A Perverse Sense of Humor?

Why else would I choose Christmas Eve to start reading a biography of Baruch Spinoza, progenitor of the Enlightenment and bete noir of Reformation religious establishments (both Jewish and Christian)? The book is Steven Nadler, Spinoza: A Life (Cambridge 1999).

A Great Sen-tence and a Bad Review

From Amartya Sen's article in the forthcoming Dec. 29, 2011 issue of The New Republic (behind a pay-wall here), "The Boundaries of Justice: David Hume and Our World":

The usefulness of reasoning is not dependent on its being able to solve every problem at hand.

Sen believes a contrary presumption has harmed decision theory and the theory of rational choice, and observes that understanding the incompleteness of our knowledge is in fact central to human reasoning.

Sen's observation is usefully borne in mind while reading the review of Jonathan Israel's Democratic Enlightenment, which appears in this Sunday's New York Times (here). I've previously blogged about the Israel book here and here. While some of the reviewer's criticisms hit the mark (Israel does too strongly distinguish and elevate radical enlightenment thinkers, such as Spinoza and Diderot, over their more moderate brethren, like Voltaire and Hume), the overall tenor of the review is far too glib and jaundiced, treating Enlightenment studies, and seemingly the pursuit of reason itself, as somehow passe.

A Provocative Assertion about the Conservatism of the Legal Profession in the 18th Century

From Jonthan Israel, Democratic Enlightenment (Oxford 2011), pp. 231-2:

Modern historical surveys of the Enlightenment often seem to suggest that Europe's judicial systems could be and were swiftly and almost painlessly reformed in the eighteenth century, as if this was just a question of ending judicial torture, modifying the harsh treatment of debtors and unmarried mothers, and a few other widely acknowledged defects, and as if there was widespread support for the proposed changes in society and among the legal profession. But the evidence strongly suggests otherwise. Significant sections of the Enlightenment, and Hume in particular, systematically undermined every overall approach to rationalizing the law, thereby drastically limiting the scope for legal reform. In the legal and moral sphere, it was neither public opinion, nor economic pressure, nor governments, and especially not ... magistrates or lawyers that acted as agents of change. The legal profession in fact contributed practically nothing to the reform programme anywhere in Europe. Rather it was philosophy itself - and especially la philosophie moderne - helped by the sheer accumulation of social difficulties and pressures (as distinct from public attitudes), that spread awareness of deficiencies and urged root and branch reform.

I am not enough of a legal historian (especially of Europe in the 18th century) to adjudge the accuracy of Israel's strong claim. I suspect he is correct about the general conservatism of the legal profession, which seems a persistent quality. On the other hand, I find it hard to imagine that the successful legal reforms Israel discusses could have been achieved without at least the strong support, if not the instigation, of some enlightened magistrates and lawyers. If the legal profession, as a whole, possesses a conservative (perhaps Humean) mindset, the existence within that profession of a minority of reformers - both moderate and radical - seems another of its persistent qualities. Of course, Israel's apparent bias for the philosophes, especially those like Spinosa, Bayle, and Diderot with a more radical reform agenda, is understandable given his own heavy investment in their works. But it seems doubtful that they their works were the sole drivers of enlightened political, legal, and economic reform.

Lawrence Friedman on the Aridity of Constitutional Law Scholarship

I'm proud to say that Lawrence Friedman, America's foremost legal historian, was my mentor during (and after) my  graduate legal studies at Stanford Law School. He remains among the most professionally impressive and personally influential scholars I have ever known, never wavering from his commitment to avoid writing anything dry and uninteresting.

