Russia's View of American History Podcast

Ivan Kurilla is a Professor of History and International Relations at the European University at St. Petersburg. He specializes in the history of the US–Russian relations, especially during American antebellum and Civil War period. He’s the author of Zaokeanskie partnery: Amerika i Rossiya v 1830-1850-e gody (Partners across the Ocean: The United States and Russia, 1830s–1850s). His scholarship in English includes “Abolition of Serfdom in Russia and American Newspaper and Journal Opinion” in New Perspectives on Russian-American Relations, edited by Norman Saul and Russian/Soviet Studies in the United States, Amerikanistika in Russia: Mutual Representations in Academic Projects, edited with Victoria Zhuraleva and published by Lexington Books.

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Observations of the 1006 Supernova by Ibn Sina (Avicenna)

An Arabic report about supernova SN 1006 by Ibn Sina (Avicenna)

Authors:

Neuhaeuser et al

Abstract:

We present here an Arabic report about supernova 1006 (SN 1006) written by the famous Arabic scholar Ibn Sina (Lat. Avicenna, AD 980-1037), which was not discussed in astronomical literature before. The short observational report about a new star is part of Ibn Sina's book called al-Shifa', a work about philosophy including physics, astronomy, and meteorology. We present the Arabic text and our English translation. After a detailed discussion of the dating of the observation, we show that the text specifies that the transient celestial object was stationary and/or tail-less ("a star among the stars"), that it "remained for close to three months getting fainter and fainter until it disappeared", that it "threw out sparks", i.e. it was scintillating and very bright, and that the color changed with time. The information content is consistent with the other Arabic and non-Arabic reports about SN 1006. Hence, it is quite clear that Ibn Sina refers to SN 1006 in his report, given as an example for transient celestial objects in a discussion of Aristotle's "Meteorology". Given the wording and the description, e.g. for the color evolution, this report is independent from other reports known so far.

The Long History of Little Green Men Tactics

In both Crimea and the subsequent fighting in the Donbas region of Ukraine, Russia’s signature tactic has been the use of so-called “Green Men,” soldiers without identifying insignia whose identity as Russian soldiers the Kremlin denied. Ukraine, Georgia, and even NATO members like Estonia now fear that they could be the next target for Russia’s Green Men. NATO, alarmed by the need to prepare for this unexpected tactic, has committed to develop new countermeasures to defend against this threat. Green Men, or deniable forces, are a central part of what has come to be called “hybrid warfare” in the “gray zone” between war and peace. All of this seems to be a new and innovative departure from traditional tactics, perhaps even a new model for conflict in the 21st century.

However, deniable forces are nothing new. Nor, in fact, is the specific phenomenon of using them to seize a piece of territory, as Russia did in Crimea. There is a long history of hybrid warfare in general and of intervening with deniable forces in particular. This history points not just to the enduring nature of the threat, but also to the contours of a “counter-hybrid” strategy to defeat it.

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The Economist Traces SIlicon Valley's Roots to Whaling in New Bedford, Massachusetts

New Bedford was not the only whaling port in America; nor was America the only whaling nation. Yet according to a study published in 1859, of the 900-odd active whaling ships around the world in 1850, 700 were American, and 70% of those came from New Bedford. The town’s whalers came to dominate the industry, and reap immense profits, thanks to a novel technology that remains relevant to this day. They did not invent a new type of ship, or a new means of tracking whales; instead, they developed a new business model that was extremely effective at marshalling capital and skilled workers despite the immense risks involved for both. Whaling all but disappeared as an industry after mineral oil supplanted whale oil as a fuel. But the business structures pioneered in New Bedford remain as relevant as they ever were. Without them, the tech booms of the 1990s and today would not have been possible.

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What did Africa's Ecosystem Look Like 1,000 Years ago?

A team of local scientists have wound back the clock by 1000 years to reconstruct wildlife populations across Africa to help us better understand how they have shaped the world we live in.

This is important, because to understand the ecology of Africa, and much of the rest of the globe, you have to include animals - and now we have the means to do so, says lead researcher Dr Gareth Hempson, postdoctoral researcher at School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences at Wits University.

Hempson, together with Professor Sally Archibald (Wits University) and Professor William Bond (University of Cape Town), has published a paper in Science, an international journal, titled: A continent-wide assessment of the form and intensity of large mammal herbivory in Africa.

"Animals matter and ecologists across the world are starting to realise that many ecosystems cannot be understood without including animals and their impact into their thinking," says Hempson.

"The problem is that in most places, natural wildlife populations are extinct. The challenge that we took up was to try and bring them back."

