RealClearHistory

“The staying power of ‘Citizen Kane'”

Brandon Christensen History, Links , , , , , ,

That’s the title of my Tuesday column over at RealClearHistory. An excerpt:

The relevant socio political commentary is more interesting, in part because people today still use the film to attack media moguls they don’t like (such as Fox News’ Rupert Murdoch). One narrative about the film’s sociopolitical impact even likens the film to a subtle anti-fascist, and pro-war, production because of the attention it draws to the immense power media moguls wield, and the incentive structures they face (and produce). This argument has at least some bite to it, as one of America’s most powerful media moguls in the 1940s, William Randolph Hearst, refused to give the film any sort of advertisement in any of his many publications. This blackballing on the part of the powerful led, of course, to the Citizen Kane’s relative flop at the box office.

Read the rest, baby!

Lunchtime Links

Brandon Christensen Links , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
  1. 25 years after Waco |  Freedom of Conscience and the Rule of Law
  2. The US-Japan Alliance and Soviet competition | Some thoughts on “Thinking About Libertarian Foreign Policy”
  3. Japan’s rent-a-family industry | In Search of Firmer Cosmopolitan Solidarity
  4. The story of the skull of a victim of the Indian Uprising of 1857 | Myths of Sovereignty and British Isolation, III
  5. Reviving India’s classical liberal party | Classical Liberalism and the Nation State
  6. The decline of regional American art | A History of Regional Governments
  7. Michelle Pfeiffer keeps getting better and better | On the paradox of poverty and good health in Cuba
  8. “It was the most devastating loss in the history of the Library.” | No, natural disasters are not good for the economy

“10 little-known fascist governments”

Brandon Christensen History, Links , , , ,

That’s the subject of my weekend’s RealClearHistory column. An excerpt:

7. Romania and the Iron Guard. Sandwiched between the communist Soviet Union and the fascist Axis powers of central Europe, Romanian society struggled to find its footing after a comparatively wonderful campaign during World War I, but Bucharest eventually chose to side with Berlin and Rome instead of Moscow. Romanian fascism was known for including the Orthodox Church into its anti-communist, anti-Semitic, and anti-capitalist rhetoric. Romania’s fascists almost made the Nazis look like boy scouts, especially when the Iron Guard organized and implemented one of Europe’s bloodiest pogroms, ever: the Iași pogrom. Just over 13,000 Jews, along with their liberal and Orthodox defenders in the city of Iași, were butchered on the streets where they once plied their trades. Romania, a member of the Axis for most of the war, was second only to Germany in the number of Jews it killed during World War II.

Please, read the rest.

Oh, and I wrote about America’s greatest maritime disaster on Tuesday for RCH‘s blog, the Historiat.

“Top 10 Things That Tipped Off Revolutionary War”

Brandon Christensen History, Links , , ,

That’s the title of my weekend column over at RealClearHistory. Check it out:

5. The continued quartering of British soldiers. Imagine, for a moment, an Iraqi household being forced to give room and board to an American or a Polish soldier in 2005. That’s not quite what happened in the North American colonies but it’s not a far cry, either. The colonists of North America considered themselves to be British subjects of the Crown, and most were proud to be. (In fact, a little further down the list, you’ll see why the Americans, as rebels, were so adamant about liberalizing citizenship laws.) A much better analogy would be to imagine the LAPD or the Texas National Guard forcing households to give quarter to soldiers. The analogy is better, but the picture is still a frightening one.

Please, read the rest. The other 9 are also good. Heck, you might even learn something new…

“Horrors Didn’t End When Bataan Death March Did”

Brandon Christensen Links , , , , , ,

That’s the title of last week‘s Tuesday post over at RealClearHistory. I’ve been so busy I forgot to share it here. Check it out:

Camp O’Donnell was no relief from the Death March of Bataan. In it, disease spread like wildfire and starvation was rampant. The Japanese, who were fighting Americans elsewhere and Filipino guerrillas close by, had no empathy for their prisoners. The prisoners who survived the harsh march from Bataan had another 3 ½ years of hard manual labor in prison camps to look forward to, if they survived the horrific conditions of the camps.

As the Allies began slowly retaking the Philippines from Japanese forces, these prisoners of war were shipped from one of the 70 prisoner camps on the archipelago to China and Japan itself to continue their slave labor for the Empire. The Japanese shipped these prisoners to the mainland on unmarked vessels, a violation of the Geneva Conventions, and it’s possible that the American and British Navies may have inadvertently sunk a number of these vessels.

Please, read the rest.

Pot smoking and freedom: ‘Murica!

