Trains in the Sky

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I was wandering through the art and craft market in El Ejido park, right in the inner-north of Quito. If you’ve got the money, there are some incredible and original paintings on display around the outskirts of the park. I did not, so I was making my way through the centre of the market, where the stallholders are packed tightly together, their wares repetitions of the same styles. You see the same paintings again and again, perhaps better or worse, but basically the same.

I’m not sure why, but a particular design caught my eye—a train chugging away through the sky. Its cargo changed in each iteration (apples, eggs, fish), but the overall theme was the same—train travelling through the sky over mountains, cargo of food onboard, towns and peasants below. The design got me curious, so I asked one of the stallholders about its meaning. He was a young guy working for an association of artists. He said that he thought the train was related to one of Ecuador’s most famous presidents, Eloy Alfaro, and his Liberal Revolution. It symbolised the unification of the country, the joining of the Coast and the Andes.

Vividly coloured train falying through the sky, painted in the style of Gonzales Endara Crow
These photos can be found everywhere. This was found in Otovalo, with globes instead of food. It turns out that they’re replicas of a style made famous by an Ecuadorian painter Endara Crow.
[Photo by: lizaraehendricks. Used with permission, but all rights reserved]

This Coast/Andes split is felt down the length of the west coast of South America, from Colombia in the north, through to Chile in the south. Yet Ecuador could be the country where this divide is still starkest, the loud, frenetic and yet oddly relaxed atmosphere of la Costa, contrasting with the more reserved, quiet and traditionally conservative atmosphere of the Andes.[1] While the progressive/conservative divide has largely pivoted toward being urban/rural rather than costal/Andean, the difference in the temperament and culture of the two regions is felt in their sights, sounds, smells and flavours.

In fact, the significance of the railway in bringing these two regions together is so great that some, such as Clark, argue that it was essential in creating a “national space”, not just in the sense of a literal connected region, but in conceptually bringing together Ecuador as a whole. Benedict Anderson is a political scientist and historian, famous for his assertion that the nation is an “imagined community”—a group of people we feel we have connections to, despite the fact that it would be impossible to meet all of them. What the Ecuadorian railways provides us with is an interesting example of seeing the construction of this community in practice.

On the 25th of June 1908, a daughter of Eloy Alfaro (it doesn’t appear to have been recorded which one) drove a final, golden railway spike into the ground. Not long after, the first passenger train to Quito could be seen arriving, covered in flags and palm leaves (to symbolise its arrival from the coast, I assume). Festivities ran high, with church bells ringing until ten o’clock that night. The city filled with foreigners, primarily from Guayaquil, the economic hub of Ecuador. This was Quito’s first tourist boom, and the city wasn’t ready for it. The newspapers lamented that there weren’t even sufficient hotel rooms for all the visitors. Apparently, the main part of the festivities was a mock battle on the outskirts of Quito, using all three of the local garrison’s cannons.

1907 Ecuadorian stamp celebrating the train.
Note this is dated 1907. Seems people were very excited about the train!
[Image is public domain]

A country (literally) divided

It’s not surprising that the completion of Ecuador’s first railway was a cause for celebration—it would be in any country. But the Guayaquil-Quito railway redefined the nation. It suddenly made travel between the country’s two biggest cities possible year-round. While there are still some places in the world that become inaccessible for extended periods due to the weather, most of us take it as a given that we can basically go where we want, when we want, if we have the money—certainly between the two biggest cities of a country. However, until the completion of the railway, the only road between Guayaquil and Quito took ten to fourteen days to traverse when the weather held out. With the exception of a messenger service, however, this route was impassable for six months of the year. This meant that half the time, the capital of Ecuador was essentially cut off from its richest city and principal trading port.

The difficulty of travel between the two cities is hard to imagine, even during the seasons in which it was possible. In 1880, Edward Whymper, an English mountaineer, was travelling through Ecuador, seeking to climb Chimborazo. In Quito, having travelled there from Guayaquil, he was rebuked by his guide for complaining that the mud had come halfway up the flank of his animals. When asked what he considered to be a bad road, the guide responded that “A road is bad when the beasts tumble into mud-holes and vanish right out of sight.” Although sounding fanciful, Whymper later recounted that he almost saw this happen (p. 187). There are also tales of donkeys with voluminous but light cargoes being thrown into abysses by the wind when traversing the mountain paths.[2]

This created a strange dynamic in Ecuador, still perceptible to this day, where the coast and the sierra almost feel like two different countries. Quito had been an important Incan city, and despite being burned to the ground by the Inca during the war of conquest, was re-founded by the Spanish in 1534. The city rose in prominence, becoming the real audiencia (administrative capital) for the region. This made the city Ecuador’s largest, and the oldest capital city in South America. But its place in the Andes, particularly at equatorial latitudes, meant the city was largely cut-off from external influences. It became a conservative catholic city, with less conspicuous consumption than Guayaquil, due to there literally being fewer consumer goods. The little production in the region was largely dedicated to the internal market.

Photo looking out over Quito's central plaza
Quito’s central plaza
[Own photo Creative Commons License]

Guayaquil, on the coast, was the polar opposite. Founded in 1547, and despite being constantly raided by English buccaneers, the city quickly became the principal trading port of the region. This offered the city wealth that far exceeded that of the inland capital and resulted in an outwardly focused attitude. Time and again, Guayaquil would be the site of independence movements against the Spanish crown, until Ecuador was finally liberated in 1822. The last city to be liberated was its conservative capital—Quito.

Ecuadorians appreciated this stark divide, both social and economically. After independence, Guayaquil continued to thrive, being the economic powerhouse of the country. In contrast, after independence, the Andean regions went through a process of “dearticulation, deurbanization, and depopulation” (p. 53). In fact, in the early days of Ecuador’s independence, the southern highlands tended to use Peruvian currency, while Colombian money was used to the north. The country almost dissolved, lacking strong economic and social ties to hold it all together. And it may have indeed dissolved if it weren’t for the strong, nationalising vision of Gabrial Garcia Moreno—the first President to try and build a railway between Guayaquil and Quito.

Guayaquil, a little more colourful.
[Own photo Creative Commons License]

A slow process

This was not a fast process. Moreno received permission from congress to contract for the railway lines in 1861; however, it was a decade before any plans were made. At the time of Moreno’s assassination in 1875, only 45km of track had been laid. Our previous friend Whymper decided to take this train when returning to Guayaquil. Arriving at the station in Chimbo he found that “The Railway was hidden away in jungle, and had to be discovered” (p. 389, original emphasis). There was no building, merely a line that ran up to the edge of a stream, without any stops to prevent the train from running into the water. The only signs of life was a shed, mounted on wheels. Someone was found who told the party “that a train might arrive to-day, or perhaps it would come mañana.” (p. 389). The train finally did arrive that day, depositing three people and nothing more. Needless to say, this was not a venture to unite a nation.

Another 14 miles of track was laid in “the late eighties”,[3]  but the task of completing the railway fell to Moreno’s fiercest opponent[4]—Eloy Alfaro. The latter is a fascinating character in his own right, and well worth a blog post. Nevertheless, it would be Alfaro’s name that would forever by synonymous with the railway in Ecuador, his unbridled enthusiasm for it largely accounted for its final success, even at the expense of the nation. In fact, Alfaro was so keen to see the railway completed that he had 600 tons of rails imported before it could be approved by the national assembly.

Nevertheless, while the contract drawn up to construct the railway shouldn’t have broken the bank, in practice, as one historian has put it “transactions on the part of the contractors… do not measure up to the highest business ethics.” (p. 71) In short, Archer Harman, the American contracted to construct the railway had a nice little scam going. The agreement was that he and his associates would found the Guayaquil-Quito railway company. They would construct said railway in exchange for the rights to run it for 75 years. There was a catch, however. The Ecuadorian government was to guarantee the profitability of the enterprise. Construction costs were paid by the company. Operating costs were supposed to come out of revenue. Archer and his associates subcontracted swathes of the work on the railways to companies they were stockholders in, paying exorbitant fees for the services. Therefore, they raked in the profits from these contracting companies, while the Ecuadorian government simply had to pay up, to make sure the railway company didn’t make a loss.

Harman would not have long to enjoy his gains however. In 1911, a mere six months after retiring from this position as the president of the Guayaquil-Quito railway company, he was thrown from his horse, dashing his head against a rock and dying almost instantly. I unfortunately can’t find a reliable source to confirm it, but supposedly it was his favourite horse, whose name was ‘Ecuador’. Justice delivered by horseback.

Nevertheless, the project was completed under Harman’s stead, having traversed some impressive terrain. The railway was routed along the Chanchán River, which it had to cross 26 times. It then ascended 3,050 meters in an 80km stretch, utilising switchback after switchback, in a portion infamously known as the Devil’s Nose, before finally making its way through the Sierra to Quito.

One part of the infamous nose. I’d hate to imagine a sneeze.
[Image: David Brossard CC BY-SA 2.0]

Decline and (touristy) rebirth

While the railway only ever made a profit for a few years during the 1920s and 1940s, it cannot be overstated the importance it played in making Ecuador a national whole. The train did not just move goods for commerce and aid in migration—it began the process of evening out the social dynamics of the entire area. Blank newspaper print was transported at the lowest rate, while newspaper vendors were allowed to travel for free. Each daily newspaper had free use of the telegraph next to the track for up to 200 words per day. Similarly, at the time of the railway’s completion a minimum wage in the highlands was set at 20 cents per day, while on the coast it was established at 80 cents. Over the intervening period, as labour was able to move around the country, these differentials would eventually flatten out.

