People Before Profit blog

FUEL ON THE FIRE: OIL AND POLITICS IN OCCUPIED IRAQ: Book Review

Sat, 18 Aug 2012 15:54:00 +0000

BOOK REVIEW; FUEL ON THE FIRE: OIL AND POLITICS IN OCCUPIED IRAQ BY GREG MUTTITT

NEW PRESS, 2012)

The withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq at the end of 2011 left a broken country and many unanswered questions. What was the war really about? Why and how did the occupation drag on for nearly nine years, while most Iraqis and Americans wanted it to end? And why did the troops have to leave?

Fuel on the Fire: Oil and Politics in Occupied Iraq (New Press, 2012) takes us behind the scenes to answer some of these questions and reveal the real story of the oil politics that played out through the occupation of Iraq. Based on unreleased government documents and extensive interviews with U.S., British and Iraqi officials, author Greg Muttitt exposes the plans in place to shape policies in favor of the multinational oil companies.

The book also contains interviews with trade union leaders, Iraqi oil experts, and leaders of civil organizations, which paint another largely untold story: how the Iraqi working people struggled for their own say in their future, in spite of the US- imposed Provisional Authority regime, and rising levels of violence directed against them.

First of all, was the Iraq war about the “liberation” of Iraq? Muttitt points out Iraq controls 10% of the world’s proven oil reserves, and countries in the Middle East control 60% of the world’s proven world supply.

Combine this with U.S. Pentagon and big business oil addiction, and the fact that oil experts predict US oil supplies are to be depleted in 13 years while the Middle East has reserves for another 100, and you have a good idea about the material interests that drive US policy in the region.

Muttitt documents how years before the Iraq occupation a strategy similar to the one that actually unfolded was developed in secret memos from National Security Council meetings and Vice President Cheney’s Iraq Study Group.

As early as January of 2001 National Security Council staff were ordered by the Bush administration to cooperate with Vice President Cheney’s Energy Policy Task Force in a “melding” of “the review of operational policies towards rogue states “ such as Iraq with “actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields.”

But Muttitt cautions that the agenda was not about just gaining access to a few tankers of oil in the manner of the old conquistadors. Muttitt writes, “far more valuable today is an agreement in a laptop or a briefcase.” The battle, as we shall see, is to create a legal authority through which a steady flow of profits could be assured, stabilizing global energy markets.

We meet all the players we have come to know from the headlines of the period. We meet lawyer and advisor Ron Jonkers, fresh from spearheading the privatization of Kazakistan’s oil industry, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. (This was apparently considered a “model” at the time by oil privateers).We meet U.S. army generals, under orders in the early days of the invasion to stand by as cultural treasures in Iraq’s national museum were looted, but to safeguard the Iraqi oil ministry.

We see the imperial arrogance of US policy makers Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bremer, as they seek to build a US -friendly Provisional Authority regime. Not only was the Ba’ath Party outlawed, but skilled oil technicians, soldiers and public workers with even the most cursory ties were blacklisted. A new legislative system based on Sunni and Shi’a affiliations is established – which Muttitt documents had no basis in Iraqi national political tradition.

Particularly important, Muttitt demonstrates, is the overriding need for passage of a legal basis for privatization of Iraq’s oil industry. In Iraq this took the form of a contract known in the industry as “ a Production Sharing Agreement” (PSA).

Billed as a way to aid the Iraqi people in the modernization of its aging oil refineries, the terms of the agreement, if adopted, would have actually replaced the Iraqi Oil Ministry as the sovereign holder of Iraqi oil, instead making it merely a competing entity with foreign corporations.

In addition to granting favorable terms for long -term superprofits, the provisions of the agreement would supersede Iraqi laws and remove the multinationals from any accountability to the Iraqi people.

The overriding drive of oil corporations to establish a legal authority for long-term investment, Muttitt points out, is understandable when we know Iraqi history. In addition to being blessed with an abundance of oil, Iraq has had a long history of militant struggle against foreign corporations and states wishing to control it.

These struggles resulted in the institution of Law Number 80 in 1961 by Iraq’s Prime Minister Qasim. Although the law stopped short of nationalizing oil, it reclaimed Iraqi rights to all remaining oil in the country, with the exception of oil already in production. In 1972, Prime Minister Hussein nationalized the oil industry. Because of this history, Iraq’s oil was enshrined in the Iraqi constitution as “ the property of the whole people, ” and was popularly seen as such.

By 2007 Iraq was reeling from the effects of US occupation and its policies. Basic public services previously enjoyed by the Iraqi people such as water, gas, electricity and security had seriously deteriorated. This was the direct result of cutbacks by the Provisional Authority , and layoffs of Iraqi public workers .

US army planners and engineers instead delegated repairs to unaccountable and often negligent U.S. contractors (e.g. Kellogg,Brown & Root; Haliburton) who failed abysmally (while reaping superprofits) in most of the contracts they took on.(U.S. public workers take note!)

Sectarian militias ruled many parts of Iraq – militias Muttitt documents the Provisional Authority sometimes inadvertently fostered and sometimes deliberately supported as a counterweight against anti-occupation Iraqi nationalism. Meanwhile, secret communications between the government and the Maliki regime (recently revealed through Wikileaks) show how the overriding concern at this time continued to be that the Maliki regime get the legislature to pass the PSA.

Fuel Against the Fire would be worth reading just for its exposure of the real story behind the U.S. claims of “liberating Iraq”. But the book does not stop there. In addition to trenchant analysis and thorough documentation, it is also a story about the fightback of the Iraqi people. It is also a story of hope.

Muttitt narrates the growth and ultimately successful organizing of the Iraqi people against the Provisional Authority’s attempt to ram through the PSA in the Iraqi parliament in 2007.

In contrast to the coalition the US occupiers sought to build, based on ethnic and sectarian identification, Muttitt describes the organizing by activists of a labor-religious coalition to oppose the US oil law.

The bedrock in the fight was the organizing of Iraq’s oil workers (trade union organizing of oil workers and also civil servants was outlawed under the Hussein regime in 1987, and continued to be outlawed under the U.S occupation.)Originally organized to fight for payment of back wages by the Provisional Authority in 2003, the union at its first public conference expanded its outlook to oppose and expose the proposed oil law. Their struggle continued, despite assassinations of its leaders, kidnappings of its members, and other obstacles trade unionists in the US have seldom had to overcome.

The Association of Muslim Scholars as well as other Islamic organizations entered the struggle. Fatwa 217 was issued, calling for opposition to the oil law based on Muslim religious law. Iraqi oil experts lent their expertise to the campaign and testified before Iraqi parliament. The Provisional Authority stepped up its attacks against the oil workers union, leading to the seizing of its assets. Trade unions in Iraq and worldwide protested the repression of the Iraqi oil workers union.