Brandon Christensen Links , , , , , , ,

My latest Tuesday column over at RealClearHistory takes aim at the history of marijuana in the United States. I’ve got a 600 word limit, but hopefully I packed in plenty of info. Here’s an excerpt:

During the much-loathed Prohibition era (1920-33), marijuana was targeted along with alcohol and other substances deemed immoral by bootleggers and Baptists. Unlike alcohol, which was re-legalized in 1933, marijuana ended up in a legal limbo that continues to this day. The legal, political, economic, and cultural battles surrounding marijuana use in the United States have helped shape three generations of lawyers, businesspeople, activists, academics, and medical professionals. Thanks to the questions posed by marijuana prohibition, rigorous and creative arguments in favor of the drug’s legalization have contributed to a better understanding of our federal system of government, of Judeo-Christian morality, and non-Western ethical systems (pot-smoking “Buddhists” are practically cliche today), of the human body and especially the brain, of global trading networks throughout history, and of intercultural exchange and communication. Freedom still defines us as a society. Freedom binds Americans together. Freedom drives our conversations and our institutional actors. This may be difficult to remember as the news cycle grows ever more sensational, but this quiet, humble truth still remains.

Please, read the rest.

“10 things you didn’t know about World War I”

Brandon Christensen History, Links , , , , ,

That’s the title of my weekend piece over at RealClearHistory. The structure of the pieces, if you’ll remember, is Top 10 style, but I try to throw some more in-depth stuff into the mix, too. An excerpt:

3. World War I showed the world what a united Germany could do. Germany was formed in 1871, making it almost 100 years younger than the United States and much younger than France and the United Kingdom. Prior to the formation of Germany, which came about due to Prussian diplomat Otto von Bismarck’s genius machinations, observers and thinkers throughout the world penned works speculating on what a unified German-speaking world would do, politically, economically, culturally, and militarily. Rome’s decentralized barbarian enemies were from Germania, the Holy Roman Empire (which was neither Holy nor Roman nor an Empire), the Hanseatic League, and the German Confederation which all tried, in vain, to do what Bismarck did. Many of the attempts to unite Germany were foiled by French, British, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian statesmen because of fears that a united Germany would come to dominate Europe and upset the balance of power that European elites had come to rely on as their foreign affairs blueprint. They weren’t wrong.

Please, read the whole thing.

The Abraham Lincoln Brigade

Brandon Christensen History , , , ,

My latest over at RealClearHistory went up on Tuesday. The schedule for my work over there goes as follows: I’ve got a regular Friday column and a Tuesday blog post, so be on the lookout! Here’s an excerpt:

The volunteers were to be used as cannon fodder for the Republicans, which explains the high casualty rate, but it was the disorganized front put on by the democratically-elected Republican government that is to blame for the high casualty rates, rather than some sort of prejudice or malice on the part of the Spanish Left. The volunteers almost all came from non-military backgrounds, too, as most were starry-eyed urban idealists who believed they were fighting injustice. After a meager 30 days of training, the Lincoln Battalion was marched to the front lines to fight a bunch of battle-hardened troops that mostly hailed from Spain’s colonies, where military governance was practiced and honed to near perfection.

Read the rest. This was a fun one to write. I initially wanted to do something about the Spanish Civil War and international meddling (Madrid fell to Franco on March 29), before tying it in to the events in Syria.

My editor gently reminded me that the blog posts should be about American history, so I threw in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. And check out my RCH colleague’s post on the birth and rise of the Republican Party.

What on earth was the Dervish state?

Brandon Christensen History, Links , , , , , ,

That’s the topic of my latest column at RealClearHistory. An excerpt:

2. Sovereignty and suzerainty are concepts that have little to no bearing on today’s world, but perhaps they should. Prior to the end of World War II, when the U.S. and U.S.S.R. became the globe’s alpha powers, suzerainty was often used by imperial powers to manage their colonies. Suzerainty is a formal recognition, by a power, of a minor polity’s independence and autonomy, and a formal recognition by the minor polity of the power’s control over its diplomatic and economic affairs. Suzerainty was used especially often by the British and Dutch (and less so by France and other Latin states, which preferred more direct control over their territorial claims), as well as the Ottoman Empire. The U.S.-led order has focused on sovereign states rather than unofficial spaces, and this has led to many misunderstandings. Somalia, which has long been a region of suzerains, is a basketcase today largely because it is approached by powers as a sovereign state.

Please, read the rest. The Dervish state was an ally of the Ottoman and German empires during World War I.

Lessons from the Stamp Act

Brandon Christensen Links , , , ,

That’s the subject of my latest over at RealClearHistory. Peep game:

The refusal of the colonies to pay for the war they initiated also led to the flare up of a simmering tension between elites on both sides of the British Atlantic: representation. The colonists wanted to send representatives to London and have them participate as full members of the body politic. The elite on the islands, however, were openly disdainful of American elites and probably did not want to disperse their power even more thinly by admitting new seats. Adam Smith was especially prescient on this matter, actually arguing that London could avoid most of its trouble by simply admitting American representatives to parliament.

Please, read the whole thing.

