And now for something completely different: Politics

Anyone who is a Christian and planning on voting Democrat this fall, consider the following:

The Democratic party platform recognizes Abortion and women's "right" to decide whether unborn children will live or die (http://www.democrats.org/democratic-national-platform#protecting-rights).  This is simply legal murder, no different than the hideous crimes in the headlines recently, and cannot be reconciled with Christians' faith. 

As Christians, we believe in a God Who reserves the right to decide life and death (1 Sam 2:6, Ps 31:15) and abhors murder (Gen 9:6, Ex 20:13, Deut 5:17, Matt 5:21).  The value of human life is explicitly and repeatedly defined in the Bible and children are frequently mentioned as deserving of protection.  David praised God for His foreknowledge of each child born (Ps 139:13), St Paul corroborated it (Eph 1:4) and God confirmed it (Jer 1:5).  Children are regarded as a blessing to their parents (Ps 127:3-5) and Christ Himself made clear His love of children, through both words (Matt 18:6, 19:14) and deeds (John 3:16).  Thus, the practice of abortion is utterly sinful.

The beginning of life is often brought up when debating abortion, yet regardless of whether that is at conception or first breath, all but a few babies will grow into living infants, then children, then adults.  Since Roe v. Wade in 1973, millions of children have been killed - most of these would otherwise be alive today, many raising families of their own.

As Christians, we are commanded to visit widows and orphans and to care for the "least of these."  How can we claim to protect the innocent and the helpless if we do not stand up for the most helpless among us?  We each have a responsibility to those less fortunate, and that means supporting ministries, giving sacrificially, and - yes - even voting for those with the authority to decide the fate of children at home and around the world.

This issue need not divide us.  We can disagree over issues of Socialism, healthcare, prison reform, or gun control.  But there is no middle ground regarding abortion: there is Life, and there is Death.  I recognize that there are many unwanted pregnancies, and there are many children conceived under brutal and unbearable circumstances.  Yet these are still helpless babies that need to be protected, not killed out of vanity, anger, fear, or despair.  God made clear that no one is to sacrifice their children to idols (Lev 18:21) and while we no longer practice human sacrifice, every aborted child is nonetheless a victim of sinful hubris. 

In one sense at least, the Democrats are right: we do have a choice.  I pray that when my Christian friends go to the polls in November they will commit to God's love of LIFE.

McKitterick’s Charlemagne

Rosamond McKitterick. Charlemagne: The Formation of a European Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

When a historian is tasked with reading an original document, it is to be expected that he or she will utilize every faculty of the mind to analyze the clues hidden between the lines.  This and more can be said of Rosamond McKitterick.  In her 2011 work, Charlemagne: The Formation of a European Identity, this author delves into the world of the man who has been “the object of commentary and study for the past 1,200 years.”   By scrutinizing the written evidence most contemporary to her subject, McKitterick delivers a stunning in-depth look into what the sources can say about Charlemagne and his times.

Seeking to “chart the formation of Frankish political identity during the reign of Charlemagne” McKitterick’s work offers a protagonist not so much in the titular king, as his rule.   McKitterick’s stated purpose is to differentiate between “what we can know about Charlemagne and what we think we know,” having “tried to free Charlemagne’s reign from the clutter of arguments, assumptions and hypotheses that have somehow become facts.”   As such, the range of time covered in Charlemagne is rather limited, its evidence drawn from materials produced between the mid-700s and Charlemagne’s death in the early 800s.   Covering such topics as rule of law, religion in government, and court structure, Charlemagne hovers between biography and political theory.  Unfortunately, the tale regularly devolves into lists of names and manuscripts rather than delivering a visual image of Charlemagne’s life and times.  Indeed, McKitterick herself declares that Charlemagne’s identity ultimately remains a mystery.

Although a “European Identity” is promised in the book’s subtitle, there does not appear to be much by way of a holistic view.  McKitterick seems more to provide a look at the personal world of Charlemagne – his contacts, his policies, his books – than at the man himself or Carolingian society.  Seeking to present herself as staunchly objective, McKitterick’s brief accounts of social interaction are hastily put aside in favor of catalogues of names, dueling Latin translations, and number crunching, the author preferring to consider such social fluff as feasts and hunts as unreliable guess-work.   Rather, a great deal of space is spent presenting McKitterick’s painstaking research into Carolingian texts, sometimes simply listing out the possible members of the royal household that are named in original texts – for instance, she is pleased to discover that a royal chaplain called the apocrisiarius “undoubtedly existed.”   However, the lengths to which McKitterick is willing to go for answers are quite extraordinary, as she happily produces evidence drawn from single lines within texts, such as the disagreement between two sources over whether Pippin III was consecrated or anointed, the words lending different tones to his ascension to kingship.   However, McKitterick occasionally allows her objectivity to slip, such as describing the misdeeds committed by Franks at war – often associated with the church – while blandly taking the side of Charlemagne’s enemies, even placing their own supposed evils in quotes rather than taking them at face value.   Yet whatever McKitterick’s view, it is undoubtedly that of an aristocrat.   The choice of sources listed in Charlemagne are predominantly print-based, and therefore represent the worldviews of those men educated enough to write and of others wealthy enough to hire such individuals.  Thus the book remains a view of Charlemagne’s Frankia from the top drawer.

