Demonic Males

Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence
© 1996 Dale Peterson and Richard Wrangham
350 pages

Why is the world run by violent men?  Demonic Males  argues that human males are by violent by nature,  a trait we share with other primates, and that this aggressive behavior is sustained through sexual selection.   Males are not uniquely violent, nor is our inherited penchant for bloodshed  inescapable,  but we can only begin to look for remedies by understanding the scope of the problem.  To combat violence is to war against human nature itself.

Contrary to popular opinion, human beings are not the only creatures who wage war against ourselves. Demonic Males opens an account of a band of chimpanzees moving through the forest as though on a hunt, only to choose at their target an isolated member of a neighboring band of chimps.  After a gruesome ambush  that left the target dead, the war-band then retreated into its own territory – its sole accomplishment having been the deliberate murder of a neighbor.   The authors follow up with many other such field reports, from Africa to Asia, spanning the primates, and find casual and ‘political’ violence in each class of the great apes, and from this argue that the domination of the planet by aggressive men owes not to a vast culture of patriarchy, but to the desperate straits our ancestors came of age in.

Small orangutans chase down unwilling females and force them to copulate,  chimpanzees brutally attack one another when vying for power, and even the mostly-peaceful gorillas practice infanticide.  In every primate species, it’s the men doing all of this fighting – and fighting with tooth and claw.  Do humans seem like improbable creatures of war? We have no tusks, no claws, no powerful tails.  Our methods of carnage are simply different:  human males specialize in fisticuffs, common to long-limbed apes.   The authors’ research indicates that the difference between highly aggressive species like humans and chimpanzees, and the more peaceable groups, lay in the social dynamics of food sourcing. the gorillas and bonobos observed  had ranges that allowed for large, stable troops, while the chimpanzees had to roam for food in much smaller bands fighting for survival. The woodland fringe where humans first appeared would have relegated us to that raiding behavior as well. The authors draw parallels between chimpanzee warfare and the small band raiding observed historically across the world, and lingering today in the depths of South America and the streets of Los Angeles.

Though violent behavior is regarded as self-defeating in the modern world, at the primeval level it serves certain purposes.   The story begins with food, but eventually circles back to sexual selection. The small variant of orangutan males could never challenge large males for mating opportunities, so they seize them. A silverback gorilla  has the responsibility for protecting every female and their young in his troop;  like a lion, he has little interest in safeguarding some other gorilla's progeny. For chimpanzees, beating their fellows into submission is just as effective as bribing them with food.   Females are involved in the continuation of aggression, too, sometimes against their will (in the case of rape) and sometimes complicitly, as when they throng a rising star, eager for his protection against the other aggressors.

Though the argument of Demonic Males is that humans are fundamentally aggressive,  the authors demonstrate that there are alternatives.  Chimpanzees, for instance, have cousins across the river who are very different:  isolated from competition and with an abundance of food, aggression has withered, and large alliances of females rein in throwbacks.    While human nature has a violence cast now, in the future, the sustained institutional suppression of violence might allow us to grow away from ours as well.  

Demonic Males covers a lot of territory --  dismantling the myth of the noble savage, weighing anthropologists and primatologists' field reports against one another -- and presents a serious challenge to those who those who believe that man can simply be 'retrained' in the matter of the New Soviet Man.  Frans de Waal's own extensive experience observing chimpanzees is not nearly as pessmetic; in Chimpanzee Politics, for instance, he argued that despite surges of violence against political rivals in high-stakes situations, most of the time the daunting strength of males is not unleashed, the contenders pulling their punches.  The gorillas' practice of infanticide, so similar to that of lions,  indicates it is not a recent, primate-specific tactic.  The authors did draw on a much broader range of activity,  however, so this certainly merits consideration.


Related:
Chimpanzee Politics, Frans de Waal

This week: war, war, war

This past week has been a quiet one, as I've been devotedly reading through Castles of Steel, an 800+ page history of the naval war between Britain and Germany during World War I.  I'm just starting Jutland, and after that it's essentially a staring contest, so the end is in sight. After that I'll revisit the American Revolution, since The Men Who Lost America is finally here. Sure, it's late for my July Fourth readings, but to us real Americans, every day is Independence Day.

I jest, of course.  Between the two for leisure I'll enjoy the second volume of The Eugenics War series by Greg Cox.  Khan has just attempted to unite his genetically engineered brethren, only to realize it's like herding saber-toothed cats.  Never invite one superman who is a Marxist revolutionary and another superman who is the leader of an American patriot militia fighting the government to dinner. It's awkward and neither of them appreciates good scotch.

