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USA Invades the Dominican Republic
Human Ecology. Samson used data gathered from 150 excavated structures at 16 sites in the Greater Antilles, Turks and Caicos, Virgin Islands and northern Lesser Antilles. Also examined were sixteenth-century sketches and recollections of house structures by Spanish conquistadors in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas and Cuba. In all, these buildings spanned a period of history between 1,400 and 450 years ago. Samson argues that a distinctive ‘Caribbean architectural mode’ emerged around 1,400 years ago. Local inhabitants kept using the basic features of this style of building until European colonisation. The mode served as an effective method for meeting the needs of the community, dealing with cyclical environmental hazards and longer-term trends of historical change. Importantly, this was not a one-size-fits-all template for building structures. Carefully-designed structures were evenly anchored to the ground. High-pitched roofs and reinforced facades tended to be built near the shore, where storms were most violent. One particular site, the settlement of El Cabo in the Dominican Republic, had circular houses measuring between 6.5 and 10 metres in diameter. These structures were very effective at dealing with the winds, rain and heat of the Caribbean. Exposure to wind was reduced by locating houses in an irregular pattern, windbreaks and partitions were also used, ensuring wind tunnels did not form. These houses lasted for centuries, being rebuilt and repaired as needed, with the essential characteristics of the buildings remaining the same. Samson’s study reveals how historical communities coped with severe natural disasters. Also, Samson believes her work could shed light on how modern-day communities can be better supported by humanitarian efforts to rebuild homes. If a dialogue is encouraged between different disciplines dealing with housing, a greater appreciation of historical shelter processes can be gained. Every area has its own unique architectural history which could provide clues for how best to respond to disasters in that specific location. For more information: www.link.springer.com Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons user: Boing-boing]]>
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Communist Revolution in Afghanistan
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Byzantine Diplomacy Explored
History Compass, Ian Mladjov, from the Department of History, Bowling Green State University, Ohio, USA, noted that “when it comes to diplomatic relations, the phrase ‘too close for comfort’ perfectly describes the relationship between the medieval Byzantine and Bulgarian states in the Balkan peninsula.” The Byzantine Empire was the predominantly Greek-speaking remains of the Eastern Roman Empire. Its citizens referred to themselves as ‘Romans’ and the ruler retained the title of ‘Emperor’. Mladjov argues that the conflict between Bulgaria and the Byzantine Empire was about more than simple territory or wealth. The bloody conflict was rooted in prestige. Interestingly, the siege of Constantinople in 912 did not end in an agreed peace. At a ceremony between the Patriarch of Constantinople and Simeon, the Bulgarian king was placated and given a crown, although not the imperial title. Simeon returned home after the meeting, laden with gifts, but with no formal peace treaty being signed. After returning to Bulgaria, Simeon began using the imperial title and, curiously, even styled himself ‘Emperor of the Romans.’ In all contemporary sources, it is made very clear that Simeon was never offered the title of emperor. In fact, it appears that Byzantine rulers went to great lengths to preserve the Byzantine emperor’s exclusive monopoly on the Roman imperial title. “For a long time, the significance and importance of [this] event were overlooked,” Mladjov explains. Much more attention has been paid to subsequent events, particularly Simeon’s adoption of the imperial title. For Mladjov, the crowning of Simeon by the Patriarch is of crucial importance, revealing a tremendous amount of information about how the Byzantine Empire conducted itself with its neighbours. “Clearly, the form a crown took was less important than the coronation itself,” Mladjov writes. “Whatever the idiosyncrasies of Simeon’s coronation by Patriarch Nicholas in 913, it must have been considered acceptable to him. The implications of our sources are clear: Simeon had been recognized as emperor, apparently only of his own people, by the Byzantine court and left for home in peace.” Simeon seems to have sought parity with the Byzantine Empire. Mladjov argues that Simeon identified recognition as fellow emperor as a means to redress the situation where the Byzantines claimed authority over Bulgaria. Diplomatic relations in the medieval world were rife with states posturing for status. The Byzantine Empire, in particular, wanted to maintain an aura of superiority to other states. As this episode shows, the Empire’s neighbours desired parity and respect from the Byzantines. Sometimes, this was expressed in demands for recognition as fellow emperors. The Byzantine Empire’s response to this was impressively nuanced, they crowned Simeon I as emperor and of the same rank as the Byzantine emperor. Importantly, however, Byzantium never conceded the title of emperor of the Romans; instead they crowned Simeon the emperor of his own, non-Roman people. For more information: www,onlinelibrary.wiley.com Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons user: Cplakidas ]]>
