7 books to understand the US election [reading list]

As the US Election approaches, explore a few Very Short Introductions to help answer your questions. Get informed before the debates begin, with concise guides on a wide range of topics from American political parties to democracy. Whether you’re a first-time voter or a seasoned political enthusiast, these introductions will provide you with the essential knowledge you need to understand the issues at stake and make an informed decision.

Check out our VSIs for the upcoming election:

1. Elections: A Very Short Introduction

Most citizens know how elections work in their own country, but not all elections are created equally. Elections determine who will hold public office and who will have the power to govern. They allow citizens to choose who will make decisions on their behalf and regulate their behavior. 

Read Elections: A Very Short Introduction

2. American Political Parties and Elections: A Very Short Introduction

Few Americans and even fewer citizens of other nations understand the electoral process in the United States. Still fewer understand the role played by political parties in the electoral process or the ironies within the system. The third edition of American Political Parties and Elections: A Very Short Introduction provides an inside view of the paradoxical aspects of the American electoral system.

Read American Political Parties and Elections

3. The U.S. Supreme Court: A Very Short Introduction

For 30 years, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Linda Greenhouse chronicled the activities of the U.S. Supreme Court and its justices as a correspondent for the New York Times. In this Very Short Introduction, Greenhouse draws on her deep knowledge of the court’s history and of its written and unwritten rules to show readers how the Supreme Court really works. This third edition tracks the changes in the Court’s makeup over the past decade, including the landmark decisions of the Obama and Trump eras and the emergence of a conservative supermajority.

Read The U.S. Supreme Court: A Very Short Introduction

4. Democracy: A Very Short Introduction

Democracy refers to both ideal and real forms of government. The concept of democracy means that those governed—the demos—have a say in government. But different conceptions of democracy have left many out. Naomi Zack provides a fresh treatment of the history of this idea and its key conceptions.

Read Democracy: A Very Short Introduction

5. The American Presidency: A Very Short Introduction

The American founding fathers were dedicated to the project of creating a government that was both functional and incapable of devolving into tyranny. To do this, they intentionally decentralized decision-making among the legislative, executive, and judiciary branches. They believed this separation of powers would force compromise and achieve their goal of “separating to unify.” This updated edition reviews crucial themes, including democratization of presidential elections, transitioning into and organizing a presidency, challenges in leading the permanent government, making law and policy, and reforming and changing the institution.

Read The American Presidency: A Very Short Introduction

6. American Politics: A Very Short Introduction

American politics seems to grow more contentious and complicated by the day, and whether American democracy works well is hotly debated. Amidst all these roiling partisan arguments and confusing claims and counterclaims, there has never been a greater need for an impartial primer on the basics of the American political system.

Read American Politics: A Very Short Introduction

7. The U.S. Congress: A Very Short Introduction

Donald A. Ritchie, a congressional historian for forty years, takes readers on a fascinating, behind-the-scenes tour of Capitol Hill, pointing out the key players, explaining their behavior, and translating parliamentary language into plain English. He also explores the essential necessity of compromise to accomplish anything significant in the legislative arena. However, recent events show that political polarization has hardened and produced gridlock, as Ritchie explains in this new edition.

Read The U.S. Congress: A Very Short Introduction

_{Featured image by Philip Goldsberry via Unsplash.}

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The hidden and fraught development of an International Peace Architecture

The historical evolution of peace has led to the development of a substantial International Peace Architecture (IPA). This often-ignored architecture represents a wide set of frameworks, concepts, and methods, which span the balance of power, diplomacy, mediation, peacekeeping, civil society peacemaking, as well as development and peacebuilding. It also includes institutions and laws designed to prevent violence, end wars, and sustain a long-term peace based upon more than victory. The development of the IPA ultimately points to a peace with justice. Also of great significance have been social movements, civil society, and global networks of peace activists.

However, the IPA’s historical development has overall been very slow, hidden, and fraught. Its main historical stages or layers are now becoming clearer:

1. The ancient to medieval period

The ancient to the medieval period saw the development of the victor’s peace, wise governance to avoid war, truces and treaty-making to end wars, and the realization of the advantages of achievement of prosperity. It also saw a growing role for religious and social movements, which preached philosophical pluralism and pacifism.

2. The Enlightenment

The Enlightenment added a concern with domestic and international law and norms to govern state behaviour, the liberal social contract (the constitutional peace), social movements for anti-slavery, enfranchisement, disarmament and pacifism, labour movements, human rights, and free trade.

3. The modern period

Whilst the modern period saw these interests extend into social and gender issues, as well as equality and social justice (which is known as the civil peace) it also saw the emergence of international organizations, law, and conventions, forming an institutional peace. Other peace-related mechanisms also emerged in the context of decolonization and the collapse of the Soviet Union, including self-determination, development, aid, democratic peace, and trade. This became known as the liberal peace and appeared to some to represent the end of a long journey of political evolution.

To maintain the liberal peace, peacekeeping, various approaches to peacemaking, humanitarian intervention, liberal peacebuilding, development, and state-building were developed, along with processes of transitional justice, in post-conflict countries around the world. Over time all of these developments have coalesced into a comprehensive international peace architecture, complex, reactive, and fragmentary, but significant, nonetheless.

On the recent return of militarised authoritarian nationalism with Russia’s war in Ukraine in 2022, its apparent alliance with China and other regional powers, and with nationalist ideologies competing with Western versions of liberal peace, there are now major questions about whether the IPA remains adequate, however. There is also the question as to what version of peace and international order the global south might prefer, given that they were not fully supportive of the liberal peace model.

New agendas and the IPA

The older notion of a victor’s peace still plays an important role as a foundational layer of the IPA. Peacemaking and the complex machinery it requires has advanced considerably throughout history, even though it remains far from ideal. When confronted with transnational problems and political tensions which relate to inequality, environmental unsustainability, injustice, the arms trade, human trafficking, nuclear proliferation, urban conflict, and the use of new technologies, new agendas for peace are emerging.

As peace systems have become more complex, with new layers and tools being added as conflict, violence, and war evolve, they have also become more costly and require more political will to maintain.The liberal peace model of the twentieth century was a significant attempt to move beyond cruder versions of the victor’s peace, by focusing on democracy, human rights, development, and free trade, and placing the West as the leader of the IPA. This has provided the basis for the bulk of post-Enlightenment advances in peace thinking and practices. Similarly, an important layer of the IPA dealt with expanded (ECOSOC) rights after industrialized warfare ended in 1945 and decolonization thereafter. This was all consolidated in the most recent stage of the IPA, the liberal peacebuilding system (often now known as the Liberal International Order), after the end of the Cold War.

However, after failures in peacekeeping and peacebuilding across countries such as Somalia, Rwanda, and in the Balkans, and with the start of the War on Terror in the aftermath of 9/11, the IPA began to be dominated by a more limited neoliberal statebuilding framework in a new stage. This was applied in Afghanistan and Iraq, and failed to bring peace, justice, or stability. Given the failures in the 2010s and onwards in other cases such as Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Afghanistan, the next stage of the IPA is as yet undetermined. It must stabilize many frozen conflicts and open wars, from Syria to Ukraine, as well as deal with new phenomena and technologies in warfare (AI and automated weapons, proliferation of small arms and worse, hybrid warfare, urban violence, and more), as well as the older forces of nationalism, populism, inequality, authoritarianism, and environmental unsustainability.

