAH—awkwardly titled, The Organization of American Historians and the Writing and Teaching of American History—I paused to read a short essay by David Hollinger, “The MVHR, the JAH, and Intellectual History: From the Margin to the Mainstream.” He argues that, though intellectual history was often farmed out to scholars in other disciplines—English, philosophy, and political science—it was slowly incorporated into the larger American historiography, at least insofar as the pages of the JAH are representative. Hollinger concludes his essay on an optimistic note, writing that intellectual history eventually (by the 1980s) found a comfortable home in the JAH, pointing to oft-cited articles authored by Daniel Rodgers, James Kloppenberg, and more lately, Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen. Though I tend to think his optimism is misplaced—after all, a few important articles do not a “mainstream” make—Hollinger’s essay has redeeming qualities.

Hollinger divides U.S. intellectual historiography into two sets of working assumptions. On the one hand is the type perfected by Merle Curti, who studied intellectual history alongside social history, or “general ideas that had broad popular appeal.” On the other is the sort practiced by Perry Miller, who differed from Curti “in the technical detail [he] devoted to the most highly developed of philosophical, theological, and political theoretical discourses.” This latter current also distinguished itself from the former in that, not only did it mirror European intellectual history in its close attention to highly specialized intellectual discourses, it also studied how European thought helped shape American thought. Though Hollinger is respectful of Curti (and his students, such as John Higham), he clearly favors Miller’s type of intellectual history. He makes this position clear by criticizing Louis Menand’s The Metaphysical Club (2001), the methodology of which he relates to Curti’s, or even more closely, to Daniel Boorstin’s and Henry Steele Commager’s. “Menand offered an unreconstructed American exceptionalist 1950s-style interpretation of the pragmatist intellectuals of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.” Hollinger compares The Metaphysical Club unfavorably to James Kloppenberg’s Uncertain Victory (1986), which “demonstrated commandingly that the deeply Protestant culture of post-Civil War New England was but one of several sites in the industrialized world for the simultaneous development of a historicist sensitivity to uncertainty and of a recognition of the instrumental character of concepts.” In short, Hollinger seems to think transnationalism is crucial to the study of intellectual history (though, in his work, I would argue, his subjects are more transnational than his approach).

While withholding comment on “the promise and peril” that transnational history holds for intellectual history, I am fascinated by that variant we might call “transference studies.” Daniel Rodgers wrote one of the best such books: Atlantic Crossings. Another great book in this genre is George Cotkin’s Existential America. I look forward to reading two new books situated as histories of intellectual transference: Martin Woessner’s Heidegger in America and Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen’s American Nietzsche: A History of an Icon and His Ideas (which builds on her aforementioned JAH essay, “Conventional Iconoclasm: The Cultural Work of the Nietzsche Image in Twentieth-Century America.”) While daydreaming about my next research project, I sometimes think it would be a lot of fun to write “Marx in America” (has nobody written this?!)

I recently read another history of intellectual transference, François Cusset’s excellent French Theory: How Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, & Co. Transformed the Intellectual Life of the United States (English edition translated by Jeff Fort). Cusset’s thesis is that ideas which originated in France in the 1960s and 1970s crossed the Atlantic and were reinterpreted for an American context in the 1980s and 1990s. Ironically, just as French intellectual life grew weary of “French theory”—the label pinned on the collective, so-called poststructuralist thought of Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, Kristeva, Baudrillard, Lyotard, Lacan, Althusser (despite the fact that they hardly produced an undifferentiated mass of thought)—American intellectual life grew ripe for a French invasion. But, as Cussett makes abundantly clear, the American appropriation of French theory was a productive misappropriation.