How the Iraqi oil workers organized in such difficult circumstances is an inspiring story. (I was proud to read the resolution adopted by the AFL-CIO at its 2005 national convention, which called for a rapid withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. I was also proud to see that the AFL-CIO defended the Iraqi trade unions from attacks by the Provisional Authority and US occupation forces.

In addition to discussion of the AFL-CIO resolution, Muttitt describes the important role US Labor Against the War played in bringing the message of the Iraqi oil workers and their fight to the U.S. labor movement. USLAW, a coalition of labor unions pledged to be “the voice within the labor movement for peace and new priorities,” has grown to over 200 affiliated trade union locals since its founding in 2003. It has steadfastly opposed the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, while calling for funding human needs, not war.

At a time when there was little information in the US about developments in the Iraqi labor movement, USLAW sponsored a national tour of leaders of the three major Iraqi trade union federations in 2005, and publicized their cause within the labor movement. This tour, as well as patient organizing within AFL-CIO unions, laid the basis for the campaign and passage of the historic AFL-CIO resolution.

Us troops withdrew from Iraq in late 2011. While this was a victory for the Iraqi people, as well as for the peace movement around the world, Muttitt reports that nine years of occupation and war has left a decimated Iraq, and a seriously weakened oil industry infrastructure.

Muttitt reports that oil corporations have been granted contracts favoring their interests since that time. Iraqi trade unions continue to be under attack, despite and because of their role in defeating the worst of big oil’s power grab in 2007. Continued labor solidarity from the U.S. labor movement against attack from the Iraqi government is crucial.

But there is one crucial difference. These investments came without the legality of big oil’s much sought-after Production Sharing Agreement, meaning these contracts can be suspended at any time by vote of the Iraqi people’s representatives in their legislature.

The same forces that led to the Iraqi people taking back their oil in 1961 and 1972 --and the same forces involved in the successful fight against the PSAs more recently – can and will lead to further fightbacks by the Iraqi workers. When this happens, Muttitt eloquently argues, the next generation of Iraqi workers will surely build on the heroic legacy of the Iraqi oil workers and their struggle.

I highly recommend this book to all peace activists who have organized or will be organizing in the future against U.S. war moves in the Middle East. “No Blood for Oil!” This book will be an important resource in countering future Pentagon wars, whatever their smokescreen. Author Naomi Klein has called this book “nothing short of a secret history of the war”, and I agree.

As an AFSCME member, I also recommend it to U.S. trade unionists seeking to organize for jobs, decent union contracts, and justice in our own country. The AFL-CIO resolution was important because it made this link.

What big oil sought to do in Iraq – and for that matter seeks to do elsewhere in the Middle East – it is also seeking to do right here in the U.S. What Fuel for the Fire drives home, among much else, is how labor’s struggle against U.S. wars for corporate profit around the world is part of our own struggle against privatization, and for union rights and justice here at home. They are all part of the same ongoing fight.

Chris Butters

The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory: Book Review

Sat, 18 Aug 2012 14:11:00 +0000

Romano, Renee C. and Leigh Raiford, eds. The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory. Athens, GA: The University of Georgie Press, 2006.

The Civil Rights Movement is a very important part of American history. This was a moment when a group of people, tired of the treatment that they had been faced with for hundreds of years, stood up and made it clear that they were no longer going to endure it. People like Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Huey P. Newton are remembered for their contributions to the movement, whether or not those contributions are perceived as good or bad. Events like the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Birmingham Church Bombing, and the Black Panther's conflicts with the police are also remembered for the effects they had on the movement and society, whether good or bad. In The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory, how such people and events are remembered is the center of the discussion.

The book is divided into four sections, Institutionalizing Memory, Visualizing Memory, Diverging Memory, and Deploying Memory. The first section explores the ways in which the historical memory of the movement has been translated into public memory in sites such as museums, memorials, and courtrooms. The second section examines how the Civil Rights Movement has been represented in the mass media. The third section examines the role of gender in the Civil Rights Movement, and the fourth section examines how groups since the movement have attempted, successfully or unsuccessfully, to connect themselves to the spirit of the movement.[1]

The two essays in the first section that did the best job of showing how the Civil Rights Movement has been remembered by the public are "The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and the New Ideology of Tolerance," by Glenn Eskew and "Street Names as Memorial Arenas: The Reputational Politics of Commemorating Martin Luther King Jr. in a Georgia County," by Derek H. Alderman. In his article, Eskew followed the process by which the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute came into being. He examined how it was possible for such a museum to go up in a city and state that had been known for sometimes violent reprisals against civil rights activists. The city had seen the bombing of a local church and the release of attack dogs onto peaceful protestors. Both white and black people were involved in the project to include Governor George Wallace, a once virulent enemy of the Civil Rights Movement. He now saw the economic potential of such an institution, and along with others, saw how such an institution could serve to repair both Birmingham's and Alabama's tarnished image.[2]

In his essay, Alderman told the story of attempts by local organizations in Bulloch County, Georgia to name a freeway after Martin Luther King, Jr., and he explained that this showed how the Civil Rights Movement is remembered by the public. The debate was over whether to name the freeway for Martin Luther King, Jr. or for local veterans. Alderman pointed to three issues in the debate, legitimacy, resonance, and hybridity. Who was more important to the people of Bulloch County, veterans or King? Who was more relevant to the people of Bulloch County? Who were the people of the county more likely to relate to. The veterans won the initial debate. The real conflict that came out in this debate, however, was the draw faced by African American veterans. What meant more to them, King or their veteran status?[3]

In the second section, the essay that best describes how the Civil Rights Movement has been used by the mass media is "Restaging Revolution: Black Power, Vibe Magazine, and Photographic Memory," by Leigh Raiford. In this essay, Raiford compared the narratives of the Civil Rights Movement, examined the use of photography by the Black Panthers and then how their images were used by the media, compared the Black Power Movement to other anti-colonial struggles of the 1960s, and showed how images produced by both the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power have produced consumable memory. She used the movies that involved the character Foxy Brown to show how Black Power has been both used to make money and how the movies have been used to turn the narrative of Black Power from one of liberation to one of vengeance. She also pointed to the use of Black Panther images in Vibe Magazine by musicians and others to present certain commercialized images of themselves, like that of the rapper Nas portraying himself as Huey P. Newton. She called this blaxploitation.[4]

In the third section, the essay that best examines the role of gender in the Civil Rights Movement is "Engendering Movement Memories: Remembering Race and Gender in the Mississippi Movement," by Steve Estes. In his essay, Estes examined the ways in which movement activists shaped their own accounts of the Civil Rights Movement as the dominant historical memory and historiography of the movement changed. He pointed to how white women's accounts of sexism in the SNCC were altered later, as they came to feel that such accounts might take away from the focus of the movement as a fight for racial equality. He also examined the reality that black women had more opportunity in the movement than did white women. This, however, was only because they had already been accustomed to playing such roles in Mississippi because of the nature of race relations in the state, whereas, the white women in the movement were accustomed to the lesser role afforded them in their sphere.[5]