Thus, a new layer of the IPA is now required to deal with new war and conflict dynamics, and to respond to widespread social demands for a form of peace more closely connected with justice. This process will probably not lead to a world government (to the disappointment of some liberal internationalists and the relief of others attuned to nationalism, political, and identity differences), but instead may indicate a world community made up of interlocking, pluralist, or “pluriversal” “peaces”: a “Grand Design” to quote the Duc de Sully (1560‒1641), a seventeenth-century philosopher. It may include different types of states, institutions, and norms, as well as new transnational and transversal networks that include official, civil, and social actors and groups. From a scholarly perspective, it would need to reaffirm that only cooperation, inclusivity, pluralism, and redistribution can maintain an ever-evolving IPA and thus a peaceful, just, and sustainable international order.

_{Featured image by Chris Liverani via Unsplash (public domain)}

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Nine new books to understand the Cold War [reading list]

This October marks the 60^th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a tense political and military standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War.

To mark the anniversary, we’re sharing some of our latest history titles on the Cold War for you to explore, share, and enjoy. We have also granted free access to selected chapters, for a limited time, for you to dip into.

1. The Cold War: A Very Short Introduction by Robert J. McMahon

The Cold War dominated international life from the end of World War II to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. But how did the conflict begin? Why did it move from its initial origins in post-war Europe to encompass virtually every corner of the globe? And why, after lasting so long, did the war end so suddenly and unexpectedly? Robert McMahon considers these questions and more, as well as looking at the legacy of the Cold War and its impact on international relations today.

Read a free chapter: From confrontation to détente, 1958–68 

2. Little Cold Warriors: American Childhood in the 1950s by Victoria M. Grieve

Both conservative and liberal Baby Boomers have romanticized the 1950s as an age of innocence—of pickup ball games and Howdy Doody, when mom stayed home, and the economy boomed. These nostalgic narratives obscure many other histories of postwar childhood, one of which has more in common with the war years and the sixties, when children were mobilized and politicized by the US government, private corporations, and individual adults to fight the Cold War both at home and abroad.

Read a free chapter: Introduction 

3. Imagining the World from Behind the Iron Curtain: Youth and the Global Sixties in Poland by Malgorzata Fidelis 

The Global Sixties are well known as a period of non-conformist lifestyles, experimentation with consumer products and technology, counterculture, and leftist politics. But contrary to public perception, the Iron Curtain was hardly a barrier against outside influences, and young people from students and hippies to mainstream youth in miniskirts and blue jeans saw themselves as part of the global community of like-minded people as well as citizens of Eastern Bloc countries.

Read: Imagining the World from Behind the Iron Curtain

4. News from Moscow: Soviet Journalism and the Limits of Postwar Reform by Simon Huxtable

News from Moscow is a social and cultural history of Soviet journalism after World War II. Focusing on the youth newspaper Komsomol’skaia Pravda, the study draws on transcripts of behind-the-scenes editorial meetings to chart the changing professional ethos of the Soviet journalist.

Read a free chapter: Introduction: Reformers and Propagandists 

5. The Human Factor: Gorbachev, Reagan, and Thatcher, and the End of the Cold War by Archie Brown

Why did the Cold War end when it did? Few questions have generated more heated debate over the course of the last three decades. Archie Brown, one of the foremost experts on the subject, shows why the popular view that Western economic and military strength left the Soviet Union with no alternative but to admit defeat is erroneous.

Read: The Human Factor, now new in paperback (UK edition | US edition)

6. Velvet Revolutions: An Oral History of Czech Society by Miroslav Vanek and Pavel Mücke

The Velvet Revolution in November 1989 brought about the collapse of the authoritarian communist regime in what was then Czechoslovakia, marking the beginning of the country’s journey towards democracy. Velvet Revolutions examines the values of everyday citizens who lived under so-called real socialism, as well as how their values changed after the 1989 collapse.

Read: Velvet Revolutions

7. Flowers Through Concrete: Explorations in Soviet Hippieland by Juliane Fürst

Flowers through Concrete takes readers on a journey into a world few knew existed: the lives and thoughts of Soviet hippies, who in the face of disapproval and repression created a version of Western counterculture, skilfully adapting, manipulating, and shaping it to their late socialist environment. As a quasi-guide into the underground hippieland, readers are situated in the world of hippies firmly in late Soviet reality and are offered an unusual history of the last Soviet decades as well as a case study in the power of transnational youth cultures.

Read: Flowers Through Concrete, now new in paperback

8. Race for Revival: How Cold War South Korea Shaped the American Evangelical Empire by Helen Jin Kim

In 1973, Billy Graham, “America’s Pastor,” held his largest ever “crusade.” But he was not, as one might expect, in the American heartland, but in South Korea. Why there? Race for Revival seeks not only to answer that question, but to retell the story of modern American evangelicalism through its relationship with South Korea. With the outbreak of the Korean War, the first “hot” war of the Cold War era, a new generation of white fundamentalists and neo-evangelicals forged networks with South Koreans that helped turn evangelical America into an empire.

Read a free chapter: Introduction 

9. Afghan Crucible: The Soviet Invasion and the Making of Modern Afghanistan by Elisabeth Leake

On 24 December 1979, Soviet armed forces entered Afghanistan, beginning an occupation that would last almost a decade and creating a political crisis that shook the world. To many observers, the Soviet invasion showed the lengths to which one of the world’s superpowers would go to vie for supremacy in the global Cold War. The Soviet war, and parallel covert American aid to Afghan resistance fighters, would come to be a defining event of international politics in the final years of the Cold War, lingering far beyond the Soviet Union’s own demise. Yet Cold War competition is only a small part of the story.

Read: Afghan Crucible

For more titles on the Cold War, visit our website.

_{Feature image: Fallout shelter sign by Burgess Milner. Public domain via Unsplash.}

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Can you match the famous opening line to the story? [Quiz]

Do you know your Austen from your Orwell? Consider yourself a literature whiz? Or do you just love a compelling story opening? Try out this quiz and see if you can match the famous opening line to the story and put your knowledge to the test. Good luck! 

If you want to find out more about the power of a good opening and other interesting storytelling techniques, check out The Short Story: A Very Short Introduction from our Very Short Introduction series. The “Openings” chapter is currently available to sample for free on the Oxford Academic platform. 

_{Featured image by Florian Klauer via Unsplash, public domain} 

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Four Very Short Introductions podcast episodes on the Classical world

Did “Ancient Greece” exist? Are all Epicureans decadent dandies? What do we really know about Alexander the Great? Explore the people, places, and philosophies of the Classical world through these four podcast episodes from the expert authors of our Very Short Introductions series.

Listen to the episodes—each under 15 minutes long—below or subscribe and listen to the Very Short Introductions podcast through your favourite podcast app.

1. Ancient Greece

“The title ‘Ancient Greece’ is, in a way, an obvious one but on the other hand it’s problematic. I sometimes – partly as a joke – say there was no such thing as ‘Ancient Greece.’”

In this episode, Paul Cartledge introduces Ancient Greece, a period of unmatched influence on the politics, philosophy, religion, and social relations of Western civilization.

Listen to Paul explain what is so problematic about our characterization of this diverse and sprawling era and how he set about tackling such a huge subject.

Or subscribe and listen to the “Ancient Greece” Very Short Introductions podcast episode on your favourite podcast app.

2. Homer

“As far as Homer is concerned, his identity has been the subject of much speculation.”