In the process of some original thinking on how French theory meant something different across the Atlantic, Cussett makes a more familiar argument—familiar, at least, to readers of Terry Eagleton, Fredric Jameson, Nancy Fraser, and other Marxist critics of poststructuralism and postmodernism: French theory was recoded in the United States as “cultural studies,” while largely ignoring the market forces of culture. Its acolytes engaged in “detailing clothing styles and coded lingos as forms of rebellious expression with little or no consideration of social positions and contexts; debating sex wars and gender norms with hardly a mention of the profitable commodification of femininity as today’s ultimate existential product; praising Madonna as a postfeminist icon, or denouncing her as a traitor to feminism, but without ever mentioning her marketing tactics; and, more generally, pointing at symbolic discriminations without analyzing the culture industry as a whole, with its endless ability to absorb negativity, exploit margins, swallow and recycle criticism, and gradually shift from mass promotion to a more timely marketing of differences…” (xvi)

One of the advantages of reading a French historian of the United States is that there is much to learn from his necessarily comparative approach. For example, in his introduction, Cusset reveals a split between French and U.S. intellectual history (which helps explain why French theory made such a mark in the United States well after its influence had ebbed in France). Long settled debates in France continued to rage on American campuses, in the form of the culture wars. Thus, when physicist Alan Sokol—made famous when Social Text published his 1996 hoax article, “Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity”—carried his attack on postmodernism’s “disdain for facts and logic” to France, in the form of a book he coauthored with Belgian physicist Jean Bricmont, Impostures Intellectuelles, it was greeted with some mild controversy but mostly with confusion. The French misread Sokol because they could not decipher the context from which terms such as the following arose: cultural studies, constructionism, posthumanism, multiculturalism, canon wars, deconstruction, “political correctness.” These were particularly American debates, owing to particular problems that arose from American academic life.

There’s a lot more to examine in this compelling book. For example, Cusset convincingly explains why French theory made its most lasting mark on the fields of feminist and queer theory. (Think Judith Butler and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick.) Perhaps I’ll save that for my next post. For now, I’d like to leave you with a few questions: do you like histories of intellectual transference? Pros and cons? Which do you like? Dislike?

Bleg: The (Intellectual?) History of Oil

I am teaching a course in this coming fall titled "The History of Oil"---meaning petroleum, or crude oil. The class is meant to qualify as a world or transnational history, and is aimed at second, third, and fourth-year undergraduates. With that introduction, it is needless to say that this post is slightly off-topic in relation to our overall goals at USIH. But you will see by the end of the discussion that I am seeking cross-currents.

For starters, I'm excited about the course. It will combine elements of economic, political, environmental, and socio-cultural history, as well as the history of science. But I'm a bit disappointed, however, in my ability---thus far---to incorporate intellectual history into the course plan. My closest possibilities, it seems, are in relation to globalism, both as an economic and political program, as well as general economic theory.



Helping my case for intellectual history, I ran across an article by Chris Hedges in the online magazine Truthout, titled "The Collapse of Globalization." There's no denying that the article is polemical and indicative of authorial ideology. That said, here are a few passages that speak to the possibilities of incorporating intellectual history into a course section on globalism and the history of petroleum (bolds mine):

-------------------------------------------------
The ideological proponents of globalism—Thomas Friedman, Daniel Yergin, Ben Bernanke and Anthony Giddens—are stunted products of the self-satisfied, materialistic power elite. They use the utopian ideology of globalism as a moral justification for their own comfort, self-absorption and privilege. They do not question the imperial projects of the nation, the widening disparities in wealth and security between themselves as members of the world’s industrialized elite and the rest of the planet. They embrace globalism because it, like most philosophical and theological ideologies, justifies their privilege and power. They believe that globalism is not an ideology but an expression of an incontrovertible truth. And because the truth has been uncovered, all competing economic and political visions are dismissed from public debate before they are even heard.

The defense of globalism marks a disturbing rupture in American intellectual life. The collapse of the global economy in 1929 discredited the proponents of deregulated markets. It permitted alternative visions, many of them products of the socialist, anarchist and communist movements that once existed in the United States, to be heard. We adjusted to economic and political reality. The capacity to be critical of political and economic assumptions resulted in the New Deal, the dismantling of corporate monopolies and heavy government regulation of banks and corporations. But this time around, because corporations control the organs of mass communication, and because thousands of economists, business school professors, financial analysts, journalists and corporate managers have staked their credibility on the utopianism of globalism, we speak to each other in gibberish. We continue to heed the advice of Alan Greenspan, who believed the third-rate novelist Ayn Rand was an economic prophet, or Larry Summers, whose deregulation of our banks as treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton helped snuff out some $17 trillion in wages, retirement benefits and personal savings. We are assured by presidential candidates like Mitt Romney that more tax breaks for corporations would entice them to move their overseas profits back to the United States to create new jobs.
-------------------------------------------------

I pose this extreme example of approaching the intellectual history of globalism to solicit your opinions of more moderate and thoughtful critics. Ideas?