Considering that writing was among Charlemagne’s “most lasting legacies,” it only stands to reason that McKitterick should utilize such sources almost exclusively.   And this is fitting, as her strong point as a historian is clearly the careful and insightful critiquing of Medieval manuscripts.  The texts chosen (many accompanied by sophisticated classifications like “BnF lat. 4629” ) are justified as being supposedly those “first produced between [AD] 747/8 and 814, not because they may or may not be more truthful than accounts produced after Charlemagne’s death … but because they have at least the merit of being contemporary.”   There are numerous types of works considered: official histories by famed worthies such as Einhard; court annals; charters; letters; capitularies; books, many with a religious bent; and even relic labels, these latter used to determine roughly when the royal convent of Chelles expanded its collection.   Apparently many of these works were exhaustively researched by McKitterick and others, but a few earned her especial favor or ire.  As stated above, McKitterick takes issue with those histories written after Charlemagne’s life, especially the biographer Einhard, as his history begins “a process of distortion simply by writing in hindsight, after the king’s death.”   Indeed, in some ways, says McKitterick, Einhard may be credited with creating Charlemagne as future readers would know him.   Letters are naturally found to be more fun by this exacting historian (she points out those that the Carolingians chose to renew and even rewrite ) but more, perhaps, is made of other contemporary documents, the legal charters and capitularies. 

The former leads to one of McKitterick’s lengthy examinations and reveals her strengths as an historian of manuscripts.  It has been argued, says she, that “where the charter was drawn up, there was the king and his court.  Unfortunately, it is not as simple as that.”   That is, in attempting to recreate Charlemagne’s itinerant court, historians sought out his charters and assumed that, “by order of the king,” so to speak, his presence may be logically inferred.  Here McKitterick leaps into the fray, arguing instead for a presence of notaries and scribes rather than an extremely mobile monarch.   This is perhaps the shining example of how written text can be used to determine the facts of the matter, as McKitterick tracks down the sundry scribes earning a royal paycheck, and, along with one of her lists of names, charts out their supposed locations within the empire and painting a picture of Carolingian state organization.

Capitularies are another area of demonstrated expertise.   A means of governance and administration – through communicating the wishes of an authority figure and taking many forms, from the letters of St. Paul to “checklists of things to be done or matters to be investigated”  – they were issued as imperial orders and were often accompanied by oral instructions; cases exist where recipient nobles were enjoined to reread the capitularies in their possession and to recall the said oral instructions.   Capitularies performed numerous practical functions, and also serve to inform the studious reader about contemporary conditions within the empire.  They granted authority to the king’s representatives, demonstrated in their regional and “early programmatic” forms the “imposition of Frankish rule in the newly conquered areas” and became a means of inspiration for the later codifying of the duties of officials.   They also reflect many religious themes and some capitularies dealt directly with Church concerns, often overlapping with the secular world with regards to crime and punishment.

Religion is naturally a recurring theme in Charlemagne, at least in political terms; as McKitterick declares, “Christian Latin culture and the Christian religion were the means of moulding [sic] Charlemagne’s empire in to a coherent polity.”   In keeping with her commitment to objectivity, McKitterick seems to avoid any speculation into the nature of religious belief in Frankia, focusing instead upon what writings are available for dissection to determine the religious dialogues exchanged in the course of Charlemagne’s life.  McKitterick refrains from making any concrete judgments on the matter and instead seems to link politics to piety throughout her book, especially where relations with the pope are concerned.   Of central importance is the notion of correctio or “correct thinking and correct language” – here “the acquisition of knowledge and the exercise of power were yoked together” in Charlemagne’s Frankia.   McKitterick’s sources provide numerous examples of this merger of royal and ecclesiastical interests.  Support of the church became a royal duty, as emphasized in the omnipresent charters – which also provided an opportunity to look into the monarch’s mind and see how he understood his role  – and the capitularies make plenty of appearances as they call for the abandonment of paganism and the imposition of right practice in newly conquered territories, demands certainly amiable to both church and state.   These attitudes are also reflected in the histories of the times, the Poeta Saxo placing emphasis on “the conversion of the Saxons rather than their conquest” in an attempt to make Charlemagne an apostle among kings.   In this worldview, service to the king came to be equated with service to God.

It is safe to argue that McKitterick, whatever one makes of her conclusions, presents an excellent example of intuitive research.  By combining non-committal interest with an eagle’s eye for telling detail, she succeeds in reminding the reader just how much can be discovered and how much is taken for granted.  Written with the initiated experts in mind, Charlemagne is perfectly at home on the historian’s bookshelf. 

Costambeys’ Carolingia

Marios Costambeys, Matthew Innes, Simon MacLean. The Carolingian World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Every so often historians need to be reminded to “go back to the basics” and revisit established histories in an effort to discover new means of telling an old story.  Answering the call for the “Dark Ages” of Carolingian history are Marios Costambeys, Matthew Innes, and Simon MacLean, whose recent book, The Carolingian World, is intended to study “the contemporary sources [and to see what they] can tell us about the Carolingian period on its own terms.”   Costambeys and his crew attempt to step away from the legends and prejudices and take an impartial look at what is actually said of medieval Europe by those who saw it.  In so doing, these authors also establish a working model for recognizing and interpreting biased historiography.