In this episode, Barbara Graziosi introduces “the Homeric question” and explains where we are, exactly, in the search for when, how, and by whom The Iliad and The Odyssey were composed.

Join Barbara as she investigates the contemporary and continued appeal of Homer’s tales, widely considered to be two of the most influential works in the history of western literature.

Or subscribe and listen to the “Homer” Very Short Introductions podcast episode on your favourite podcast app now.

3. Epicureanism

“The image of Epicureanism that comes to mind is of a rich dandy fussing over food—but all this is really off the mark. In fact, Epicureanism is a philosophy that covers every aspect of experience in a tightly integrated way and is explicitly critical of self-indulgent behaviour.”

In this episode, Catherine Wilson introduces the school of thought based on the teachings of Epicurus that promotes modest pleasure and a simple life—ideals that still hold relevance today.

Listen as Catherine dispels common misconceptions of Epicureanism and explores its “radical” theory and connections with the history and philosophy of science.

Or subscribe and listen to the “Epicureanism” Very Short Introductions podcast episode on your favourite podcast app.

4. Alexander the Great

“More accounts of his life survive from antiquity than any other figure from Ancient Greek history but the paradox is that we actually know much less about about Alexander than we think we do.”

In this episode, Hugh Bowden introduces Alexander the Great, a legendary figure whose legacy permeates modern culture but about whom we still have much to discover.

Join Hugh as he pieces together the evidence to build a picture of Alexander III of Macedon—the first person in western history to have been given the title “The Great.”

Or subscribe and listen to the “Alexander the Great” Very Short Introductions podcast episode on your favourite podcast app.

Want to learn more? Subscribe to The Very Short Introductions podcast and see where your curiosity takes you!

_{Featured image via pxhere.com, public domain}

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Four Very Short Introductions podcast episodes to get you thinking

What does atheism mean to you? Is logic ancient history? How is Calvinism changing the world? Put your thinking cap on, earbuds in, and get listening to our curated collection of Very Short Introductions podcast episodes for thinkers.

These four episodes—each under 15 minutes long—created by our expert authors offer bite-sized introductions to four big concepts: atheism, logic, secularism, and Calvinism.

Listen to the podcast episodes below or subscribe and listen to the Very Short Introductions podcast through your favourite podcast app.

1. Atheism

In this episode, lapsed Catholic, failed Methodist, and convinced atheist Julian Baggini introduces atheism, wrongly considered to be a negative, dark, and pessimistic belief characterized by a rejection of values and purpose and a fierce opposition to religion.

But if atheism is not religion’s inverse, what does it mean to be an atheist?

Listen to Julian explain the “historical accident” of atheism’s emergence in Western civilization and how we can understand atheist worldviews and beliefs.

Or subscribe and listen to the “Atheism” Very Short Introductions podcast episode on your favourite podcast app now.

2. Logic

“God, time and change, truth and existence, language and paradox… What I love about logic, personally, is the fact that it has these deep connections to profound philosophical questions.”

In this episode, Graham Priest introduces logic, an area which is often wrongly perceived as having little to do with the rest of philosophy and even less to do with real life.

Listen to Graham explain what exactly “logic” is, why it’s so integral to our everyday lives, and how he encapsulated this simultaneously ancient and modern subject in a Very Short Introduction.

Or subscribe and listen to the “Logic” Very Short Introductions podcast episode on your favourite podcast app now.

3. Secularism

“[Secularism] is about the state maximizing freedom of conscience, freedom of thought, freedom of religion or belief for everyone regardless of their religion or belief, up to—and only up to—the rights and freedoms of others.”

In this episode, academic and activist Andrew Copson introduces secularism, an increasingly hot topic in public, political, and religious debate across the globe that is more complex than simply “state versus religion.”

Listen to Andrew explain why we must not neglect secularism and why debating and discussing secularism is of pivotal importance for world civilization today.

Or subscribe and listen to the “Secularism” Very Short Introductions podcast episode on your favourite podcast app.

4. Calvinism

“Calvinism may seem arcane but in fact as recently as 2009, Time magazine chose Calvinism as one of 10 ideas that were changing the world. But that still may not mean people know a lot about it…”

In this episode, Jon Balserak introduces Calvinism, which has gone on to influence all aspects of contemporary thought, from theology to civil government, economics to the arts, and education to work.

Listen to Jon set out the character of Calvinist thought and offer critical assessment of it in this bite-sized introduction to the subject.

Or subscribe and listen to the “Calvinism” Very Short Introductions podcast episode on your favourite podcast app.

Want to learn more? Subscribe to The Very Short Introductions podcast and see where your curiosity takes you!

_{Featured image by Jusdevoyage on Unsplash, public domain}

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How well do you know Mary Shelley? [Quiz]

Mary Shelley was an English writer born in 1797. She is best known for her novel Frankenstein. But there’s much more to Shelley’s life than meets the eye. 

How well do you know Mary Shelley? Take this short quiz to find out and put your knowledge to the test. Good luck!

_{Featured image: by Sofia Ivarinen from Pixabay, public domain}

_{Quiz cover image: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley by Richard Rothwell (National Portrait Gallery via Wikimedia Commons, public domain)}

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Five books to celebrate British Science Week

British Science Week is a ten-day celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths, taking place between 11-20 March 2022. To celebrate, join in the conversation, and keep abreast of the latest in science, delve into our reading list. It contains five of our latest books on evolutionary biology, the magic of mathematics, artificial intelligence, and more.

1. The Parrot in the Mirror: How evolving to be like birds made us human

How similar are your choices, behaviours, and lifestyle to those of a parrot?

Discover how many of our defining human traits are far more similar to birds than to our fellow mammals in The Parrot in the Mirror, by Antone Martinho-Truswell. From our lifespans to our intelligence, our relationships and our language, we can learn a great deal about ourselves by thinking of the human species as “the bird without feathers.” In this insightful read, learn more about how parrots, specifically, are our biological mirror image; an evolutionary parallel to ourselves. And how they are the only species to share one particular human trait: spite.

Read The Parrot in the Mirror: How evolving to be like birds made us human.

To learn more about how, much like humans, the senses of animals are key to their survival, discover Secret Worlds: The extraordinary senses of animals, by Martin Stevens.

2. Mind Shift: How culture transformed the human brain

The mental capacities of the human mind far outstrip those of other animals. Our imaginations and creativity have produced art, music, and literature; built bridges and cathedrals; enabled us to probe distant galaxies, and to ponder the meaning of our existence. What makes the human brain unique, and able to generate such a rich mental life? In this book, John Parrington draws on the latest research on the human brain to show how it differs strikingly from those of other animals in its structure and function at a molecular and cellular level. And he argues that this “shift,” was driven by tool use, but especially by the development of one remarkable tool—language.

Read Mind Shift: How culture transformed the human brain.

You can also read Parrington blog on what neuroscience can tell us about the mind of a serial killer, as well as listening to his podcast on culture and the human brain.

3. Colliding Worlds: How cosmic encounters shaped planets and life

In Colliding Worlds, Simone Marchi explores the key role that collisions in space have played in the formation and evolution of our solar system, the development of planets, and possibly even the origin of life on Earth. Analysing our latest understanding of the surfaces of Mars and Venus, gleaned from recent space missions, Marchi presents the dramatic story of cosmic collisions and their legacies. You can also read his blog’s on the Earth’s wild years and the creative destruction of cosmic encounters, as well as his response to Netflix’s “Don’t Look Up!” satire, Do Look Up! Could a comet really kill us all?