And while we establish those authorities, what are your thoughts on an intellectual history approach to any commodity? Do I need to dig out my copy of Nature's Metropolis and think through some social science theory, particularly Von Thünen's zones in relation petroleum development and exploration, as well as use for transportation theory? Will Imagined Communities suffice in relation to my presentation on the oil states? Will Carroll Pursell's work on the social history of machines (meaning the oil-using variety) in America help me enough in relation to oil-based technologies? Do you have any historical suggestions in relation to ideology and global-warming deniers (business and anti-intellectualism)?

Thanks in advance for your help. - TL

Bleg: The (Intellectual?) History of Oil

I am teaching a course in this coming fall titled "The History of Oil"---meaning petroleum, or crude oil. The class is meant to qualify as a world or transnational history, and is aimed at second, third, and fourth-year undergraduates. With that introduction, it is needless to say that this post is slightly off-topic in relation to our overall goals at USIH. But you will see by the end of the discussion that I am seeking cross-currents.

For starters, I'm excited about the course. It will combine elements of economic, political, environmental, and socio-cultural history, as well as the history of science. But I'm a bit disappointed, however, in my ability---thus far---to incorporate intellectual history into the course plan. My closest possibilities, it seems, are in relation to globalism, both as an economic and political program, as well as general economic theory.



Helping my case for intellectual history, I ran across an article by Chris Hedges in the online magazine Truthout, titled "The Collapse of Globalization." There's no denying that the article is polemical and indicative of authorial ideology. That said, here are a few passages that speak to the possibilities of incorporating intellectual history into a course section on globalism and the history of petroleum (bolds mine):

-------------------------------------------------
The ideological proponents of globalism—Thomas Friedman, Daniel Yergin, Ben Bernanke and Anthony Giddens—are stunted products of the self-satisfied, materialistic power elite. They use the utopian ideology of globalism as a moral justification for their own comfort, self-absorption and privilege. They do not question the imperial projects of the nation, the widening disparities in wealth and security between themselves as members of the world’s industrialized elite and the rest of the planet. They embrace globalism because it, like most philosophical and theological ideologies, justifies their privilege and power. They believe that globalism is not an ideology but an expression of an incontrovertible truth. And because the truth has been uncovered, all competing economic and political visions are dismissed from public debate before they are even heard.

The defense of globalism marks a disturbing rupture in American intellectual life. The collapse of the global economy in 1929 discredited the proponents of deregulated markets. It permitted alternative visions, many of them products of the socialist, anarchist and communist movements that once existed in the United States, to be heard. We adjusted to economic and political reality. The capacity to be critical of political and economic assumptions resulted in the New Deal, the dismantling of corporate monopolies and heavy government regulation of banks and corporations. But this time around, because corporations control the organs of mass communication, and because thousands of economists, business school professors, financial analysts, journalists and corporate managers have staked their credibility on the utopianism of globalism, we speak to each other in gibberish. We continue to heed the advice of Alan Greenspan, who believed the third-rate novelist Ayn Rand was an economic prophet, or Larry Summers, whose deregulation of our banks as treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton helped snuff out some $17 trillion in wages, retirement benefits and personal savings. We are assured by presidential candidates like Mitt Romney that more tax breaks for corporations would entice them to move their overseas profits back to the United States to create new jobs.
-------------------------------------------------

I pose this extreme example of approaching the intellectual history of globalism to solicit your opinions of more moderate and thoughtful critics. Ideas?