I haven't yet commented on nor reviewed Antifragile nor Good-Natured, so before they get pushed so far on the back burner that they fall off into "Well, I'll re-read  and review them properly later" territory (terra incognita, where there be dragons and from whence few books emerge), lo! Comments.
 Antifragile, which like The Death and Life of Great American Cities shaped my thinking long before I finished it,  examines how certain systems can benefit from stress and unpredictability rather than be undone by them, or even merely survive them.  A quotation I shared the first time I started reading the book demonstrates how there is no field of human experience that its author does not wade in and throttle.  It's a powerful work, a pot of gold mixed with scorpions  -- no reader can stick his hand in without being stung by Taleb's bellicose energy, but the man practices what he preaches. Many of his examples are drawn from the world of business, and some chapters are technical enough that even he tells readers they can leave them alone --but I figured that was a challenge on his part.  His essential point is that surviving lots of little crises is better than preventing them and then being wiped out by a major crisis. Organic systems can be strengthened by stress in the right amount; this is as true of bodybuilders (Taleb's own bulk comes from a routine that consists of him attempting to out-lift himself once a week in a quick sessions, instead of engaging in repetitions) as of economies.  Too big to fail? That's fragile, and a national economy based on them is inviting death.

Two months ago I read Good Natured, which as I feared blended in with the rest of de Waal's books. I've read them too closely together, I think.  The author uses years of observations at an expansive Dutch primate center alongside extended field reports from primatologists like Jane Goodall to examine the biological basis of moral behavior. Much of the book is taken up with de Waal presenting chimpanzees, bonobos, and monkeys of acting with respect to moral norms, and  the basis for these behaviors is that socially-healthy behaviors like morality are more evolutionary beneficial. He also addresses the delicate balance between individual actions and communal advancement, which occurs twice here -- both in behavior and in genes, as mutations always occur in individuals, but they're passed on within populations. Individuals do not evolve, groups so.  It's fascinating, and eye-opening, but I've read so much of de Waal it's like working in a cathedral or a park. The majesty becomes ordinary after too much regular exposure.

Well, off I go to big ships, baffled royals, and a book read in Ricardo Montalban's voice.

This week at the library: Chimpanzees, El Niño, and simple living

This week at the library I've been working through a lull, having finished my last Stack o' Books and having not yet gotten another one. My plans to fetch said stack were modified after I did a twelve-mile hike through hills on Saturday and consequently spent Sunday in bed watching episodes of The Office on DVD. Turns out I'm not as rough and ready as I thought.  I've been waiting for some books to arrive in the post;  one was ordered weeks ago from Georgia. I could walked over and gotten it by this point! Happily it arrived today. I've been biding my time reading a book on composting.  

In the last couple of weeks I’ve read two science books which won’t quite get full comments. The second was Frans de Waal’s Good-Natured, which concerns empathy in animals and  particularly chimpanzees. Considering how much of the book focuses on the same chimpanzees and topics covered in previous works, it’s somewhat redundant; throughout he argues that animals like elephants and chimpanzees are quite socially intelligent,  and delivers example after example to demonstrate how monkeys and chimpanzees act in anticipation of one another’s emotional states, motivated by personal attachment as well as selfish concern.  It’s eye-opening and wondrous if you’ve not read de Waal before, but…I have, and very recently. 

On a different note I read through Brian Fagan’s Floods, Famines, and Emperors, which first attributes the decline of various nation-states to El Niño periods. Considering that in dirt another scientist pinned the decline of some of the same nation-states on their used-up soil,  Flood is something of an example of specialists interpreting everything according to their unique focus. Midway he looks at the stresses climate change has put on historic nations in general, but that is done with more punch in Jared Diamond’s Collapse.  I much prefer the humility of dirt, which offered soil exhaustion as one source of decline, but not The One True Reason.  Fagan remains unique in the field of paleoclimatology, or archaeological meteorology, however.

Presently, I'm reading a delightful book on simple living, and anticipate receiving The Metropolitan Revolution through interlibrary loan shortly enough. Some reviews are in the works for Daily Life in Anglo-Saxon England and On Desire, the latter being nearly finished.  Daily Life took some getting into; the first chapter is a formidable treatment of sunken earth homes which even I couldn't take to. Happily after that there's trade, family life, and other such merriment.  Now that I've read about the Anglo-Saxons, I'm free to read The Vikings: can't put the cart before the warhorse!

