Beach Haven

Bibliography
Monsarrat, Nicholas. 1951. The Cruel Sea. Harmondsworth (England): Penguin Books Ltd.
 
The reader is treated to a fictional depiction of an English corvette during World War II. It begins with the ship still in the yard with it’s first captain, Lieutenant-Commander George Ericson, arriving. Monsarrat introduces the crew as members come and go. The interactions, personal circumstances and levels of sea-going experience all add to the drama as they slowly meld into a successful ship’s company. The corvette was a sort of small escort vessel designed to protect merchant convoys from German U-boats. They were hastily constructed with no air-conditioning and limited heating. Crew accommodations were spartan and armament limited.

The name of the specific ship from the story was the HMS Compass Rose. Along the way, the crew and ship engage a number of U-boats and sink several. They also conduct a number of rescue operations where the Germans are successful in sinking ships leaving many sailors in the water. All the action takes place in the Atlantic theater. In the end, Compass Rose is lost to a German torpedo. Not all the crew survive, and some survivors suffer what today would be called PTSD.

​The book is a good mix between personal conflict, team building, high-stakes warfare, and character retrospection. There was at least one full-length motion picture based on the book. 

BibliographyKaiser, David. 2011. How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival. New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company.

Reviewed by Michael Beach 

The title of this book makes the topic quite clear. David Kaiser compares the state of theoretical physics post World War II (particular the 1960s and 1970s) as compared with pre-war science. In particular he looks at a group that formed primarily at UC Berkeley known as the Fundamental Fysics Group (sic). Members of this at first informal group were generally trained in traditional experimental physics, but longed for the days of European salons of the 1920s and 1930s that included the likes of Albert Einstein and Michael Polanyi where one was more free to speculate.

The author makes a central point how in order to advance understanding, “a critical mass of researchers needed to embrace a different mode of doing physics” (Kaiser 2011, xiv). “They had to incorporate philosophy, interpretation, even bald speculation back into their daily routine” (Ibid.).

Members of the Berkeley interlocutors embraced ‘new age’ ideas around eastern mysticism, spiritualism, and the like. They looked to link physics with human psychological power through use of experimental drugs, among other empirical approaches. They called this sort of ‘science’ after the Greek letter psi with a goal “to plumb the foundations of quantum mechanics in search of explanations for parapsychological… phenomena: extrasensory perception, psychokinesis, the works” (Kaiser 2011, 65).

So how did the group of mostly grad students and dropouts employ ‘drugs, sex, and rock-n-roll’ to ‘revive’ theoretical physics? After WWII, most practitioners of physics were focused on empiricism and number crunching. The work was not appealing to the book’s documented physicists who fancied themselves above what Thomas Kuhn called ‘normal science’. They were looking to create revolutionary ideas in the tradition of Einstein. Their group discussions often revolved around ‘Bell’s Theorem’ that postulates how “quantum mechanics worked impeccably ‘for all practical purposes’” (Kaiser 2011, 25). Success of a number of them waxed and waned. Some of them produced very popular books. There was a great deal of focus on mental performances by the likes of Uri Geller. As the hype gained more notoriety, a number of debunkers emerged. One of the primary members, Ira Einhorn emerged as a sort of leader and guru to the group, and to non-physicists who shared similar interests. Unfortunately, Einhorn spiraled downward. He eventually killed his girlfriend and fled to Europe to avoid prosecution. Physics as an industry began to be less funded, and psi topics in particular became eschewed. Members of the group who did not get wealthy on their earlier popular books were forced to seek other ways to make a living including taking on everyday jobs.
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Kaiser notes how more recently a sort of resurgence of theoretical physics is upon us, and some members of the Fundamental Fysics Group have reemerged in the field. In general, they are avoiding the link with parapsychology. Event he idea of ‘psi’ has changed. The group no longer exists, but some of its early participants redubbed a more modern version as “PSI: Physical Sciences Institute” (Kaiser 2011, 241). One might recognize later versions of physics speculation in the form of ideas like chaos theory or the more recently debated string theory. 

Mauldin, Bill. 1944. Up Front. New York, New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
 
Review by Michael Beach

The author severed in the US Army during WWII. In that time, he was assigned to the army periodical Stars and Stripes as a cartoonist. The focus of his cartoons was the war experience as seen through the lens of the ‘doggies’ meaning the average front line infantryman. His two consistent characters are Willie and Joe. They are referred to as doggies because of their constant dog face expression from the weariness of war. The book shares some of his more notable cartoons and the stories behind them.

Along with the experiences that inspired his drawings, Mauldin explains many of the attitudes and perceptions of the enlisted soldiers, officers, Italian and French citizens, the partisans, and German soldiers taken prisoner. Mauldin directly interacted with all of these groups. His wit is at times stinging, at times good natured. His editors seemed to always support him, but ‘the brass’ sometimes took umbrage.