In the fourth section of the book, two essays stand out as examples of how groups, since the Civil Rights Movement, have attempted to connect themselves to the spirit of the movement. ""Deaf Rights, Civil Rights: The Gallaudet "Deaf President Now" Strike and Historical Memory of the Civil Rights Movement,"" by R.A.R. Edwards is an example of how a group successfully related itself to the Civil Rights Movement. "Riding in the Back of the Bus: The Christian Right's Adoption of Civil Rights Movement Rhetoric," by David John Marley is an example of how a group tried but failed to relate itself to the Civil Rights Movement. In his essay, Edwards followed the story of the Gallaudet University "Deaf President Now" Strike, and pointed out that the students were successful because they were able to mold a new image of themselves as an oppressed minority rather than a set of individuals with a medical problem. He also pointed out how their success led other disabled groups to pick up similar rhetoric in their successful push to get the Americans with Disabilities Act passed. Edwards also argued that, while deafness is now curable to some degree, this association with the Civil Rights Movement is more appropriate than creating an isolated 'Deaf Culture.'[6]

In his essay, Marley discussed the manner in which groups classified as the 'Christian Right' have attempted, unsuccessfully, to take up the mantle of the Civil Rights Movement. He mentioned Pat Robertson's comparison of Christians to blacks forced to sit as the back of the bus. He also showed how organizations like Operation Rescue, led by Randall Terry, used tactics derived from the Civil Rights Movement to protest issues like abortion. Protesters stood outside abortion clinics and held up signs. He also talked about the battle over prayer in school. Students across the nation walked out of school to pray at their campus' flag pole. The events were called 'Meet You at the Pole.' The failure of such movements stems from the power politics that people like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, a former presidential candidate, tried to play in and failed. Furthermore, people like Jerry Falwell, who had directly opposed the Civil Rights Movement, were attempting to claim its legacy. People did not buy into this or the idea that they were an oppressed minority, an idea espoused by people like Pat Robertson.[7]

What do the essays in this book show, collectively? First, they show that the Civil Rights Movement has not been forgotten. The people that lived the event are still alive and helping to develop the image of the movement and are passing that image to the next generation. They also show that the American people have taken to a more collective view of the Civil Rights Movement, in that the movement is not viewed by people as the sole possession of a single race. Deaf people, LGBT people, Women, Chicanos, Asians, and even Christians have attempted, some successfully and some unsuccessfully, to use the ideals of the movement to further their own interests in this country. [8]

One can also draw from the book the idea that the Civil Rights Movement is something that should not be considered over. The idea garnered from the essays is that the struggle for civil rights is never ending. But this raises the question, "Does this take away from the truly monumental struggle that African Americans faced in this country?" The answer should be no, as there will always be disparities in this country that can and should be addressed as American's sensibilities evolve over time. Applying this to the present, one might consider if current movements, like Occupy Wall Street, will be able to maintain that the plight of the working class is a civil rights issue. As the protesters argue for better jobs with better pay, greater educational opportunities, and fiscal and economic responsibility on the part of the government, they could make their connection by pointing out that Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed during an event in which he was offering support for striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee.[9]

[1] Romano, Renee C. and Leigh Raiford, eds., The Civil Rights Movement in American Memory (Athens, Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 2006).

[2] Glenn Eskew, "The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and the New Ideology of Tolerance," 37, 41.

[3] Derek H. Alderman, "Street Names as Memorial Arenas: The Reputational Politics of Commemorating Martin Luther King Jr. in a Georgia County," 85-90.

[4] Leigh Raiford, "Restaging Revolution: Black Power, Vibe Magazine, and Photographic Memory," 224, 238-241, 242-245.

[5] Steve Estes, "Engendering Movement Memories: Remembering Race and Gender in the Mississippi Movement," 299-307.

[6] R.A.R. Edwards, ""Deaf Rights, Civil Rights: The Gallaudet "Deaf President Now" Strike and Historical Memory of the Civil Rights Movement,"" 317-325, 336-340.

[7] David John Marley, "Riding in the Back of the Bus: The Christian Right's Adoption of Civil Rights Movement Rhetoric," 347-358.

[8] In "Integration as Disintegration: Remembering the Civil Rights Movement as a Struggle for Self-Determination in John Sayles's Sunshine State," Tim Libretti mentions briefly some the other movements, like the Chicano Movement that have taken inspiration from the Civil Rights Movement.

[9] If one wished to follow the Occupy Wall Street movement or to do some research on its mission, one could get started at http://www.occupywallst.org/.

Lies Across History: Book Review

Sat, 18 Aug 2012 14:02:00 +0000

Loewen, James W. Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999.

What is history? Is history what actually happened, or is it what people say about what happened? Many people can say many different things about events that occurred and call it history. In Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong, James W. Loewen argued that history is what people say about what occurred. Despite the fact that many different people can say many different things and pass them off as history, this is what history is. What actually happened is the past; what people say about it is history, and with time and proper study, he argued, history can change. Loewen opened the book with some explanatory essays that tell why historical markers are so important. He then went into a lengthy but effective survey of historical sites across the United States, in which, he pointed out omissions, poor language, and straight lies. He further offered a list of twenty candidates for total removal, for their offensive nature or their inability to present what actually did or did not happen. Loewen concluded the book by pointing out that history does change and that by asking some educated questions, people can help to improve the way that public history is presented in this country. [1]

In the first section of the book, which consists of five short essays, a few things stood out. In "In What Ways Were We Warped?," Loewen pointed out that the public's understanding of history is skewed in a couple ways, poor presentation in public schools and inaccurate historical sites. For the historical markers he offered an example here, a site that fails to mention that Native Americans were enslaved in Utah up until 1863. Could he also have suggested oral history, as well? In "Some Functions of Public History," the two most interesting points that he made were that all historic sites serve to maintain the civic status quo; they never challenge the government and that an inaccurate site can negatively affect the future. [2]

In "The Sociology of Historic Sites," Loewen mentioned local boosterism, in which multiple locations have claimed to be the site of the first occurrence of some event or action, in order to draw tourists. The most interesting point gleaned from "Historic Sites are Always the Tales of Two Eras" is that every marker or monument never tells just one story. It not only tells the story of the person or place that is being commemorated but also speaks of the people that placed it and the times that they lived in. In "Hieratic Scale in Historical Monuments," Loewen discussed issues of power display at monuments and pointed to the statue of Theodore Roosevelt in New York City's American Museum of Natural History. This statue has Roosevelt astride a horse high above a Native American and an African American. He also pointed to how this can distort the future by misrepresenting the past.[3]

In the next section of the book, Loewen began his review of the multitude of historic sites that dot the American landscape. Interestingly enough, he began his review in the West, which contradicts the modern story of American History that begins in the East. He pointed this very fact out earlier in the book and stated that this approach recognized that the Americas were, in fact, first settled by migrants from Asia, directionally from east to west, long before Europeans ever arrived. The section is divided into 'The Far West,' 'The Mountains,' 'The Great Plains,' 'The South,' 'The Atlantic States,' and 'New England.'