So, after a busy weekend outdoors and in, the lull is passed and it's on for a few more interesting books. Happy reading, all!

When Elephants Weep

When Elephants Weep: the Emotional Lives of Animals
© 1995 Jeffrey Masson and Susan McCarthy
291 pages

Humans pride themselves on not being  animals,  going so far as to describe any behavior we’re shamed of as ‘animal’.  Beasts have rude instincts; we have exalted Emotions,  gifts of the gods.  We may begrudgingly grant animals fear, or perhaps even affection – but love? Joy? Aesthetic reverence?   In When Elephants Weep, authors Masson and McCarthy explores the spectrum of animal emotions, from recording the patently obvious to flirting with anthropomorphism.  In their view, animals across the kingdom  can share the same basis emotions, and offered as evidence are hundreds of anecdotal claims of animals expressing behavior interpreted as emotional. Most of the subjects are mammals, but birds pepper the text and even insects make a stray appearance. Although anecdotes  are dismissed as evidence among purists of the scientific method,  many of the primate examples are corroborated in Jane Goodall and Frans de Waal’s work, and considering their frequency and similarity – and the fact that these two scientists made observations on different populations of chimpanzees --  many of the examples are respectable enough. The author does reach  sometimes, but the agenda here isn’t so much as to present an body of evidence convincing skeptics that  animals have emotions as it is to create room for suspecting they do; in the book's conclusion, the author argues that considering the diversity of emotions animals seem to display, we should treat them with more consideration; if they are capable of loneliness, despair, grief, and the like, perhaps keeping them in captivity or experimenting on them at length is more than problematic.  The variety of examples is commendable; there are primates, cetaceans, elephants, lions, tigers, and yes even bears.   Emotions are easier to believe among the higher mammals, and some -- anger, happiness, sadness -- more likely than more esoteric feelings, like awe at a sunset. The authors use any account that brings to mind human emotions, but

When Elephants Weep is enjoyable more as a reflection on animal behavior and than a sterling scientific enterprise, but enjoyable all the same. 

Related:
Any work by Frans de Waal or Jane Goodall
Silent Thunder: Among the Elephants

The Bonobo and the Atheist

The Bonobo and the Atheist: in Search of Humanism Among the Primates 
© 2013 Frans de Waal
313 pages

 Frans de Waal has written extensively on moral instincts within the great apes, in books like Good natured and Primates and Philosophers. In The Bonobo and the Atheist, he reviews his experience with chimpanzees and bonobos over several decades with an eye for what they might teach us about human morality. His express purpose is to find hope for building a moral human society outside the bounds of authoritarian, belief-dependent religion, but he’s more interested in examining the basis of natural morality than in condemning religion. Taking a cue from Alain de Botton’s Religion for Atheists, he acknowledges that religion and human culture have thus far been inextricably bound. His studies of chimp and bonobo behavior, and studies of human behavior, indicate to him that there is more to morality than simple genetic-biased altruism;  we are bound to our communities, kin or no, through deep social instincts, and it is these that are the basis of our morality.

Throughout the book, de Waal explores moral impulses revealed in the behavior of chimpanzees and bonobos. Although chimpanzees have a reputation for violence,  even they discipline one another for failing to practice self-restraint: a challenger for an alpha position can't bite with impunity, nor can adults bully the young who have not yet learned appropriate behavior; violators of these norms and others, like stealing or cheating, are punished with a round of shrieking and beating.  Their morality isn't limited to instinct; it is also informed by their intelligence. As mentioned, youngsters are 'taught' appropriate behavior, indirectly;  chimp youths can chase females in estrus, but as they start to become 'teenagers', they're regarded as potential challengers by the reigning males and taught their place, even if they're not yet  capable of reproduction.  Other cases demonstrate that chimpanzees can take stock of what they've done and remember it later; a chimpanzee who bit a trainer's finger off was later visibly ashamed, isolating itself and covering its eyes; when the human saw him again, the chimp recognized him and attempted to examine the hand.