Read Colliding Worlds: How cosmic encounters shaped planets and life.

To learn more, discover our Very Short Introductions series, including Planetary Systems, Climate Change, Evolution, Human Evolution, and The Animal Kingdom.

4. The Wonderful Book of Geometry: A mathematical story

How can we be sure that Pythagoras’s theorem is really true? Why is the “angle in a semicircle” always 90 degrees? And how can tangents help determine the speed of a bullet?

David Acheson takes the reader on a highly illustrated tour through the history of geometry, from ancient Greece to the present day. He emphasizes throughout elegant deduction and practical applications, and argues that geometry can offer the quickest route to the whole spirit of mathematics at its best. Along the way, we encounter the quirky and the unexpected, meet the great personalities involved, and uncover some of the loveliest surprises in mathematics.

Read The Wonderful Book of Geometry: A mathematical story.

Take a sneak peek inside, and listen to Acheson explain the magic of geometry.

5. Human-centered AI

Focusing not on the risks of AI, but on the opportunities it presents and how to capitalize on them, Ben Shneiderman puts forward 15 recommendations about how programmers, business leaders, educators, professionals, and policy makers can implement human-centered AI. Bridging the gap between ethical considerations and practical realities to make successful, reliable systems, Schneiderman provides a range of human-centered AI design metaphors to show ways to get beyond current limitations and see new design possibilities that empower people, giving humans control.

Read Human-centered AI.

To learn more, discover our What Everyone Needs to Know® series, including titles on Artificial Intelligence (and a blog post on What is Artificial Intelligence?), and Evolution.

As an added bonus, you can also read more on the topics of evolutionary biology, the magic of mathematics, and artificial intelligence with the Oxford Landmark Science series. Including “must-read” modern science and big ideas that have shaped the way we think, browse the series here:

You can also explore more titles via our extended reading list via Bookshop UK.

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The VSI podcast season three: ageing, Pakistan, slang, psychopathy, and more

The Very Short Introductions Podcast offers a concise and original introduction to a selection of our VSI titles from the authors themselves. From ageing to modern drama, Pakistan to creativity, listen to season three of the podcast and see where your curiosity takes you!

Ageing

In this episode, Nancy A. Pachana introduces ageing, an activity with which we are familiar from childhood, and the lifelong dynamic changes in biological, psychological, and social functioning associated with it.

Listen to “Ageing” (episode 43) via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app.

Pakistan

In this episode, Pippa Virdee introduces Pakistan, one of the two nation-states of the Indian sub-continent that emerged in 1947 but has a deep past covering 4,000 years.

Listen to “Pakistan” (episode 42) via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app.

Henry James

In this episode, Susan Mizruchi introduces American author Henry James, who created a unique body of fiction that includes Daisy Miller, The Portrait of a Lady, and The Turn of the Screw.

Listen to “Henry James” (episode 41) via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app.

Secularism

In this episode, Andrew Copson introduces secularism, an increasingly hot topic in public, political, and religious debate across the globe that is more complex than simply “state versus religion.”

Listen to “Secularism” (episode 40) via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app.

Demography

In this episode, Sarah Harper introduces demography, the study of people, which addresses the size, distribution, composition, and density of populations, and considers the impact certain factors will have on both individual lives and the changing structure of human populations.

Listen to “Demography” (episode 39) via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app.

Psychopathy

In this episode, Essi Viding introduces psychopathy, a personality disorder that has long captured the public imagination. Despite the public fascination with psychopathy, there is often a very limited understanding of the condition, and several myths about psychopathy abound.

Listen to “Psychopathy” (episode 38) via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app.

Modern drama

In this episode, Kirsten Shepherd-Barr introduce modern drama, the tale of which is a story of extremes, testing both audiences and actors to their limits through hostility and contrarianism.

Listen to “Modern drama” (episode 37) via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app.

Slang

In this episode, Jonathon Green introduces slang. Slang has been recorded since at least 1500 AD, and today’s vocabulary, taken from every major English-speaking country, runs to over 125,000 slang words and phrases.

Listen to “Slang” (episode 36) via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app.

Creativity

In this episode, Vlad Glăveanu introduces creativity, a term that emerged in the 19th century but only became popular around the mid-20th century despite creative expression existing for thousands of years.

Listen to “Creativity” (episode 35) via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app.

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Engineering a new capitalism for the 21st century

Former Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney has observed that society has, unfortunately, come to embody Oscar Wilde’s old aphorism: “knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing.” There is a growing consensus that values should include all forms of capital—natural, human, and social as well as the financial. Unfortunately, modern liberal capitalism pays little heed, and the obsession with profit crowds out other motivations, making the world a more selfish place and less resilient. Our economic system is dominated by the assumption that people want to maximise utility (the amount of satisfaction or fulfilment that a consumer receives through the consumption of a specific good or service) with least effort, and that no-one works except for a reward. This hollow vision is debilitating. Carney’s seven key values are: solidarity, fairness, responsibility, resilience, sustainability, dynamism, and humility—all with compassion. His vital components of any good society are fairness between the generations, in the distribution of income and of life chances. Economics should be about increasing social well-being, but instead it is obsessed with market pricing. Nevertheless, there are glimpses of hope. The imperative of climate change is forcing us to change through, for example, the “green” agenda. Here I want to put the case for a re-examination of the moral fundamentals of our value systems to build a new form of capitalism needed to address twenty-first-century challenges such as climate change. 

But why is this an engineering issue? Engineering and technology were a major driver of the first English Industrial Revolution. Now they drive the information revolution. Since technical development is integral to our economic and political systems, engineers have a duty to help change the ways in which we account those forms of capital that are currently not properly considered. I propose that we follow the suggestions of Tom Settle, outlined in his 1976 text In search of a third way, to develop a “principled capitalism” to replace liberal capitalism. He argues that moral principles should be driving our individual and collective decisions rather than utility and profit.

Prior to the agricultural and industrial revolutions, raw materials, land or space, and labour were goods not commodities. Then Britain changed from a society with markets to a market society, which we now know as capitalism, and goods became commodities. We should think of “goods” as opposite to “bads,” for example the feelings we get when we do something fulfilling—they have experiential value. Commodities, on the other hand, can be traded and have an exchange value or price—worth in exchange for something else. Consequently, today we tend to treat anything that has no price as worthless. Nowhere is this truer than in economic accounting. We seem not to recognise that attempts to treat goods as commodities will eventually fail. For example, less blood is collected in countries where people are paid, than in countries where people donate it freely. In recent times we have turned more and more of our products into commodities—even a mother’s womb. The “green agenda” is also taking this approach by, for example, allocating financial values to biodiversity data.

Tom Settle sees utilitarianism (consumer satisfaction) as telling us what we ought to do but not why. It is egoistic in that it treats self-interest as the foundation of morality. It is based on Adam Smith’s concept of the invisible hand—a force that brings a free market to equilibrium with levels of supply and demand by actions of self-interested individuals. The influential economist John Maynard Keynes did not totally reject this but believed that the only way out of an economy struggling with a recession (as in the early twentieth century) is government intervention. For an economy to come out of recession and boost aggregate demand, Keynes prescribed government expenditure expansion to achieve full employment and price stability. Friedrich Hayek argued that this would result in inflation and that money supply would have to be increased by the central bank to keep levels of unemployment low, which would in turn keep increasing inflation. The debates continue about levels of government interventions.

