Intellectual Humility and Historical Thinking: Joseph Manning

Sometime around two and half millennia ago, a cluster of cities and states around the northeastern Mediterranean began to do amazing things. For some reason they began to spread out, establishing towns and outposts around the fringe of both the Mediterranean and the Black Seas. And as they sailed and traded in the outer world, they also began to explore with ever-increasing rigor their inner world, with a series of big questions which remain important to us even to this day. All the while, they competed feverishly with one another: in athletics, in war, in trade, in sex, in the arts, and in all the varieties of social life. These were the people we call the Greeks. But how did such a diversity of people gain a common title, or come to represent a common culture? Amongst their commonalities, what were their differences? And despite their often uncanny ability to think and act in ways that still make us feel a deep connection to them, how were they very different from us, and very similar to others of their own world? With me to survey the unities and diversities of the ancient Greeks is Jennifer Roberts, Professor of classics and history at the City College of New York and the City University of New York Graduate Center. Her many books include The Plague of War: Athens, Sparta, and the Struggle for Ancient Greece and Herodotus: A Very Short Introduction, both of which were the subject of previous conversations on this podcast. Her most recent book is Out of One, Many: Ancient Greek Ways of Thought and Culture, which is the subject of our conversation today. For Further Investigation Jennifer Roberts previous episodes were on the Peloponnesian War, and on the historian Herodotus. We've done a lot of episodes on Ancient Greece, enough for a mini-curriculum. Here is Paul Cartledge on Thebes; Andrew Bayliss on Sparta; and Bruce Clark on Athens (though admittedly little of that conversation was about ancient Athens). Chroma: Ancient Sculpture in Color I referred to my two conversations with Tom Holland, the first one concerning his book Dominion, and the second and most recent conversation about his book PAX. Hunter Rawlings, classicist and expert on Thucydides

Books have been made for over 530 years. That is, they have been created from raw materials– sometimes lovingly, sometimes not–printed, bound, and sold, only then to be read. When we think only of what is written in books, we ignore much of the history of the book. So ubiquitous is the book, so commonplace is the book, that we often neglect it both as a brilliant technology; the product of multiple technologies; and as an art. My guest has written the  story of how books have been made over that long half millennium by focusing on the individuals who have created the different aspects of the book that we now take for granted. It is a history of the physical printed book for a world that is increasing online–but a word which, curiously enough, the sale of ebooks  is down, and that of printed books is up. Adam Smyth is Professor of English literature and the history of the book at Balliol College in the University of Oxford. He is also one of the members of 39 Steps Press, “a small and unusual printing collective” that is housed in an old stables in Elsfield, Oxfordshire. His most recent book is The Book Makers: A History of the Book in 18 Lives, which is the subject of our conversation today.  For Further Investigation Previous conversations that relates to this one are: Episode 251, with Tom Misa, in which he discussed printing as beginning as a "courtly technology"; Episode 271, with Martin Clagget, in which among other things we discussed the marvelous place that Birmingham was in the eighteenth century An introduction to Baskerville's typographical art, with fine examples of the uppercase Q and the lower-case g, presented by A Type Supreme, a website that proclaims itself to be "a love letter to typography". Of course you can get a poster of the Baskerville Q, and I must say that I'm tempted. And Zuzana Licko's beautiful creation, Mrs Eaves Here is Sonnet 126, as printed by 39 Steps Press. Another guest, Kelsey Jackson-Williams who featured in Episode 162, has also experimented with printing. He's a member of the Pathfoot Press at the University of Stirling.