These behaviors may be safely assumed to be evolutionary boons to a social species, helping mitigate physical damage caused by struggles for power, or preventing competition within the group from destroying it. Moral instincts and acculturation allow a tribe to work better together, and the same holds true for humans. Once our morality would have been guided by the same measures: our every indiscretion would be noticed by the people we lived among, and remembered; we could be directly accountable for our behavior. Once human populations became too large for these tribe-level measures to handle, however, religion became useful, and for that reason not a single human culture today is without it.  Even in the modern era, increasingly secular, we are forging a new path in the form of a civic culture that attempts to foster healthy behavior without the necessity of believing in elaborate creeds.  It is de Waal's hope that the humanist approach, of practicing a moral culture for the sake of human needs, informed by human experience,  will prove workable, though presently its most vocal proponents are men who have limited their advocacy to merely attacking religion, which is fruitless and makes as much sense as 'sleeping furiously'.  Still, he is hopeful that natural morality will prevail eventually; it does have the advantage of being instinctual. Humanity has as much hope of purging itself of its conscience as it does of  becoming asexual.

Although most of de Waal's own experience comes from observing bonobos in an artificial environment, a spacious exhibit in Arnhem Zoo that prevents some pertinent aspects of behavior from manifesting themselves, he couples it with the studies of other populations in the wild.  The Bonobo and the Atheist, like its title, is an interesting discussion that combines primate behavior and the evolution of religion. What is missing, I think, is any mention of Natural Law, which  would have given his mention of civic culture considerable heft. Humans have been attempting to discern moral convention from nature since Aristotle, both inside religion and out of it. A comparison between declared belief in the Rights of Man according to constitutions and charters and the inferred rights in religious texts ("Thou shalt not kill" inferring a right to life, for instance) would have been most interesting. Both in de Waal's view would be expressions of humanity's inherent moral instincts, but civic belief has the quality of being open to change when necessary; a humanistic moral culture would not be limited by dogma. Simply creating a healthy moral culture won't make religious domination a thing of the past -- it has other virtues, other contributions that must also be made good for -- but it would be a start in creating a world more concerned with the needs of people than power, priests, and convention, and less dependent on something as volatile as beautifully dangerous religion.

de Waal's observations and insight prove again remarkable.

Related:

• The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt  (whom he quotes from)
• Religion for Atheists, Alain de Botton (mentioned)
• Chimpanzee Politics, The Age of Empathy, Primates and Philosophers, Our Inner Ape, etc. Frans de Waal 

Chimpanzee Politics

Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes
©  1983 Frans de Waal
256 pages

Back in the 1970s, primatologist Frans de Waal conducted one of the first extensive studies into the social structures of chimpanzees.  Chimpanzee Politics is the result,  establishing facts now taken for granted, namely that chimpanzee populations are organized by rank, which for males influences how successful they are are spreading their genes. It also illustrates their startling intelligence, both social and physical;  de Waal witnessed chimpanzees collaborating to overcome obstacles, like electrified wire wrapped around the base of a tree that could provide a bounty of food in leaves,  as well as engaging in Machiavelli-level manipulation to increase their status within the community. Admittedly, some of this is subjective, but only some, and de Waal's ideas were confirmed by other researchers' observations of different populations, like Jane Goodall's Gombe Valley project.  Chimpanzee Politics makes for fascinating reading if you've an interest in our fellow primates:   de Waal's work indicates that  leadership, even in a  sheltered environment like the zoo enclosure in Arnhem where he did his work -- comes with responsibilities, like keeping order.  Alpha males haven't simply brute-forced their way into the top of the sexing order; they're seemingly expected to protect the weak against the strong and settle disputes.   de Waal also points out that leadership in a chimpanzee tribe isn't limited to brute force: he demonstrates how an older, deposed chimpanzee was able to maintain a position of immense influence by continuing playing two young contenders for the seat of power off of one another. It's rather like a game of Survivor, with less whining and more fur -- and instead of being voted off, you get beaten senseless. de Waal's study did have its limitations: the chimpanzees did not interact with other tribes, nor did they compete for food, so important aspects of the equation are missing.  He did compare his experiences with those of Goodall's, however, and his general conclusions aren't at odds with those she reached in Through a Mirror.

Related:

• Author interview on Point of Inquiry, discussing his new book, The Bonobo and the Atheist. 
• Our Inner Ape, Frans de Waal
• Through a Window, Jane Goodall