And while we establish those authorities, what are your thoughts on an intellectual history approach to any commodity? Do I need to dig out my copy of Nature's Metropolis and think through some social science theory, particularly Von Thünen's zones in relation petroleum development and exploration, as well as use for transportation theory? Will Imagined Communities suffice in relation to my presentation on the oil states? Will Carroll Pursell's work on the social history of machines (meaning the oil-using variety) in America help me enough in relation to oil-based technologies? Do you have any historical suggestions in relation to ideology and global-warming deniers (business and anti-intellectualism)?

Thanks in advance for your help. - TL

Tim's Light Reading (7/30/09)

1. This might qualify as a bit dated, but I'm not sure anyone here noted the new autobiographical collection of essays, titled Becoming Historians and published by the University of Chicago Press. Here is an e-mail interview between InsideHigherEd's Scott Jaschik and the book's editors, James M. Banner Jr. and John R. Gillis. The collection includes essays from Rhys Isaac, Joan Wallach Scott, Dwight T. Pitcaithley, Linda Gordon, David A. Hollinger, Maureen Murphy Nutting, Franklin W. Knight, Temma Kaplan, Paul Robinson, and the editors.

2. A few weeks ago I learned of a new print publication, The POINT Magazine. It is a new Chicago-based journal seeking to survey the contemporary scene from an intellectual angle. They might be interested in your idea for an article connecting your scholarly interest to today's news? Here's the TOC for their Spring 09 issue.

3. This NYT article by Carter Dougherty narrates a renewed Catholic interest, particularly in Germany, in a third economic way between capitalism and socialism. Of course the instigation was the early July release of Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical, "Charity in Truth." But the article's title, "Catholicism as Antidote to Turbo-Capitalism," reveals that the third way is really just a more ethical market-based structure.

4. Brill's ongoing "Studies in Intellectual History" book series contains some titles that may be of interest to USIH readers. Perhaps they would be receptive to your book proposal?

5. Elizabethtown College prof David Brown comments at HNN on his new book about Midwestern voices in the history profession. I haven't yet read his intriguing intellectual biography on Hofstadter, so I better get going before I'm another book behind.

6. InsideHigherEd's Scott Jaschik e-mail interviews Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze, professor of the history of mathematics at the University of Agder, in Norway, on his new book, Mathematicians Fleeing from Nazi Germany: Individual Fates and Global Impact (Princeton Press). Being known as a land of opportunity and tolerance, relatively speaking during the 1930s, increased the net mathematics brain power of the United States during tumultuous times.

7. I want to wish Sterling Fluharty well as he begins an exploration of life outside the history profession. His weblog, PhDinHistory, has quantitatively explored the profession for the last few years and forced some qualitative changes in my opinion about the state of the field.

Tim's Light Reading (7/30/09)

1. This might qualify as a bit dated, but I'm not sure anyone here noted the new autobiographical collection of essays, titled Becoming Historians and published by the University of Chicago Press. Here is an e-mail interview between InsideHigherEd's Scott Jaschik and the book's editors, James M. Banner Jr. and John R. Gillis. The collection includes essays from Rhys Isaac, Joan Wallach Scott, Dwight T. Pitcaithley, Linda Gordon, David A. Hollinger, Maureen Murphy Nutting, Franklin W. Knight, Temma Kaplan, Paul Robinson, and the editors.

2. A few weeks ago I learned of a new print publication, The POINT Magazine. It is a new Chicago-based journal seeking to survey the contemporary scene from an intellectual angle. They might be interested in your idea for an article connecting your scholarly interest to today's news? Here's the TOC for their Spring 09 issue.

3. This NYT article by Carter Dougherty narrates a renewed Catholic interest, particularly in Germany, in a third economic way between capitalism and socialism. Of course the instigation was the early July release of Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical, "Charity in Truth." But the article's title, "Catholicism as Antidote to Turbo-Capitalism," reveals that the third way is really just a more ethical market-based structure.

4. Brill's ongoing "Studies in Intellectual History" book series contains some titles that may be of interest to USIH readers. Perhaps they would be receptive to your book proposal?

5. Elizabethtown College prof David Brown comments at HNN on his new book about Midwestern voices in the history profession. I haven't yet read his intriguing intellectual biography on Hofstadter, so I better get going before I'm another book behind.