Of initial concern to the historian is the issue of primary source bias.  Costambeys wastes no ink getting around to the first such obstacle, beginning the introduction to The Carolingian World with the story of Pippin, King of the Franks and father of the future Charlemagne, playing host to the pope, Stephen II, in AD 753.  Whatever the intents of the participants, “political significance was quickly heaped onto their meeting and within a few years the circumstances surrounding it were being intensively rewritten” as a biographer for the pope has Pippin kneeling in homage, contrary to the Frankish account where it is the priest of God who throws himself at the king’s feet.   Having established a running theme for their work, Costambeys and company go on to construct their main arguments around the complexities of historical interpretation.

The Carolingians and their neighbors, it would seem, were eager to pass judgment upon their own world, much like opinion columnists of the present day, be it moralizing hagiography (saints’ lives), recounting the latest political shift, or looking back upon the mighty deeds of past men.  Indeed, one of the challenges faced by historians is struggling through what Costambeys calls an “ideological legacy” that swiftly coalesced into “mythology,” whereby “posterity quickly canonised [sic] Pippin’s family as a benchmark for dynastic prestige.   Thus the Carolingians came to be the “family who forged Europe,” their victories and defeats catalogued as a near-linear path to the Middle Ages.   Indeed, the Carolingians themselves were guilty of “committing” teleology (an historical worldview that sees certain events as leading towards a predetermined conclusion; e.g. the Magna Carta, the Protestant Reformation, and the Stamp Act all leading unerringly to the Bill of Rights),  such as Notker of St Gallen who in the 880s wrote of Charlemagne’s realm as “a divinely ordained successor to the great empires of the past.”

Such interpretations and revisions are by no means reserved for ancient sources.  Historians researching the Carolingians have contributed their share of positive and negative teleology and ideology to compound the mystery of Europe’s First Family.  Significant events are frequent victims.  Enlightenment bias led Edward Gibbon to assert that Tours was a decisive battle that saved Europe from an encroaching Islam.    The meeting between Pippin and the pope has long been considered “the most momentous act of the entire Middle Ages,” notably by the Belgian, Henri Pirenne, who saw this as one of many significant markers of a “new, specifically western, European civilization.”   Some interpretations of the Ordinatio imperii that set forth rules and means for Louis’ successors (Charlemagne’s grandchildren) are based upon the ideals of 20th-century historians “living in an age of European fragmentation.”   The French historian Louis Halphen allowed his memories of World War II to inspire the view of Carolingia “as a great tragedy of failed European unity.”   Social history, too, has long been the playground of preconceived notions, often couched in terms of “‘continuity’ and ‘change’” from late antiquity to Medieval – thanks in part to the work of the likes of Pirenne, who saw “the Carolingian era as a millennium-long transformation”  – rather than considering the Carolingians as a distinct era of their own; thus outside concepts such as Roman slavery or Medieval villages impose themselves upon an era that might have had institutions completely different, while historians of either adjacent period focus their research upon those subjects that most reflect their own field.

As they build a case for a more careful study of Carolingia, Costambeys and company demonstrate how such a study could be conducted by careful analysis of the primary sources.  Carolingianists are quite blessed by the sheer volume of material to be considered, as the Carolingians produced an astonishing 9,000 surviving works, compared to the 1,800 works or fragments thereof that survive from those written on the continent before 800.   Historical works are the most obvious (memoria, the collections of names of the dead; and historia, those annals and records of past deeds), legal charters (such as records of property granted to monasteries), polyptychs (records of estate management) and poetry (the final step in one’s education) constituting the written portion of Carolingian evidence.   Archeology has recently entered the field as well, lending scientific insights previously unavailable to researchers – such as dietary superiority of aristocrats and the presence of “super emporia” in the northern sea-trade that suggest royal financing.

Perhaps the most important advice Costambeys emphasizes is that historians ought to take their primary sources with a grain of salt.  With regards to Pippin’s rise to power, his initial appearance as “mayor of the palace” and his latter designation as “king of the Franks” (in charters dated AD 751 and 752 respectively) hint to Costambeys that other sources for the year 751 were actually written after Pippin’s death as means of easing the succession of his sons.   Such revisionist history has been proven before, such as the accusation from a Chronicle that a certain noble invited Muslims into Francia in a direct prelude to the battle of Tours.   The Carolingian World includes numerous similar examples.  In the case of Charlemagne’s annexation of Bavaria, the Royal Frankish Annals appear to have been structured so as to indict the Bavarian ruler, Tassilo, with plots against the Franks, and make it out that Charlemagne – who at the time was relatively untried and facing a significant foe in Tassilo – was in total control.   And in a more theatrical turn, the lengths to which contemporary authors went to express their grief at Charlemagne’s death is juxtaposed against his son Louis the Pious, who until the 1990s was characterized as a “hapless failure.”