Settle suggests a theory of human nature based on five key integrated ingredients: rationality, autonomy, emotionality, sociality, and obligation. For example, sympathy and benevolence are impossible without emotion and directionless without rationality. He proposes replacing egoistic assumptions with a theory of categorical obligation—one in which obligation is not instrumental but absolute or unconditional to promote the public good. Politics should not be the art of the expedient but the art of promoting the public good. I have been developing this idea in my recent academic work, making analogies between gravitational and electromagnetic fields of forces and fields of human obligation interactions. An “obligation” is defined as an underived unit of “stuff” analogous to gravitational “mass” or electromagnetic “charge” in a field of interacting processes. Obligations are not for trading, so I propose that we measure them by voting as the best means we have for exercising power for the common good in a liberal democracy. In market trading, effectively the number of votes you have depend upon your wealth—the more you buy, the greater the weight of your opinion. The votes of shareholders will never protect those whose homes are affected by extremes of weather due to climate change when profit is their only motive. Obligations are too important for trading (but can be discharged), so deciding who votes for what is a political issue.   

Engineering is traditionally identified as making things that work and making them work better or the art and science of practical applications to construct engines, bridges, etc. In a society based on “principled capitalism” both engineering and economics would be redefined as “helping life on earth to flourish” in their respective disciplines. It would help to reorient us to manage our changing climate and make respect for each other a central plank for our thinking, and, ultimately, prioritising social need over private profit will make us more resilient.

^{Featured image by Chris Briggs on Unsplash}

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The VSI podcast season two: Homer, film music, consciousness, samurai, and more

The Very Short Introductions Podcast offers a concise and original introduction to a selection of our VSI titles from the authors themselves. From Homer to film music, the Gothic to American business history, listen to season two of the podcast and see where your curiosity takes you!

Homer

In this episode, Barbara Graziosi introduces Homer, whose mythological tales of war and homecoming, The Iliad and The Odyssey, are widely considered to be two of the most influential works in the history of western literature.

Listen to “Homer” (episode 25) via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app.

Calvinism

In this episode, Jon Balserak introduces Calvinism, which has gone on to influence all aspects of contemporary thought, from theology to civil government, economics to the arts, and education to work.

Listen to “Calvinism” (episode 26) via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app.

Canada

In this episode, Donald Wright introduces Canada, a country of complexity and diversity, which isn’t one single nation but three: English Canada, Quebec, and First Nations.

Listen to “Canada” (episode 27) via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app.

Film music

In this episode, Kathryn Kalinak introduces film music, which began as an accompaniment to moving pictures and is now its own industry, providing a platform for expressing creative visions and a commercial vehicle for growing musical stars of all varieties.

Listen to “Film music” (episode 28) via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app.

American immigration

In this episode, David Gerber introduces immigration, one of the most contentious issues in the United States today which has shaped contemporary American life and fuels strong, divisive debate.

Listen to “American immigration” (episode 29) via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app.

Consciousness

In this episode, Susan Blackmore introduces the last “great mystery for science”—consciousness and the questions it poses for free will, personal experience, and the link between our mind and body.

Listen to “Consciousness” (episode 30) via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app.

Samurai

In this episode, Michael Wert introduces samurai, whose influence in society and presence during watershed moments in Japanese history are often overlooked by modern audiences.

Listen to “Samurai” (episode 31) via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app.

The Gothic

In this episode Nick Groom introduces the Gothic, a wildly diverse term which has a far-reaching influence across culture and society, from ecclesiastical architecture to cult horror films and political theorists to contemporary fashion.

Listen to “The Gothic” (episode 32) via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app.

The animal kingdom

In this episode, Peter Holland introduces the animal kingdom and explains how our understanding of the animal world has been vastly enhanced by analysis of DNA and the study of evolution and development in recent years.

Listen to “The animal kingdom” (episode 33) via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app.

American business history

In this episode, Walter A. Friedman introduces American business history and its evolution since the early 20th century when the United States was first described as a “business civilization.”

Listen to “American business history” (episode 34) via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app.

Subscribe to The Very Short Introductions Podcast and never miss an episode!

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“The Real America”: immigration and American identity

A new, in both tone and aspirations, presidential administration has taken office in the United States, and the prospect for significant change in the approach to immigration, one of the hot button issues advanced by President Donald Trump, is present at its inception. No issue inflamed Trump’s base more than illegal immigration and the apparent indifference of immigration advocates to the law-breaking it represented for them. The advocates for undocumented residents have argued that a lack of visas aside, immigrants work, pay taxes, and often own property, so give them legal status, and let them and the nation move on. Under President Barack Obama, advocacy on behalf of the Dreamers, those residents illegally brought to the United States as children by undocumented parents, made the issue yet more complicated. American life is the only one these individuals know, would they be put at risk of being forced to return to countries they, unlike their parents, have never known? The deep, abiding polarization of public opinion on these questions and other immigration issues has been reflected in Congress. In the vacuum, Trump governed by presidential decrees and he governed harshly but now the Democrats control Congress and the presidency. With that power, Biden got to work immediately on immigration policy, and he focused among his most attention-grabbing recommendations on a general amnesty and path to citizenship (and an expedited path for Dreamers) for the approximately 11 to 12 million unauthorized immigrants living in the country.

Biden is a combination of qualities we have seen before in successful American political leaders and over many decades in politics he has revealed himself to be a decent, sincere, and plain-spoken man. He is a tough-minded pragmatist and a skilled compromiser—right up to the moment you challenge him—then you see his firm resolve and how far he will go to defend what he believes is right. One of the expressive symbols of Biden’s public discourse is the repeated reference to “the real America,” which mirrors his own aspirations: to be big-hearted, open, and generous.

The four years of Donald Trump’s presidency bulk especially large as a challenge to Biden’s “real America.” Indeed, to embrace the mindset that the liberal vision advances, one has to explain away a great deal that has always contradicted it. One of the standard discursive strategies for doing so is to acknowledge contradictions, but explain them away by saying those who represent the arc of injustice and intolerance, in contrast to Dr King’s resonant arc of justice, are marginal people and extremists who do not represent the ideological mainstream. They have no permanent place in American life. It’s a comforting idea, but history illustrates a different reality. Father Charles Coughlin, the Roman Catholic priest who blamed the Great Depression on Jews, had millions of people in his radio audience on Sundays and violent mobs mobilized in his name. It is not a stretch to find the same voice in the violent mob of racists, xenophobes, and conspiracy-minded fantasists who mobilized to attack the United States Capitol Building on 6 January 2021. In the 19th century, there was a legion of racist political demagogues, lynch mobs and night riders terrorized southern blacks, and mobs of white working men attacked Chinese immigrants in California. How marginal can a phenomenon be that is represented, in one guise or another, repeatedly throughout American history?