This is another of our series of conversations on intellectual humility and historical thinking.  With me today is Joseph Manning. He is the William K. and Marilyn Milton Simpson Professor of Classics and History, Professor in the Yale School of the Environment, and Senior Research Scholar in Law.  Manning has a specialized historical focus on Hellenistic history, with particular focus on the legal and economic history of Ptolemaic Egypt. His research focus over the last ten years has concentrated on historical climate change and its impact on premodern societies more widely. He is the principal investigator of the US National Science foundation project:  “Volcanism, Hydrology and Social Conflict: Lessons from Hellenistic and Roman-Era Egypt and Mesopotamia.” He is also on the editorial boards of Studia Hellenistica (Leuven) and the Palgrave Studies in Ancient Economies. He has coedited several volumes, and is the author of numerous monographs, the most recent of which is The Open Sea: The Economic Life of the Ancient Mediterranean World from the Iron Age to the Rise of Rome (Princeton University Press, 2018), which was the subject of a conversation in Episode 164 of Historically Thinking. He is now at work on a major new work on historic climate change and its impact since the last Ice Age.

The Paris of the Belle Époque was a city divided by new and old conflicts–the tensions of modernity, and the schisms which had divided France since 1789. Modernity, which the city both exemplified and advanced, could be both celebrated and the source of anxiety–sometimes by the same person at more or less the same time, certainly by the same person at different times.  “The glories of the Belle Epoque were real enough,” writes my guest, “like many myths and cliches, they contain an element of truth–but they tell only one side of the story. The era was also riven by political conflict, crackling with social tension, and fraught with cultural friction. And, of course, it ended with the industrialised carnage of the First World War in 1914.” Michael Rapport is Reader in Modern European History at the University of Glasgow. He has previously written about topics related to the age of the French Revolution, and the revolution of 1848. His most recent book is City of Light, City of Shadows: Paris in the Belle Époque, which is the subject of our conversation today. For Further Investigation Michael Rapport has also written 1848: Year of Revolution; The Napoleonic Wars: A Very Short Introduction; and The Unruly City: Paris, London, and New York in the Age of Revolution, which is a fine companion read to Episode 350, Episode 281, and Episode 176 Urban Insider's guide to the Paris Metro A guide to Montmartre And a walk through Montmartre A guide to Art Nouveau in Paris A collection of Zola reading lists: his novels in their written order; his suggested way to read through his novels; a five-novel list; a ten-novel list; and a twenty-novel list

At 2 PM on July 9, 1860, a mob attacked the Christian quarter of Damascus. For over a week, shops, churches, houses, and monasteries were attacked, looted, and burned. Men were killed, women raped and abducted, children taken from their families. Some 5000 Christians were ultimately killed, about half of them refugees who had fled to the city from Mount Lebanon during an earlier outbreak of violence there, the others all native Damascenes—about 15% of the Christian population of Damascus. These eight days of terror became known as “the Damascus events.” In his new book my guest Eugene Rogan describes the external and internal pressures which led to the Damascus events; the immediate precipitation of the events; the eight days of violence; how the violence was ended; and finally how the Christian population was reintegrated into the Damascus community. Eugene Rogan is professor of Modern Middle Eastern History at the University of Oxford, where he is also the Director of the Middle East Center at Saint Anthony College, Oxford. Author of numerous books, his most recent is The Damascus Events: The 1860 Massacre and the Making of the Modern Middle East. For Further Investigation We haven't had that many podcasts on the Ottoman Empire: in fact, hitherto we have had precisely one, a conversation with Kaya Şahín in Episode 314 about Suleyman, one of the greatest Ottoman monarchs. We haven't had that many podcasts on the modern Middle East, either. The closest would be one of the most popular podcasts we've done, this conversation with the late Neil Faulkner in Episode 240, which dealt with the British Empire's attempts to cope with revolutionary Islamic movements in late nineteenth century Africa and Arabia.