Lawrence's most recent publication, "Law and Economics in Society," published in the Hofstra Law Review (Vol. 39, page 487), and presumably based on a lecture he gave there, is, as usual, full of wit and wisdom. In it, he criticizes some (but not all) practitioners of Law and Economics for ignoring both the limitations of economics and the advantages of  other social-scientific approaches to understanding the operation of  law in society. My favorite part of his new paper, however, is towards the end, where he laments that neither Law and Economics nor any of the other social scientific approaches to law have appreciably influenced certain "citadels" of legal scholarship, most notably constitutional law:

Most legal scholarship is sadly lacking in rigor and objectivity. Every year, law reviews publish thousands of pages of old-fashioned legal writing - blind to the realities of society, incurably solipsistic, and inbred. To be frank, constitutional law is a particularly arid field. It seems incurably devoid of interest in empirical data. Its very success, its very relevance to public issues, breeds scholarship that is either pure ideology and punditry, or the elaborate exposition of doctrines that make little or no difference to outcomes, to life in society, or reality. Most writing in the field is bloated, dismal, and biased. Many of the scholars seem eager only to spin out their own pet theories which rest on their own particular prejudices, and pass these off as some sort of eternal truth. As a legal historian, I find the pseudo-history of some constitutional lawyers, the habit of passing off their normative arguments as history, particularly irksome.... As an amateur legal sociologist, it bothers me that legal scholars seem so uninterested in whether doctrines and decisions make any difference in the real world. Maybe they assume that anything the Supreme Court says has some magic effect in society. Almost all of the "impact studies" come from political scientists. Nobody else seems to see any use for actual data. (495). 

I agree entirely with Lawrence's argument, but even if you don't, you must admit it's not dull!

The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in the Digital Commons

England's Royal Society, the world's oldest scientific publisher of the world's oldest peer-review journal, has decided to make its entire archive, going all the way back to the first issue published in 1665, freely available to the public. The archive includes Ben Franklin's reports on his original kite-based experiments on electricity, Sir Isaac Newton's first published scientific paper, and an early paper on geology by Charles Darwin. It is a treasure trove for historians of science and anyone interested in the history of scientific publishing. The announcement is here; and a search page is here.

Enlightened by Jonathan Israel

Oxford University Press has just published the latest book in Jonathan Israel's impressive series on the intellectual history of the Enlightenment, Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution, and Human Rights 1750-1790. Needless to say, I've bought it, but I won't be reading it for a while because I have to read his earlier installments first, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, 1650-1750 (Oxford 2001) (which I've only just started reading) and Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man, 1670-1750 (Oxford 2006).

Israel, who is Professor of Modern European  History at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, is an amazing scholar. His books are to intellectual history what William Cronon's books are to environmental history, though perhaps a bit more demanding of the reader. Ranging from 700-1000 pages each, Israel's tomes are monuments of erudition with references to so many major and minor scholars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it is hard work keeping track. The books are not dry or especially difficult to read, but it is easy to get lost in the detail. This is not a criticism; arguably, authors should demand more of readers than they typically do. Israel's books represent the kind of meticulous and comprehensive scholarship that all scholars, myself included, wish we could write.

Did Henvy V Prevail at Agincourt Because the French Were Weighed Down by Heavy Armor?

So claims an interesting new study by exercise physiologists reported on at Scientific American (here).

Solow on Nasar's "Grand Pursuit"

I was thinking of reading Sylvia Nassar's new economic history book of that title, but after reading Nobel laureate Robert Solow's insightful review (here), I think I'll pick up Agnar Sandmo's Economics Evolving instead.

Steven Pinker on the Decline of Violence

A very interesting presentation, here, and a forthcoming book, here.

What I'm Reading Now

Cormac McCarthy is considered among the favorites (at least among American novelists) for the Nobel Prize in literature. In any case, he has a reputation as a very great writer, which makes it embarrassing for me to admit that I have never before read one of his books, despite the fact that he has been recommended to me by people I trust on more than one occasion. When he was recommended to me again most recently, while I had my Kindle in tow, I immediately downloaded the recommended book, Suttree (Random House 1992). The book certainly confirms McCarthy's greatness as a writer; his vocabulary and capacity for imaginative flights of literary acrobatics are truly impressive. He also knits a mean yarn. Suttree is a very interesting story to read, and an impressive piece of literature. And yet. And yet, I can't say that I've truly enjoyed reading this book. McCarthy is well-known as a writer of dark stories about dark people. In them, he finds some humor and a surprising amount humanity but mostly darkness. For that reason, I cannot say that reading McCarthy has been an unalloyed pleasure; and I'm not sure he'd want me to be able to say that it has been. The official website of the Cormac McCarthy Society (whatever that is) suggests that "[r]eading Suttree is like sorting through the entrails of an eviscerated saint." I think that about nails it.