Beautiful Minds

Beautiful Minds: The Parallel Lives of Great Apes and Dolphins

© 2008 Maddalena Bearzi, Craig B. Stanford

368 pages

As this was a personal reccommendation from a friend, I opted to read it before continuuing in Saylor's Roma sub Rosa series. I'm interested in both primate and cetacean intelligence, making the recommendation rather spot-on. Beautiful Minds functions primarily as a comparison of primate (chiefly chimpanzee) and cetacean (primarily dolphin) biology and societies. The authors do not make the comparisons themselves: as experts in their respective fields, they split related chapters and each discuss that topic (intelligence, politics, sex and gender roles) within their own field. The reader is left to see the similarities and differences for himself for the most part. The book quotes from books I've actually read this year -- Frans de Waal's Our Inner Ape and Jacques-Yves Cousteau's Dolphin. What makes the primate-dolphin similarity so intriguing is that their respective ancestors were not similar: we come from different areas of the mammalian line, and so what similarities there are, particularly in the case of intelligence, represents convergent evolution. I think this helps the case that intelligence has evolved in part to deal with larger social groups, as the great apes and cetaceans are such social creatures. The book also serves as a warning, as nearly all of the animals discussed are in danger of going extinct within another human generation.

I definitely recommend it to those interested in primates, cetaceans, biological causes of culture, intelligence, or anthropology.

Related:

• Dolphins, Jacques-Yves Cousteau
• The Whale, Jacques-Yves Coustea
• Our Inner Ape, Frans de Waal
• Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, Carl Sagan
• Beautiful Minds DVD

Our Inner Ape

Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are the Way We Are
© 2005 Frans De Waal
288 pages

I've been passing by this one for weeks now, and decided to give it a go this past weekend. It was a short, quick, and incredibly interesting read. Although we human beings like to separate ourselves from the (rest of the) animal world, De Waal states in his opening chapter that we can learn a lot about ourselves by studying the society of our closest relatives, the great apes. While his introduction mentions gorillas, the book is utterly dominated by examinations of chimpanzee and bonobo society. Bonobos are a subspecies of chimpanzees who are in some ways closer to us -- both physiologically and socially. Although we associate our animal nature with "brutish" behavior, De Waal maintains that our nature is a "Janus nature". The nature of the apes lends itself to both violence and peace -- to hate and love. Rather than focusing on one "face" of our existence over the other -- or on one kind of chimpanzee studies over the other -- De Waal belives that we have a lot to learn from either.

The book is divided into four sections -- "Power", "Sex", "Violence", and "Kindness" and finishes with an epilogue. In each, De Waal compares human societies with chimpanzee and bonobo communities, commenting at length on the extent and type of behavior being observed. The book is very well written, I think, and draws directly from field research. He references Jane Goodwall's work as well as his own. He goes into a lot of detail: for me, having read one of Goodall's books so recently was quite helpful. There are a couple of particular points he makes I'd like to share. In the "Sex" chapter, De Waal notes that sexual behavior among the great apes is done a disservice among humans when forced to fit into only a few boxes -- "Hetero", "Homo", and "Bi". Chimpanzees, bonobos, and human beings don't fit into those boxes. Given the range of behavior exhibited by all three species it is more likely that most of us are capable of enjoying intimate relations with everyone when cultural inhibitions are taken out of the equation. Also of note for me was the chapter on "Kindness", in which De Waal demonstrates that even chimpanzees -- the "killer ape" -- are capable of acting with reason and empathy to beings within their group. Religions don't introduce kindness to people, in De Waal's (and my) words: they only build on its natural tenders in us .

I recommend the book -- not only is it very interesting, but it's quite readable as well. I went through it in a matter of hours.

Through a Window

For now we see as through a glass, darkly...

Through a Window: My Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe
© 1990 Jane Goodall
267 pages

I've always been fascinated by the behavior of our fellow apes. Unlike ants or birds, they behave in ways similar to us -- in ways we can understand. And because of their similarities to us genetically, their behavior can give us insight into our own history. I realized this latter observation in reading Carl Sagan's Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors. Jane Goodall is a name I've heard of many times before, but have never been able to read until now. As you may be able to discern from the title, the book is her account of the thirty years she has spent observing a chimpanzee community in Tanzania.

She begins it frankly in "The Mind of the Chimpanzee" by commenting on the difficulties in analyzing chimpanzee behavior.We can't know chimpanzees are experiencing anger or depression: we can only allow their responses to what happens to them to guide us, giving us information that we can infer such a conclusion from. The same is true -- although she does not use this as an example -- of hierarchies within chimpanzee communities. From here she comments in general on chimpanzee intelligence as we have been able to detect it. Next she introduces "The Research Centre", describing how she came to Gombe and what she and her fellows attended to accomplish.