A less obvious source of mistaken history comes in the form of sources that do not even tell readers what was true, but what should have been true, most clearly seen in the various rules issued by holy men like Amalarius of Metz in the 830s, and adopted by monasteries – these explain what the author believed was the proper means of carrying out certain monastic duties, but whether said duties were so executed remains unanswerable by the rules alone.   In a related vein, different types of histories will make for different types of accounts, as Costambeys points out that the priorities of hagiographers differ from those of historians.   Hence the necessity of viewing the Carolingian world through the eyes of those who lived there, the key argument in Costambeys’ book.  And mere substitution will not do.  Perhaps with good intentions, “moderns” both now and in the past have attempted to reconstruct periods under study, but as Costambeys points out, such reconstructions must be carried out honestly and in light of the actual sources; for example, the “Germanic” culture of the Dark Ages is “a modern invention” based upon the etymological association of gods’ names from Icelandic, Saxon, and Frisian traditions and can tell us nothing about what was actually believed in a given locale.   Historians must also come to grips with the understanding that our knowledge is incomplete at best.

The approach best demonstrated in The Carolingian World is that of making educated inferences to avoid modernist misconceptions and to come up with original observations.  Much is made of Charlemagne’s momentous coronation in Rome in 800, but a judicious consideration of the sources can lead to some startling revelations, such as the embassy from Byzantium around 798, which Charlemagne might have considered more politically important than a visit to St Peter’s see.   Similarly, Costambeys shows how a historian can draw new conclusions by quoting Charlemagne’s frustration in 811 with corruption “in the counties” and surmising that, unlike past interpretations that the old king’s power was on the wane, there was a robust and functioning system of governance in place that some worthies had learned to play for their benefit.

Though rather dry and categorical, The Carolingian World makes for an excellent study in scholarly technique.  While acknowledging where others have gone before, the authors put forward their own analyses winningly reasoned.  It will be interesting to see whether their ideas generate criticism or take hold of other fields.

Colley's "Britons"

Back from the dead! This next entry is a small affair that will prayerfully lead to greater things. I've a few more reviews that I'd like to post in the coming days/weeks, so please return to check up on those - or stop by just for the fun of reading my other posts, I appreciate both!

Linda Colley. Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837. Rev. ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.

In her 1992 publication, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837, Linda Colley explores the “forging of the British nation between the Act of Union joining Scotland to England and Wales in 1707 and the formal beginning of the Victorian age in 1837” by following the dual trends of citizen identity and worldview, and the slow development of a “British national identity,” set against the backdrop of near-perpetual conflict with France. What becomes evident as the reader continues is that the British nation of this period is not quite as united as its proponents should like, and right up to Britons’ conclusion simmering unrest and popular irritation strive with the longsuffering champions of unity. Colley’s take on Great Britain’s political and social evolution is both insightful and pessimistic, building up for the Britons an inflated sense of self seemingly at the expense of author objectivity.

Remarkably, Colley manages to present a categorical tale of British history that nonetheless flows in chronological order. Beginning with an examination of the triumph of sixteenth-century Protestantism, Britons addresses trade, boundaries, the aristocratic and royal powers, the “separate spheres” of men and women, and the social changes that eventually culminated in universal suffrage. Colley allows her talking points to flow freely, knitting divergent themes of power politics, religion, and social anxieties into a seamless historical narrative. Much (indeed perhaps all) of Colley’s evidence is print-based, whether county registers, newsprint, diaries, or the prolific political cartoons. These are carefully dissected for social meaning in such a way that, regardless of whether her opinions are correct, one cannot accuse Colley of neglecting her homework.

Colley’s interpretations of most any meeting of ink and parchment typically manifest in claims of anxiety-ridden propaganda, such as James Gillray’s Buonaparte 48 hours after Landing! which weds British patriotic feeling with aristocratic unease at the notion of a gentleman’s execution by the masses. At times Colley seems to take the propaganda theorist act too far, her interpretations often based upon the villainy of religion, and one wonders at the sheer negativity that Colley channels in her recurrent examination of Protestantism. Although her cases are often winningly reasoned, they suffer from a markedly one-sided bent, such as when Colley renders Thomas Coram’s rescue of orphans ultimately soulless, smoothly insisting that – all selfless motives aside – the philanthropist only wanted to flesh out Great Britain’s labor force. Similarly, the desire to emancipate black slaves is largely stripped of religious inspiration, a small allowance for humanitarian interest hastily injected then abandoned in favor of an economic explanation and a more patriotic belief in the façade of Free Britain. Even social movements are overcast by a diabolically religious tone, made out to be themselves objects of worship. Popular “cults” dominate Britons’ pages like the darkling silhouette of a Hellenic deity – cults of commerce and trade, cults of juvenile fortitude, of heroism, of “heroic endeavor and aggressive maleness,” of female propriety, and even a bizarre pseudo cult of the Virgin, tailored to the tastes of deprived protestant ladies – each lovingly embellished by Colley’s merciless psychoanalysis.

Despite these biases, Britons is an excellent read for the student of Georgian England thanks to its broad range of topics presented in so manageable a volume. In a mere 384 pages, Colley offers a look into the foundations for the world and worldview of the British Empire’s “home” residents, demonstrating how Britons saw themselves and their world, and thus providing a point of reference for readers curious about this era.