The most interesting story in the first section, 'The Far West,' was "California Downieville: Killing a Man Is Not News." In this essay, Loewen told of a woman, Josefa or Juanita (two different names were given), who, after a confrontation, in which her home was invaded and she killed a white man, was lynched and actually ended up putting the noose around here own neck and jumping to her death. Her 'last words' are memorialized on the marker dedicated to her, "I would do the same again, if I was so provoked." What made this essay stand out was that it was not a defense of women. The author actually argued that Josefa's marker actually made it look like a woman's life was worth more than a man's life.[4]

In the next section, 'The Mountains,' one will be most struck by "Idaho Almo: Circle the Wagons, Boys - It's Tourist Season." The first thing that one will notice is that this site makes Native Americans appear savage and evil, and Loewen pointed that out. More interesting, though, is the fact that the site commemorates an event that as evidence has shown, never took place. The townspeople were also extremely defensive when the Idaho State Historical Society attempted to remove the inaccurate monument. The most interesting story in 'The Great Plains' is "South Dakota Brookings: American Indians Only Roved for About a Hundred Years." A marker entering Brookings County states, "You Are About to Enter Brookings County - Home of roving Indians until 1862." As Loewen effectively pointed out, this sign completely ignores the fact that Native Americans only began their roving lifestyle after they were forced to find ways to adapt to new conditions that resulted from incursions into their territories by Europeans. Most all native tribes before this time were settled. Loewen offered the Mandans of North and South Dakota as an example.[5]

The most interesting story in 'The Midwest' would be that of Abraham Lincoln's birthplace, "Kentucky Hodgenville: Abraham Lincoln's Birthplace Cabin - Built Thirty Years after His Death!" The title of this story is almost entirely self explanatory; the city of Hodgenville presents a cabin that is younger than Lincoln, as the man's birthplace. What makes it more humorous is that the house that stands is actually a hodgepodge of materials from the original fake birthplace house and another such house that was supposed to be the birthplace of Jefferson Davis. There are two titles in 'The South' that compete with one another for the label of most interesting. They are "Texas Gainesville: "No Nation Rose So White and Fair; None Fell So Free of Crime"" and "Tennessee Woodbury: Forest Rested Here." The marker in Gainesville completely ignores the strong Union sentiment that was present in Cooke County at the time and justifies what was probably the largest mass lynching in US History. The marker in Woodbury honors the man that founded the first nationwide incarnation of the Ku Klux Klan, which in all rights, earned the right to be called a terrorist organization, as it participated in the persecution of thousands of people across the country, in both the North and the South.[6]

The most interesting story in 'The Atlantic States' would be "Pennsylvania Philadelphia: Remember the "Splendid Little War" - Forget the Tawdry Larger Wars." The marker on the USS Olympia, the ship that served as the flagship of Admiral Dewey's fleet in Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War, honors the ship's service during that minor conflict but ignores or minimizes any further service. It ignores, entirely, America's war against the Philippines, which began almost immediately after the defeat of Spain and resulted in the conquest and subjugation of a sovereign people by the United States. It also skews the ship's role in the United States' involvement in the Russian Civil War. In 'New England' one will find "New Hampshire Concord: "Effective Political Leader"" to be extremely interesting. This story speaks of the marker dedicated to a man, President Franklin Peirce, who was involved in countless attempts to spread slavery. The most notable of his offenses were his involvement in the Ostend Manifesto and 'Bloody Kansas.' The marker conveniently forgets these events.[7]

Following these essays, and the many others that tell of inaccurate or outright false history, are two essays that serve as a conclusion. These two essays, "Snowplow Revisionism" and "Getting into a Dialogue with the Landscape," show that public history is beginning to make progress. More and more sites are beginning to alter their presentations or add on to them to tell more accurate stories. They also point out, however, that much work has yet to be done. They argue that it is the presents' responsibility to ensure that the future is made available to all persons through an accurate presentation of the past. They argue that this can only be achieved through mature public discourse. In the Appendices, A, B, and C, Loewen explained his methods for choosing sites, presented some questions that any person that visits historical sites should ask if they wish to get the most out of the site, and examined twenty different historical sites that he felt should be removed entirely.[8]

A lot can be gained from a book like this. First, and probably the most obvious, is that one can learn about places that they were previously unaware of. Second, one can gain a better understanding of the things that help to maintain the tense racial relations that exist in this country, to this very day. Third, this book may encourage a person to go visit certain sites for themselves, which would broaden their perspective on this country and the world, for that matter. Finally, one may also be encouraged to crusade for a local site that has been ignored or presented inaccurately, and one can be sure, there are plenty more sites across the country to consider.

One question still remains, however. That is, what good can be had by totally removing certain sites, namely those in the South dedicated to persons whose exploits are now less than reputable? Sites like those dedicated to Nathan Bedford Forrest and the 'Good Loyal Servants' are extremely offensive and emotionally charged, which makes questions like this difficult to ask and even more difficult to answer. Some will argue that total removal, despite sites' offensive nature, runs the risk of forgetting an important part of the nation's history. Perhaps Loewen's suggestion that such things be removed to museums for the provision of appropriate context is an acceptable compromise; though, he did also mention allowing for dual interpretations at sites. Either way, difficult parts of history cannot be shunned just because they hurt a little. They must be addressed head on, so that they can be turned into valuable lessons from which people can learn the benefits of working together in peace.

[1] James W. Loewen, Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999).

[2] Ibid, 2-6, 12-14.

[3] Ibid, 21, 22, 30-31.

[4] Ibid, 6, 56-59.

[5] Ibid, 75-79, 116-118.

[6] Ibid, 152-156, 163-168, 237-240.

[7] Ibid, 352-355, 402-404.

[8] Ibid, 412-423, 424-436.

What Is History

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 17:04:00 +0000

What is History?

Few people have been challenged to answer the question of what exactly history is. While most of us probably familiarize ourselves with history in terms of academia and knowledge, we rarely stop to think or consider what is it that makes the study of history just that and not some scientific understanding of social evolution. To understand this broad conceptualization of history, one must consider at what point history could have said to have ‘started’. One might suggest the early beginnings of literature, our first attempts to express the social experience. Another might suggest the earliest attempts at codifying law, the earliest point of a written social order. Human beings are unique to other animals in that they have this history; a social explanation of the evolution of society over time. The same cannot be said of birds, or fish. Yes we know the history of fish and various members of the animal kingdom, but through the lens of science and biology. The most accurate possible description of the beginnings of our history must rest with distinguishing humanity from the rest of the animal kingdom.