My favorite comes near the end of the book. The troops he was with had advanced into the Alps. One soldier sits on a rock near a very attractive local girl. Another soldier stands nearby. The seated soldier has his head in his hands and laments, “I ast her to teach me to yodel. She taught me to yodel.” He was obviously hoping for something else.

Mauldin does a good job of explaining differences between the frontline ‘doggies’ and so many others he encountered who didn’t face the daily stress of direct warfare. He is fair, though. Not all the frontline heroes are heroes, and not all those serving behind the fighting are villains. As you might guess there are plenty of humorous anecdotes throughout. The last few pages seem more serious. He walks the reader through a time when he was ready to rotate statewide. In the interim, he spends time at a field hospital. He notes several characters from doctors, to medics, their wry humor and dedication to treating wounded soldiers over extended periods.
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I found the work both entertaining and insightful. I think it fair to say the sort of experiences Bill Mauldin documents are probably not unique to the particular war he was involved in. 

Payne, Stanley G., and Jesus Palacios. 2014. Franco: A Personal and Political Biography. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.

Francisco Franco rose to power just prior to World War II. He became a de facto dictator in Spain until his death in 1975. His rule was nationalist, and took on the trappings of Hitler’s Nazi party, but instead of exterminating Jews, Spain under Franco protected them. Spain did not become engaged in Hitler’s European war at any scale. Hitler sent little help to Spain, and Spain committed few troops to Hitler’s campaigns. In a way, the two nationalist governments kept out of each other’s way.
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Franco came up through the military ranks quicker than his peers. When political strife that led to the Spanish civil war intensified, his extended family were on both sides. His brother was a famous military pilot but became anti-regal or pro-socialist during the civil war. Francisco Franco remained loyal to the traditional government, then the republican leadership until it began to crumble just before the civil war began.

As the title implies, there is much of the public biographical history shared by the authors. In addition, they include many details documented by various Franco family members and associates. At times, he drives history. At other times he is driven by the greater society and events surrounding him. Like many national leaders, his ideas and actions are both enigmatic, and change over time. 

Hemingway, Ernest. 1940. For Whom the Bell Tolls. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
 
​It’s the Civil War, but not the one most Americans think about. Just prior to World War II the country of Spain spiraled into a civil war pitting nationalistic fascists against a republic mostly comprised of anti-monarchy socialists. The story follows a group of socialist republicans just before an attack by their armies against the city of Segovia. Among the guerillas is an American, Robert Jordan, with demolition skills. The group is assigned to blow up a bridge just as the fighting starts in order to hold off some of the fascist forces from assisting.

Along the way Jordan falls in love and has a brief affair with a young fighter, Maria, who had earlier been raped by Falangists, a faction within the nationalist movement. The small band share stories of atrocities they either suffered, witnessed, or perpetrated.

It’s clear from the story that one of the themes Ernest Hemingway is sharing is how there are no ‘good guys’ or ‘bad guys’ in war, rather all sides feel justified in both their cause and their actions. Likewise, none of the survivors of incidents or episodes within war are unchanged. Like other works I’ve read by Hemingway, his storytelling is masterful.

The title serves as a content descriptor. The biographies are short, typically a dozen pages. It seems to be a primer for those just starting to look at history. The subtitle states, “Twenty life stories of outstanding American men and women in the arts, sciences and public life.” Given the space, time of writing and intended audience, one should not expect anything in-depth about the number of subjects chosen or revealing anything beyond a cursory look at each of them. Despite this limited approach, the book is quite helpful at introducing some of the people I personally know little to nothing about.

Some of the chapters seem to be adapted by the various authors from large historical books they’ve published, or perhaps a periodical piece on the same topic. The editor chose different historians for each chapter. Those authors selected are clearly experts on the individual the personal biographical sketches introduce. To wet the curiosity of a potential scholar, the list of subjects include: Roger Williams, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Paul Revere, Daniel Webster, Washington Irving, Stephen Foster, Louis Agassiz, Emily Dickenson, Mark Twain, Thomas Edison, Charles Townsend Copeland, Grant Wood, Carl Sandburg, the Wright Brothers, Marian Anderson, Agnes de Mille, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Thoreau.
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If you are like me, you’ve heard of most, but all, of these. Like me, you likely have varying familiarity with either their myth or perhaps have read some of their created works. Despite that, I for one managed to pick up some insights on even those I felt quite familiar with. One potential outcome of a biographical skim like this one is the reader may become more interested in one or more of the people highlighted. That interest could lead the reader down a deeper study, but the shallow pieces in the work can also keep the exploratory investment small.