The bulk of the book consists of chapters on a particular subject -- "Mothers and Daughters", "War", "Sex", "Mothers and Son" -- as well as chapters concentrating on particular individuals within the chimpanzee community that contributed much to its history. As the book covers thirty years, we see leaders rise and fall -- some to rise again. Goodall, through these various chapters, not only relates information about the structure of their community, but gives it a history, as well. There was sense of time passing as I read, bringing with it highs and lows. This is supplemented by pictures -- mostly black and white, but some in color. The black and white pictures generally accompany the timeframe of the chapter they are set in, but the color photographs -- set in the middle of the book -- reflect a much broader period. Goodall writes very well: the praise I've heard about her is duly given.

In the antepenultimate* chapter, Goodall uses her observations to reflect on similarities and differences between humans and chimpanzees in regard to war, compassion, parenting,and other social issues. Next, in "Our Shame", she informs the reader of the dire state of chimpanzees in the world today: not only are their habitats receding rabidly, but they are being poached in the wild. Many are stolen and subject to severe mistreatment. This reminds me of the Primates of the World book I read back in the summer, with almost every chapter ending with a section on how that chapter's animal was in grave peril. The last chapter includes finishing thoughts, including musings by Goodall on how chimpanzees might write their own history.

And so to end: the book was well-written, quite interesting, and entirely worthy of reccommendation.


* I read today that this word -- meaning second-to-last -- is no longer used. Because it's such an interesting word, I'm going to use it when I can.

This Week at the Library (24/7)

Books this Update:

• Personal Memoirs, US Grant
• The Universe in a Nutshell, Stephen Hawking
• Asimov’s Mysteries, Isaac Asimov
• Primates of the World, Rod and Ken Preston-Mafham
• The Rise of Reason, Ray Spangenburg and Diane Kit Moser

I began this week with President Ulysses S. Grant’s autobiography, which was simply titled Personal Memoirs. Grant finished the book shortly before he died, and it was published posthumously by his friend Samuel Clemens, who had also encouraged him to write the book to begin with. While the book is dominated by the American Civil War, the first 2/5s concerns his pre-war life growing up and his experience in the Mexican-American war. Grant also supplies commentary in the midst of his accounts of battles. I typically found his opinions on various matters to be more interesting than accounts of military. The commentary was always interesting and often amusing. For instance:

It did seem to me, in my early army days, that too many of the older officers, when they came to command posts, made it a study to think what orders they could publish to annoy their subordinates and render them uncomfortable. I noticed, however, a few years later, when the Mexican War broke out, that most of this class of officers discovered they were possessed of disabilities which entirely incapacitated them for active field service. They had the moral courage to proclaim it, too. They were right; but they did not always give their disease the right name. (Chapter III, p. 19)

According to Grant, it was his father’s idea to send him to West Point. Grant himself was very much opposed to the idea, and at first looked for any opportunity that would allow him to escape it -- which I found quite humorous. As he grew more accustomed to army life, he decided that he could endure it long enough to merit a professorship -- but fate intervenes and he finds himself a lieutenant in Mexico, serving as a quartermaster. He comments that people have very little control over their own fates, and offers his own life as a testament to this. I want to share some of the commentary.

In the case of the war between the States it would have been the exact truth if the South had said, -- “We do not want to live with you Northern people any longer; we know our institution of slavery is obnoxious to you, and, as you are growing numerically stronger than we, it may be at some time in the future endangered. So long as you permitted us to control the government, and with the aid of a few friends at the North to enact laws constituting your section a guard against the escape of our property, we were willing to live with you. You have been submissive to our rule heretofore; but it looks now as if you did not intend to continue to do so, and we will remain in the Union no longer.” Instead of this the seceding States cried lustily, --”Let us alone; you have no constitutional power to interfere with us.” […] The fact is the constitution did not apply to any such contingency as the one existing from 1861 to 1865. Its framers never dreamed of such a contingency occurring.” (Chapter XVI p. 111)

That particular section of the book has a lot of commentary. I would like to share more, but the passages are so long that it wouldn’t be practical. Grant’s commentary, of course, is his own, and he does not pretend to be a neutral observer of the war. He refers to the Union side as the National side, refers to the rebels as rebels, and records the arrival of southern diplomats as “peace commissioners of the so-called confederacy”. I thought this wonderfully snarky.