As you might have noticed, the world is awash in narratives. You hear people talk about “establishing the narrative”, or noting that “in the last 24 hours the narrative has changed.” We don’t talk about facts any more, we talk about narratives. And more than that. Narratives are, many have decided, cause conflict. They enable genocide, and wars. They are also embedded into our biology–”hardwired”, to use a word popular with neurobiological enthusiasts– due to evolutionary developments, and so by narrative we shall always be afflicted.  With me today to discuss narrative is Adrian Goldsworthy, who has committed numerous acts of narrative in both history and fiction. He was last on the podcast in Episode 332 to discuss the tangled history of Rome and Persia, which he wrote about in his most recent book Rome and Persia: The Seven Hundred Year Rivalry. This is his fifth appearance on the podcast. I should add that this episode was first dropped to our subscribers on Patreon, the members of Historically Thinking’s Common Room; and that if you were a member of the Common Room, you would have already heard it. For Further Investigation Adrian Goldsworthy has previously been on the podcast in the following episodes, and discussing these topics: Episode 63, on Julius Caesar as a historian; Episode 75, on Hadrian's wall; Episode 182, on Philip Macedonia and his spoiled-brat son; and finally the aforementioned Episode 332 on Rome v. Persia. We've discussed the problematic nature of narrative in Episode 243 with Jonathan Gottschall, the author of The Story Paradox: How Our Love of Storytelling Builds Societies and Tears Them Down. WARNING: he is not as keen on narrative as Adrian.

"..Since ancient times, the idea that the climate exerts a determining influence on minds and bodies, health and well-being, customs and character, war and wealth has attracted a long line of committed followers.” Alarm over climate change brought about by anthropogenic global warming has renewed—or perhaps simply enhanced—an idea with a very long history. It was after all in 1748 when Montesquieu wrote that the “empire of climate is the first, the most powerful of all empires.” But intellectual attentiveness to climate predates that remark by at least two millennia.  In my guest David Livingstone’s new book The Empire of Climate:  A History of an Idea, his object is to “take a measure of this impulse over the longue durée.” To do that he travels from the Hippocratic treatise On Airs, Waters, and Places, to seemingly the very latest report of the International Panel on Climate Change, scaling a mountain of literature between those two points.  David N. Livingstone is Emeritus Professor of Geography and Intellectual History at Queen’s University Belfast. He is the author and joint editor of numerous books which congregate around the histories of geographical knowledge, the spatiality of scientific culture, and the historical geographies of science and religion.  For Further Investigation For some past HT episodes related to climate see Episode 156: Stories Told by Trees;  Episode 209: Climate, Catastrophe, and Faith, and Episode 340: Price of Collapse Clarence Glacken, Traces on the Rhodian Shore:  Nature and Culture in Western Thought from Ancient Times to the End of the Eighteenth Century (University of California Press, 1967) Dane Kennedy, The Magic Mountains: Hill Stations and the British Raj (University of California Press, 1996) Mike Hulme, “Reducing the Future to Climate: A Story of Climate Determinism and Reductionism.” Osiris 26 Klima (2011): 245–266 Diana K. Davis, The Arid Lands: History, Power, Knowledge (MIT Press, 2016) Dagomar Degroot, The Frigid Golden Age: Climate Change, the Little Ice Age, and the Dutch Republic, 1560–1720 (Cambridge University Press, 2018)

In 1177 BC a series of very unfortunate events culminated in the collapse of numerous kingdoms centered upon the western Mediterranean. The nature of those events, and how one played upon the other, was the topic of our conversation with Eric Cline way back in Episode 62, when we talked about his book 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed.  Now Eric Cline is back on the podcast to answer one of the great questions, “and then what happened?”  That is also the task of his most recent book After 1177 BC: The Survival of Civilizations. We shall talk about those who survived, those who didn’t, and why–and, for those of you who like rating Presidents and baseball players, we'll discuss the winners, the losers, and those who came out sort of even. Finally we'll even talk about whether there is ever such a thing as a "dark age". Eric H. Cline is professor of classics and anthropology at George Washington University. His most recent book is 1177 B.C.: A Graphic History of the Year Civilization Collapsed. For Further Investigation The website of Erich H. Cline We have talked about calamity, disaster, and disruption several times in past episodes. See conversations with Ed Watts, first on the fall of the Roman Republic in Episode 93; and then again on the "eternal fall" of Rome, in Episode 219. In Episode 224 I talked with David Potter about historical disruption, that moment when it feels as if a civilization is going over a waterfall.