Marcon, Federico. 2015. The Knowledge of Nature and the Nature of Knowledge in Early Modern Japan. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

Review by Michael Beach 

In this work, Marcon traces the study of nature (what we not refer to as science) beginning in shogunate Japan. The early part of the story parallels, and at times intersects, the scientific revolution in Europe. Initially Japan received most of its scientific knowledge from Chinese scholars. It came in the form of imported encyclopedias depicting fauna and flora. Japanese feudal lords decided it did not want to be dependent on China and commissioned its own scholars to created something uniquely Japanese. The effort eventually morphed into works collectively known as Honzogaku.

The Honzogaku is as much a system of classification as it is a specific book, though it is that too. Depending on who was in power, scholars evolved through various groups sometimes including monks, government officials, independent tutors, and eventually more modern university professors. Once Europe began interacting with Japan there were efforts to compare and contrast Japanese and European classification system along with naming conventions. One of the real struggles was the Japanese language itself was not homogenous. Often plants and animals had different names depending on which province the description was captured in.

The idea of the Neo-Confucianists who became scholars-for-hire hearkens to the early Greek system. In this case, they combined book publication, teaching, and appeals to power for patronage in order to secure their positions, often as lower Samurai, or Ronin, in the Shogunate court, Ekiken for example. This idea of a Samurai being something other than a warier broadens an understanding of how the Shogun court system was not that different from European courts.  In this case there were military, intellectual and priestly groups in competition with each other within the court system. The Neo-Confucianists juxtaposed themselves as direct opposition to the Buddhist monks of their day.

Marcon speaks to the turning away from the Honzogaku during the Meiji era, but also notes how some of the form of it continued. In some aspects the supporters of western-focused Japanese scientists have 'socially homogenized backgrounds' (p. 302) that focus studies on a form of service to the state. Marcon notes how some of this westernization has created a bit of backlash and regrowth of Honzogaku in opposition to western pharmacology in favor of 'traditional' medicine.

The Honzogaku and later works also incorporated ever-improving drawings of its documented subjects. One defining question was whether to depict a specimen with individual characteristics and ‘flaws’. Generally, drawings become more of an idealized form. Today, Honzogaku survives in at least two ways. Its drawings are in themselves great works of art as well as historical depictions. In addition, as mentioned earlier, some of its traditional medical information continues as an opposition to modern western pharmacology.
 

Mavhunga, Clapperton Chakanetsa. 2018. The Mobile Workshop: The Tsetse Fly and African Knowledge Production. Cambridge and London: The MIT Press.

Review by Michael Beach

Among many threads, Mavhunga makes a point around ‘thingamication’. He shares examples throughout the book on colonial (and later) white perspective on African people as objects of study, control, labor, and information.

One striking example was the use of fences in building corridors through tsetse infested areas. Local labor was used alongside a thing called a bulldozer to clear forest where the land was too steep for the machine. They were also used to put in fencing, then funneled through those fences and ‘de-flying’ stations while moving along the fenced paths (182). The roads themselves were also a product of African labor, mostly built to allow for traffic between white-owned farms as well as for Africans to get from their homes to work in mines or on farms. These same Africans were able to move through traditional paths in ways that avoided infested areas during infested times before the belief that roads and fences were necessary.

Another particularly difficult approach from the perspective of Mavhunga was government creation of villages as a prophylactic. This effort removed people from their ancestral homes to gather them in new communities in between white-owned farms. Clearing and building up these small towns forced elimination of tsetse habitat (as well as habitat for nature in general), lowering the threat to sparse white-owned farms. The towns became a form of human shield. This approach lead to overcrowding of people in the buffer zones, and over burdening of the soils around the new towns (153). Mavhunga gives examples of eventual movement patterns adopted by officials that were not all that different than those previously employed by locals, but instead of preventative movement efforts these were about damage control (161).
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I’ll share one more human-as-object example. When authorities added chemical efforts to ‘mechanized phytocides’ (141) Africans again became a tool for the effort. While pilots sprayed less effectually from the thing called an airplane, African workers called ‘spray boys’ were given backpack pneumatic sprayers to go directly into the infestation. This put them as risk both from the fly and from the chemical poisons. Mavhunga offers a great deal of insight over several chapters about which chemicals were used during various periods and the effect on the fly, the plants, the environment, wildlife, and humans who both applied the poison and lived on the affected land. Decision makers only backed off aggressive use of chemicals when whites in the area began to complain after the shift from organic to synthetic pesticides (152).