Image from Tower.com

Andre Wink on Akbar

Andre Wink’s Akbar is the tale of the Mughal Empire’s founding ruler, a narrative chronology of the titular character’s life, starting from his boyhood and extending through his long reign and on into the legacy that he left his heirs. The overall theme of the work seems to be Akbar’s brilliant intellect, a feature that Wink spares no amount of ink to examine in the greatest detail, seeming often in agreement with his constant source of wisdom, the Akbar-worshipping biographer, Abu-l-Fazl. At a mere 117 pages, Akbar is a fast-paced journey that benefits from engaging storytelling backed up by numerous source quotations. Coming to the throne as the third Mughal Emperor, Akbar was nonetheless the empire’s founder and builder, as his father and grandfather had merely laid the foundations amid strife and setbacks. But Akbar’s early years were by no means secure, as he was under the thumb of a regent and faced rival warlords in the Rajputs and other Hindu peoples. There were also troubles with the regents themselves, but these were shrewdly and harshly dealt with. While a child, Akbar was educated in the martial sciences, including artillery, and the arts – though possible dyslexia left him illiterate, thus prompting him to “develop his already outstanding memory” and other skills such as carpentry. Indeed, such was Akbar’s attention to detail that his son wrote that none knew of the emperor’s deficiency. Fittingly, Akbar is depicted by Abu-l-Fazl as being a righteous ruler with his mind bent untiringly upon benevolent conquest, the opponents of such a scheme suitably vilified. It certainly helped that Akbar had as his command a superb military, composed most notably of mounted archers in the tradition of Genghis Khan. Significantly, the Rajputs adopted this steppe warrior trend, incorporated by Akbar along with hordes of infantry, the human resource of India. Attention paid to artillery and alliances with the Rajputs further enhanced Akbar’s military potential. Akbar’s life was one of constant travel to preempt rebellion, a less than idyllic existence. Such a lifestyle meant that the court really did travel with the emperor, for when Akbar entered the wilderness to put down one such rebellion, his administrative proceedings were conducted on the campground. Such expeditions were often undertaken on the pretext of hunting and taming elephants, a convenient metaphor used by Abu-l-Fazl for taming the Mongol nobles. Wink suggests that Akbar appreciated the necessity of such taming, given the tenuous nature of his rule, and thus the emperor also undertook to transform his court through the adoption of etiquette unknown to Mongol nomads. So severe were the restrictions, and so seriously did Akbar take his measures, that it was not uncommon for the emperor to personally and publicly administer poison in the form of a gift to those courtiers who disappointed him. Despite such severity, the Mughal court came to embody all that was “civilized.” All this was a form of control for the increasingly centralizing state, and to hear Abu-l-Fazl tell it, even hunting became less about leisure and more about duty, even to the point of casting the pursuit as a disciplined spiritual experience. But far from simply demanding conformity from others, Akbar imposed a strict regimen on himself, in an effort to let no time be wasted. As for Akbar’s organizational genius, Wink’s opinion is that the historical community is divided over just how effective were the emperor’s policies, and whether some of the primary sources are reliable – yet Akbar’s personal contributions remain unquestioned. Much is made of “gunpowder empires” and the role of such weapons in Akbar’s success, but Wink does not find the argument convincing, as cavalry remained the chief means of war-making in Akbar’s India. Though rebellion was a serious matter and innumerable uprisings proved a persistent problem in Akbar’s reign alone, he nonetheless exercised enough power to rely upon the long-term loyalty of the nobles and landholders, and thus the security of his fiscal system. Yet for all the organizational wizardry going on, Akbar’s (detailed) surveys were haphazard affairs, rarely updated and highly inaccurate. And even though Abu-l-Fazl would have his readers believe that Akbar’s years were a time of messianic wonder, other accounts demonstrate that the lives of the peasants were no better than under previous monarchs, and in some cases may have been worse, especially in the first years and the latter, as famines allegedly reduced some of the masses to cannibalism. Significantly, some famines were likely a result of the constant movement of Akbar’s armies, though Abu-l-Fazl is careful to point out Akbar’s humanitarian efforts during one such episode. By all accounts, Akbar had a naturally (sometimes brutally) inquisitive mind. It would seem to Wink that, despite the emperor’s originally strong public faith, he was “on a collision course with Islam,” as expressed by contemporaries. At a point the historian Badauni reports that Akbar had become completely hostile to Islam, yet he did not go forward without a struggle, having to banish many clergymen and dissidents. In the spirit of disillusionment, Akbar channeled his predisposition for melancholy into a sort of Sufi mysticism, taking, as Badauni observed, the parts he considered best from all the faiths he encountered. This openness to outside religions translated itself in to practices hateful to Akbar’s critics, such as capitulating to Hindu demands and hiring the services of Catholic craftsmen. But the most bizarre of Akbar’s experimentation was the ambiguous pronouncement of his own divinity, caught up in the phrase “Allahu Akbar,” which traditionally meant “God is great,” but could be alternatively translated “God is Akbar,” and this is perhaps the case given the new salutation of “Allahu Akbar" used among the devotees of Akbar’s pseudo Sufi order. Understandably, Akbar’s desire for universal tolerance, as Wink sees it, was not appreciated by all Muslims (or even Christians) and provoked sharp criticism before petering out under Akbar’s successors. But the tolerance of non-Muslim religions, says Wink, remained a “cornerstone of imperial Mughal rule,” until the dynasty’s end. Though he backs up his words with plenty of quotations, Wink seems particularly taken with Akbar, often using rhetoric that describe the emperor’s critics as disgruntled bigots and utilizing the final chapter to gush over the ruler’s most winning qualities. Even Akbar’s more beastly side is here rendered benign, his penchant for simply co-opting wives and beautiful women whenever he pleased detailed in almost affably comic prose. This, however, is an excellent example of Wink’s own hyperbole, for while he readily admits whenever his sources are likely exaggerating, he nonetheless leaps upon the chance to relay that very information with authoritative flourish. As an introduction to the man, Akbar is an informative history. Easily read and divided into clear, chronological sections, it lays out the principal themes of the monarchy of India, its challenges and triumphs and shortcomings. Though perhaps restricted in length (it appears to be a part of the series, Makers of the Muslim World), one is given a convincing portrait of the man who created Mughal India.