6. InsideHigherEd's Scott Jaschik e-mail interviews Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze, professor of the history of mathematics at the University of Agder, in Norway, on his new book, Mathematicians Fleeing from Nazi Germany: Individual Fates and Global Impact (Princeton Press). Being known as a land of opportunity and tolerance, relatively speaking during the 1930s, increased the net mathematics brain power of the United States during tumultuous times.

7. I want to wish Sterling Fluharty well as he begins an exploration of life outside the history profession. His weblog, PhDinHistory, has quantitatively explored the profession for the last few years and forced some qualitative changes in my opinion about the state of the field.

Faith In Taxes

I am happy to be a part of this blog and therefore need to apologize for the lack of posts over the last few months. With my family, I have been living abroad for the past 10 months in Copenhagen as part of a Fulbright. I taught and wrote at the Center for the Study of the Americas at the Copenhagen Business School and lived in the very delightful commune or district of Frederiksberg. And like many other Americans who get a taste of Scandinavian life, I was impressed by the quality of life most people in Denmark enjoy. The universal health care, public transportation, excellent pre-school care, and incredibly well-maintained bicycle lanes were simply made available to us for free. Of course, those services come with a price for the Danes in a tax rate that hovers between 50-60%. Well-nigh outrageous by American standards, or so friends and family exclaimed. And yet, I think I could learn to like taxes.

I had the rather strange experience of participating in a film made by a well-known Danish director for the national tax agency. It seemed that the agency was going through a period of re-organization and the morale of employees was a bit low as many had to shift positions and take on new tasks. The Danish government thought a film about the great good the tax agency does might boost spirits by showing the rather significant role taxes play in giving meaning to being Danish.

We might chuckle at this, ah-ha that was what Soren Kierkegaard had in mind! Man's search for meaning is found in his tax bill.

Well, in a way, the Danes do seem to embrace a somewhat existential approach to taxes: paying them is a leap of faith but this faith is not blind; like Americans, Danes complain about their taxes as well. But they do so in a way Kierkegaard might have appreciated. Their faith in the taxes does not translate into an absolute faith in the government--they don't leave the world up to their elected (and non-elected) officials. Danes constantly critique the results of the tax system but don't doubt that it needs to exist more or less at the present level of taxation. In this way, they profess a faith in taxes that provides the kind of civil religious unity that Americans get from their faith in abstraction notions of freedom and liberty. Maybe they are Hamiltonian in this way--creating a nation through the burden of taxation.

I went to Copenhagen to work on a book about civil religion and war in post-1945 America. I gave quite a few talks about the general role religion plays in American life and politics, especially in regard to framing and understanding the nation's role international affairs. What I came back with, though, was a new appreciation for faith in things that seem decidedly mundane. While my colleagues, students, and audiences rarely professed faith in an organized religion or an otherworldly God or even in great national myths (Danes joke that they are a country made by great military defeats), they often spoke profoundly about the stuff that binds generations of Danish folk together.

Danes have faith in taxes because their taxes support the welfare state--an entity that has a dual nature similar to the role served by the U.S. Constitution and the creed it embodies. While the Danish welfare system has not existed as long or with the kind of abstract power of the American Constitution, it has provided a surprisingly vibrant way for Danes to understand, debate and assess the dimensions of the common good. Quite unfortunately, the welfare state has also become something to guard, especially against what the Danish Right call the 'new immigrants.'

Nevertheless, as I get deeper into the field of public theology and civil religion, I am intrigued by what might be gained by comparing two types of existential faiths that on the suface appear to be very different. To that end, I recommend a group of Danish scholars who have begun a transatlantic project on beliefs and offer some preliminary notes and questions about this matter: Peter Andersen, Peter Gundelach, and Peter Luchau, "Religion in Europe and the United States: Assumptions, survey evidence, and some suggestions," Nordic Journal of Religion and Society (2008) 21 (1): 61-74.

As Americans enter into what will surely be a hot debate over universal health care, it might be of some benefit to consider how Danes (and others) have developed a faith in something as mundane as a tax system without losing their soul to the state it created.