Nevertheless, the lines proved too expensive to maintain, and little by little the services were slowly cut. After a steady decline, all train services ended in the 1990s. Eventually, segments of the line were reopened as a tourist attraction in 2008, and today the only lines running are tourist trains (though pretty spectacular, if you’re passing through!). If the trains were the driving force toward creating a unified national territory, then what it means that they’re now primarily for the enjoyment of tourists is difficult to say. If nations are imagined communities, as per Benedict Anderson, then for a time the train from Guayaquil to Quito was central to that imaginary. It may not have lasted, and other things may well have taken its place, but vestiges of its central role in the creation of a nation can still be seen in craft markets throughout Ecuador, making their way across the sky, carrying their oversized cargoes.

Bibliography

NB: Unfortunately, writing about a slightly obscure topic in a small country very much limited my sources. I therefore relied overly much on Clark (though it is an excellent book, and I would recommend it). I attempted to chase up as many of his sources where possible, and search for my own, but the sources were unfortunately more limited than this bibliography implies.

Anderson, Benedict RO 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Verso, New York.

Clark, A Kim 1998. The Redemptive Work: Railway and Nation in Ecuador, 1895-1930, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland.

Crespo Ordóñez, Roberto 1933. Historia del Ferrocarril del sur, Imprenta Nacional, Quito.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica 2019. Quito, Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., London.

Loewenfeld, Eva 1946. “The Guayaquil and Quito Railway, Ecuador“, The Southwestern Social Science Quarterly, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 68-93.

Whymper, Edward 1892. Travels amongst the great Andes of the equator, J. Murray, London.

Wiles, Dawn Ann 1971. Land Transportation Within Ecuador, 1822-1954, PhD Dissertation, LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses.

[1] It was only recently that the Amazon has become populated in any major sense; hence it has generally been left out of most accounts of the national culture until recently. During the time of the construction of the railway, the few existing trails were only passable on foot, with the wealthy being carried by Indigenous Ecuadorians.

[2] The anecdote actually comes from an old Ecuadorian history journal, but I’ve not been able to find a copy available to read, unfortunately.

[3] As in 1880s. You’ve got to love when “the 80s” refers to the century before.

[4] Well, apart from the man who killed him.

The Price of Pepper

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This post started with something that happened to me ages ago (a hazard of not writing a blog post for almost a year). I was cooking and needed to refill my peppermill, but it had a ridiculous design and I managed to accidentally drop a heap of pepper into the sink, enough to fill the plughole.

I did not have one of these thingies.
Credit: Stilfehler CC BY-SA 3.0
I was scooping it up and throwing it straight in the bin1 when it occurred to me that I was casually throwing out what might once have been a small fortune. ‘Aha’ I thought, ‘the perfect antecedent! Wait until I tell everyone about the time that I threw out enough pepper to buy a house in Northcote.’ So I thought I’d try to find out how much of a fortune it was. But unfortunately, sometimes history isn’t as impressive as you’d like. And while the price of pepper has varied wildly throughout history, as I quickly found out it has never been worth its weight in gold. But I definitely still learnt a few fun things along the way to figuring out the price of pepper.

The first thing I learnt was that the spice trade actually had very little to do with Europe. Europeans were only really an afterthought to what was essentially an Asian trade—the bulk of spices went East, not West. In fact, the Venetians, who would later come to dominate the European leg of the trade would make a 40% profit by moving spice about half the length of the Mediterranean. That’s not bad, considering the spices themselves had already been hauled all the way from India.

Even so, pepper has been known in Europe since at least Roman times, and they positively loved the stuff. There is only one surviving cookbook from the era,2 and 80% of the recipes in it contain pepper.

These are ancient Roman spice holders (circa 400AD). The lady on the right is specifically a pepper pot. And you thought you had fancy salt and pepper shakers?
Credit: Mike Peel CC BY-SA 4.0
Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History complained about the Roman obsession with pepper, squandering gold on what he considered a needless frivolity. After all, he wondered, who was the first man to decide that he needed a reason other than hunger to eat? We often focus on the hedonistic heights of Rome, but we forget that its earlier virtues all related to self-control and severity.

Nevertheless, despite his disapproval, Pliny is kind enough to leave us the price of pepper at the time: four denarii per pound.3 Unfortunately, Ancient Rome was such a different place that trying to convert that to a modern price is pretty much meaningless. For example, during Pliny’s time, a Roman soldier earned 225 denarii per year, meaning a modern pound of pepper cost 1/40.8 of an annual Roman wage. As a very loose comparison, the current average wage for a modern Australian soldier is about $64,000 per annum, making a pound of pepper loosely equivalent to $1,568 in modern Australian dollars. I estimate I threw out about 35g of pepper, which would have been worth the Roman equivalent of about $120.

Unfortunately, prices weren’t very stable in ancient Rome, and roughly 200 years later inflation had firmly taken hold as successive Roman emperors debased the currency. Strangely enough, using the same amount of silver to make twice as many coins doesn’t result in twice as much money. However, to try and combat this staggering inflation the Roman emperor Diocletian attempted to enforce a law that fixed all prices. From all accounts, it didn’t go well. Nevertheless, for a brief time, the price of pepper was held at 800 denarii per Roman pound (that’s 20,000% interest, or an average of about 100% interest per year for 200 years). At that time, a Roman soldier earned about 1,350 denarii per annum, which represented quite a drop in purchasing power. Nevertheless, using a similar calculation to before, we get a price of $40,863 per modern pound.

For all the debasement, Diocletian also had the solidus minted. It was worth 1,000 denarii. I can’t imagine asking ‘You got change for a thousand?’
Credit: Portable Antiquities Scheme CC BY-ND 2.0

However, after the Roman Empire falls, the idea of a professional soldier basically ceases to exist. So, if we want to compare with later periods, we have to change our frame of reference. Unfortunately, in doing so, the numbers shift dramatically. For instance, if we take the daily wage for a master carpenter—50 denarii—from Diocletian’s edict, a pound of pepper cost 22 days’ wages. Supposedly, the average carpenter in Australia earns about $30 an hour. Expanding that out gives us a modern equivalent price of $5,280 per modern pound. Now, I assume a Roman carpenter probably worked more than eight hours a day, and probably didn’t get super, but the divergence of the two figures isn’t exactly heartening. What we do learn from this though, is that while these prices were expensive, they weren’t prohibitively so. This makes sense; as if they were, pepper probably wouldn’t be in 80% of Apicius’s recipes.4

We don’t appear to have much information for some time after Diocletian, especially on prices. However, it is worth noting that when Alaric, King of the Visigoths, laid siege to Rome in the fifth century, his ransom for lifting the siege was “five thousand pounds of gold, thirty thousand of silver, four thousand silk robes, three thousand scarlet fleeces and three thousand pounds of pepper“. So, it seems hunger wasn’t a good enough reason for the Visigoths to eat either.

Nevertheless, as far as I can tell, we seem to have little information on the price of spices for about the next five hundred years. However, from the late 12th century, new silver mines began to open in Europe, which had a profound effect on the economy—it began to monetise.

These are 13 century English pennies, from a time when if you couldn’t afford to carry a sterling silver coin, you simply couldn’t afford to use coin.
Credit: Portable Antiquities Scheme CC BY-SA 2.0

Rulers began collecting taxes in coin, rather than goods and services. This allowed for taxation on a scale that hadn’t been seen since antiquity. Therefore, rulers were suddenly liberated from the land—by purchasing with coin, goods and services could come to them. They could therefore settle, putting an end to the touring courts of old. It’s not a coincidence that the return to large-scale taxation occurred at the same time as the return of big cities to Europe. Paris forms an excellent example of the centralisation taking place. At the start of the 13th century, it had a population of 20,000, but by the end of the century it had 200,000 inhabitants. And remember, this was in spite of the waves of plague that swept the city.

Nobles now had real disposable incomes. And money tends to burn a hole in one’s pocket, so demand for luxuries leapt through the roof. In particular, nobles demanded better food, especially meat. For instance, the Forme of Curry—a middle-ages cookbook—features a lot of spices. Interestingly, there’s no real evidence to support the idea of using spices to cover the taste of bad meat. For a start, if you can’t tell if meat is spoiled, you’re in for a bad time. But meat actually appears to have been eaten relatively fresh. In fact, rather than going on the meat itself, spices were generally used in sauces, which were the last thing to be added to a dish.

This also somewhat undermines the idea of spices as a way of preserving food. Added last, it’s hardly going to help preserve it! Furthermore, only a few spices have an substantial anti-microbial properties, and even then, much easier and more effective methods of preservation already existed. Finally, the use of spices began to wane before the invention of refrigeration, which is presents its own little mystery. It’s as if all of Europe got together and just decided they wanted blander food.

I’m sorry, but if the most exciting thing about your pudding is that it literally has nothing in it, that’s not a pudding!

Either way, it was basically the Italians who stepped up to supply European royalty with the spices they demanded, in particular, the Venetians. Disappointingly, for all the Venetian trade is famous for its spices, they really didn’t form the bulk of cargo, either by volume or value, with the majority of trade being much less exciting commodities like wheat. Nevertheless, while not as much spice was traded as we imagined, it was incredibly profitable. Enough so that it sent Vasco da Gama from Portugal all the way to Calicut, India, where upon arrival he famously declared ‘We came to look for Christians and spices.’ (p. 1213) He seems to have soon forgotten about the Christians. In fact, later on, between 1500 and 1628, 28% of all ships leaving Portugal for India would be lost at sea. For these astonishing losses to still be profitable speaks volumes to the margins in spices.