World War I destroyed Christianity

Brandon Christensen History, Links , , , , ,

That’s the argument I put forth in this week’s RealClearHistory column. As usual I frame the argument in the form of a “Top10,” and in this case I used battles. An excerpt:

6. Battle of Asiago: May 15 – June 10, 1916. Another nasty battle fought along the Austro-Italian Front, Asiago is considered a victory for Italy even though it lost more men than the Austro-Hungarians. Altogether, the surprise attack launched by the Hapsburgs inflicted severe casualties on the Italians, with the latter losing 140,000 men and the aggressor losing 100,000. The surprise did not work for the Hapsburgs, either, as their armies were turned back and the position continued to be held by the Italians. There is a beautiful war memorial dedicated to both sides in Asiago today, and there are no crosses to be found for the dead there.

Please, read the rest.

“Does Russia own a piece of the US?”

Brandon Christensen Links , , , , , , , ,

That’s the title of my latest piece over at RealClearHistory. An excerpt:

The Russian-American Company was run through Saint Petersburg and thus had a strict racial hierarchical code in place, in conformity with the latest beliefs about race at the time. The neighborhoods of Fort Ross were segregated, but an archaeologist at the University of California, Berkeley, Kent Lightfoot, has produced excellent research at Fort Ross, showing how the Company’s racist charter was unofficially ignored, with miscegenation widespread (“creoles” was even created as an official race for documentation purposes) and interethnic activities commonplace. The people inhabiting Fort Ross preferred to follow instead something the anthropologist Jean-Loup Amselle calls “mestizo logics.”

Please, show me some love.

Kent Lightfoot can be found at NOL here. Jean-Loup Amselle can be found at NOL here. I also give a shoutout to Andrei Znamenski‘s work in the piece, so be on the lookout for that.

I didn’t get to delve as much into this piece as I’d have liked to. I wanted to get more into the inner workings of the Russian-American Company and compare it to the Dutch East India Company, but that sounds like a tall task even for a PhD dissertation.

I don’t think I did a good enough job of highlighting just how rich Pacific Rim trade was in the early 19th century. I tried in vain to sneak a reference to Hawaiian laborers that could be found throughout the Pacific world at the time of Fort Ross’ founding, but I’ve got a 600 word limit.

Also, I wanted to highlight the fact that Native Americans weren’t losers in the opening up of the Pacific to the world. They were active participants in the globalization of the Pacific Rim trade. They were powerful. I don’t know if I’d focus on California Indians to highlight Native American actors. I’d probably focus on an area a little further north, in the Puget Sound-Vancouver area.

At any rate, hope you enjoy the piece!

10 Greatest Speeches of All Time

Brandon Christensen Links , , ,

That’s the topic of my latest column over at RealClearHistory. Obviously, I took a break from my World War I-themed posts to do this one. Here is an excerpt:

4. Duty, Honor, Country speech by Douglas MacArthur: May 12, 1962. General Douglas MacArthur was a divisive figure in his day. For many, he was too martial for a constitutional republic, too outspoken for a General, and some of the policies he argued for (foreign and domestic) were a bit too hawkish for my stomach. William Manchester’s biography of Douglas MacArthur, American Caesar, helped show me how important republican governance was to the General, though. MacArthur thought deeply about republicanism and the effects that war had on a republican citizen’s virtues and characteristics. I have the slight advantage of having Manchester’s work on MacArthur etched into the back of my mind while reading through the latter’s speech, given to cadets at West Point two years before his death: “His name and fame are the birthright of every American citizen. In his youth and strength, his love and loyalty, he gave all that mortality can give. He needs no eulogy from me; or from any other man. He has written his own history and written it in red on his enemy’s breast.” You can read the whole speech here.

These columns are aimed at a different crowd that what I am used to here at NOL, but I think I do a pretty decent job of weaving rather mundane topics (great speeches from an American point of view) into the fabric of more fundamental questions about our global society. Read the rest to find out if I’m way off the mark on this one.

Mormons and California’s Gold Rush

Brandon Christensen Links , , , , , , , ,

The folks over at RealClearHistory have enjoyed my weekly column so much that they’ve invited me to write a second weekly column for their Historiat blog. I was tasked with writing the introductory essay for a blog that has been dormant for 3 years. Here’s an excerpt:

Initially the Mormon leadership in Nauvoo sought to establish a new homeland in northern California – which was far enough away from the American, Mexican, and British governments to be considered safe – and Brannan was tasked with the initial wave of settlement. Once Brigham Young reached the Salt Lake valley, however, he changed his mind and decided that the state of Deseret should be run from Salt Lake City instead of northern California. Much of this decision had to do with the fact that the trek from Nauvoo, Ill. to Utah was so arduous, and there was little inclination to keep pressing onward to northern California through the Great Basin’s high altitude desert. But Samuel Brannan’s success in San Francisco, coupled with his earlier wayward fancies, also played a part in Brigham Young’s decision to establish the Mormon church’s capital in Utah instead of northern California. Samuel Brannan was competing with Brigham Young to be the leader of the Mormon church.

Please, read the rest. I am not quite sure if there will be a specific day assigned for my Historiat posts, but my regularly-scheduled Friday column is still a thang.

I haven’t seen anybody here explain why Trump’s protectionist tariffs are horrible (yet), so here’s Jacques on the topic. Here is the NY Times on the same topic.