How does one do this? Where does one begin? There are many points in both scientific and social evolution which could be said to define humanity’s separation-from the animal kingdom. There is however only one primary facet of humanity which distinguishes us from all other forms of life on this planet: Humanity has achieved the ability and means to physically produce conditions for its continued survival. Marx pointed this out when he stated that “[humans] begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence.” This view extends slightly from the materialist conception of history held by Greek philosopher Epicurus: The ability of mankind to reproduce, at length, a replication of tools and means of survival is the main definition of what makes us social beings living within a civilization. What then, is the material make-up of history?

History is the explanation of the social process over time; beginning and ending with a series of transformations in the means by which humanity is able to produce its means of subsistence. The periods which are most distinguishable in human history are periods of productive capability, defined primarily by the mechanisms and processes by which subsistence is manifested. We presently understand them as periods, or epochs; separated by time frame and categorized by national or ethnic origin: Ancient (Chinese, Egyptian, Greek, African), Western (Greek, Roman, Spanish, English, Germanic, French), Eastern (Slavic, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Middle Eastern), and Contemporary (American, Modern Western Civilization, Modern Eastern Civilization). Try as one may however, a historian cannot avoid the inherent shifts in productive modes occurring between these natural epochs throughout the past; Hunter/Gather, Horticulture, Slave Driven, Feudal, and Capital. As we presently understand history, production modes overlap across epochs, but still create defining characteristics for each period. Each epoch is primarily differentiated from each other by these modes because of the relationship by which they place the individuals to one another.

Consider for a moment, what is it that separates Ancient Egypt from Contemporary America in terms of history? Yes, location. Yes, time lapsed by the planet around our only Star. But most importantly, the most visually obvious social difference is the relationships by which individuals share with each other. In Contemporary America, an individual’s existence is defined mostly by his/her relationship to the totality of other Americans. In Ancient Egypt, an individual’s existence was defined mostly by his/her relationship to the Pharaoh, or Emperor. Because of these relationship differences created by more numerous social divisions, individuals in Contemporary America are capable of producing and creating material objects with each other at not only a faster pace but with more creativity. Simultaneously however, Contemporary America as it presently exists could not be without the preceding society which existed before it; thus making Ancient Egypt just as integral to the social system of Contemporary America as it is to the social systems of the rest of history.

To fully understand what history is, we must attempt to understand what separates the social experience of humanity from the biological evolution of life on the planet. As already stated Marx, among other philosophers, pointed directly to the distinction of humanity’s ability to manifest means of producing and reproducing means of sustainability which in turn allows the society to grow. The most popular phrase people know of history is that those who fail to learn their history are doomed to repeat it. To fully understand this cliché however, one must fully understand what it is that has made and what it is that has defined history.

Gerald Horne: Fighting Paradise: Labor Unions, Racism, and Communists in the Making of Modern Hawaii

Wed, 16 May 2012 16:21:00 +0000

Gerald Horne, Fighting Paradise: Labor Unions, Racism, and Communists in the Making of Modern Hawaii (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press: 2011) 459 pp
First let me apologize to Gerry Horne, since I promised to review this massively researched , absorbing, and important history months ago.

I was unable to get to it because of my own political and trade union battles and my teaching responsibilities. When I did get to read it, I could not put it down, reading it on trains and busses and even sneaking a few pages at the Rutgers graduation when I was sitting win cap and gown.

Horne has written a history of an American state whose own history resembles that of an Afro-Asian colony struggling for liberation in the post WWII era---a sort of parallel universe to the cold war consensus abroad and the permanent consumer capitalist installment plan utopia at home proclaimed by American capitalists and their government on the mainland. As a brief introduction, let me set the stage. American planters, already a dominant force in the Hawaiian economy, launched "a revolution" at the beginning of the 1890s to protect their access to the American market-an access threatened by the McKinley tariff of 1890, with the support of the Republican Harrison administration(their political connections were with the Republican party). When McKinley gained the presidency, he gave Hawaii the territorial status that the Cleveland Democrats, connected to Southern plantation interests had refused, and the planters established complete control of the islands and their diverse population. Given the rise of the Japanese empire(Japanese agricultural laborers were of growing importance in the late Kingdom) the planters began to important Filipino and Puerto Rican laborers from the new colonies the U.S. had established in the aftermath of the Spanish American war.

Chinese and Portuguese laborers were also part of the working class along with indigenous Polynesians and the planters, with the "big five" family based companies at their pinnacle, established what was a textbook example of racism's relationship to capitalism-large wage differentials between "haole" (white) workers, and the other groups, who were separated by smaller wage differentials among themselves to keep them divided.

In this "paradise" built on the export of Sugar and Pineapples, the high "haole" families lived like feudal lords while the predominantly Asian work force worked and lived in great privation.

AJA (Americans of Japanese Ancestry) workers were among the most militant and class conscious. Although the Japanese empire was pursuing relentless anti-Communist policies in China and Korea and allying itself with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in the 1930s, Japan at the end of the 19th and early 20th century had been the center in Asia for the study and dissemination of Marxist ideas and also in the struggle to establish a class conscious labor movement. Some who would become AJA activists brought these ideas with them to the islands.

AJA activists in the islands were to play a major role in the founding and development of the Communist Party in the islands and also in the rise of a left and Communist led union, the International Longshoreman's and Warehouseman's Union(ILWU) led by Harry Bridges nationally to a position of influence that no union, not even the UAW in Michigan, ever gained at the state level.

In Hawaii, there was essentially a one party non union situation until the ILWU began to mobilize both dock workers and agricultural workers on a non racist basis before WWII.

Ethno cultural divisions were very complicated, involving not only different groups of Asian-Americans among themselves and Portuguese(who in this parallel universe were not considered "haole") but also African-Americans were first came to islands after the Spanish-American war and found themselves in the years during and after WWII in a kind of surreal tropical Dixie---with segregation and brutal forms of ideological and institutional racism directed against them in a"multi-racial" context different than anything that existed on the mainland. Overcoming these contradictions was very difficult;but, the relatively simple nature of the dominant class relations made it possible not only to overcome them in building a powerful union but to make rapid and major advances for the working class.

In 1945, Henry Wallace as outgoing Vice President said that a great people's revolution was advancing in the world and the U.S. could not move to the right while the rest of the world was moving to the left, without a great collision. The cold war of course was that collision, but the territory of Hawaii was moving sharply to the left after the war while the U.S. mainland was moving to the right, producing dynamic and sometimes comic social struggles that Horne narrates clearly and effectively

First, in spite of the attacks and restrictions directed against AJA activists after Pearl Harbor, the ILWU not only grew but developed its own press and even radio broadcasts (similar in some respects to socialist and Communist movements and parties abroad).