This, too, is “the real America,” and Americans must face the fact that it is part of us, the Janus-faced reality of American identity. To be sure, no one can honestly claim that the deep, abiding divisions in the response to immigration and the related diversification of the population are only about a battle between good and evil. One can be against an open and expansive immigration system and not be a bigot or a racist or insensitive to the aspirations of those who are poor, oppressed, and desire to come to the United States in hopeful anticipation of a secure and stable life. The problem for Biden is that at the most responsible and plausible, the moral arguments for and against an expansive immigration regime cancel one another out in the minds of the debating parties. Exclude the ample numbers of bitter-end racists, armed militias that patrol the southern border, and instinctual xenophobes from the debate, and you still have millions on both sides who can struggle to opposite conclusions on the value of homogeneity versus the value of heterogeneity. At bottom, the contending opinions mirror that Janus-face of American identity: cosmopolitan or wary, embracing change in the composition of the population or abhorring it. There has never been one America when it comes to immigration law and policy. Cycles of generous expansion of the numbers of immigrants and refugees fluctuate with cycles of contraction and quotas, when the dominant national mood is “Enough is enough!” and threads of racist and xenophobic opinion do thread their way throughout mainstream discourse. The fact racists and xenophobes may be the descendants of immigrants, as so many Americans are, makes for a bitter irony, but it doesn’t change their opinions, if they believe their ancestors were worthy and the new immigrants that they see around them somehow are not.

If Biden is to succeed in convincing the other “real America,” he is probably not going to do so advancing notions of decency and generosity. He may begin by proving to people that immigration is good for the country and hence for them too. The arguments on behalf of immigration are strong. Immigrants, even illegal ones, pay taxes that pay for social programs; immigrants manifest a strong work ethic, seek to acquire property, and get their children educated, and the legally situated ones commit fewer crimes than native-born Americans do. (It is harder, of course, to know about crime among the illegally situated by the nature of their shadow existence.) But you are likely to be more effective if you prove that immigrants aren’t taking jobs away from Americans and depressing wage scales, a matter on which there is abiding debate among economists. At a time of rapidly accelerating inequality and contraction of the middle class, people who feel financially insecure are especially animated when it comes to these economic discussions. Biden faces a difficult task, not only in ideological terms, but in maintaining a diverse coalition of races and ethnic groups and expanding it so that his party maintains its fragile control of Congress. Which of these real Americas emerges in the third decade of the 21st century will determine the course the nation follows in immigration reform.

Featured image by Kelly Sikkema

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25 years of Very Short Introductions: listen to the anniversary podcast series

In 2020 we are proud to be celebrating the 25th anniversary of our Very Short Introductions. The series was launched in 1995 with Mary Beard and John Henderson’s Classics: A Very Short Introduction, and since then we have published over 600 titles in the series, showcasing introductions to a wide range of topics such as arts and humanities, social sciences, and science—covering everything from environmental ethics to Chaucer. The series is continually growing with new titles on the American South, silent film, and enzymes recently added to the series.

“The best Very Short Introductions will educate general readers, students, and academics alike. Speaking for my fellow academics, I have not been surprised to find how many of us esteem them as handy and reliable introductions to subjects on the more distant horizons of our professional knowledge.” —Jane Caplan, The American Historical Review

The series has evolved to include Very Short Introductions Online and now The Very Short Introductions Podcast to mark the series anniversary. The Very Short Introductions Podcast offers a concise and original introduction by our Very Short Introductions authors to a variety of dynamic topics, with episodes on The Middle Ages, fashion, globalization and more, for wherever your curiosity may take you.

Here are just a few of the latest podcast episodes on our VSI titles:

Episode 12: Synaesthesia

In this episode, VSI author Julia Simner introduces synaesthesia, a neurological condition that gives rise to a ‘merging of the senses’, in which words can be tasted and colours can be heard.

Listen to the podcast episode via Apple, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app.

Episode 8: Branding

In this episode, VSI author Robert Jones introduces possibly the most powerful commercial and culture force globally–branding–which, despite brand awareness and skepticism, holds an inescapable influence on our lives.

Listen to the podcast episode via Apple, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app.

Episode 13: Atheism

In this episode, VSI author Julian Baggini introduces atheism, wrongly considered to be a negative, dark, and pessimistic belief characterized by a rejection of values and purpose and a fierce opposition to religion.

Listen to the podcast episode via Apple, Spotify, or your favourite podcast app.

You can find out how to listen and subscribe to The Very Short Introductions Podcast here.

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A change in Brazil’s national populist government

As we approach 15 November, a national holiday marking the end of the Brazilian Empire and proclamation of the Brazilian Republic in 1889, and also a day of municipal elections, many Brazilians may be contemplating what has happened to their country and where it might be heading.

In October 2018 a national populist candidate, Jair Bolsonaro, won the presidency by campaigning on the slogan “Brazil above everything, God above everyone.” Bolsonaro is populist in the sense described by the political scientists Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser: he embodies a world view “that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogenous and antagonistic camps, `the pure people’ versus `the corrupt elite,’ and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté général (general will) of the people.” An obscure member of Congress for 27 years and a former army captain, Bolsonaro used social media, especially Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp, to win the country’s highest office. His untraditional and Trump-inspired campaign channeled the Brazilian public’s frustration with an enormous government corruption scandal and the established political parties, as well as disillusionment with the governments of the centre-left Workers’ Party, which had controlled the presidency from 2003 to 2016.

Bolsonaro offers the usual tropes of national populists—religious nationalism, illiberalism, cultural conservatism, the exaltation of the armed forces (many retired and active-duty members serve in his government), a reverence for the patriarchal family, aggressive anti-Communism, and attacks on globalism and multilateralism, as well as criticism of the mainstream media and its “fake news.” However, in at least two respects he is different from most of his counterparts, who tend to rely on strong party machines and espouse economic protectionism. Bolsonaro has no political party, having fallen out with the colleagues with whom he temporarily allied in the 2018 election. He also campaigned on the promise of implementing ultra-neoliberal economic policies, appointing a University of Chicago alumni, Paulo Guedes, to be his “super minister” of the economy. Guedes pledged to downsize the state, lighten the tax burden, privatize state-owned firms, flexibilize labour markets, and achieve rapid economic growth through neoliberal shock therapy.

That has not happened. Bolsonaro’s government spent much of 2019 enacting a reform of the public pension system in order to halt the growth of the fiscal deficit. Most of the rest of the neoliberal package, including a reform of the tax system, was not implemented. This year the coronavirus pandemic has hit Brazil hard, in part because of President Bolsonaro’s cavalier dismissal of the disease and his refusal to use the federal government to coordinate the public health response in states and municipalities. The country has the second highest number of COVID-19 deaths in the world behind the United States, with over 140,000 deaths officially recorded (at time of post publication; see John Hopkins University COVID-19 dashboard). Many people in crowded low-income neighbourhoods in urban peripheries have found it difficult to self-isolate, and the government was induced to pay an emergency income supplement to the poor of R$600 (about £90) per month for three months, and then extended it for two more months in August and September. The income support now reaches 65 million beneficiaries, or more than 30% of the population of roughly 210 million, and the Bolsonaro administration has proposed to continue it until December at half of its initial value.

In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic and the collapse of the economy, neoliberal shock therapy—which was never seriously attempted in 2019—was abandoned. The fiscal deficit, which the super-minister Paulo Guedes promised to reduce to zero in his first year, has ballooned. Gross national debt is expected to reach 93.5% of GDP, the economy could shrink by up to 6% this year, and the official unemployment rate is over 13%.

However, despite the economic and public health disasters, President Bolsonaro has discovered the political benefits of directly supporting the incomes of the poor in a country in which the average wage is only £330 per month. His approval rating reached 40%, the highest level of his presidency, in a CNI poll of 2,000 voters conducted on 17-20 September 2020. The emergency supplement does not explain all of this rise, but it accounts for some of it, and the President has picked much of his new support in the impoverished north and northeast of the country. It may be that President Bolsonaro has decided that neoliberalism is not essential to his national populist movement, and that he can compensate for loss of support amongst higher-income groups with an increase in support amongst the more numerous poor. Just as the anti-corruption plank of his platform was muted with the resignation in April 2020 of his Minister of Justice, former federal judge Sérgio Moro, and revelations of the investigation of possible corruption on the part of his son Flávio Bolsonaro when he was a Rio state legislator, neoliberalism may prove to be a disposable element of this government.