At a pivotal moment in Chapter 17 of Nathanael Hawthorne’s House of the Seven Gables, two of his protagonists escape from haunted Salem, Massachusetts, and are whirled away from its power by the even greater power of steam: “…Looking from the window, they could see the world racing past them. At one moment, they were rattling through a solitude; the next, a village had grown up around them; a few breaths more, and it had vanished, as if swallowed by an earthquake. The spires of meeting-houses seemed set adrift from their foundations; the broad-based hills glided away. Everything was unfixed from its age-long rest, and moving at whirlwind speed in a direction opposite to their own.” As in Hawthorne, American literature of all kinds abounded with railroad and steam power metaphors. In an incredibly short time, a new technology became a point of reference for a nation. In 1858, when Sallie McNeill of Brazoria County in Texas first saw a train, she noted in her diary that “I could hardly realize that this was my first sight of the ‘iron horse’, because I have read and heard of the cars so often, that everything seemed natural.” With me to discuss steamboats, railroads, and steam engines, and their cultural power in the antebellum United States, is Aaron W. Marrs, author of The American Transportation Revolution: A Social and Cultural History. Aaron Marrs is a historian at the Department of State; and I should announce here that his views on steamboats, railroads, and steam engines, and related topics, are his own, and not those of the State Department or the federal government.   For Further Investigation In Episode 134, Cynthia Kierner and I touched on steamboat disasters–among many other disasters; and if you're interested in an overview of the history of technology since approximately 1450, listen to Episode 251. Andrew W. Marrs, Railroads in the Old South: Pursuing Progress in a Slave Society–"Far from seeing the Old South as backward and premodern, Marrs finds evidence of urban life, industry, and entrepreneurship throughout the region. But these signs of progress existed alongside efforts to preserve traditional ways of life. Railroads exemplified Southerners' pursuit of progress on their own terms: developing modern transportation while retaining a conservative social order." February 27, 1859: The Steamboat Princess Disaster Mark Aldrich, Death Rode the Rails: American Railroad Accidents and Safety, 1828-1965 Michael J. Connolly, Capitalism, Politics, and Railroads in Jacksonian New England

In late July 2013, Vladimir Putin visited Kiev. There he celebrated the 1,025th anniversary of Christianity coming to the Kievan Rus. There he and Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych stood shoulder to shoulder and celebrated the unity of Russia and Ukraine. At that moment–my guest Michael Kimmage writes– Putin and Yanukovych, Russia and Ukraine, seemed to be “twin protagonists of the same story.” Seven months later things were very different indeed. This was because of what my guest Michael Kimmage describes as a series of collisions which resulted in the war that began in 2014, and which accelerated in 2022. The first collision was between Russia and Ukraine; the second between Russia and Europe; and the third between Russia and the United States. Michael Kimmage is Professor of History at the Catholic University of America where is chair of the department. From 2014 to 2016, he served on the Secretary’s Policy Planning Staff at the US Department of State, where he held the Russia/Ukraine portfolio. He was last on Historically Thinking in Episode 165 to discuss his book The Abandonment of the West: The History of an Idea in American Foreign Policy. His most recent book is Collisions: The Origins of the War in Ukraine and the New Global Instability, and it is the subject of our conversation today.   For Further Investigation The list of Historically Thinking conversations either directly connection or tangentially related to this conversation with Michael Kimmage is vast. Here are just a few... Episode 211: The (Quiet) Russian Revolution Episode 212: The Perennial Russian Pivot to Asia Episode 284: The Greatest Russian General, in War and Peace Episode 345: The Ecology of Nations