Nevertheless, during the 13th and 14th centuries, the Venetians dominated the spice trade; and of the spices themselves, pepper was by far and away the most important. At the start of the 15th century Venetians were importing ¾ of all of Europe’s culinary spices, of which 2/3 were pepper. And while spices may not have formed the bulk of the Venetian trade, the quantities were still impressive.

500 tonnes was enough to be carried by a single round bottom ship, but was still generally transported by galley because of its price. In essence, they were an early armoured car.

By the end of the 15th century, the Venetians were importing 500tn of pepper, while the Genoese and Catalans were bringing in about 200tn each. And it had penetration. Pepper at least, could be found nearly everywhere, albeit in small quantities. There is a record of one John Hopton of Suffolk, in the middle of the 15th century, sending his steward to buy some pepper as if it were no big deal.

How common pepper had become was also reflected in its price. By this time, it cost just over two day’s wages of a master carpenter in London, Oxford and Antwerp, and appears to be a little cheaper in Navarre. Using our previous calculation, this actually brings us to a modern equivalent price of about $480 per pound, which, while still expensive, is suddenly looking much more affordable. What I chucked out then would have been roughly equivalent to $37. That’s a sum of money I wouldn’t be happy throwing away, but also something that is bordering on affordable. And indeed, pepper and other spices turn up regularly for the feasts of even relatively working-class guilds, such as the brewer’s guild.

Nevertheless, this would mark the high point of spices in European cuisine for some time. Through the 17th century the popularity of spices would wane, to the point where satires would mock those who put too much spice in their food. This of course, would have been to the consternation of the Dutch, who had just managed to establish a near monopoly on the trade. Eventually, spices in the West would face a resurgence in popularity, but prices (with the exception of saffron) would stay low, to the point where I’d throw out a handful of pepper, rather than try and fish it out of my sink.

Nah. Not worth it.
Credit: Georges Seguin CC BY-SA 3.0

Academic Sources

Alston, R 2012, “Roman Military Pay from Caesar to Diocletian”, The Journal of Roman Studies, vol. 80, pp. 113-123.

Freedman, P 2005, “Spices and Late-Medieval European Ideas of Scarcity and Value”, Speculum, vol. 80, no. 4, pp. 1209-1227.

Harl, K 1996, Coinage in the Roman Economy, 300 B.C. to A.D. 700, JHU Press, Baltimore.

Munro, J 1988, The Consumption of Spices and Their Costs in Late-Medieval and Early-Modern Europe: Luxuries or Necessities?, accessed: 22 September 2017.

Spufford, P 2002, Power and Profit: The Merchant in Medieval Europe, Thames & Hudson, London.

Primary Sources

Apicius, Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome, accessed: 22 September 2017.

Diocletian, New English translation of the Price Edict of Diocletianus, ed. Antony Kropff, accessed 22 September 2017.

Pegge, S The Natural History, Ch. 14(7), Ed. John Bostock, accessed: 22 September 2017.

Zosimus, New History:Book the Fifth, accessed: 22 September 2017.

  1. I actually had the foresight to take a photo of it all in the sink, but I lost the photo when I had to have my phone replaced. ↩
  2. If you’d like to recreate some of those great Roman delicacies such as roast dormouse, there is an open-source version of the book here. ↩
  3. Keep in mind that a Roman pound is smaller than a modern pound. 328.9g versus 453.59g. ↩
  4. I suspect we’re encountering some sort of problem with the relative wages of a soldier and carpenter in Ancient Rome. At 50 denarii per day, Diocletian’s edict set a carpenter’s annual wage at about ten times that of a soldier, which I find hard to believe. I suspect there’s something being overlooked here. The main thing that occurs to me is that a carpenter might generally not have been paid a wage, but have sold his wares, and so the price for a day’s labour in the Edict may not have been very relevant. Or perhaps work was so sporadic that we can’t simply expand a daily wage to make an annual wage. There is always the last option: Diocletian’s edict simple didn’t work! ↩

Pressing News

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Because this blog is highly topical, it is important that we examine only those events that are cutting edge and happening right now.

The Drumpf
Well, it’s topical if you’re three months between posts…
Credit: Gage Skidmore CC BY-SA 2.0

Now, much ink has been spilled (or should I say many keys stroked?) in attempting to explain how the man who was assumed to be a joke candidate ended up in office. The explanations are many, but something that caught my eye was the incredible number of articles more or less blaming new technology for the election of Trump and the erosion of democracy. According to these commentators, we are all living in filter bubbles that distort what we see of the world, causing us to have our own views reflected back at us, while eschewing opposing points of views.

This is hardly the first time technology has changed how we receive our news, however. With many current journalists harking back to the “good ol’ days” when newspapers were the primary gateway to current affairs (no vested interest there, of course), many forget that print itself was a revolutionary technology when it came to accessing news.

Interestingly, published news predates the printing press by almost two millennia. There are competing claims for the title of first published news, but a good contender is the Chinese dibao.1 This was essentially a sort of gazette, or imperial bulletin published by the government. It was intended for bureaucrats and nobility, but seemed to have ended up in the hands of just about everyone. It was copied by hand, which, considering the breadth of China, is not mean feat. Even more impressively, these gazettes were put out by the Chinese government up until 1911.

Apparently the flags are wrong, but they're so wrong they became accepted by Chinese Nationalist propagander makers.
There was something happening in 1911 that caused the Chinese to stop, I just can’t remember what it was…
Credit: Welcome Images CC BY 2.0

China also lays claim to the first commercial news production. Amazingly, this was still before the invention of the printing press. During the early sixteenth century, literacy was massively on the rise in China, to the point where contemporary sources claimed “even within backwater counties, ‘many read books, and few even of the common people in the poorest villages are illiterate'” (p. 172). Consequently, business sprung up, copying and distributing news sheets by hand. Although at first almost certainly based on the dibao, these publishers seem to have supplemented these sources with their own news and information from the region, often contradicting what was said in the official gazettes.

Accounts of these businesses are sketchy, and no original copies of their work remain. In fact, the earliest reference we have to them comes from a high-ranking Chinese official writing an essay on border protection. Dated to the end of the 16th century, he was unhappy about the panic spread by supposedly false information about the military situation on the Northern border and wondered why these operators weren’t “strenuously prohibited” (p. 172).

An attitude the Chinese government has maintained to this day.
Credit: Charles Hope CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

China was not the only region where handwritten news was widely distributed. Although not centralised under any one government, written news was widely disseminated through Europe. In particular, merchants developed surprisingly elaborate networks of hand written letters to spread news. The greatest collection of letters appears to have belonged to a merchant from Prato, central Italy, Francesco Datini. During the late fourteenth century, he amassed a collection of more than 140,000 letters from 285 European and Mediterranean cities.

This system of news-letters was not just for merchants, however. In fact, there were many subscription services offered throughout Europe at the time, and many of these continued to operate even after the invention of the newspaper in 1605. One example was the service run by Giovanni Quorli, run between 1652 and 1668. During this time, he had roughly 60 subscribers and mailed each of them 245 letters from Venice, Paris, Milan, London, Vienna and Cologne. The first few pages would be written by the gazetteer, as they were known, and the rest were simply transcriptions of the news-letters being sent round. Quorli himself did not write all the letters, of course, and had others transcribe his words. He did leave careful instructions for his employees however, that the letters ought to be written with large writing so “Germans and the elderly might understand” (p. 60).

Interestingly, it seems that it was these subscription services that lead to the first modern newspaper. The first printed news periodical was the Mercurius Gallobelgicus. Rather than a regular newspaper, however, it was semi-annual. It was also so infamously inaccurate and poorly written that it was featured in poems by John Donne.2

It still managed good sales through its excellence cover design.

Instead, the first regular newspaper was a weekly German paper with the catchy title: Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien. Unfortunately, rather than a milestone in the quest for truth, knowledge and objectivity, the success of the newspaper seems to have come about from laziness and stinginess. Although there is no surviving first edition of Relation, we do have a copy of a petition by the first author/editor Johann Carolus to begin the paper in 1605. In it, he basically argues that individually handwriting gazettes (which he had been doing up to that point) was far too long and arduous, and that, seeing as he’d already gone to the trouble of buying a printing press, he’d like to start printing newspapers for mass consumption.

The other half of the equation is why, under the Holy Roman Empire—an institution not known for its love of democracy and universal education—were newspapers allowed to exist? The short answer is that they seem to have been cheaper for the regime. Maintaining scribes to report on the various goings on at regional magistrates courts and such was expensive. Furthermore, the reports often couldn’t be trusted, as the scribes seemed to never forget who was paying their salaries. Consequently, even by 1695, one of the first people to study newspapers, Kasper Stieler, was able to conclude that newspapers were more objective “than correspondence from paid courtly flunkeys” (p. 77). In fact, he went so far as to advocate that scribes ought not to comment on the news “because one one does not read the newspaper in order to get educated and trained in analyzing the issues, but in order to know what happens here and there” (p. 78).

While much may have changed in how we receive the news today, it is good to know that some things never change, and that annoyance at overly political journalism is as old as newspapers themselves.