President Bolsonaro’s rule and his movement are likely to go through further changes. If President Trump of the USA fails to secure re-election on 3 November, that could weaken Bolsonaro’s support base. The November municipal elections could see the ascension to office of a raft of opponents of Bolsonaro who articulate widespread indignation at the president’s handling of the coronavirus crisis and his style of rule. Looking farther ahead, the bicentennial of Brazil’s independence in 2022 will probably coincide with President Bolsonaro’s attempt to secure his own re-election. At that point Brazilians will discover whether an incumbent saying “Brazil above everything, God above everyone” can win a second term.

Featured image by Sergio Souza from Unsplash

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The history of Canada Day

Because they raise difficult questions about who we are and who we want to be, national holidays are contested. Can a single day ever contain the diversity and the contradictions inherent in a nation? Is there even a “we” and an “us”?

Canada Day is no exception. Celebrated on 1 July, it marks the anniversary of Confederation in 1867. For the longest time the holiday was known as Dominion Day, an occasion for cities and towns across the country to host picnics and excursions where people played games and local notables delivered earnest speeches. They touted Canada’s natural wealth and extolled the virtues of the British Empire, referring to Canada as the eldest daughter of the Empire and as the gem in the Crown. At the 1891 Dominion Day celebrations in Toronto, children waved maple leaves and sang “Rule Britannia.”

Despite the effort to fashion a “we,” there was never an “us.” After all, Quebec didn’t share English Canada’s enthusiasm for the Empire, making its Dominion Day celebrations more muted. Its national holiday was – and still is – 24 June, Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day. Meanwhile, in the interwar years, the Chinese community in British Columbia turned Dominion Day into Chinese Humiliation Day to highlight racist laws that restricted Chinese immigration to Canada and denied Chinese Canadians the right to vote.

After the Second World War, as the Empire ended and as Canada redefined itself along bilingual and multicultural lines, “dominion” took on new meanings. Against the backdrop of Quebec separatism and the assertion by Canadians who were neither French nor British that they too deserved a seat at the table, it now connoted Canada’s colonial status.

Nonsense, said a handful of historians. Dominion was a very Canadian word, referring to the Dominion of Canada. Inspired by Psalm 72 – “He shall have dominion also from sea to sea” – and carefully chosen by the Fathers of Confederation, it was a new title, unlike, say, Kingdom, a much older title. But as Lord Carnarvon explained to Queen Victoria, it conferred “dignity.”

Dignified or not, dominion was slowly erased from official nomenclature by successive governments. When the Dominion Bureau of Statistics was renamed Statistics Canada in 1971, one historian wondered if the government intended to remove dominion from the phone book. Ten years later, his suspicion was confirmed when the government of Pierre Trudeau re-named Canada’s national holiday.

The debate – in hindsight, a foregone conclusion – pitted old nationalists against new nationalists, or Red Ensign nationalists who emphasized Canada’s Britishness against Maple Leaf nationalists seeking to accommodate Canada’s bilingual and multicultural realities. Familiar arguments were rehashed. To its proponents, dominion had a rich history, while its Biblical origins were a statement of God’s omnipotence and a reminder of Canada’s status as a Christian country. But to its opponents, it had run its course. To quote one cabinet minister, “Canadians see themselves not as citizens of a Dominion – with its suggestion of control, dominance, and colonialism – but as citizens of a proud and independent nation.” Besides, he said, dominion can’t be easily translated into French. And with that, Parliament amended the Holidays Act in July 1982 to rename Dominion Day as Canada Day.

Like the statues coming down and the buildings being renamed, Dominion Day never stood a chance: although it could draw on the past, it couldn’t point to the future. Canada Day, however, was capacious, meaning different things to different people: freedom, tolerance, equality, diversity, and security. As one member of Parliament explained, “We are all minority groups. Canada is a nation of minorities.”

He was right, of course. But thinking about Canada Day in this moment of renewed focus on race and racism – when countless voices insist that Black Lives Matter and Indigenous Lives Matter, when interactions between police and black people and indigenous people can go horribly wrong, and when politicians struggle to find the right note – I am reminded that “we” and “us” are elusive, if not impossible, and that some Canadians are more minority than other Canadians.

Featured Image Credit: ElasticComputeFarm

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Re-reading Camus’s The Plague in pandemic times

Sometime in the 1940s in the sleepy colonial city of Oran, in French occupied Algeria, there was an outbreak of plague. First rats died, then people. Within days, the entire city was quarantined: it was impossible to get out, and no one could get in.

This is the fictional setting for Albert Camus’s second most famous novel, The Plague (1947). And yes, there are some similarities to our current situation with the coronavirus. 

First, the denials by those in positions of power. Doctor Rieux, the main character (who turns out to be the narrator) confronts the authorities who reluctantly agree to form an official sanitary commission to deal with the outbreak. The prefect insists on discretion, however, for he is convinced it is a false alarm, or as some would say today, fake news! It is not difficult to hear the echoes of the initial reactions in China and in some parts of the US media landscape regarding the coronavirus.  

In between patient visits, Rieux reflects that though calamities are fairly frequent historical occurrences, they are hard to accept when they happen to us, in our lifetimes. This is the story of placid everyday lives lived as routines that are suddenly, brutally disrupted by a virus: an existential reminder of the arbitrariness of life and the certainty and randomness of death.  The temptation of denial is a powerful one, both in the book and today with the emergence of the coronavirus.  

With the city gates of Oran closing and everyone collectively thrown into interior exile, the gravity of the situation becomes impossible to deny. Families and couples are separated, food rationed and consequently a black market emerges – this reminds us of the run on hospital masks and sanitizing gel in the US, formerly cheap, readily available products, now increasingly sought-after commodities.

As we know, Camus conceived his novel as an allegory for the German Occupation of France from 1940 to 1944, during which families were separated due to the division of the country in two zones, one occupied, one nominally free. In short, the plague is the stand-in for the Germans. 

Here with the coronavirus, the challenge resides not in decoding an allegory, but rather in finding out what the pandemic reveals. In other words, what can a genuine global medical crisis tell us about what is fictional or hidden in our lives?

Paradoxically, in these times of self-imposed exiles, school closings and quarantines, the coronavirus tells us about a different kind of globalization. We have now learned that China manufactures most of our medications and medical supplies – not only our consumer goods – and suddenly emerges in our mind the figure of a Chinese worker making our antibiotics and the like: this leads to the stark realization that our survival depends on hers; it is a collective enterprise. We are in it together. This could be the best thing that comes out of the current pandemic.

Feature image: Béchar, Algeria c. 1943 by John Atherton. CC BY-SA 2.0 via Flickr.

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The impeachment illusion

The best barometer of political anger is how often the word “impeachment” appears in news stories, editorials, and Congressional rhetoric. These days, the references have grown exponentially, despite the House Speaker’s efforts to keep her members focused on legislation.

The constitutional definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors” is vague enough to have encouraged members of Congress to raise it repeatedly against judges, cabinet officers, and presidents of the United States. At times, just the threat of impeachment has been enough to encourage recalcitrant agency heads to release documents being held back from Congress or resign from office.