Faith In Taxes

I am happy to be a part of this blog and therefore need to apologize for the lack of posts over the last few months. With my family, I have been living abroad for the past 10 months in Copenhagen as part of a Fulbright. I taught and wrote at the Center for the Study of the Americas at the Copenhagen Business School and lived in the very delightful commune or district of Frederiksberg. And like many other Americans who get a taste of Scandinavian life, I was impressed by the quality of life most people in Denmark enjoy. The universal health care, public transportation, excellent pre-school care, and incredibly well-maintained bicycle lanes were simply made available to us for free. Of course, those services come with a price for the Danes in a tax rate that hovers between 50-60%. Well-nigh outrageous by American standards, or so friends and family exclaimed. And yet, I think I could learn to like taxes.

I had the rather strange experience of participating in a film made by a well-known Danish director for the national tax agency. It seemed that the agency was going through a period of re-organization and the morale of employees was a bit low as many had to shift positions and take on new tasks. The Danish government thought a film about the great good the tax agency does might boost spirits by showing the rather significant role taxes play in giving meaning to being Danish.

We might chuckle at this, ah-ha that was what Soren Kierkegaard had in mind! Man's search for meaning is found in his tax bill.

Well, in a way, the Danes do seem to embrace a somewhat existential approach to taxes: paying them is a leap of faith but this faith is not blind; like Americans, Danes complain about their taxes as well. But they do so in a way Kierkegaard might have appreciated. Their faith in the taxes does not translate into an absolute faith in the government--they don't leave the world up to their elected (and non-elected) officials. Danes constantly critique the results of the tax system but don't doubt that it needs to exist more or less at the present level of taxation. In this way, they profess a faith in taxes that provides the kind of civil religious unity that Americans get from their faith in abstraction notions of freedom and liberty. Maybe they are Hamiltonian in this way--creating a nation through the burden of taxation.

I went to Copenhagen to work on a book about civil religion and war in post-1945 America. I gave quite a few talks about the general role religion plays in American life and politics, especially in regard to framing and understanding the nation's role international affairs. What I came back with, though, was a new appreciation for faith in things that seem decidedly mundane. While my colleagues, students, and audiences rarely professed faith in an organized religion or an otherworldly God or even in great national myths (Danes joke that they are a country made by great military defeats), they often spoke profoundly about the stuff that binds generations of Danish folk together.

Danes have faith in taxes because their taxes support the welfare state--an entity that has a dual nature similar to the role served by the U.S. Constitution and the creed it embodies. While the Danish welfare system has not existed as long or with the kind of abstract power of the American Constitution, it has provided a surprisingly vibrant way for Danes to understand, debate and assess the dimensions of the common good. Quite unfortunately, the welfare state has also become something to guard, especially against what the Danish Right call the 'new immigrants.'

Nevertheless, as I get deeper into the field of public theology and civil religion, I am intrigued by what might be gained by comparing two types of existential faiths that on the suface appear to be very different. To that end, I recommend a group of Danish scholars who have begun a transatlantic project on beliefs and offer some preliminary notes and questions about this matter: Peter Andersen, Peter Gundelach, and Peter Luchau, "Religion in Europe and the United States: Assumptions, survey evidence, and some suggestions," Nordic Journal of Religion and Society (2008) 21 (1): 61-74.

As Americans enter into what will surely be a hot debate over universal health care, it might be of some benefit to consider how Danes (and others) have developed a faith in something as mundane as a tax system without losing their soul to the state it created.

Cementing My Ignorance In Print: An Addendum To My Recent Thinking On Transnational Historiography

Last month I unhesitatingly promoted a review essay of mine at USIH. In that essay, as well as my prior work here on transnationalism (particularly in November 2008 and the January just past), I cited OAH and AHA work on the topic. Sadly, however, I overlooked this Perspectives on History piece from December 2008. But it's not just the article; it's the content. So my situation gets worse.