The Herald Sun, a publication famous for keeping opinion out of reporting.
Credit: Darryl Mason.

Bibliography

Brook, T 1999, The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China, University of California Press, Berkeley.

Infelise, M 2010, ‘News Networks Between Italy and Europe’ in Brendan Dooley (ed.), The Dissemination of News and the Emergence of Contemporaneity in Early Modern Europe, Asgate Publishing, Farnham.

Raymond J 2005, The Invention of the Newspaper: English newsbooks 1641-1649Oxford University, Oxford.

Weber J 2010, ‘The Early German Newspaper’, in Brendan Dooley (ed.), The Dissemination of News and the Emergence of Contemporaneity in Early Modern Europe, Asgate Publishing, Farnham.

  1. The other contender was the ancient Roman acta, because when it comes to history’s firsts, the Roman’s always need to have a horse in the race. ↩
  2. Admittedly, I don’t understand the poem, but I gather it’s a dig at the veracity of the periodical. Feel free to judge for yourself here. ↩

The Rise and Fall of Palmyra: Part Two—The Fall

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At the end of my last post, the Roman empire was in crisis. A third of the empire was in open rebellion, while the emperor himself had been captured by the Persians. His replacement, Claudius II, also died of sickness within two years.

And don't forget the other third of the Empire in open rebellion in the north. I wasn't kidding when I said they were tough times.
And don’t forget the other third of the Empire in open rebellion in the north. I wasn’t kidding when I said they were tough times.
Credit: historicair CC BY-SA 2.5

Meanwhile, in spite of the recent assassination of the king of Palmyra and his heir, the city found itself wealthy and the major power in the region after a series of military victories. Into this setting entered Zenobia.

Although Zenobia was Odenathus’s second wife, with the king and his first born son slain, Zenobia’s son, Vaballathus, became heir to the throne. Zenobia is still famed for her beauty, being commemorated in Chaucer’s Monk’s Tale as:

Of Kynges blood of Perce1 is she descended.
I seye nat that she hadde moost fairnesse,
But of hir shap she myghte nat been amended.

While the cheek of the quote is admirable, it is coming almost a thousand years after Zenobia lived. In fact, the sole contemporary image we have of Zenobia is a coin minted during her reign. In it, rather than immense beauty, she looks rather “prim and dowdy” according to Winsbury (p. 33), though definitely strong.

Honestly, to me, the way the hair is styled makes her look like Medusa.
Honestly, to me, the way the hair is styled makes her look like Medusa.
Credit: CNG CC BY-SA 2.5

Either way, more important than whether she had the countenance for a Hollywood movie, Zenobia appears to have been a savvy political operator. In the early stages of her reign, Zenobia appears to have gone out of her way to get along with the local Roman governors. This did not seem to last, however, as she soon seems to come into conflict with Rome.

It is unclear who launched the campaign, either Claudius II shortly before his death or Aurelian, but shortly after Zenobia took the throne, there appears to have been some sort of conflict with Rome. The best hypothesis put forward by Southern is that it was a campaign launched by the Romans, ostensibly to finish Odenathus’s offensive against the Persians; however, the Palmyrans seemed to think the encroaching Roman forces were for them, and fought the army off. Whatever the case may be, Zenobia seems to have found herself having to protect the border against Persia, while receiving no help from a suspicious Rome. Consequently, she took matters into her own hands.

Upon the death of Claudius II, there was a brief moment of instability when it was unclear whether the general Aurelian or Claudius’s brother, Quintillus, would take over. Zenobia saw this as her opportunity and launched an invasion of Arabia and Egypt under general Zabdas. Arabia seems to have fallen first, although there are only sketchy accounts.

This is a Roman theatre in Bosra, Syria. Seriously, wherever they went, the Romans left something behind
This is a Roman theatre in Bosra, Syria. Seriously, wherever they went, the Romans left something behind
Credit: Alessandra Kocman CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The campaign in Egypt was a back and forth affair. Zabdas initially defeated the 50,000 strong Roman garrison, with his own forces of 70,000. Leaving behind 5,000 of his men, Zabdas returned to Syria. Probus, the Roman prefect in Egypt, had been away fighting pirates and, upon hearing of the invasion, returned to Alexandria and swept aside the Palmyran defenders. This forced Zabdas to return to Egypt. Nevertheless, Probus assembled an army of Egyptians and Africans and drove the Palmyrans clear out of Egypt. However, once out of Egypt, the advantage returned to the Palmyrans, with their knowledge of the local terrain. In a decisive battle, Zabdas was able to sneak 2,000 of his men up a hidden winding path to a local peak. From there they launched a surprise attack on the Romans, catching them unaware and vanquishing them. As a good Roman, Probus committed suicide to maintain his honour.

With this, Zenobia effectively came to control the eastern third of the Roman Empire. This “struck not so much at the heart, but at the stomach of Rome itself” (p. 160), as Egypt provided roughly a third of the grain Rome required. Africa provided the other two thirds—Rome itself had long since stopped being self-sufficient. Nevertheless, Zenobia did not seem to seek full independence from Rome. She continued to allow grain shipments to reach the capital. Similarly, although the coins minted at this time bore the profile of her son on one side, they bore no claim of Imperial titles, and still portrayed Aurelian as the emperor of Rome on the reverse. Although disputed, it seems that Zenobia’s move was an attempt to renegotiate the position of Palmyra within the Empire.

Despite having only a couple of years of peace, it appears Zenobia ruled well. The Palmyran Empire proved to be a tolerant and pluralistic society, with Zenobia offering sanctuary to excommunicated Christians. The new emperor, Aurelian, could not let this stand, of course. With the troubles in Rome, it took roughly two years for Aurelian to amass his forces for a campaign against Zenobia. But by the end of 271, Aurelian began to move his forces toward Palmyra.

Either Aurelian had a neck the size of a tree trunk, or this coin casts doubt on the likeness of Zenobia's coin above...
Either Aurelian had a neck the size of a tree trunk, or this coin casts doubt on the likeness of Zenobia’s coin above…

The Roman Emperor made his way largely unopposed through Asia Minor until he came to the city of Tyana. He apparently was incensed by the city’s refusal to bow to him and swore that he wouldn’t leave a dog alive. The Romans prepared for a siege, but at the last moment Tyana had a change of heart and begged for clemency, which Aurelian granted them. This was a dangerous thing to do, as previous emperors had been killed by their own troops for depriving them of the plunder. However, when his hypocrisy was pointed out, Aurelian ordered all the dogs in the city slaughtered. Apparently “the soldiers saw the joke” (p. 135).2

The first battle in the war for the East took place at Immae, just outside of Antioch. Palmyra did not possess a standing army like Rome, but its forces were impressive. In particular, being Arabian, the Palmyran cavalry were especially fearsome. They were heavily armoured, possibly even armouring their horses, and carried a variety of weapons, including bow and arrow. They were known as clibinarii—oven-pot men—for wearing heavy steel armour under the sweltering desert sun.3

This is the closest thing we have to an image of a
This is the closest thing we have to an image of a clibinarius. Admittedly, it’s Persian and from three hundred years later…

Zabdas picked an open plain as the field of battle, where he could use his superior cavalry to great effect. Aurelian was either informed of this, or predicted his opponent’s movements and manoeuvred his forces to block the Palmyrans’ retreat. Seeing this, Zabdas began to move his own army to counter, forcing Aurelian’s hand. The Emperor finally launched the attack, sending his light cavalry forth to meet the Palmyran clibinarii. It was and easy victory for the oven-pot men, with the Romans quickly breaking and running from their heavily armed foes. Nevertheless, the nickname for the clibinarii soon proved apt as they tired themselves out under the sweltering conditions. At this point, the Romans revealed their ruse and rallied. Turning again to face the Palmyrans, they quickly dispatched their opponents, chasing down the oven-pot men on their poor, tired mounts.

Zabdas retreated to the city of Antioch, but decided not to hold it, especially in light of how quickly Tyana had lost its resolve. Instead, in order to maintain the loyalty of the city until he could get away, Zabdas paraded a look-alike of Aurelian in chains through the streets, proclaiming a great victory. He then slipped away during the night, so stealthily that the Romans actually arrived the next day to lay siege. Instead, Aurelian again offered the city clemency.

If only they'd remembered the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch...

Although a severe blow to the Palmyrans, Immae was not the end of their hopes. After retreating to Emesa, Zabdas gathered his still considerable forces and awaited the Romans. Again the Palmyrans arrayed themselves on a plain so as to advantage their cavalry, and again Aurelian sent his cavalry to clash with the superior clibinarii. This time however, his plan did not work, and when the Roman cavalry broke, they broke in earnest and were “slaughtered wholesale” (p.139). However, in their victorious pursuit, the Palmyrans broke their line, allowing themselves to be flanked by the Romans. Aurelian’s infantry saw their chance a surged forth, shattering the Palmyran lines. Palestinian clubmen in particular distinguished themselves, wreaking havoc and sowing fear amongst the heavily armoured clibinarii. Supposedly with their clubs and cudgels they “were able to literally knock the iron cooking-pots off the shelf” (p. 123). This turned into a rout for the Palmyrans, with many being killed by their own side, trampled in their desperation to flee.