David McCullough is among America's greatest living non-fiction authors. His biography, Truman, is among my all-time favorite books. While walking around Costco a couple of weeks ago, I was surprised to see that he had released a new book, about which I had heard nothing. The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris (Simon and Schuster 2011). Needless to say, I picked it up - anything by David McCullough is self-recommending. It is, in a sense, an antidote to the McCarthy novel described above, a light history of interesting people, ranging from Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. and Samuel Morse to Mark Twain and Mary Cassett, each of whom found lifelong inspiration from the City of Lights. Like all of McCullough's work, it is a great pleasure to read, and chock full of interesting facts, relations, and connections. In contrast to the literary gymnastics of McCarthy (which I do not mean to slight), McCullough writes with a simple elegance that keeps the pages turning almost of their own volition.

Four Papers I Read Today

Scott Masten, "Public Utility Ownership in 19th-Century America: The 'Aberrant' Case of Water" (Jan 2009). A very interesting historical/empirical study of why utilities for water supply, in contrast to other public utilities, became predominantly publicly owned before the end of the 19th century. Masten finds it was not a consequence of any special public financing issues or scale economies; rather public ownership of water utilities was largely a consequence of two factors: (1) the comparative simplicity of waterworks operation and management, which immunized them public water supply companies to some extent from inefficiencies usually associated with government ownership; and (2) friction between cities and private water companies relating to (a) extension of service to sparcely populated areas and (b) prolonged supply disruptions stemming from installation and repair of waterworks. Among the more interesting implications Masten draws from his historical analysis is that current efforts by World Bank and other organizations to induce developing countries to private waterworks as a mechanism for reducing water shortages may be misguided:

If, despite an institutional environment conducive to private ownership, American water and sanitation systems are overwhelmingly publicly owned and operated, it is reasonable to expect privatization to yield long-term gains in developing countries where the environment for private enterprise may be much less hospitable?

Masten's article provides a very useful reminder that the structure of property ownership is not simply a matter of ideology; nor is private ownership necessarily more economically efficient and productive than public ownership. Among other things, transaction costs matter!

Katherine Casey, Rachel Glennerster, and Edward Miguel, "Reshaping Institutions: Evidence on External Aid and Local Collective Action," NBER Workshop Paper 17012 (May 2011). The authors examine the short- and long-term consequences of a specific international aid program for Sierra Leone and find that, in the short-run, the aid program did achieve its aim of improving provision of local public goods, but failed to achieve the longer-run aim of improving local institutions for collective action. The implications of these disparate findings are interesting. On the one hand, the authors note, "[t]he results contradict the current popular notion in foreign aid circles that CDD ["community directed development"] is an effective method to initiate social change or fundamentally alter local decision-making processes." On the other hand, the "results also challenge the aid pessimist's view that external assistance cannot improve the lives of the poor in countries with weak institutions." Hopefully, other scholars will build on this work by applying the same analytical model to examine aid projects in different developing countries.

Marjan Peeters and Micolien van der Grijp, "Emerging national climate legislation in EU Member States: in search of proper legislative approaches," Maastrict Working Papers, Faculty of Law, 2011-6 (May 2011). A nice comparison of the French and English approaches to national climate legislation (supplemental to the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme). The English approach is completely centralized and top-down, as is the norm within the UK's system of government. The French program, by contrast, is largely decentralized, with regions given a substantial amount of freedom to determine how national goals will be met. However different they may be, however, the national climate laws of France and the UK share one crucial feature in common: the lack of any enforcement apparatus for ensuring that the legislated goals are met. To my mind, that renders the goals of each country's climate law purely aspirational.