Dystopian America: The Hunger Games

In light of the upcoming movie, a review of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is in order. Having just finished the book (and its sequel, Catching Fire), I am still in that reverie of reliving what most impacted me. As the general story is probably familiar to most and will be common knowledge after the movie's first weekend in theaters, I'll just devote a few lines to what stood out.

The inside of the jacket worried me a bit when it read, "equal parts suspense and philosophy," as I am not a huge fan of "philosophical" fiction. That is, given the postmodern state of morality and reasoning that has been building over the last century I was concerned about running headlong into intense scenes of the metaphysical and the existential, and probably a good deal of Western Civilization-bashing. But while the West does get knocked a bit, what I actually found was an exciting work tastefully flavored with insights into the flaws of our society that serve more as warnings than declamations.

Take the games themselves. Brutal gladiatorial matches are as old as tyrannies, but the setting and the delivery of the Hunger Games (the titular games event) are frighteningly familiar to contemporary audiences. Although the brutality and heartlessness is sometimes enough to turn one's stomach, the whole event eerily jives with our own culture, thriving as we do on MMA fights and reality TV shows like SURVIVOR and ORANGE COUNTY CHOPPERS. In most dystopian/post-apocalyptic stories that feature death-matches, the lowing crowd has the good grace to treat such combats that just that: a hearty bloodletting, each death celebrated by harsh guffaws and the swilling of hard liquor. But in the Capital of Panem, the rich fops ooh and gasp and faint from anxiety over the performance (for that is all it is to them) in tones uncomfortably familiar to American ears.

Then there's the Capital. As a freak show of high fashion and self-indulgence, the society is one big West-bash opportunity. Yet while I read about the garish costumes and the flippant habits of the Capital citizenry, I was struck more by the alien element applied to American life, as seen through an essentially American girl. While Katniss’ reaction to the pop-cultured Capital citizens is one of disgust, the narration does not wax preachy on consumerism or the notion of high living. Rather, it is the attitude of the society that she finds so repellent. Of particular interest to me was the scene when Katniss observes her prep team’s reactions to the whole event: rather than think of the children duking it out for the audience’s pleasure, Katniss explains, “it’s all about where they were or what they were doing or how they felt when a specific event occurred … everything is about them, not the dying boys and girls in the arena.”

Which offers a brilliant segue into the morality of Panem. In a fiction setting, whatever veneer is placed over the picture triggers the audience’s acceptance of reality. Thus the mystique of Ancient Rome allows viewers of Ridley Scott’s GLADIATOR to watch with satisfaction as Maximus hacks and slashes his way to glory with no moral consequences and no justification necessary. Likewise, by placing The Hunger Games in America, by having the characters ride trains, watch TV, and drink hot chocolate, author Suzanne Collins establishes Judeo-Christian morality as the defining measure of right and wrong: murder is evil, slavery is abhorred by the enslaved, and loyalty valued. Though cast in a sort of Dickensian pauper mold, Katniss' world is our world and Katniss is us. She lives by our rules and dreams our dreams and when she sees other Americans going about their lives without a care for the injustice inflicted upon the innocent in this caricature universe of Western indifference, she is repelled. And that, I think, is the most winning quality of Katniss Everdeed.

Panem represents what our Western world has been and what it might yet become if a valiant few are not willing to catch fire. As Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel said, “the opposite of love is not hate. It is indifference.”

An Historical Homeric Society … Or Not?

Snodgrass, A.M. “An Historical Homeric Society?” The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 94 (1974), 114-125.

Upon first glance, the observant reader will notice that the title for Snodgrass’ critique of the “historic Homer” argument is endowed with a question mark, perhaps applied because the essay that follows it is one big string of largely unanswered questions. Indeed, Snodgrass is sadly one of those authors who imagines that his audience is best served by hiding his thesis in the last sentence on the last page. “Does Homer’s tale reflect a real society or one highly idealized?” This is the question that Snodgrass sets out to answer.