Live Science points out, between 1.5% and 2.1% of the DNA of all present-day people outside Africa is Neanderthal DNA. Another thing that has been established is that the Neanderthals declined and died out very quickly. The reasons for this decline, however, remain a subject of dispute. Some of the theories put forward have to do with climatic changes that deprived these pre-humans of their main food and habitat. These changes may have been caused by volcanic eruptions, some researchers believe. Yet a lot of work has been focusing on the possible role of modern humans: whether they rose in numbers and spread across the continent so quickly that they literally displaced the Neanderthals, or whether their superior evolutionary level equipped them with skills that made them better at surviving. The most recent research in this respect hypothesised that it was the mastery of fire that gave modern humans the upper hand, allowing them to cook their food, and thus being able to extract more nutrients than is possible from raw meat and vegetables. At the same time, studies are continually shedding new light on the Neanderthals themselves, prompting a rethink of the long-held belief that they were an extremely primitive species. One such study discovered that the Neanderthals had a surprisingly well developed aesthetic sense, made and wore jewellery, and another has revealed they were no strangers to herbs as part of their diet. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons user: AquilaGib]]>
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Work Starts on the Suez Canal
Suez Crisis of 1956. A remarkable feat of engineering, the Suez canal, whose construction started in 1859, is still responsible for 8% of the world’s shipping, with 50 ships passing through it daily. ]]>
Pacific Historical Review. “But the very fact that even so careful a thinker as Leopold could contemplate ethically questionable policies in pursuit of his environmental vision raises important questions… In this respect, I believe Leopold serves as a cautionary tale.” By examining unpublished articles written by Leopold, Powell has sought to explore Leopold’s fears. “Dread of overpopulation is an underexplored aspect of Leopold’s wilderness thinking,” Powell explained, “and environmentalism is an often-overlooked factor.” The idea of ‘wilderness,’ Leopold argued, was coupled with the character of racial stocks. Frontier virtues, it was thought, were bred into people. “Through this allusion to ‘‘breeding,’’ he hinted that wilderness had shaped the American people not only socially but also genetically,” Powell explains. “Old Stock white Americans had developed in the second half of the nineteenth century to distinguish themselves from allegedly inferior immigrants from southern and eastern Europe.” Tied in with this vision of the wilderness was a Malthusian understanding of the world. Thomas Malthus, an English clergyman, wrote one of the most influential texts on population in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century. He argued that because human population increased at a “geometric ratio”, but food production rose at an “arithmetic ratio”, humans could never completely overcome scarcity, want, and conflict. Beginning in the 1920s, Leopold articulated an enduring understanding of wilderness as an unpopulated space for individual and national rejuvenation. As he formulated his argument, Leopold became increasingly critical of population growth. Leopold argued that humans, through overpopulation, endangered the planet’s soils and water supply, Powell explains in his article. “Although he presented these ideas in his game management lectures, he never published a developed formulation of this position,” Powell writes. “[Leopold argued] that population growth was robbing Americans of the opportunity to enjoy the rejuvenating environs of unoccupied wilderness.” These two essential characteristics of Leopold’s thinking – supposed superiority of Old Stock Americans and the problem of decreasing wilderness area due to a growing population – can lead to a rather unsavoury conclusion. Leopold, Powell argues, sought to control population growth in order to preserve the wilderness. Worryingly, Leopold only expounded controlling those of non-white ethnicity. “Wilderness is less a wondrous place than an inherently exclusionary idea that has empowered certain groups while disempowering others,” Powell concludes. “When defense of wilderness has lapsed into critiques of population growth, it has in a sense extended this exclusionism on to the world’s unborn.” Whilst we should not discredit Aldo Leopold’s work – he was an important thinker who championed a very important environmental cause – it is important to view him in his intellectual context. Powell has made an important study, which allows us to understand Leopold more. For more information: www.jstor.org Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons user: Yllosubmarine ]]>