Last, but by no means least, Jeremy Edwards and Sheilagh Ogilvie, "What Lessons for Economic Development Can We Draw from the Champaign Fairs?," CESifo Working Paper No. 3438 (April 2011). This paper turns on its head just about everything we thought we knew about the Champaign fairs, and their significance for economic theories of the institutional basis for long-distance, impersonal exchange. The authors argue, provocatively but pretty convincingly, that the high level of contract enforcement, which made the fairs so successful, did not arise from private-order or corporative mechanisms, but instead was provided by public institutions. The paper seriously restructures our understanding of how and why legal-economic institutions arise.

William Cronon on Wisconsin's Progressive History and Reactionary Governor

William Cronon is a great environmental historian and writer (and a professor at the University of Wisconsin). In fact, he is among my very favorite non-fiction writers regardless of field. In today's New York Times (here), he has a wonderful op-ed about Wisconsin's history of progressive government, the shift in party domination from Republicans to Democrats in the wake of Senator Joseph McCarthy's lunacy, and what current Governor Scott Walker has in common with Senator McCarthy.

For those who enjoy reading history, I recommend most highly two of Cronon's wonderful books: Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England (Hill and Wang 2003) and Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (W.W. Norton 1992).

UPDATE: Apparently, Cronon has now become a target of Republican leaders in the State of Wisconsin, who have filed a claim to obtain all of his e-mails referencing various political issues since the start of this year under Wisconsin's open records law (see here). Not only is this a deplorable act and an abuse of the state's open records law, it is a McCarthy-style tactic that confirms the associations Cronon drew in his New York Times op-ed.

On This Date

On January 20, 1801, John Marshall is appointed Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, arguably the most momentous decision in the history of US constitutional interpretation.

On This Date

January 19 is a day notable for premiers of masterpieces: in 1829 - Goethe's Faust Part I; in 1853 Verdi's opera Il Trovatore; and in 1893 Ibsen's The Master Builder.

On This Date

On January 18, 1943, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising began against the Nazis. Amazingly, the poorly armed and supplied Jews managed to hold their own for several months. The most significant part of the insurgency began in April and lasted nearly a month before finally being crushed by numbers, greater firepower, and evil.

On This Date

On January 17, 1961, US President Dwight Eisenhower, in a televised farewell address to the nation, three days before leaving office, warns of the rising power of the "military-industrial complex."

On This Date

On January 15, 1759, the British Museum, one of the world's outstanding museums, opened in London.

On This Date

On January 14, 1784, the Congress of the Confederation of United States ratified the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War.

On This Date

On January 13, 1898, the French writer Emile Zola published his famous letter,"J'accuse," in the French daily L'Aurore. Zola's letter exposed the Dreyfus Affair, in which a young Jewish officer was accused of treason for passing secrets to the Germans - a crime he did not commit. But he was railroaded by anti-semitic prosecutors and sent to Devil's Island. When the real culprit (a gentile) was identified, the Army sought to protect itself by suppressing the evidence against him and fabricating documents to point the finger at Dreyfus. Zola's brave letter (it was not fashionable to defend Jews at that time in France), though not the first publication to defend Dreyfus, garnered world-wide attention, which forced the case to be re-opened. After a second trial, which split public opinion between the openly anti-semitic media and the "Dreyfusards," including (in addition to Zola) Anatole France and Henri Poincare, Dreyfus finally was exonerated. A week later he was made a Knight in the Legion of Honour as a "soldier who has endured an unparalleled martyrdom." He went on to serve in World War I and finished his military career at the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.

On This Date

On January 12, 1915, legislation to create the Rocky Mountain National Park passed Congress. President Woodrow Wilson signed the bill into law on January 26. The park encompasses more than 1,000 square kilometers of Colorado's northern Front Range and hosts nearly 3 million visitors each year.