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Medieval Warm Period Wasn't. At Least in Greenland?

A new study questions the popular notion that 10th-century Norse people were able to colonize Greenland because of a period of unusually warm weather. Based upon signs left by old glaciers, researchers say the climate was already cold when the Norse arrived--and that climate thus probably played little role in their mysterious demise some 400 years later. On a larger scale, the study adds to building evidence that the so-called Medieval Warm Period, when Europe enjoyed exceptionally clement weather, did not necessarily extend to other parts of the world.

"It's becoming clearer that the Medieval Warm Period was patchy, not global," said lead author Nicolás Young, a glacial geologist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. "The concept is Eurocentric--that's where the best-known observations were made. Elsewhere, the climate might not have been the same." Climate scientists have cited the Medieval Warm Period to explain anomalies in rainfall and temperature in far-flung regions, from the U.S. Southwest to China. The study appears today in the journal Science Advances.

Norse, or Vikings, led by Erik the Red, first sailed from recently settled Iceland to southwestern Greenland around 985, according to Icelandic records. Some 3,000 to 5,000 settlers eventually lived in Greenland, harvesting walrus ivory and raising livestock. But the colonies disappeared between about 1360 and 1460, leaving only ruins, and a longstanding mystery as to what happened. The native Inuit remained, but Europeans did not re-inhabit Greenland until the 1700s.

The Greenlandic Vikings' apogee coincided with the Medieval Warm Period (also known as the Medieval Climate Anomaly), generally dated from about 950-1250; their disappearance followed the onset of the Little Ice Age, which ran from about 1300-1850. Both periods are firmly documented in European and Icelandic historical records. Thus, popular authors and some scientists have fixed on the idea that nice weather drew the settlers to Greenland, and bad weather froze and starved them. But there are no early historical climate records from Greenland. Recently, historians have proposed more complex factors in addition to, or instead of, climate: hostilities with the Inuit, a decline in ivory trade, soil erosion caused by the Vikings' imported cattle, or a migration back to Europe to farms depopulated by the Black Plague.

In the new study, the scientists sampled boulders left by advancing glaciers over the last 1,000-some years in southwest Greenland, and on neighboring Baffin Island, which the Norse may also have occupied, according to newly uncovered evidence. Glacial advances during the Little Ice Age have wiped out most evidence of where the glaciers were during the Norse settlement. But Young and his colleagues were able to find traces of a few moraines--heaps of debris left at glaciers' ends--that, by their layout, they could tell predated the Little Ice Age advances. Using newly precise methods of analyzing chemical isotopes in the rocks, they showed that these moraines had been deposited during the Viking occupation, and that the glaciers had neared or reached their later maximum Little Ice Age positions between 975 and 1275. The strong implication: it was at least as cold when the Vikings arrived as when they left. "If the Vikings traveled to Greenland when it was cool, it's a stretch to say deteriorating climate drove them out," said Young.

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What Were the The 774 and 993 AD Radiation Events

In the years 774 and 993 AD, the Earth was attacked from space.

Not by aliens, but by a natural event — and it was very, very powerful.

Whatever it was, it subtly altered the chemistry of our planet’s atmosphere, creating trace amounts of radioactive elements like chlorine-36, beryllium-10, and carbon-14. And those provide the clue to what the event was: Those isotopes are created when high-energy protons slam into our air. That means the source must have been from space.

These must have been huge waves of subatomic particles that slammed into us on those dates. Spikes in the abundances of those elements were found all over the world, including ice cores from the Arctic and Antarctic, Chinese corals, and more. Generating that many particles isn’t easy, and only extremely violent events can do it.

Several possible sources have been considered. One candidate is that the Earth got caught in the beam from a gamma-ray burst, the mind-crushingly powerful demise of a very high mass star. I wrote about this being the possible cause of the 774 event in an earlier article. However, GRB impacts don’t usually create 10Be due to the detailed physics of the blast, so that makes a GRB as the source shaky. Plus, they’re very rare events, so having two happen in as many centuries is extremely unlikely (I didn’t know about the 993 AD event when I wrote that article, or else I would’ve been a lot more likely to wonder about other sources).

New research studying the amounts of these radioactive materials in ice cores points to a different culprit, one I wouldn’t have thought possible: the Sun.

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Drought Map Chronicles Europe's Climate for the Last 2,000 Years

The long history of severe droughts across Europe and the Mediterranean has largely been told through historical documents and ancient journals, each chronicling the impact in a geographically restricted area. Now, for the first time, an atlas based on scientific evidence provides the big picture, using tree rings to map the reach and severity of dry and wet periods across Europe, and parts of North Africa and the Middle East, year to year over the past 2,000 years.