Perspectives detailed the work of a summer institute on transnational topics for college teachers held in 2008. The article also noted that a 2005 institute gathering predated the one last summer. The Perspectives essay publicized, furthermore, a 2008 publication edited by Peter Stearns and Noralee Frankel, titled "Globalizing American History: The AHA Guide to Re-Imagining the U.S. Survey Course." Through the link you can purchase the 128-page pamphlet for $15. [FYI: Rob Townsend of the AHA informed me that a key part of the pamphlet is at this link.]

Prior to a few weeks ago I was ignorant of the AHA pamphlet, and therefore neglected it in my Councilor review. This is irritating---and humbling. I aimed for comprehensiveness in my write-up, at least from the late 1990s going forward. But somehow I missed a publication from one of the largest historical societies in the United States. Yep. Since the AHA pamphlet addresses teaching, it likely changes my perspective on the place of America on the World Stage (AWS) in the literature on transnationalism.

I haven't yet seen the AHA publication. But if it incorporates more practical advice on teaching, then it provides a concrete alternative to AWS---an alternative I explicitly called for in The Councilor review. The pamphlet might also indicate a deeper penetration of transnationalism into secondary education than I might have imagined.

The Perspectives article also enlarges the cast of characters cited in my review. I claimed that Thomas Bender was a kind of de facto leader of the transnational turn. He is still clearly important, but now I must recommend that interested parties explore the AHA conferees to sift who played key roles in the two institutes. It appears, on the surface, that Carl Guarneri and John Gillis are more prominent than I realized. This makes sense as Guarneri was mentioned in the endnotes of a few of the AWS essays.

In sum, I'm ashamed. I'll have to read the AHA pamphlet to discern whether its contents change my interpretation of the transnational turn, my prescriptions for future endeavors, or both. In the meantime, don't take my word for it. It appears I've done what every historian fears: cemented my ignorance in print. - TL

Cementing My Ignorance In Print: An Addendum To My Recent Thinking On Transnational Historiography

Last month I unhesitatingly promoted a review essay of mine at USIH. In that essay, as well as my prior work here on transnationalism (particularly in November 2008 and the January just past), I cited OAH and AHA work on the topic. Sadly, however, I overlooked this Perspectives on History piece from December 2008. But it's not just the article; it's the content. So my situation gets worse.

Perspectives detailed the work of a summer institute on transnational topics for college teachers held in 2008. The article also noted that a 2005 institute gathering predated the one last summer. The Perspectives essay publicized, furthermore, a 2008 publication edited by Peter Stearns and Noralee Frankel, titled "Globalizing American History: The AHA Guide to Re-Imagining the U.S. Survey Course." Through the link you can purchase the 128-page pamphlet for $15. [FYI: Rob Townsend of the AHA informed me that a key part of the pamphlet is at this link.]

Prior to a few weeks ago I was ignorant of the AHA pamphlet, and therefore neglected it in my Councilor review. This is irritating---and humbling. I aimed for comprehensiveness in my write-up, at least from the late 1990s going forward. But somehow I missed a publication from one of the largest historical societies in the United States. Yep. Since the AHA pamphlet addresses teaching, it likely changes my perspective on the place of America on the World Stage (AWS) in the literature on transnationalism.

I haven't yet seen the AHA publication. But if it incorporates more practical advice on teaching, then it provides a concrete alternative to AWS---an alternative I explicitly called for in The Councilor review. The pamphlet might also indicate a deeper penetration of transnationalism into secondary education than I might have imagined.

The Perspectives article also enlarges the cast of characters cited in my review. I claimed that Thomas Bender was a kind of de facto leader of the transnational turn. He is still clearly important, but now I must recommend that interested parties explore the AHA conferees to sift who played key roles in the two institutes. It appears, on the surface, that Carl Guarneri and John Gillis are more prominent than I realized. This makes sense as Guarneri was mentioned in the endnotes of a few of the AWS essays.

In sum, I'm ashamed. I'll have to read the AHA pamphlet to discern whether its contents change my interpretation of the transnational turn, my prescriptions for future endeavors, or both. In the meantime, don't take my word for it. It appears I've done what every historian fears: cemented my ignorance in print. - TL