The analysis of marriage in the context of Homer’s usage of Greek versus anthropological findings inconclusively dominates the first half of the paper. In all marriages examined, an exchange of gifts is observed, and these are categorized three ways: Bride Price, when payment goes to the bride’s family; Dowry, when payment goes to the groom’s family; and Indirect Dowry, wherein the loot eventually goes to the couple to help kick-start the new family. Famous examples cited in the essay are the marriage of Hector to Andromache and Agamemnon’s offer of one of his daughters to Achilles. All three types of marriage can be found in Homer’s epics, says Snodgrass, who relies upon the original Greek – left conveniently un-translated – to reach this conclusion. Problematically, the very presence of three types of marriage-related gift exchanges within the same social strata – Homer being only interested in portraying the royal/noble elites of the mortal and immortal realms – hints at radical inconsistency, but Snodgrass calls upon “poetic misunderstanding” as justification for this. After much to-do about marriage custom and a good deal of semantic tiptoeing, Snodgrass ultimately determines that Homer’s world is a composite image of many practices and traditions. This is an important declaration, as it is the reader’s first hint as to the essay’s overdue thesis.

His examination of marriage practices concluded, Snodgrass spends the latter half of his essay addressing the notion of a historical Iliad/Odyssey. Though Snodgrass spends a great deal of ink dropping names, Sir M.I. Finley crops up the most often, for that man’s works, written to definitively establish the historical Homeric setting, inform much of Snodgrass’ own argument. To hear Snodgrass tell it, Finley was set on finding a TIME for Homer, using such evidence as ceremonial and Linear B tablets as markers to cordon off time periods for examination. The essay breaks these options down into four: the Bronze Age, the Migration Period, the Dark Ages, and the Geometric Period – the last being Homer’s own. Now moving in the realms of archeology – and perhaps with less Greek to reference – Snodgrass fires off a salvo of details explaining why he believes that the Bronze Age and the Geometric Period are the only viable contenders – and even these are challenged.

Metalworking is the first category of examination and here Snodgrass notes that Homer’s warriors use exclusively bronze weapons. As the Dark Ages were apparently the height of iron usage, Homer’s epic thus finds an uncomfortable place in that era. And to mix things up a bit, Homer himself was aware of iron, and historically it was utilized for weapons before being adopted for domestic purposes, as it appears in the Iliad and the Odyssey. Curiously, Snodgrass does not address the possibility that Homer’s use of iron may be restricted to his similes, thus removing that metal from the epic proper.

Burials are next on Snodgrass’ hit list as he quotes Finley’s belief that such epic rites are purely Dark Age – his opponents, meanwhile, shout for Geometric period. As the two are clearly nothing alike, Snodgrass conveniently sidesteps the problem by calling in literary license. That is to say, Homer’s burials were dictated by the requirements of the story. If Patroclus needed to be burned and celebrated with impromptu Olympics, then Patroclus would get a cremation and his Olympics, no matter the historical reality. Indeed, the funeral of Patroclus is considered by Snodgrass the highest form of art versus life – he imagines that such elaborate ceremonial would have been impossible in Homer’s time.

Similar inconsistencies can be found in heroic equipment. The vast array of glittering armor, well-made this-and-that, and epic brick-a-brack seem to fly in the face of archeology and anthropology, Homer’s light javelins’ convenient habit of morphing into heavy thrusting spears for heroic close combat being the most outstanding example in Snodgrass’ opinion. Moreover, the very presence of such conspicuous wealth again reflects a world of plenty, unlike the relative dearth experienced in the Migration and Dark Age periods – the proliferation of iron notwithstanding.

In any case, Snodgrass determines that if one must seek out a historical setting for Homer, the historical models, if any, are either Bronze Age or Geometric – both eras rich in movable goods, that all-important status symbol in Homer’s tales. Not only do the lists of goods necessitate a wealthy society, but the elaborate ceremonial and lavish living enjoyed by Homeric heroes could only exist in a society able to afford the expense. And beyond the proliferation of mammon, the epic world of Iliadic myth is pretty much business as usual – albeit the ground shaking war with Troy – with no mention of depopulation or disasters, a point of conspicuous embarrassment for historical Greeks.

In conclusion, Snodgrass winds down his essay by allowing room for historic inspiration, but ultimately declares that Homer was simply a good fictionist. At long last, there was no such historical society that could be called “epic!”

Newman’s "Safavid Iran"

The Safavids were the longest-ruling state in Iran after the founding of Islam, and its duration marks the boundary between the medieval and the modern. Such is Andrew Newman’s assertion, taking issue with what he calls the “conventional understanding” of Safavid history, that of a notional state exercising power, with modern Iran as the point of reference, a situation that Newman hopes to demonstrate is too simplistic. In his short work, Safavid Iran, Newman seeks to buck tradition by asking how the Safavids retained power, rather than examining their “decline.” Intended as a primer for specialists and non-specialists alike, Safavid Iran follows the rise and fall of an empire about which “an intimidating array of primary and secondary sources” has been written, largely in response to the Iranian Revolution. But however much Newman would like for his work to stand out, it is perhaps yet another entry in the “intimidating array,” as non-specialists shall likely find the book a challenge to engage.