Zenobia and her generals fled to Palmyra where they assumedly did their best to prepare for a siege; although, not being a walled city, Palmyra was largely indefensible. Instead, they relied on the great expanse of desert between them and Emesa, hoping that it would take its toll on the Romans. Unfortunately for them, in an impressive feat of logistics, Aurelian managed to keep his army supplied during their 150 mile desert march, all the while being harassed by bandits and allies of Zenobia. Realising the situation was largely hopeless, under the cover of darkness Zenobia made a desperate flight for Persia to request aid. She was, however, captured trying to cross a river.Without Zenobia, the resistance fell apart. Some wanted to fight on for honour, but word of Aurelian’s clemency soon got out, and the odd defector soon became a steady stream.

There is no real consensus over Zenobia’s fate. Little exists of contemporary reports. Ancient records vary, with the Syrian queen either dying on route back to Rome or living on peacefully in Italy. It seems certain that at some point she would have been subject to public humiliation, either in Antioch or possibly being paraded through the streets of Rome in golden chains. Nevertheless, there is some evidence of her descendants living on in Rome, so it seems there may be something to the accounts of her being pardoned by Aurelian and given a house in Tivoli.

Tivoli in Italy. If this were the punishment for failed rebellion, I think I'd give it a shot.
If this were the punishment for failed rebellion, I think I’d give it a shot.
Credit: LPLT CC BY-SA 3.0

The story of Palmyra does not quite end there, however. It seems that within a year, Palmyra made another ill-fated attempt at rebellion. This time Aurelian returned with a vengeance. The extent to which the city was sacked is unclear; but whether the subsequent decline was sudden or slow, it appears this marked the end for Palmyra as a power in the ancient world. The Silk Road moved elsewhere and its wealth along with it, until its “inhabitants squatted uneasily or uncomprehendingly among the monuments of its former greatness” (p. 189). Though a sad ending for such an incredible city, perhaps the saddest words are the unintentional ones of Southern when he writes of “these magnificent buildings, still visible today…” (p. 154).

Blah
Credit: Bernard Gagnon CC BY-SA 3.0

Academic Sources

Smith II, AM 2013, Roman Palmyra: identity, community and state formation, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Southern, P 2008, Empress Zenobia: Palmyra’s Rebel Queen, Continuum, London.

Stoneman, R 1994, Palmyra and Its Empire: Zenobia’s revolt against Rome, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.

Winsbury, R 2010, Zenobia of Palmyra: History, Myth and the Neo-Classical Imagination, Bloomsbury Academic, London.

  1. Persia. ↩
  2. This was somewhat genteel humour, by Roman standards. ↩
  3. Incidentally, why is it that the regions that appear to have produced the fiercest, most heavily armoured cavalry were those least suited to it? ↩

The Rise and Fall of Palmyra: Part One—The Rise

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By now, I am sure you’re aware of the destruction that ISIS wrought upon Palmyra. And as if the city hasn’t experienced enough, it seems that after being recaptured, Syrian troops might be looting the city for their own share of the booty. I generally try to keep this light-hearted, but the stealing of a people’s history is unforgivable.

A hero.
A hero.
Credit: Marc Deville/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images. Sourced: The Telegraph
Khaled al-Asaad would likely agree with me. He was the 82-year-old scholar who was beheaded for failing to lead ISIS militants to valuable historic artefacts. Nevertheless, even he would have to acknowledge that the ruins of Palmyra are hardly the first to be destroyed by depraved fanatics, nor are they liable to be the last. There’s a reason they’re “ruins” after all.

Fortunately, it appears only about 20% of the ruins were seriously damaged. And with the city’s recapture, UNESCO is already discussing restoration works; although there are doubts as to how successful they will be. Also, in a spectacular show of defiance, the Russian Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra has played a concert in the Roman amphitheatre where ISIS held its executions.

We'll just conveniently ignore that this seems to be a concert almost exclusively for President Assad's troops...

Nevertheless, the question that ought to be asked is “What is this history that Khaled al-Asaad deemed to be worth dying for?”

The Rise of Palmyra

Credit:
Credit: Yvonnefm CC BY-SA 3.0
Palmyra is a literal oasis town, or rather was a literal oasis town until its main spring dried up in the 19th century. The establishment of the city is lost in time, but likely involved the settling down of nomadic tribes around the oasis. The town remained small for a long time, and might have forever remained a footnote in history if it weren’t for the Romans’ need for fancy things. Although, as pointed out by Winsbury, you should avoid having too romantic an image of the city. Although desert caravans stretching off into the dunes loaded with spice and incense makes for a beautiful mental scene; inscriptions from the time speak of taxes to be paid on slaves and prostitutes, “which casts a rather more lurid light on Palmyrene trade” (p. 27).

Exactly how trade began in Palmyra us up for contention. Certainly its location directly between Rome and Persia gave the city a prime position to control Roman trade not just with Arabia and Mesopotamia, but also with India and China. Still, Palmyra’s sudden transition from agricultural oasis town to mercantile oligopoly is difficult to explain. One theory is that the Palmyrenes were desert nomads and bandits who set about getting square, changing from bandits to guards to merchants. Apart from offering an explanation of how Palmyrene trade could spring from nowhere, it also offers an explanation for Palmyra’s surprising martial prowess for a trading city.

Sorry, for an image title "Palmyran Trade Routes", the actual word "Palmyra" is tiny...Credit: Shizhao CC BY-SA3.0
Sorry, for an image title “Palmyran Trade Routes”, the actual word “Palmyra” is tiny…
Credit: Shizhao CC BY-SA3.0

Palmyra had a strong militia; however, it was used for far more than just protecting caravans. Being wedged between the Romans and the Persians made for a precarious position. As the Romans expanded into the Middle-East, Palmyra came further and further under their sway, eventually becoming a Roman city; although they did retain special privileges, such as the right to maintain security forces. In this way, Palmyra became responsible for not just guaranteeing trade, but also the Eastern border of the empire.

This became crucially important in the third century AD when things were starting to look pretty grim for Rome. There were separatist movements in Britain, Hispania and Gaul (France) in the west; and in the east, the relatively peaceful Parthians were replaced by the aggressive Sassanians as the pre-eminent power in Persia. Sass wasn’t only in their name, but in their nature. Not entirely enthused about Rome’s recent meddling in the region, the Sassanians were keen to kick them out. More than this, they wanted to restore the empire of Darius and Xerxes (of 300 fame).

The Roman emperor, Valerian, was not going to stand for this in any way, and headed east to deal with this upstart dynasty. Unfortunately for him, however, he was resoundingly defeated, and even captured by the Sassanian king, Shapur.

You always have to wonder how it must feel to have a failure so grand, it still stands thousands of years later, commemorated in stone.
You always have to wonder how it must feel to have a failure so grand, it still stands thousands of years later, commemorated in stone.
Credit: Fabienkhan CC BY-SA 2.5

It is here that the Palmyrans truly started to make a name for themselves. Odenathus, the Palmyran king, stepped into the breach. Gathering an army of Palmyrans, Syrian peasants and whatever Roman forces would rally to his cause, he pursued the withdrawing Persian forces, catching them on the banks of the Euphrates. There he dealt Shapur an embarrassing defeat, failing to free Valerian, but supposedly managing to capture Shapur’s harem. In the following years, Odenathus launched a second campaign against the Persians and, despite an unsuccessful siege against their capital, by 267AD had restored all of the perviously Roman lands. The historian Winsbury describes this as “the Empire Strikes back” (p. 68). Odenathus, even found time to crush a rebellion against Rome in the meantime. For his deeds, Odenathus was granted the title corrector totius orientis or “Restorer of the East.”

We're not 100% certain if this is Odenathus, but it's the best guess we have of an image of the man.
We’re not 100% certain if this is Odenathus, but it’s the best guess we have of an image of the man.
Credit: Marco Prins CC BY-SA 4.0
What is remarkable about Odenathus, beyond his military successes, was that at a time of rebellion, he stayed loyal to Rome. He took Arabic titles, such as “King of Kings”, but appeared content with the Roman titles he was granted (and the Romans couldn’t care less what other titles he took). Of course, there are other interpretations of his actions. Winsbury, for instance, prefers to see Odenathus as a ruler that worked more for Palmyran interests. He makes much of a tale in which Odenathus gave a number of gifts to Shapur to improve relations, but the Persian king simply threw them in a river. Furthermore, in their attack on Rome, the Persians had destroyed Palmyran trading posts all along their advance. In this light, Odenathus’s military campaigns can be seen as opportunistic reprisals as much as valiant conquests for Rome.

Whatever the truth of the matter, Odenathus definitely upset somebody, as both he and the son he bore to his first wife were assassinated in roughly 267AD. To this day, the motives and perpetrators are up for contention, with everyone from wary Roman emperors to his wife who would succeed him, Zenobia, being accused at some point. Either way, the assassination of Odenathus would irrevocably change Palmyran history.

As we’ll see next week, these actions would indirectly spark the sudden expansion of Palmyra’s sphere of influence. Within five years, Palmyra would have become a proper empire, comprising of roughly the eastern third of Rome. However, as fast as it would flare into existence, the Palmyran Empire would be extinguished, and within ten years the city would be sacked, and never again be a world power. All of this would occur at the hands of the beautiful Queen Zenobia, Odenathus’s second wife, who we will learn about next week.

We'll learn more about this incredible Queen next post (NB: Though beautiful, this isn't a contemporary image).
We’ll learn more about this incredible Queen next post (NB: Though beautiful, this isn’t a contemporary image).
Credit: QuartierLatin1968 CC BY-SA 3.0

Academic Sources

Smith II, AM 2013, Roman Palmyra: identity, community and state formation, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Southern, P 2008, Empress Zenobia: Palmyra’s Rebel Queen, Continuum, London.