Grant doesn’t spend a lot of time on the time between the two wars or on his post-war life. His “Conclusion” begins right after the surrender and he comments on political affairs in Europe as well as on how the war has shaped the nation. On the whole, I enjoyed the book as much as I could. I loved the commentary, but I’m not that interested in military history with a few exceptions -- the growth of air warfare being one of them. I rather wish he had written about his time as president, as one of my hobbies is reading the autobiographies of American presidents. (My favorite is Gerald Ford’s A Time to Heal. I don’t really have a least favorite, although I have read W’s A Charge to Keep . It doesn’t qualify, though, as he only wrote about his experiences as governor -- not as president and…whatever title would be best for his office now, since he has seen fit to greatly increase its powers during his reign. ) A final quotation from Grant, one that regards my hometown:

“Wilson moved out with a full 12,00 men, well equipped and well armed. He was an energetic officer and accomplished his work rapidly. Forrest was in his front, but with neither his old-time army or his old-time prestige. He now had principally conscripts. His conscripts were generally old men and boys. He had a few thousand regular cavalry left, but not enough to even retard materially the progress of Wilson’s cavalry. Selma fell on the 2nd of April, with a large number of prisoners and a large quantity of war material, machine shops, etc, to be disposed of by the victors. Tuscaloosa, Montgomery, and West Point fell in quick succession. These were all important points to the enemy by reason of their railroad connections, as depots of supplies, and because of their manufactories of war material.”

One minor note. The index of Grant’s autobiography lists “Grant, Ulysses S.” in the index. The resulting entry goes on for several columns.

Next I read Stephen Hawking’s The Universe in a Nutshell. Hawking is one of those rare scientists that most people have heard of, even if they don’t have a bastard clue as to what he does. I checked out The Universe in a Nutshell primarily because I wanted to see what his writing style was like. In this book, Hawking explains the ideas composing modern physics, beginning with Einstein’s theory of general relativity. While I was able to understand most of the book, there are some things -- the shape of time, to name one -- that befuddled me. Hawking is a good writer, and the book was replete with computer-generated illustrations to make his points easier to visualize. He devoted one chapter to what the future might hold, comparing it to the ideal world of Star Trek. (Hawking is a fan of Star Trek, and even made an appearance on a The Next Generation episode, where he appears in a holodeck program of Data’s design. The program allows Data to play poker with Hawking, Newton, and Einstein. You can view a short clip here.

I enjoyed the book, although I must say that a lot of the physics is still over my head. I’m getting there, though. According to the Blessed Wikipedia, Hawking has co-authored a children’s book about physics. I’d like to find A Briefer History of Time, as it is supposedly written in regard to a wider audience. (Meaning, of course, ‘easier to understand‘. To borrow from Star Trek, “Brane and brane! What is brane?!” sums up my response to some portions of The Universe in a Nutshell*).

Next I read Asimov’s Mysteries, by the obvious author. Asimov’s Mysteries is a collection of short mystery stories, most of which are set in a science fiction context. One of the short stories is really short: only a page and a quarter. The story was actually used in Asimov’s Treasury of Humor, because it ends with a punch line uttered by one of the characters. While science fiction stories can be a bit dodgy sometimes -- if they depend on technology or on alien settings, the author has to be able to explain the implications of said setting or technology to the reader, and sometimes that doesn’t work so well -- Asimov is a master at writing them, and every single story was excellent. Even the story he wrote as a teenager was interesting. Of course, Asimov included his usual afterwords and forewords. My only complaint is that the book ended. If I’m wrong about the existence of the gods and I die to find myself at the Elysian Fields, I hope they have a library stocked with Asimov’s complete works. Anyway, in conclusion, Asimov rocks my socks off.

Primates of the World was next on my list. It’s a fairly straightforward text on primates. (You might have guessed that from the title.) There’s no argument to be made, no astonishing revelation to be reached: it’s purely informative. The book begins with a listing of the primates, from the oldest forms (prosimians, like lemurs) to the younger forms (apes, humans included). Here’s a sample:

The ring-tailed lemur is immediately recognizable on account of its long black and white ringed tail and its black eyes, nose, and mouth contrasting with its white face. As already mentioned, it may be distinguished from members of the genus Eulemur by the presence of special scent glands situation on the forearm and the inner side of the upper arm. Ring-tails move around the forests of south-western Madagascar in groups of up to twenty-four individuals, feeding upon plant material such as fruits and seeds.