Together with two previous drought atlases covering North America and Asia, the Old World Drought Atlas significantly adds to the historical picture of long-term climate variability over the Northern Hemisphere. In so doing, it should help climate scientists pinpoint causes of drought and extreme rainfall in the past, and identify patterns that could lead to better climate model projections for the future. A paper describing the new atlas, coauthored by scientists from 40 institutions, appears today in the journal Science Advances.

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Studying a Korean Star Catalogue From 1396 AD

Study of the star catalogue (epoch AD 1396.0) recorded in ancient Korean astronomical almanac

Authors:

Jeon et al

Abstract:

The study of old star catalogues provides important astrometric data. Most of the researches based on the old star catalogues were manuscript published in Europe and from Arabic/Islam. However, the old star catalogues published in East Asia did not get attention. Therefore, among the East Asian star catalogues we focus on a particular catalogue recorded in a Korean almanac. Its catalogue contains 277 stars that are positioned in a region within 10° of the ecliptic plane. The stars in the catalogue were identified using the modern Hipparcos catalogue. We identified 274 among 277 stars, which is a rate of 98.9 per cent. The catalogue records the epoch of the stars’ positions as AD 1396.0. However, by using all of the identified stars we found that the initial epoch of the catalogue is AD 1363.1 ± 3.2. In conclusion, the star catalogue was compiled and edited from various older star catalogues. We assume a correlation with the Almagest by Ptolemaios. This study presents newly analysed results from the historically important astronomical data discovered in East Asia. Therefore, this star catalogue will become important data for comparison with the star catalogues published in Europe and from Arabic/Islam.

Boeing's Stealth Aircraft From the JFK Days Unveiled

There's a lot more on the other side of the link at Foxtrot Alpha.

May be of Historical Interest for Supercomputing Geeks & Groupies

This little pamphlet was given to me by a retiring coworker.

Network Theory Predicts Wars (or Lack Thereof?)

The study of modern history is currently undergoing a revolution. That is largely because historians are beginning to apply the ideas in network theory to the complex interactions that have forged our past.

There was a time when historians focused largely on events as the be all and end all of history. But in recent years, there has been a growing understanding that a complex network of links, alliances, trade agreements and so on play a hugely important role in creating an environment in which conflict (or peace) can spread.

An interesting open question in this regard is whether certain kinds of networks exist that are stable against the outbreak of war. Today, we get an answer thanks to the work of Matthew Jackson and Stephen Nei at Stanford University in California. These guys combine network theory and game theory to study the stability of different kinds of networks based on real-world data.

In particular, Jackson and Nai study the theoretical properties of networks consisting of countries that have military links and compared them to the properties of networks in which countries have both military and trade links.

Finally, they apply real data to their model. They combine international trade data with the well-known “Correlates of War” database to see how closely their predictions match those of real networks.

Jackson and Nei begin by considering a simple network of a handful of countries that can form military coalitions of various strengths. At the same time, each alliance must serve a purpose by helping to protect the countries involved so that the deletion of any alliance would make a country vulnerable. In this network, a country is vulnerable to attack if its coalition is weaker than its opponents’ coalition and the cost of a war is less than the benefit.

An interesting question is whether such a network can ever be stable against war. In other words, can the network exist in a way that no country is vulnerable to a successful attack by others and that no country can change alliances in a way that makes such an attack viable.

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The time frame's damping of wars had nothing to do with the spread of nuclear weapons.  Nope.  Not at all.

Files on J. Robert Oppenheimer Declassified

The U.S. Department of Energy has declassified documents related to a Cold War hearing for the man who directed the Manhattan Project that developed atomic bombs and was later accused of having communist sympathies.

The department last week released transcripts of the 1950s hearings on the security clearance of J. Robert Oppenheimer, providing more insight into the previously secret world that surrounded development of the atomic bomb.

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An Event Reported in 775 AD by al-Tabari may Support Impact

A transient event in AD 775 reported by al-Tabari: A bolide - not a nova, supernova, or kilonova

Authors:

Neuhaeuser et al

Abstract:

Given that the cause for the strong increase in 14C in AD 774/5 in Japanese and German trees is still a matter of debate (e.g. short Gamma-Ray Burst or solar super-flare), we have searched in Arabic chronicles for reports about unusual transient celestial events. In the {\em History of al-Tabari we found two (almost identical) reports about such an event. The group around caliph al-Mansur observed a transient event while on the way from Baghdad to Mecca on AD 775 Aug 29 - Sep 1 (Julian calendar), most probably during the morning twilight of AD 775 Aug 29. A celestial object kawkab was seen to fall or set inqadda, and its trace atharuhu was seen for at least tens of minutes (up to 70-90 min) during morning twilight. The reports use the Arabic words kawkab and athar(uhu), which were also used in the known Arabic reports about supernovae SN 1006 and 1054, so that one might consider an interpretation as a nova-like event. The kawkab (celestial object) was observed only during the morning twilight at a brightness of probably between about -3 and 0 mag. Such a brightness and time-scale would be expected for optical kilonovae (at 3 to 9 kpc) in the context of short Gamma-Ray Bursts. There are no similar reports from eastern Asia for this time. However, the short reports are fully consistent with a bolide: The word kawkab can be used for meteor, the verb inqadda normally means "falling down", the word atharuhu can mean "its trace". We therefore prefer the interpretation as bolide. We discuss in detail how to convert the Muslim calendar date to a date in the Julian calendar using first the calculated Islamic calendar and then considering the time when the crescent new moon could be visible at the given location.

Did a Superflare Cause the 775 AD Carbon Excursion?

A solar super-flare as cause for the 14C variation in AD 774/5 ?

Authors:

Neuhaeuser et al

Abstract:

We present further considerations regarding the strong 14C variation in AD 774/5. For its cause, either a solar super-flare or a short Gamma-Ray Burst were suggested. We show that all kinds of stellar or neutron star flares would be too weak for the observed energy input at Earth in AD 774/5. Even though Maehara et al. (2012) present two super-flares with 10e35 erg of presumably solar-type stars, we would like to caution: These two stars are poorly studied and may well be close binaries, and/or having a M-type dwarf companion, and/or may be much younger and/or much more magnetic than the Sun - in any such case, they might not be true solar analog stars. From the frequency of large stellar flares averaged over all stellar activity phases (maybe obtained only during grand activity maxima), one can derive (a limit of) the probability for a large solar flare at a random time of normal activity: We find the probability for one flare within 3000 years to be possibly as low as 0.3 to 0.008 considering the full 1 sigma error range. Given the energy estimate in Miyake et al. (2012) for the AD 774/5 event, it would need to be \sim 2000 stronger than the Carrington event as solar super-flare. If the AD 774/5 event as solar flare would be beamed (to an angle of only 24 deg), 100 times lower energy would be needed. A new AD 774/5 energy estimate by Usoskin et al. (2013) with a different carbon cycle model, yielding 4 or 6 time lower 14C production, predicts 4-6 times less energy. If both reductions are applied, the AD 774/5 event would need to be only 4 times stronger than the Carrington event in 1859 (if both had similar spectra). However, neither 14C nor 10Be peaks were found around AD 1859.

Chinese Text Translated to Suggest 775 AD Comet Impact Done Badly

The Chinese comet observation in AD 773 January

Authors:

Chapman et al

Abstract:

The strong 14C increase in the year AD 774/5 detected in one German and two Japanese trees was recently suggested to have been caused by an impact of a comet onto Earth and a deposition of large amounts of 14C into the atmosphere (Liu et al. 2014). The authors supported their claim using a report of a historic Chinese observation of a comet ostensibly colliding with Earth's atmosphere in AD 773 January. We show here that the Chinese text presented by those authors is not an original historic text, but that it is comprised of several different sources. Moreover, the translation presented in Liu et al. is misleading and inaccurate. We give the exact Chinese wordings and our English translations. According to the original sources, the Chinese observed a comet in mid January 773, but they report neither a collision nor a large coma, just a long tail. Also, there is no report in any of the source texts about "dust rain in the daytime" as claimed by Liu et al. (2014), but simply a normal dust storm. Ho (1962) reports sightings of this comet in China on AD 773 Jan 15 and/or 17 and in Japan on AD 773 Jan 20 (Ho 1962). At the relevant historic time, the Chinese held that comets were produced within the Earth's atmosphere, so that it would have been impossible for them to report a "collision" of a comet with Earth's atmosphere. The translation and conclusions made by Liu et al. (2014) are not supported by the historical record. Therefore, postulating a sudden increase in 14C in corals off the Chinese coast precisely in mid January 773 (Liu et al. 2014) is not justified given just the 230Th dating for AD 783 \pm 14.

Cryptocurrencies From a Historical Perspective

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has unparalleled powers over nearly every consumer financial product and service. Given that virtual currencies can serve as a form of electronic money, the CFPB has, predictably, decided to weigh in on this topic.