Stoneman, R 1994, Palmyra and Its Empire: Zenobia’s revolt against Rome, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.

Winsbury, R 2010, Zenobia of Palmyra: History, Myth and the Neo-Classical Imagination, Bloomsbury Academic, London.

The First Federal Election

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Firstly, apologies for such a long break in posts. This blog is far from over, but it turns out the semester just gone was far more time consuming than I had imagined. Either way, I should be able to get out a few more posts during the break.

This is roughly what I imagine Julia Gillard will look like, should either side enter into a minority government.
This is roughly what I imagine Julia Gillard will look like, should either side enter into a minority government.
Source: Ed Dunens CC BY 2.0
So Australia has just conducted its 45th federal election, and it looks like there’s a chance we might end up with a minority government. I thought I’d turn the clock back and look at Australia’s first election, an election which, surprise surprise, also produced a minority government.

Although it’s logical if you think about it, Australia’s first federal election did not produce its first federal government. Who would have organised the election, otherwise? Instead, Australia’s first government was formed by its Prime Minister, who was in turn chosen by the Governor General. I say “chosen”; really the Governor General, John Adrian Louis Hope, Seventh Earl of Hopetoun, had his arm twisted by the total refusal of anyone to serve on the cabinet of his first choice for PM—William Lyne. The Governor General had selected Lyne on the basis that he was the Premier of NSW, the most senior colony, and had been knighted (always important).

John Adrian Louis Hopetoun, Seventh Lord of Hopetoun displaying the requisite number of medals needed to run a country.
John Adrian Louis Hopetoun, Seventh Lord of Hopetoun displaying the requisite number of medals needed to run a country.

The problem was that Lyne had been anti-Federation and most Australians thought this made him a poor choice for the first Prime Minister of said federation. Instead, everyone thought the job should go to the most famous federalist of the time, Edmund Barton. Lyne actually discussed this with Barton and promised him that he had spoken with the Seventh Earl of Hopetoun and was not a candidate for PM. The Governor General then promptly gave Lyne the Prime Ministership and Lyne set about trying to form government. So even 100 years ago “I don’t want to be PM” meant “I want to be PM.”

Nevertheless, while Lyne tried to tempt both Barton and Alfred Deakin, amongst others, into forming cabinet, all refused, and Lyne was forced to return his commission and advise the Governor General that Barton should be offered the position of Prime Minister. Although unknowingly, this effectively set the tone for the upcoming election, as it effectively became a vote of confidence in the incumbents.

This first government was a caretaker government, primarily concerned with the logistics of holding Australia’s first federal election. Apart from that, there was not a lot to do as Prime Minister of the newly formed nation. So little, that in the early days of Australia, Barton could carry around all of the government’s files in his briefcase. His position did have one important effect, however: the advantage of incumbency.

Although we cannot accuse Barton of using his position as PM for personal gain, he and his cabinet were not afraid to take advantage of their status to help their electoral chances. Principally, this was done by campaigning while going about ministerial business. Ministers would often arrive somewhere in the morning for business, and hold a campaign meeting in the afternoon, or vice versa. And that was before one considered the lavish functions put on for the new Prime Minister. For example, when Barton arrived in Brisbane, he was given a large formal reception by the Australian Natives Association (Indigenous Australians weren’t allowed to join, of course), followed by a banquet for 400 people.

400 people who saw no irony in the name of their association.
400 people who saw no irony in the name of their association.

Of course, these had to be 400 of the right people. Eligibility to vote in 1901 was state-based and therefore whether you could vote was largely determined by where you lived. South Australia and Western Australia, to their credit, had already extended women the vote in state elections, and therefore they were eligible to do so in the federal election. Barton campaigned on universal suffrage, and women in all states in Australia would be eligible to vote as of April the following year. This actually turned out to be a live issue Victoria, where legislation to extend the vote to women had recently been rejected. Alfred Deakin, future Prime Minister, was actually a big supporter of universal suffrage, saying that if not approved, Victoria would fall behind the other states. Interestingly, in NSW it didn’t appear to be such an issue. This could be in part because Rose Scott, the lead suffragist in NSW at the time, was an anti-Federalist and hardly referred to the 1901 election at all.

I will admit this is about suffrage in England. But I just love how the whole tone of the cartoon has changed now that women have the vote.
I will admit this cartoon is about suffrage in England. But I just love how the whole tone of the cartoon has changed now that women have the vote.
Source: Punch, 1910. From: The University of Glasgow

It must be acknowledged that when politicians at the time talked about “universal suffrage”, this didn’t include Indigenous Australians or other non-white races. Of course, on the state-by-state basis, the question was still muddied. Although Indigenous Australians didn’t formally get the vote until 1967, in 1901 they were treated as regular British subjects in all states except Western Australia and Queensland.

Of course, being a British citizen hardly guaranteed you the vote. The states’ restrictions on the franchise were diverse. While most states had removed property ownership restrictions for voting for the House of Representatives, many still had them for voting for the Senate. Equally, while Indigenous voters were explicitly excluded in WA and QLD, if they passed the property test, they could vote. In Queensland, you couldn’t vote if you were in the police, military or navy, or if you were receiving aid from a charitable institution. Victoria had excluded the illiterate from voting in 1857. And then excluded them again in 1865, with everyone apparently having forgotten the legislation passed eight years earlier.

But who was the opposition that Barton and his cabinet campaigned so hard against? George Reid effectively took on the role of opposition leader. Although a wealthy man, Reid was liked by workers for his self-depreciating humour. Famed for being massively obese, he was once asked what he would call his stomach. His response: “It’s all piss and wind. I’ll call it after you” (Tink, p. 4).

Did you really think that the Trans-Pacific Partnership was the first time people were up in arms over free trade?
Did you really think that the Trans-Pacific Partnership was the first time people were up in arms over free trade?
The major issue of the election was free-trade versus protectionism, with Reid lining up in the first corner and Barton in the second. At first, Barton tried a compromise position, but Reid had picked his battleground, and it was the issue the election was primarily fought on. This effectively split the states, with New South Wales possessing a firmly free-trade tradition, and Victoria a staunchly protectionist one. The other states stood in between, but with more protectionist leanings. It should be noted that these were not absolute positions, as Protectionists did not want to prohibit trade, and Free Traders still wished to raise revenues from tariffs. The question was more around how much protection was to be offered.

As an aside, incredibly long and confusing senate ballot papers were also there from 1901. This is an original; with 50-odd candidates, you were expected to cross off the names of all those you didn't want to vote for.
As an aside, incredibly long and confusing senate ballot papers were also there from 1901. This is an original, with 50-odd candidates. You were expected to cross off the names of all those you didn’t want to vote for.
Courtesy of the Museum of Australian Democracy
The last major contender in the election was Labor. Although they had aspired to have a federal party for the 1901 election, no agreement was reached, and so across the country, the election was treated as a state-based affair. Labor candidates actually had a free vote on the issue of protectionism, though because of its ties to manufacturing, the party had protectionist leanings. This ended up being the deciding factor for the 1901 elections.

Just like the most recent one, Australia’s first election was a surprisingly close affair. Barton’s Protectionists secured 31 seats, and Reid’s Free Traders 28; neither of which was enough to form government in the 75 seat House of Reps. Fourteen of the remaining 16 seats went to the various Labor parties. Those protectionist leanings ended up being crucial for Barton, as after negotiations Labor sided with the Protectionists as a block, delivering Barton the election. In this way, especially with the Free Traders gaining more seats than the Protectionists in the Senate, Australia’s first government was a minority one, delivered by Labor. This is a lesson that has stuck with the party ever since, determining their high esteem for, and willingness to compromise with the minor parties.

Election 2016: Tell him he’s dreaming: Bill Shorten refuses any deal with Greens

Labor leader Bill Shorten has ruled out forming a coalition government with the Greens, should the July 2 election produce a hung Parliament.

Academic Sources

Australian Politics and Elections Database, The University of Western Australia, Perth, accessed from: <http://elections.uwa.edu.au/>.

Carrol, B 2004, Australia’s Prime Ministers: From Barton to Howard, Rosenberg Publishing, Kenthurst, New South Wales.

Fleming, J & Weller, P 2001, “‘The ballot is the thing’: the labour parties” in Marian Simms (ed.) 1901 : the forgotten election, University of Queensland Press in association with the API Network and Curtin University of Technology, St Lucia, Queensland.

Jaensch, D & Manning, H 2001, “‘We want a white man’s continent’: the free trade and protection campaigns” in Marian Simms (ed.) 1901 : the forgotten election, University of Queensland Press in association with the API Network and Curtin University of Technology, St Lucia, Queensland.

Jupp, J 2001, “Ethnicity, race and sectarianism” in Marian Simms (ed.) 1901 : the forgotten election, University of Queensland Press in association with the API Network and Curtin University of Technology, St Lucia, Queensland.

Simms, M 2001, “Election days: overview of the 1901 election” in Marian Simms (ed.) 1901 : the forgotten election, University of Queensland Press in association with the API Network and Curtin University of Technology, St Lucia, Queensland.

Simms, M 2001, “Voting and enrolment provisions” in Marian Simms (ed.) 1901 : the forgotten election, University of Queensland Press in association with the API Network and Curtin University of Technology, St Lucia, Queensland.