The Safavid dynasty actually originated as a brotherhood of militant Sufis (Sufi Islam being a mystical denomination of Mohammed’s religion) that came to power in seventeenth century Iran, and as such their principal means of control was manipulation of the various forms of Islam. Their first shah, Ismail, is seen through his own writings as the ruler of a religious nobility that transcends and unites the urban and tribal elements from all nationalities and faiths in his new realm. In addition to their native Sufism, the Safavids embraced Twelver Shi’ism, a form of Islam in which it is believed that the Twelfth Imam, aka the “Hidden Imam,” will return as a savior to the Muslims. As a means of maintaining his control, Ismail tapped into this belief and encouraged a self-appreciating messianic message, cementing the position of shah as the “apex of the spirituo-political and cultural discourses of the polity’s key constituencies,” a policy that united his tribal (and rival) Tajik and Turkish subjects. As emperors died and passed on their authority, their sons each became the head of the Sufi order and many also propagated the Twelver ideology and messianic persona. But by the time of Sulayman I, Sufi Islam was under attack, though the shah was still the head of Safavid Sufism. Yet the very presence of criticism bespoke of a popular adherence to Sufism and a desire to explore the causes of natural and man-made disasters that proliferated during the empire’s latter years.

Having carved out a state through the gathering of nomadic tribes, it should come to no surprise that violence and factionalism characterized the first several succession disputes in the empire. The Safavids of Newman’s book seem to spend every other succession fighting yet another civil war and when not engaged in such struggles, fighting off the Ottomans and Uzbeks and regaining lost territories taken by the same (interestingly, the Safavids never seem to initiate international conflict but are largely seen as the subjects of unwarranted violence). Yet as the empire matured and the central administration solidified, the successions became more and more confined to the political center. This progression was remarkably steady and predictable: Ismail’s death in 1524 resulted in civil war to establish the dominant tribe – the royal person remaining above the bloodshed – though upon the demise of his successor, Tahmasp, extermination of royal contenders, familiar to students of European and Ottoman succession disputes, entered the political strategy. Following that fiasco, Abbas I (r.1587-1629) altered the dominance of tribal forces by creating a slave army called the ghulam, though the tribes did retain their importance. But with the ascension of Abbas’ grandson, Safi, the tribal struggles took backseat to a flurry of political assassinations and a healthy dose of external strife, while a new center of power drawn from Turks, Tajiks, and ghulam was established. By the ascension of Abbas II in 1642, interpersonal succession conflict was restricted to the court while the dominant government structure remained intact. Similarly, the customary external threats were also unusually quiet. Sulayman’s ascension in 1666 was the smoothest yet as the inner circle quietly elected Abbas II’s successor, the borders again remaining undisturbed. The rise of Sulayman’s son, Husayn, followed a similar path.

Despite the obvious excitement that should animate this Safavid history, Newman’s delivery serves to render the tale purely academic. Each chapter is broken up into largely the same categories of military overview, marriage lists, politico-religious interaction, and artistic expression of the new era, leaving the text with the feel of a catalogue of antiquarian scholarship. Information is Newman’s watchword, and the author mercilessly crams as much data onto each page as he can, often at the expense of the narrative. Safavid history is clearly brimming with drama and intrigue, yet Newman considers his task to be analytical in the larger scheme, eschewing potentially exhilarating adventure for truncated accounts of wars and interpersonal struggles. Such is the attempted coup by Ismail’s half-brother, Sulayman; his bid to oust his brother and gain popular support is delivered with dry indifference and his summary execution left uninterestedly ambiguous – one does not even get any idea of just how the plot failed. Such drama aside, it is the political alliances that interest Newman, and each chapter has its allotted section devoted to marriages and attempts at the same. As the Safavids depended upon unreliable and semi-autonomous tribes, such ties were key to promoting unity. But Newman seems preoccupied with enumerating in detail the various alliances and near-alliances engaged in through this practice, and in his characteristic fashion these accounts come across as catalogues with little apparent meaning for the monarch in question, the sheer volume of Dickensian interconnection leaving the reader groping through the seemingly random names and relations. But unlike a novelist, Newman treats the narrative of such events as a necessary evil, the task of coloring and invigorating the tale a chore to which he is not about so subject himself.

Semantics also enter the picture as Newman appears convinced that his readers (both specialists and non) are as concerned as he is himself with haggling over the proper word-choice to accurately reflect his erudite studies. Pity the casual reader who picks up Safavid Iran, for the author takes issue with words like “state,” a term troubling to Newman as it carries too many “preconceived notions;” i.e. “a highly centralized administrative apparatus with a monopoly on military and, in its totalitarian versions, political power and formal lines of administrative practice and procedure, as well as fixed, internationally agreed-upon borders, a single language, and a generally homogenous population.” Unless the reader comes to the same conclusion, he will be perplexed to find Newman attempting to alleviate all such unpleasant “confusion” by inserting “project,” “polity,” and “realm” as alternative terms, as though these first two somehow impart greater clarity. Much of Newman’s political jargon follows a similar pattern.

Safavid Iran is at its very basic level an informative introduction to the empire that divides the medieval Middle East from the modern. Though troublesome to follow at times, it nonetheless breaks down each epoch in detail so as to aid the reader in grasping the development of the empire, blow-by-blow. Whether Newman’s approach aids or hampers the reader is subject to opinion.

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