A CFPB statement this week warned people about the dangers of private digital currencies such as Bitcoin, XRP, and Dogecoin. It started perfectly reasonably, noting that:

In a nutshell, while virtual currencies offer the potential for innovation, a lot of big issues have yet to be resolved – some of which are critical. If you are interested in using or buying virtual currencies, you should be aware of the associated risks.

It went on to list several risks associated with digital currencies, such as hackers, limited investor protection, cost, and outright fraud.

Fair enough. There are certainly legitimate risks associated with using digital currencies, and potential users of these services should understand those risks.

But then the CFPB statement goes on to perpetuate one of the great myths of history:

But virtual currencies aren’t regular money. To begin with, virtual currencies are not issued or backed by the United States or any other government or central bank.

Makes you wonder how the US survived until 1913 without just one government-backed currency.

Richard Cordray, the CFPB’s Director, then piled on by adding: “Virtual currencies are not backed by any government or central bank, and at this point consumers are stepping into the Wild West when they engage in the market.”

Sadly, this resembles what people are taught in school: the US economy was a mess until the federal government finally delivered a single (official) US currency, thus ending the “Wild West” days when US citizens used multiple currencies.

But there’s a hitch. These taught “facts” are dead wrong.

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Visualizing Cultural Movement From 600 BC to Now

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Was There a Major Astronomical Event in 774-775 or 992-993 CE Over Asia?

Searching Signals in Chinese Ancient Records for the 14C Increases in AD 774-775 and in AD 992-993

Authors:

Chai et al

Abstract:

According to the analysis of the 14C content of two Japanese trees over a period of approximately 3000 years at high time resolution, Miyake (2012) found a rapid increase at AD 774-775 and later on at AD 992-993 (Miyake 2013). This corresponds to a high-energy event happened within one year that input γ-ray energy about 7×1024erg to the Earth, leaving the origin a mystery. Such strong event should have an unusual optical counterpart, and have been recorded in historical literature. We searched Chinese historical materials around AD 744-775 and AD 992-993, but no remarkable event was found except a violent thunderstorm in AD 775. However, the possibility of a thunderstorm containing so much energy is still unlikely. We conclude the event caused the 14C increase is still unclear. This event most probably has no optical counterpart, and short gamma-ray burst, giant flare of a soft gamma-ray repeater and terrestrial γ-ray flash may all be the candidates.

The Economics of the American Civil War

The Civil War has been something of an enigma for scholars studying American history. During the first half of the twentieth century, historians viewed the war as a major turning point in American economic history. Charles Beard labeled it “Second American Revolution,” claiming that “at bottom the so-called Civil War – was a social war, ending in the unquestioned establishment of a new power in the government, making vast changes – in the course of industrial development, and in the constitution inherited from the Fathers” (Beard and Beard 1927: 53). By the time of the Second World War, Louis Hacker could sum up Beard’s position by simply stating that the war’s “striking achievement was the triumph of industrial capitalism” (Hacker 1940: 373). The “Beard-Hacker Thesis” had become the most widely accepted interpretation of the economic impact of the Civil War. Harold Faulkner devoted two chapters to a discussion of the causes and consequences of the war in his 1943 textbook American Economic History (which was then in its fifth edition), claiming that “its effects upon our industrial, financial, and commercial history were profound” (1943: 340).

In the years after World War II, a new group of economic historians — many of them trained in economics departments — focused their energies on the explanation of economic growth and development in the United States. As they looked for the keys to American growth in the nineteenth century, these economic historians questioned whether the Civil War — with its enormous destruction and disruption of society — could have been a stimulus to industrialization. In his 1955 textbook on American economic history, Ross Robertson mirrored a new view of the Civil War and economic growth when he argued that “persistent, fundamental forces were at work to forge the economic system and not even the catastrophe of internecine strife could greatly affect the outcome” (1955: 249). “Except for those with a particular interest in the economics of war,” claimed Robertson, “the four year period of conflict [1861-65] has had little attraction for economic historians” (1955: 247). Over the next two decades, this became the dominant view of the Civil War’s role industrialization of the United States.

Historical research has a way of returning to the same problems over and over. The efforts to explain regional patterns of economic growth and the timing of the United States’ “take-off” into industrialization, together with extensive research into the “economics” of the slave system of the South and the impact of emancipation, brought economic historians back to questions dealing with the Civil War. By the 1990s a new generation of economic history textbooks once again examined the “economics” of the Civil War (Atack and Passell 1994; Hughes and Cain 1998; Walton and Rockoff 1998). This reconsideration of the Civil War by economic historians can be loosely grouped into four broad issues: the “economic” causes of the war; the “costs” of the war; the problem of financing the War; and a re-examination of the Hacker-Beard thesis that the War was a turning point in American economic history.

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