Tink, A 2014, Australia 1901 – 2001: A narrative history, NewSouth Publishing, Sydney.

Of Primary Importance

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If you're wondering why I'm calling him 'Drumpf', watch this.
So it appears almost certain that Drumpf is going to be the next Republican Presidential Candidate in spite of his party’s wishes. For many, his candidacy represents the joke that US primaries have become. Drumpf shows that if you can lay your hands on enough money (even if it’s mostly self-financed), you’re in with a good shot. And even if your party hates you, if you can win the prolonged popularity contest that is the primaries, you’re set. Lack appropriate experience? It hardly matters—voters are likely to go for the name they recognise.

Of course, if you’ve read any of my other entries, I’m sure you won’t be surprised to discover that these problems are not new, with a report on primaries in 1898 documenting these exact issues. If the system has been so flawed from the beginning, we must ask ourselves why the US turned to the system in the first place

Strangely, at the time I began writing this article, my next words were going to be something along the lines of “I’m going to focus on the primaries, as the National Convention is a rather outdated institution, having become largely a ceremonial affair.” Of course, having written that, there are now articles floating around proposing that under the right circumstances, the Republicans may be able to shaft Trump at the last minute at the National Convention, something to keep an eye out for (and maybe another easy follow-up for a post in July!).

Hopefully they'd accompany the return to old-style party politics with a return to old-style decorations (It's the 1900 Republican National Convention, for the record).
Hopefully they’d accompany the return to old-style party politics with a return to old-style decorations (It’s the 1900 Republican National Convention, for the record).

Either way, the US primary is a measure by which parties choose their candidate for an election by popular vote, rather than discussion in a caucus (a meeting of party members). This is unusual, as it means (as will likely be the case with Donald Trump) the public can vote in a candidate that a party organisation doesn’t actually want.

So why did parties agree to a system which effectively curbed their own power? We actually played a part in this. In the late 19th century, Australia revolutionised democracy and electoral politics. And then, in that typical ways of ours, proceeded to expunge it from ou history.1 In essence, it developed the system of the secret ballot, known around the world as “the Australian Ballot”.

Steve on Twitter: “Got my postal vote stuff today and wholly crap it would take a week to read the senate paper. My son is 21mths old pic.twitter.com/v0ig7MTHsR / Twitter”

Got my postal vote stuff today and wholly crap it would take a week to read the senate paper. My son is 21mths old pic.twitter.com/v0ig7MTHsR

Strangley enough, the latest form of the Australian ballot is yet to catch on.

Taken for granted today, this method of voting took the world by storm. In particular, it set a new tone for US elections. Although by the middle of the century most elections had already moved on from the older practice of voting by voice, ballots were still highly public and informal affairs, with parties printing their own ballot papers. The abuses of this system were manifold—candidates and parties would print papers that mimicked another party’s in order to steal votes from the illiterate or the simply unwary; many states didn’t have official voter registers, so as communities grew larger, it was easy to slip in a few individuals from out of town; and if all of that failed, with distinctly coloured ballots, it was easy for parties to intimidate voters into either voting their way, or not at all.

So over the next few decades, the US electoral system steadily consolidated into a formal system, with states regulating more and more of the electoral process. Whilst there is a lot of debate over the exact reasons, in essence, having the public participate in the direct election of primaries seemed the next logical step. Furthermore, even though direct primaries effectively limit the power of the parties, they had the advantage of firstly, being popular with the electorate, and secondly, encouraging participation in the nominating system, rather than having parties saddled with unelectable candidates due to backroom dealings.

While pithy now, if he wins the upcoming election, I'll regret putting his photo here.
While pithy now, this will date quickly if he wins the upcoming election.
Credit: Peter Campbell CC3.0

Curiously, although primaries became the norm for most elected positions, presidential nominations lagged far behind and weren’t largely adopted until the 1960s. Having said that, when the reforms of the presidential primaries finally rolled around, they were in response to a National Convention that exemplified nearly everything wrong with the old system. Shafer describes the Democratic convention of 1952 as “the last of the classic old-style party-gatherings” (p. 33). The story of what took place at that convention is a long one, full of political manoeuvring; but in essence, the people’s favourite, Kefauver, lost to the party favourite, Stevenson. The fact that Stevenson proceeded to lose two subsequent presidential elections was telling, but perhaps most galling for the rank-and-file of the Democrats was that Kefauver had actually won the most primaries before the nominating convention—the issue was that these primaries were known as “beauty pageants” and had no official standing within the Democratic Party.

Nevertheless, the lesson seemed to be learned within the Democratic party and the Republicans soon had to follow suit, as if they didn’t, the candidate could easily be slighted for being a party hack. The reason this is incredibly important in the US system is due to the nature of how elections are won. In the US, elections aren’t won by changing the minds of opposition voters, they’re won by motivating your own voters to get out of the house and actually vote. In this way, primaries are a great tool to get voters emotionally invested in your cause, and appeal to them directly without the moderating influence of party to the point where the party machine can almost be directly bypassed. In fact, when the parties are in a state of disrepute, a candidate can even build their popularity on the back of not being the favourite candidate of one of the main parties.

Sounding familiar?
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
Credit: Gage Skidmore CC2.0

Academic Sources

Sorry, I admit they’re a little light on this week. There wasn’t as much written about this as I’d expected.

Berg-Andersson, RE 2004, “How did we get here anyway? an historical analysis of the Presidential Nominating Process”, The Green Papers, accessed at: http://www.thegreenpapers.com/Hx/NomProcess.html, 23 March 2016. Not an academic source, strictly speaking, but one of the best summaries of the history of the US presidential nominating process

Shafer, BE 1988, Bifurcated Politics: Evolution and Reform in the National Party Convention, Harvard University Press, Massachusetts.

Ware, A 2002, The American Direct Primary: Party Institutionalization and Transformation in the North, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

  1. Seriously, did anyone learn about this at school? I didn’t… ↩

When Explorers were REAL explorers

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I’m running behind on this week’s post, so I want to put an excerpt from a book I read researching the last article. It’s from a time when explorers were real explorers, and more importantly, real gentlemen:

The expedition, just before the broke for high tea.
The expedition, just before the broke for high tea.

In 1908 Enest Shackleton was leading an expedition to find the South Magnetic Pole, along with Edgeworth David (a man who had the apparent misfortune of being born with his names back-to-front), and Douglas Mawson. One evening, David left to sketch a range of hills, while Mawson was changing his photographic plates in his sleeping bag in the tent.

I heard a voice from outside—a gentle voice—calling:

“Mawson, Mawson.”

“Hullo!” said I.

“Oh, you’re in the bag changing plates, are you?”

“Yes, Professor.”

There was a silence for some time. Then I heard the Professor calling in a louder tone:

“Mawson!”

I answered again. Well, the Professor heard by the sound I was still in the bag, so he said:

“Oh, Still changing plates, are you?”

“Yes.”

More silence for some time. After a minute, in a rather loud an anxious tone:

“Mawson!”

I thought there was something up, but could not tell what he was after. I was getting rather tired of it an called out:

“Hullo. What is it? What can I do?”

“Well, Mawson, I am in a rather dangerous position. I am really hanging on by my fingers to the edge of a crevasse, and I don’t think I can hang on much lonber. I shall have to trouble you to assist me.

I came out rather quicker than I can say. There was the Professor, just his head showing and hanging on to the edge of a dangerous crevasse.

(p. 79)

Gratzer, W 2004 Eurekas and Euphorias: The Oxford Book of Scientific Anecdotes, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Making (Gravitational) Waves Pt 2

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Before I kick off, I just want to announce that as semester is starting, I’ll be dropping back to fortnightly updates. They may even be a little more infrequent at times, during marking and such. So please consider using the field on the left of the page to subscribe and receive an update when I post.

In essence, this was Ptolemy's view of the solar system.
In essence, this was Ptolemy’s view of the solar system.
Ok, so last week we left the world using the spirograph model of the universe. We can scoff as much as we want at this, but do remember that Ptolemy’s model was accurate enough not just for Columbus to get to the Americas (even if he was aiming for somewhere else entirely), but for Spain and Portugal to firmly establish their empires.

The first thinker to really upset this model of the universe was Copernicus. He was one of the first (after some Ancient Greeks who had been ignored for about 2,000 years) to place the sun at the centre of the solar system. Interestingly, this was primarily a philosophical shift, rather than any great revelation from new information. Although an avid astronomer, but Copernicus made few truly new observations. Instead, his great contribution was to show that placing the sun at the centre of the solar system explained many of the mathematical complexities of the planets’ orbits. It didn’t get rid of all the irregularities, however; and Copernicus still needed epicycles, albeit far fewer.

The orbit of Mars in particular offered problems for observers, but a German named Kepler was able to go a long way in explaining its strange orbit. He made several important contributions to the movement of the planets, but I’m going to concentrate on two. Firstly, up until Kepler no one had linked gravity on the earth to the motions of the planets; according to most thinkers of the age, they were still just sliding around crystalline spheres.

Of course, planetariums would have been a lot more interesting...
Motions of the planets and predictions of the future…
Instead, Kepler posited that there must be a universal force attracting everything to everything else in the solar system Unfortunately, he missed out on the invention of the term “gravity”, instead ascribing the force of attraction to magnetism.