After the listing is finished, the authors move on to discussion various aspects of primate life: feeding habits, social arrangements, predators, and so on. The book ends with a look at how humans are making a mess of things and driving various primates into extinction. I was prompted to look for this book when I saw Jack Hanna on The Late Show with David Letterman, and he had an animal one that Hanna described as “not a monkey”. The animal in question was a prosimian -- a lemur. The next night, Craig Ferguson (of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson) ranted about lemurs for some reason or another. So, I decided to look for a book on primates. I have a large interest in primates -- specifically chimpanzees and gorillas -- so I looked forward to the read. The primate family is home to some truly interesting creatures -- here are some of the more interesting specimens that caught my eye:

• The Crowned Lemur
  
• The Verreaux Sifaka
  
• The Golden Lion Tamarin
  

Lastly, I read The Rise of Reason by Ray Spangenburg and Diane Kit Moser. When I checked this book out, I thought it was a new series. It appears that it is instead the On the Shoulders of Giants series rewritten, which is fine given that that series is over a decade old. The Rise of Reason, for instance, has a notice on the copyright page that says that it is a rewrite of The History of Science in the Eighteenth Century. It would be prudent of me to read the later books in this series -- those written after The History of Science from 1945 to the 1990s ended -- but why re-read the books at the beginning? I decided to read the first one anyway.

This was enjoyable, as the eighteenth century was one of the more fun centuries in science. Benjamin Franklin, for instance, pops up all over the place -- in the colonies flying a kite, in England at the Lunar Society with Erasmus Darwin, in France serving on a council to investigate quackery. There are a lot of interesting stories in this book . Take for instance Charles Linnaeus, who developed the system of biological taxonomy we still use today. (That is, the practice of separating life forms into kingdoms and genera and orders and so on.) He was forever skipping classes because they didn’t teach what he was interested in -- botany. His early life is a series of instances of him getting caught skipping classes and sneaking into libraries by older professors, who take him under their wing, give him full access to their botanical libraries, and then send him on his way to places he can pursue his interest further -- paying for his education by lecturing other students on botany, knowledge of which he had obtained from his constant hooky sessions and stolen library sessions. The guy was a serial vagrant, but he was lucky enough to encounter a string of intelligent professors who cared about their students and who encouraged him. As a result, he winds up creating our taxonomic system. Or take the story of William and Caroline Herschel, a brother and sister who charted the skies together and funded their science by building and selling telescopes. These aren’t vague figures from the past, they’re real people who pursued their interests and made a way for themselves to do so that was actually conducive to their interests.

Do not think, however, that this book is merely an updated treatment. While the book does retain some aspects of the On the Shoulders of Giants series -- the section on the Scientific Method, the division of the book into Physical and Life Sciences -- it includes a third section: “Science and Society”. That section explores how the Enlightenment gave birth to the American, French, and Industrial Revolutions. It then looks at the accomplishments of Diderot and Voltaire and the introduction of The Encyclopedia, moves onto to quacks and others who were starting to prey on scientific ignorance, and concludes with a look at the revolt against reason -- romanticism. (Boo, hiss.) I recommend reading the book. (Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?)

Pick of the Week: Asimov’s Mysteries, by Isaac Asimov.
Quotation of the Week: “I would not have the anniversaries of our victories celebrated, nor those of our defeats made fast days and spent in humiliation and prayer; but I would like to see truthful history written. […] The justice of the cause which in the end prevailed, will, I doubt not, come to be acknowledged by every citizen of the land, in time. For the present, and so long as there are living witnesses of the great war of secessions, there will be people who will not be consoled for the loss of a cause they believed to be holy. As time passes, people, even of the South, will begin to wonder how it was possible that their ancestors ever fought for or justified institutions with acknowledged the right of property in man.” (p. 85, Personal Memoirs, US Grant.)

(Grant was a bit of an optimist on that. I quote directly from one group: “All that the South wanted to do is to establish the CSA to uphold the principles of the founders concerning limited government. lower taxes and individualism.” If that link and quotation made you cry, click here for one that will make you laugh. )

Next Week:

• The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx. I decided a few months ago to start reading historically significant books, and this is one of the biggies. Outside of religious texts, I can’t think of a more historically significant book -- although just like religious texts, the influence of the book can be both good and bad.
• The Elegant Universe, Brian Greene. The book is about the theory of relativity, quantum theory, and their relationship to one another.
• Books that Changed the World, Robert Bingham Downs. I’m checking this one out to aid in my quest.
• Building a Bridge to the 18th Century: How the Past Can Improve Our Future, Neil Postman. I found this one while searching for “Enlightenment”.
• Nine Tomorrows: Tales of the Near Future, Isaac Asimov. Yes, once again I found another collection of short stories after I thought I was very nearly out.

* That reference will either (1) have no meaning to you, (2) enrage you, or (3) amuse you deeply.