All of the weapons used in the U.S. to destroy both the Communist party and the labor movement were trotted out---even a cartoon of Stalin in a grass skirt, portrayals of AJA activists as "Red" agents of a Japanese "yellow peril"(a variation on the "Communist control" of African American activists and groups as part of a political "racial" conspiracy). But the ILWU continued to advance. In the U.S. red baiters like Richard Nixon and a legion of others pointed absurdly to "Communist influence "in the Democratic party as a major those in winning elections in 1946 and afterwards as the cold war developed.

In Hawaii, as Horne shows, ILWU activists and Communist Party members did play a leading role in the development of what had been a paper Democratic party, holding positions in some cases in both the Communist and Democratic parties, and propelling that party to major victories that would end a half century of Republican rule. Although it was the "haoles"(whites) who really constituted a bloc vote, the mainland postwar cold war consensus campaign connecting anti-Communism, a general anti-labor outlook, with racism was very hard to sell to an electorate with a "non white" working class majority.

In Hawaii, for example, there was also Smith Act show trials of CPUSA/ILWU leaders, the longest trials, in the islands history, with some of the same "professional witnesses" expounding on the evils of defendants they never met. But here, because of the influence of left labor , the mayor of Honolulu and territorial representatives came forward as "character witnesses" for the defense.

When the predictable guilty verdicts were issued, 20,000 ILWU workers left their jobs in protest. Here, the ruling groups realized that there were great risks in carrying forward the persecutions and eventually accepted the fact that they could not destroy the ILWU, whatever their friends in both mainland parties and the mainland AFL-CI0 would do.

Eventually, the long postwar persecutions took their toll, but Hawaii's labor and social institutions took a different and far more progressive course then the postwar mainland because of the struggles of Communists and ILWU militants, many of AJA background, along with "haoles" African-Americans, Filipinos and Chinese.

There are no simple heroes and villains in Gerry Horne's rich narrative. The personal foibles, egos, and internal conflicts that existed among Communist/ILWU activists are portrayed extensively, along with searching questions about the question of statehood, responses to racism, etc.

But the relentless racism of both Hawaiian ruling groups and their U.S. supporters is shown with massive documentation . Horne for example has a field day with such figures as Mississippi's Senator James O.Eastland, leader of the "Senate Internal Security Committee" and featured speaker at White Citizens Council rallies through the South, ineffectually seeking to bring the McCarthyite road show to a Hawaii where thousands of ILWU members and others were waiting to stick it to him. The statements of legions of racists, from Strom Thurmond to those saw the "Japanese invasion" of the islands as worse than a Soviet invasion of San Francisco, is documented with skill and beyond any reasonable doubt.

While it was to become an issue more than half a century later, another important achievement of Fighting in Paradise is Gerry Horne's portrayal of Frank Marshall Davis, the African American writer, poet, and intellectual (friend of Paul Robeson and others) who left Chicago to settle in Hawaii in the late 1940s, only to face racist harassment and assault because of his continued militancy in the struggle against racism and reaction. Marshall's insights into what was happening in the islands are cogent and he himself emerges as a multi-faceted and very sympathetic personality.

Although the narrative ends long before Marshall befriended the teen-age Barack Obama, one can understand why he would be able to play such a positive role in the life of a young man like Obama, from a multi-ethnic background that made him a member of two minorities, "haole" and African, in Hawaii---since Marshall represented much of the best in an African-American tradition that Obama, up to that time, had little connection to, but would subsequently be so important to his development when he came in the 1980s to the Chicago that Marshall left in the 1940s.

Gerry Horne in conclusion has made another important contribution to the history of labor and the left and the tangled history of racism in America in Fighting in Paradise. Those who read it, whatever their background will find it enlightening and fascinating, as they would of his many other fine works, examples of what Charles Beard once called a "usable past" and what I like to call "use value history."

Review of To Be an Indian: An Oral History

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 10:45:00 +0000

Cash, Joseph H. and Herbert T. Hoover, eds. To Be an Indian: An Oral History. St. Paul, Minnesota: The Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1995.

From the very first time that Europeans set foot in the Americas, the Native American people have faced constant violence, oppression, and disgrace. Entire populations were wiped out by disease, which was sometimes done intentionally. Towns were burned to the ground, resources were stolen, and whole civilizations were destroyed. What is worse is that the history of these events has rarely been presented from the perspective of the victims. The stories of the European's exploits in the Americas have always been about God, Glory, and Gold in an untamed raw wilderness. Those stories never mention the despair that must have been and was felt by the millions of people in the advanced civilizations that called that 'untamed raw wilderness' home, and whose lives were forever altered.

In these histories, the United States of America played a prominent and extremely guilty role. From Pontiac's Rebellion, in the early days, to the Trail of Tears during Andrew Jackson's presidency, to the theft of the Black Hills from the Sioux, the oppression has been real and lasting. One must, however, not forget that the United States has, in its own words, since the early twentieth century, begun work to slowly reverse this trend, and Native American's living conditions have improved. However, from whose perspective has the story of all of this drama been told, especially from the early days? It has always been from the perspective of American historians or the US Government. These were people who were rarely, if ever, involved in Native American affairs and who were academically detached and people who were more interested in numbers than in people's lives. The perspective of the Native Americans themselves has largely been ignored. This needs to be remedied.

To Be an Indian: An Oral History, edited by Joseph H. Cash and Herbert T. Hoover, is a step in the right direction to begin telling the story of how Native Americans have viewed their lives in the United States of America, from the perspective of the Native Americans themselves. The book was originally published by Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, Inc. in 1971, but it was later republished with a new introduction from Donald L. Fixico, by the Minnesota Historical Society Press in 1995. The main primary sources for this book are oral history interviews conducted with Native Americans from Idaho to Minnesota and from Nebraska through the Dakotas Region. The authors interviewed young people, old people, unemployed workers, employed workers, political leaders, common folk, uneducated persons, college graduates, full-blood Native Americans, and mix-blood Native Americans. The stated intent of this approach to Native American History was to give these people the voice they have long been without.

The book was divided into four sections: Things that Guide the People, Reservation Life, Depression, War, and a Revival of Self Government, and Today and Tomorrow. The first section addressed how Native Americans viewed their deep faith, culture, and ancient folklore. It opened with a pictorial presentation of Noah White, who lived on the Prairie Island Reservation and was an expert on the culture of the Winnebago people. The second section discussed how Native Americans viewed the history, present conditions, and the future of reservation life. It opened with a pictorial presentation of the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, home to the Lakota Sioux and Webster Two Hawk, the Tribal Chairman of the Lakota Sioux.