Nevertheless, from this, Kepler was able to hypothesise that this force decreased exponentially with distance. Whilst this may sound more academic than interesting, it lead to his second key discovery—the orbits of the planets were ellipses, not circles, and the planets sped up and slowed down as they moved closer to and further from the Sun. This managed to account for the strange orbit of Mars (it has the most elliptical orbit of all the inner planets) without having to resort to any invisible epicycles.

Curiously, one of the opponents of elliptical orbits actually made an enormous contribution to the fields of astronomy and gravity—Galileo. The Italian’s contribution to the field of astronomy was largely to provide a way by which the planets continued to revolve around the sun without coming to rest. Our old friend Aristotle, upon whom I wrote last week, had decreed that an object’s natural inertia would inevitably lead to its deceleration and eventual rest. Consequently, Kepler hypothesised that in order to continue orbiting, the planets needed some sort of force to keep them moving. Through a series of careful experiments, primarily by rolling weights down a ramp, Galileo was able to determine that an object which met no resistance would continue forever. This meant that if the orbits of the planets were circular—if the momentum of the planets perfectly balanced the attractive force of the sun—they never stop. As for the problem that the planets did not appear to be moving circles, Galileo apparently proved to be a late disciple of Aristotle and simply ignored the issue away.

Because even 500 years on, he might have gotten it wrong.

Nevertheless, by the middle of the 16th century, the problem largely seems to be that Aristotelian gravity was “all but dead” (p. 60), but no one seemed to know what to replace it with. Kepler’s elliptical orbits offered accurate predictions of where the planets would move next, but without the circular symmetry of Galileo, there was little understanding of how they could go round forever. The planets appeared to accelerate and decelerate as they went around the sun, but few could offer explanations for this apparently erratic behaviour.

Apparently there was a grain of truth to the story of Newton and his apple tree. One didn't hit him on his head, but it was contemplating their falling that inspired his ideas.
Apparently there was a grain of truth to the story of Newton and his apple tree. One didn’t hit him on his head, but it was contemplating their falling that inspired his ideas. (Also, I like that Britain has a “Tree Council”)

Newton’s Apple Tree plaque (Richard Croft) / CC BY-SA 2.0

It took the illustrious Newton to sort this all out and provide one unitary theory of gravitation. At the prompting of some of his friends,1 Newton set to piecing all these disparate discoveries together. Starting with the Copernican assumption that the Sun was at the centre of the solar system, Newton made careful calculations as to what orbits would look like if everything in the universe were to have gravity that fell away with distance according to the inverse square law.2

Although Newton never attempted to set out the causes of gravity3 he did demonstrate that if gravity were to follow the inverse square law, the orbits of the planets would be elliptical—they would accelerate as they were pulled in close to the sun, and slow down as they shot away. Assuming that there was no wind resistance, Gallileo’s discovery around the conservation of momentum meant this would go on forever, without needing some mysterious force to slow down and speed up the planets, in spite of the utter lack of circles.4

The depth of this breakthrough is difficult to communicate. For many it seemed as if the laws of heaven had been discovered—the planets in their unchanging orbits could be mapped out with almost exacting precision. The key word in that sentence is, of course, “almost”. The orbit of Mercury did not quite fit the predicted route of Newtonian physics and would require Einstein’s general relativity to fix it.

Of course, everyone at the time used the time honoured Ancient Greek philosophical technique: they ignored it.

No idea what you're talking about. By WillowW - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3416065
No idea what you’re talking about.
Credit: WillowW CC3.0

PS: Just a sly reminder—I’m going to be updating less regularly over the next few months, so you might consider subscribing to my blog (see right) to be notified of new posts.

Academic Sources

Ede, A & Cormack LB 2012, A History of Science in Society: From Philosophy to Utility, 2nd ed., University of Toronto Press, Toronto.

Holton, GJ 1988, Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought: Kepler to Einstein, Harvard University Press, Cambridge.

Horvitz, LA 2002, Eureka!: Scientific Breakthroughs that Changed the World, John Wiley & Sons, New Jersey.

Huff, TE 2003, The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China and the West, Cambridge University Press Cambridge.

  1. Considering how famously dickish Newton was, I’m always surprised to write that he had “friends”. ↩
  2. Loosely, gravity at twice the distance is four times as weak. ↩
  3. It would not be until Einstein that anyone would successfully do that, but that’s a story for another day. ↩
  4. Not strictly speaking historical, but I found myself Googling “Why aren’t the orbits of the planets circular?” because it bothered me. Basically, they could be, theoretically; but a circle is a special kind of perfectly balanced ellipse and so the odds of a planet falling into a circular orbit during its formation is “astronomically” low (see what I did there?). ↩

Making (Gravitational) Waves Pt 1

Uncategorized, , , , ,

I have seen these spirals so many times in the last week that they're etched into my brain.
When the universe wants to hypnotise you.
Credit: MoocSummers CC4.0
You might have read that gravity has been making waves recently. The discovery of gravitational waves has apparently added substantial weight to Einstein’s general theory of relativity, truly one of the the ground breaking theories on how our universe operates. Nevertheless, it is has been a long road to get to our current understanding of the universe, and there is no reason to think we’re anywhere near the end of it. In fact, the road is so long and winding that I’m going to split this history of the theory of gravity over two weeks.

Strangely enough, I can’t seem to find a reference on when people first started to notice that things held up in the air would drop to the ground if you let them go. Nevertheless, for a long time in the West at least, Aristotle was considered the foremost authority on gravity (keeping in mind the term “gravity” itself wouldn’t be coined for over one and a half thousand years by Newton). Aristotle held that everything in the world was composed of four elements: earth, water, air and fire. Each of these elements wanted to be in its proper place, with earth wanting to occupy the centre of the universe below and fire the heavens above. According to Aristotle, everything was made up of these elements in differing quantities, and it was their relative compositions that determined whether they wished to rise or fall.

Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle...
It’s almost ironic that we think of him as a man of great intellectual vigour.
Interestingly, the fact that a falling object accelerates as it “nears its proper place” (ie. falls), rather than slows down or remains constant, was well known to Aristotle, but he managed to avoid this critique of his theory by using one of the most traditional discursive strategies of the Ancient Greeks: he ignored it. It is also worth noting that in Ancient Greece, there was also a competing theory of gravitation from atomists—those who believed everything was composed of tiny particles—that posited that all atoms attracted each other on some level and therefore everything had some type of gravity. Therefore going from the Ancient Era to the Middle Ages we had two competing theories of gravity—one over a thousand years ahead of its time and one that almost could not have been more wrong—I’ll let you guess which one we chose.

One the most curiously logical and yet mind-bending paradoxes in the history of gravitational theory is that for the majority of human history it did not seem to occur to anyone that what made objects fall to the floor and what kept the planets sailing around the sun (or earth, as it was believed for a long time) was the same thing. Aristotle seems strangely reticent on why the planets wander around the sky, but he maintained that the universe consisted of perfect symmetry and therefore they must orbit in perfect circles, while the Earth sat still at the centre of the universe. A beautiful model of the universe it may have provided, but unfortunately it failed to describe the movements of the planets as they were actually observed. The issue was that the planets would move forward across the sky for many months of the year, conduct funny little reversals, and then proceed forward like nothing had happened. Aristotle took his usual approach to explaining such inconsistencies—he ignored it.

Aristotle: "I don't see it."
Aristotle: “I don’t see it.”
(Apparent retrograde movement of Mars)
Credit: NASA Public Domai

Basically, it's God's spirograph.
Basically, it’s God’s spirograph.

Fortunately, Ptolemy stepped in to the rescue. To solve this conundrum, he introduced epicycles and a deferent. In essence, to correct for this backwards movement, the planets didn’t simply rotate around the earth, they traced small circles around a point—an epicycle—and that point traced a large circle around the Earth, along the deferent. There were even other aspects, such as equant and eccentric, because the model clearly wasn’t complicated enough already.

Again, as seems to so often be the case, there were Ancient Greeks who pointed out that if the planets and the earth revolved around the Sun, it explained many of these inconsistencies. But on the authority of that great thinker Aristotle, the model was rejected.

Credit where credit’s due, Aristotle was not without reason. There were problems with a heliocentric model of the solar-system. If the Earth were spinning, for instance, why don’t we all just go flying off? Similarly, why don’t objects dropped from a great height fall westwards? Why didn’t the stars appear to move around the sky? And finally, it needs to be kept in mind that whilst assuming the planets all revolves around the sun explains many of the inconsistencies, the model still does not entirely line up with observations.

However, for those answers, we need to wait about one and a half thousand years. Or at least until next week.

The orbits of the planets in Ptolemy's universe. I wasn't joking about the spirograph thing.
The orbits of the planets in Ptolemy’s universe. I wasn’t joking about the spirograph thing.

Academic Sources

Applebaum, W 2005, The Scientific Revolution and the Foundations of Modern Science, Greenwood Press,Connecticut.

Ede, A & Cormack LB 2012, A History of Science in Society: From Philosophy to Utility, 2nd ed., University of Toronto Press, Toronto.

Grant, E 1996, The Foundations of Modern Science in the Middle Ages: Their Religious, Institutional and Intellectual Contexts, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Horvitz, LA 2002, Eureka!: Scientific Breakthroughs that Changed the World, John Wiley & Sons, New Jersey.

Huff, TE 2003, The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China and the West, Cambridge University Press Cambridge.

Krebbs, RE 1999, Scientific Development and Misconceptions Through the Ages: A Reference Guide, Greenwood Publishing Group, Connecticut.