​BLACK INVENTORS IN THE AGE OF SEGREGATION
By Rayvon Fouché
The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003, 225 pages
Review by Michael Beach
 
In this work the author shares the personal stories of three specific African American inventors in attempt to call into question several myths often perpetuated about black technologists. The ideas are how a patent equals financial success, people of color invent purely to uplift the race, or that Black-patented objects are the first of their kind. Fouché approaches these myths by building a narrative about each of three inventors that contradict one or more of them. The inventors are Granville T. Woods, Lewis H. Latimer, and Shelby J. Davidson.
 
This approach by Fouché goes a long way to dispel the inventor-as-hero narrative which has been put in question by other writers about other inventors without the race angle included. In this work race is certainly part of the narrative, but not exclusively the narrative, making the complexity of both the inventors and others they interact with more nuanced, and enlightening. Fouché approaches this historical and sociological work in this way in order to show three different people with three different personalities, cultures and motivations. In other words, they are each a unique person and not some sort of imagined icon.
 
The work would appeal to those with interest in technology, sociology, racial studies, and history. Fouché connects with readers through clear language, personal stories of the three inventors, depicting and dispelling ideas commonly held in both the African American and majority communities. The strength of the work comes through the individual lives depicted, and how these men fit into larger societies. They are juxtaposed to other prominent Black leaders that they were at odds with. Their histories do show how they were at times helped by race, and at times hamstrung. Perhaps a deeper look at societal trends that inspired the inventor-as-hero myth, and in particular the black-inventor-as-hero myth may have add more insight into Fouché’s main argument. One could argue, given the documented experiences, how the effects of these inventors’ efforts perpetuated these beliefs at least at some level, and were not just debunking.

LEVIATHAN AND THE AIR-PUMP
HOBBES, BOYLE, AND THE EXPERIMENTAL LIFE
By Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer
Princeton University Press, 1985, 391 pages
Review by Michael Beach

This history covers an important time in the history of scientific thought. Many scholars consider the 17th century as the ‘scientific revolution’. Many famous discoveries took place around this time. The history under review here speaks to a major debate of the time. Represented by Robert Boyle were those who believed in experimentation as the basis of knowledge production. Thomas Hobbes, on the other hand, questioned experimentation, preferring philosophical debate as the basis for coming to understanding. Boyle argued that we should believe our eyes, yet so much of experimentation is ‘managed’ that even today debate over knowledge construction versus knowledge discovery continues.
 
The reading claims that “many aspects of the programme that he (Boyle) recommended continue to characterize modern scientific activity and philosophies of scientific method” (p. 341).  Yet the pump experiments varied in both makeup and outcome. Theories also varied from pump to pump and outcome to outcome. Did facts created by experiments explain the various theories, or did the various theories serve to explain the facts noted in the experiments? When one interprets facts, are they interpreting whether something is a fact, or are they interpreting the meaning of the fact itself?
 
There also seems to be an interesting power balance issue. Hobbes had a connection with the king. You’d think that would have caused his arguments to carry more weight. Yet Hobbes was not accepted into The Royal Society (a prominent British scientific association). The authors offered a long set of examples of speculation by others as to why that was.  Some of the arguments surrounded Hobbes’ personality, yet Shapin and Schaffer show how some accepted members were perhaps more surly than Hobbes.
 
It may have come down to the fact that Boyle had members of The Royal Society act as witnesses to his air-pump experiments and even sign affidavits to the effect. At the same time Hobbes questioned the need for repeated experiments, or at times any experiments. By questioning the intellectual approach of the use of ingenuity (p. 130), which for Hobbes and his detractors was understood to be a slant, he put himself at odds with what amounted to be much of the collective thought leadership at the time. Reliance on the mechanical ‘tricks’, as he put it, was to denote something less than true philosophy.
 
Hobbes wrote a treatise on knowledge and science published in 1651 which he titled Leviathan. Aside from Hobbes’ negative portrait of experimentalists, most members of the Society looked at Hobbes as too dogmatic, including this publishing.
 
Whatever one believes to be the ultimate issue, the authors clearly state, “The rationalistic production of knowledge threatened that involved in the Royal Society’s experimentalism” (p. 139). Hobbes made an interesting assertion that many would still argue today. He depicted Boyle’s experiments as being based on his own assumptions about the nature of air. Likewise, it’s clear that Hobbes also had preconceived ideas. In fact, both Boyle and Hobbes came to what today would be thought of as false conclusions about what was happening inside the vacuum created by the pump. One could argue Boyle pre-decided the outcome of the experiments, the matters of fact, based on his ideas around the nature of air. Likewise, Hobbes essentially argued to ignore the experiments since the interpretation of the outcome was not proven, only conjectured. Yet Hobbes put more stock in his own ideas without any consideration of any matters of fact. As I see it both were socially constructing their perceptions pre- and post-experimentation.