The third section discussed how Native Americans viewed their lives during the Great Depression and World War II. It opened with a pictorial presentation of Cato Valandra, a member of the Lakota Branch of the Sioux and a local political and business leader on the Rosebud Reservation. The fourth section addressed how Native Americans viewed their lives in the fifties and sixties, as the US Economy was peaking and social activism was at a high, and how they saw their future developing. It opened with a pictorial presentation of Merri Pat Cuney, a member of the Sioux tribe who, at the time, was a volunteer teacher to Native American students across the state of South Dakota at places like the Pierre Indian School and St. Paul's Indian Mission in the town of Marty. She was also a senior, majoring in Criminology, at the University of South Dakota and planned to pursue graduate level course work in History.

Were the authors right to use Oral History methods to gather their sources? Did they achieve their stated goal? Did the pictorials that opened each section help to augment the oral history interviews? They most certainly were, and they most certainly did, on both accounts. The interviews in the first section showed several things. One can see how rich Native American folklore is by reading over the interview of Jonas Keeble who recounted 'The Story of the Creation of Man,' a myth that existed among the Sisseton Sioux long before the arrival of western colonizers. One can see evidence of the existence of a deep religious faith among the Native Americans by reading George Smith's interview. He, a member of the Winnebago tribe, told the story of 'The Happy Hunting Ground," evidence that Native Americans believe in an afterlife. Both of these interviews also serve as good examples of the vibrancy of Native American culture.

The second section made it clear how many Native Americans felt about life on the reservation. Felix White, of the Winnebago people, expressed his despair about how much their ancient hunting grounds have shrunk to the point of being unusable, as a result of people buying up all of the land for farming. If one read the interview of Paul Robertson, a Santee Sioux, one would find out how Native Americans viewed many government assistance programs as patronizing. He spoke of the in and out nature of the doctors on the reservation. "The experience is what the young doctor wants," he said, hinting that he did not believe that the doctors were really there because it was where they sought to make their livings. One can also read the interview of Neola Walker, a Winnebago, to get a picture of the almost perpetually difficult economic life that Native Americans faced on the reservation.#
The interviews in Section three did a real good job of showing how Native Americans lived through the depression and WWII. If one read the interview of Ben Riefel, a US Congressman and member of the Brule Sioux, one would quickly find out how difficult it was for Native Americans during the Depression. They needed help and were suffering hard times just like everyone else. Many took help from the government but many also did not. One can see how the programs of the depression benefitted the natives by reading the interview of Harold Schunk. He spoke very highly of programs like the Civilian Conservation Corps. One can read of Steve Spotted Tail to get a picture of how Native Americans that fought for their country felt about everything. One can read of Frank McKenzie to look into Native American politics more closely. One can also read the interview of Mabel Trudell to get a sense of the difficulties faced by Native Americans during the depression. She spoke of the sparseness of employment for Native Americans during that era, in that it was much worse than normal.

Section four really did a great job of showing how Native Americans felt about the social upheaval of the fifties and sixties. Two competing images are presented in this section of the text. If one read the interviews of Cato Valandra and Merri Pat Cuney, both Sioux, there would be seen an interested local business man and a bright young activist, both of whom took the approach of working with what their fellow Native Americans had been left with, in order to create better employment and educational opportunities, and social stability for their people. With the interviews of Lehman Brightman, an Oglala Sioux, one would find a bit of a different attitude. He was more aggressive in his approach. He wanted to work to resolve the problems that he saw facing the Native Americans, but he, instead of being inclined to work within the system established by the government, sought to make the government conform to the Native American's ways. He wanted to revive the old Native American traditions rather than attempting to adapt to the present system, something that he felt had already been tried and proven unsuccessful.

What these interviews all show together is much broader. They show a people who, despite years of colonialist oppression, racism, political interference, and pushes to assimilate into white culture, have managed to retain a sense of identity within themselves, with regards to who they are as Native Americans. One can see that it is on the brink for some, but on the whole Native Americans are taking control of who they are and what they can be. They also show that, Native Americans, at the time this book was written, were really beginning to be able to gain greater successes in this country. Consider the interview of Lucille Childs, a Mdewaknton Sioux, who had a daughter in the Ph.D. program at a university in Chicago. The pictures in the text do a great deal augment these interviews, as well, in that they put faces to the people being interviewed. They show that the Native Americans are real people, who have real lives and real problems. They can really be helpful, in that, many people are moved more when they have a face to attach to the stories they read.#
This book and its methods have also not been in vain, as far as their contributions to the academic world. Since this book's initial publication, several additional positive texts on Native Americans have been published, many by Native Americans themselves. Some of these newer texts were, The Search for an American Indian Identity: Modern Pan-Indian Movements, a history that discussed the vitality of modern Native Americans, which was written by Hazel W. Hertzberg and published by the Syracuse University Press in 1971, and Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto, which was a protest book written by Vine Deloria, Jr. and published by the University of Oklahoma Press in 1988. This book was also followed by another oral history text, Wolf That I Am: In Search of the Red Earth People, put together by Fred McTaggert. This was a look into the lives of the Sac and Fox people of the Great Lakes Region.

It is quite obvious that To Be An Indian: An Oral History has had an effect, as it is still in print and used in classrooms, despite being a relatively old text; a lot can change in forty years. This is also shown by the role that the text has played in inspiring new works. It has also helped to begin a process in which the story of the Native Americans is one that has seen a much more inclusive vision of Native Americans develop that includes not just the words of scholars but also the words of Native Americans themselves. It is likely that if it were not for oral history interviews like these ones, many of these people's memories would be lost to time.

Will War Ever End?

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 05:07:00 +0000

Editors Note: The PA editorial collective has had some interesting exchanges on Pinker's new book, even before most had read it! One of Pinker's virtues in both this and previous writing is his ability to stimulate thoughtful and provocative debate about very important matters. While a materialist in philosophy and scientific outlook, Pinker is a bit clueless on Marxism (there is not much evidence that he has read much of it), and on the entire subject of the role of class in social theory. However, he is a very influential and widely read intellectual. All good reasons our readers and contributors to read his book and chime in on the debate around it.

Is pessimism a biological trait, implanted in our ancestors by natural selection, or a learned, culturally inculcated propensity? Either way, it's awfully widespread these days. Almost everyone I know seems glum, especially about the prospects for a more peaceful world. A year ago, at a military-history powwow, I asked a dozen speakers if nations will ever stop settling disputes with war or threats of war. Several smirked at the silliness of the question, and all answered no. Peter Mansoor, the conference organizer, was especially adamant. "I don't think there's anything that could convince me that major war or even another world war couldn't happen in the future," declared Mansoor, a former U.S. Army Colonel who served as an executive officer under General James Petraeus in Iraq.

Plenty of lefties share Mansoor's perspective. In his recent book Eaarth, the green author and activist Bill McKibben warned that unchecked global warming might trigger Malthusian battles over water and other resources. Such pessimism is understandable. Every day the media dutifully rub our faces in fresh slaughters, from suicide bombings in Afghanistan to Syria's brutal suppression of anti-government protests. According to the 2011 Yearbook of the Stockholm Institute for Peace Research, major armed conflicts-which by definition kill at least 1,000 people a year-wrack 15 regions in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and the Americas, not even counting the recent Arab uprisings.
Advertisement

But "believe it or not," the Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker proclaims in his new book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, "today we may be living in the most peaceable era in our species' existence." Other scholars have drawn attention to this underappreciated trend, notably the political scientists John Mueller and Joshua Goldstein. I've also delved into the topic. But we haven't exactly triggered a groundswell of belief that humanity is transcending its savage past. I hope that Pinker's 832-page blockbuster catalyzes a shift in the zeitgeist, because pessimism itself can thwart our efforts to create a less perilous world.

Pinker is the ideal scholar to deliver glad tidings. He is an exceptionally lucid, entertaining writer, and no one can accuse him of being a Pollyanna. In his 2002 bestseller The Blank Slate, he advocated a tragic view of humanity. Our genetic heritage-which makes us innately quarrelsome, competitive creatures--will forever thwart our attempts to achieve heaven on earth, Pinker argued. In fact, humans are never more dangerous, he suggested, than when gripped by utopian ideologies, whether religious ones like Christianity or secular ones like communism.

But Pinker has always emphasized that we are not slaves to our genes. We can overcome our worst impulses, both because we possess countervailing tendencies toward empathy and altruism and because we are capable of self-understanding and improvement. Pinker expands on this theme in Better Angels (a phrase coined by Lincoln in his first inaugural address) as he traces the historic decline of violence. The scope of his enterprise is vast. He has compiled voluminous data, mined from an enormous number of sources, on myriad forms of human conflict and cruelty, ranging from international war and genocide to torture, rapes, infanticide, even abuse of animals. Pinker shows that almost all the trends point in the same direction: downward.

Modern homicide rates in Europe-one of the few regions where records are trustworthy enough to permit such comparisons--are 10 to 50 times lower than in the Middle Ages. Murder rates fell by two orders of magnitude in the northeast United States between 1625 and 1900. The past few centuries have also seen precipitous drops in state-sanctioned violence. That includes corporal punishment (from cutting off the hands of thieves to whipping students) and capital punishment, especially combined with torture (drawing and quartering, burning at the stake). Slavery and despotism (which allows tyrants to kill and torture on a whim) prevail only on the margins; 800 years ago they were the rule. As for war, Pinker presents evidence that it killed on average about 20 percent of the population of pre-state societies in the Old and New Worlds, a casualty rate higher than that of the most war-torn modern states.

The decline of state-sponsored violence has obviously been erratic, and at times we have lurched backward, notably during World Wars I and II. The latter claimed more victims, in terms of absolute numbers, than any other conflict in history. But Pinker denies that these massive bloodlettings-and the genocidal slaughters that Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and other tyrants perpetrated against their own people-shatter any hope that humanity is becoming more civilized. Since World War II, none of the world's major powers has waged war against each other, and historians have cautiously begun calling this period the Long Peace. Since the Cold War ended, smaller-scale conflicts-including civil wars, insurgencies, genocides, and terrorist attacks-have taken less of a toll, too. Pinker calls this two-decade period the New Peace. Annual war deaths have fallen over the past 60 years by more than an order of magnitude, from about 500,000 to 30,000 per year, according to one estimate. As for terrorism, you are more likely to be killed by lightning than by a terrorist.

Pinker attributes the decline of violence to numerous mutually reinforcing factors that are likely to sound familiar. At the top of the list is the rise of the modern state, which suppresses the violence of citizens and adjudicates disputes by means of police and courts. What is more, democracies rarely if ever fight against each other; over the past century the percentage of humanity living under democratic regimes has surged from 12 to over 60 percent. The growing empowerment of women has played an important role; when women gain access to birth control violence tends to subside along with population growth. The rise of international trade, which makes nations increasingly dependent on each other, has helped, too. So have mass media and the spread of literacy, which promote empathy for others beyond our family, tribe, nation, and even species.

Pinker keeps coming back to reason as the key to our ongoing pacification. Reason helps us see the destructive consequences of submitting to our violence-perpetuating "demons," notably our desire for power and vengeance. Through reason we can understand the destructive consequences of violence, even against those whom we fear, and we can appreciate the benefits of cooperation. Reason has propelled the growing, global recognition of the rights of women, children, homosexuals, racial and religious minorities, and other often-abused groups.

I have one major disagreement with Pinker. True to his tragic view of human nature, he subscribes to what I call the deep-roots theory of war, which holds that lethal group aggression, and not just violence per se, is an evolutionary adaptation reaching back millions of years. As evidence, he notes that chimpanzees, our closest genetic relatives, have been observed engaging in deadly group raids. So have tribal societies such as the Yanomamo, whose behavior supposedly resembles that of our pre-state ancestors. Archaeological relics-skeletons with hack marks and spear heads embedded in them, rock drawings depicting battles and walls and other fortifications-also reveal that pre-state societies engaged in group violence.

Critics have raised many objections to the deep-roots theory. Chimp raids are rare, and may be a response to recent human encroachment. Some modern tribal people, such as the Semai of Malaysia and the !Kung of Africa, are quite peaceful. As for the archaeological evidence of warfare, it extends back only about 12,000 years, and excavations have revealed that some pre-state societies thrived for centuries or longer without leaving significant signs of violence.

You don't have to be prone to dangerously utopian views to be persuaded, as I am, by a different theory of war's origins, first advanced by Margaret Mead in 1940 and favored by anthropologists such as Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Douglas Fry, and Brian Ferguson. War, Mead proposed, is not a biological adaptation but a cultural "invention"-like music, art, cooking, and religion-that emerged relatively recently in human prehistory. War is an especially infectious meme, because if one society starts attacking its neighbors, their only options are to surrender, flee, or fight. Societies in a warlike region have a strong incentive to boost their fighting capability, by inventing new tactics and weapons, and to carry out pre-emptive strikes against neighbors. In this way, the whole world rapidly became militarized, armed and dangerous. For millennia, we have been struggling to overcome this cultural contagion, and we're still struggling, in spite of our recent gains. Just in the last decade, the United States, arguably the most advanced civilization in history, has invaded two countries, and it now routinely assassinates without trial many suspected enemies around the world.

The debate over how war began is important, because those who reject the possibility of a radical, permanent reduction of state-sponsored violence often cite the claim that war is deeply rooted in our prehistory and genes: War, if it is ancient and innate, must also be inevitable. I wish that Pinker had repudiated the deep-roots theory, or at least acknowledged the abundant counterevidence. Still, Better Angels is a monumental achievement. His book should make it much harder for pessimists to cling to their gloomy vision of the future. Whether war is an ancient adaptation or a pernicious cultural infection, we are learning how to overcome it.