The Constitution’s requirement of nothing more than a majority vote for the House to impeach has made it an enticing illusion for angry members, who may forget that impeachment is an indictment, not a conviction. Senators must then sit as a trial to weigh the evidence and cast a two-thirds vote to remove anyone from office. Do the political math: a partisan vote in the House will not produce a bipartisan vote in the Senate.

Consequently, history records few instances of impeachments that successfully removed federal officials. Early in the nineteenth century, Jeffersonians had ample cause to be angry with the Federalists for packing the federal courts with judges likely to oppose them. But the Senate’s failure to convict Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase in 1804 set a precedent against impeaching judges for their political views.

Radical Republicans were justifiably furious with President Andrew Johnson for undermining their policies for postwar Reconstruction and protection of the freedmen. They also had good reason to believe they could succeed, since they held a two-thirds majority in the Senate. But fear of weakening the presidency led seven Republican senators to defect and Johnson won acquittal by a single vote. By contrast, by the time the House began formally considering the impeachment of Richard Nixon in 1974, a bipartisan consensus had been reached that the president had obstructed justice. The Senate began planning a trial—going so far as to install television cameras in the chamber, a dozen years before C-SPAN—but when Nixon determined that he lacked the votes to survive, he chose to resign.

During the 1980s, large bipartisan majorities in the House impeached three federal judges on charges of perjury, corruption, and tax fraud. The Senate removed all three by lopsided majorities. But when the 1998 impeachment vote against President Bill Clinton closely followed party lines in the House, there was not the slightest chance the Senate would remove him. Senators dutifully went through a trial, and their votes fell predictably short of conviction.

What is clear from the record is that politically-motivated impeachments fail. Only in cases where malfeasance has become overwhelmingly obvious to members of both parties in the House will there be any chance of conviction in the Senate, raising the question: is a losing effort worth the trouble?

Had political impeachments succeeded, our government might be considerably different. Federal judges might face recall once the party that nominated them lost power. Presidents might have come to resemble prime ministers, subject to removal by a vote of no confidence, depending on their party’s fate in mid-term elections. Instead, a more judicial system of impeachment has evolved that enables the removal of federal officials for widely agreed upon criminal offenses rather than political disfavor.

Featured image credit: “The Senate’s side of the Capitol Building in Washington, DC” by Scrumshus. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

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The ethics of the climate emergency

During the last few days of February we experienced the warmest Winter day since records began, with a high of 20.6 degrees (Celsius) at Trawscoed in mid-Wales. As if that was not enough, the record was broken again the next day with 21.2 degrees at Kew Gardens. This unseasonable weather is one of many signs of climate change and global warming. Another has been the flowering of snowdrops this Winter which began in late December. So did the opening of daffodils, which in William Wordsworth’s day did not flower until April.

Recently, tens of thousands of school students stayed away from classrooms to demonstrate for action on climate change. They are recognising that there is a climate emergency, and that governments and corporations need to take emergency action.

Last October, an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report explained why average temperature increases must be restricted to 1.5 degrees, one of the agreed goals of the Paris agreement of 2015.

Limiting average increases to 2 degrees, they explain, will be nowhere near enough to prevent the flooding of low-lying islands and coastal cities, and the loss of almost all coral reefs. Disappointingly, however, the national commitments made at Paris would spell a catastrophic increase of towards 3 degrees. Governments need to rachet up these commitments at coming review conferences, as a matter of urgency.

Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, is soon to hold the first of these review conferences. The UK government, which is hoping to host this conference, needs to commit now to more drastic cuts to set an example to the rest of the world.

Ethicists debate the grounds for taking such emergencies seriously. By now it is widely agreed that the people of the present matter, however distant, and wherever they live. But many of them are losing their livelihoods because of climate change, and they are usually people who have hardly at all contributed to it. And that is hardly fair.

Most people also agree that coming generations matter, and should be taken into account. Some suggest that the more distant in time future people are, the less they matter. Yet suffering in fifty or a hundred years is likely to be just as bad as suffering now. Many people already recognise this. As Hilary Graham and her fellow-researchers have shown, if you ask about future interests in an impersonal manner, you get answers that downplay these interests, but if you ask about what we should do to make life bearable for our grandchildren, you get much more affirmative answers, expressing deep concern about their well-being.

But this too means that we need to take action in the present to prevent rising sea-levels and freak weather events of greater intensity and frequency than the world has yet known both in the present and later in this century.

There is also a debate about whether other species matter. Everyone agrees that we need the ecosystems on which human beings depend to remain intact, and most hold that we need to preserve these and other ecosystems for the sake of their natural beauty. Many go on to hold that the needs of nonhuman species count ethically alongside our own, whether or not they count as much as our own.

When we get concerned about the bleaching of coral reefs and the disappearance of their polychrome communities, our concern expresses a blend of reasons of these kinds. But increasingly people (particularly young people) are worried about the wellbeing of animals and their habitats.

Just at the same time, there are alarming losses to populations of many wild species, and to biodiversity.  All governments need to make special efforts to preserve wild species, and the governments of developed countries should subsidise poorer countries (which are often the homes of biodiversity hot-spots) to enable them to do this.

But far from the biodiversity emergency being in competition for our attention with the climate crisis, they should be seen as a single emergency. This is because one of the main causes of threats to wildlife is nothing but climate change.

So we need urgent plans and policies to replace carbon-based energy generation with renewable energy. We need to eat less meat, thus increasing our life-expectancies and reducing emissions of methane. We need to replace vehicles with diesel and internal combustion engines with electric cars, lorries and (if possible) ships. And we need to cut down on our airline travel. Individuals, companies and governments all have a part to play.

While sunny days in February are welcome, an overheated, tempestuous and increasingly flooded future world is not. We need to support Antonio Guterres’ worldwide campaign to prevent it.

Featured image credit: Climate Change by TheDigitalArtist. Pixabay License via Pixabay.

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The continuing life of science fiction

In 1998, Thomas M. Disch boldly declared in The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World that science fiction had become the main kind of fiction which was commenting on contemporary social reality. As a professional writer, we could object that Disch had a vested interest in making this assertion, but virtually every day news items confirm his argument that science fiction connects with an amazingly broad range of public issues.

Take the ongoing debate over different forms of surveillance. There is a long libertarian tradition in science fiction of describing resistance to any kind of private or governmental surveillance in the works of Philip K. Dick and many others. The novelist David Brin joined the debate with his polemic on freedom and privacy in The Transparent Society, but that was published before the attacks of 9/11 in 2001 changed the political climate. Nowadays the USA has even to a certain extent institutionalized science fiction through the SIGMA think tank which advises government agencies including the Bureau of Homeland Security on likely futures.

And what about space? Many members of NASA grew up on a diet of science fiction which has no doubt fed into their projects and designs, but, apart from that, it has become obligatory to signal any new development by drawing a comparison with science fiction. When NASA offered a prize for the best design for an autonomous robot which could be used to explore remote planets, it was immediately compared to the Imperial Probe Droid from Star Wars.

Back in the science fiction of the 1980s and 1990s, virtual reality was something characters accessed through elaborate helmets and suits with complex sensors, which, writers like Pat Cadigan showed, could function like a powerful drug and alienate the wearer from any kind of external reality. Now the development of computerized eyeglasses is trumpeted as ‘making science fiction real’ through this new technology.

One difference from the older VR suits is that they tended to robotize the  appearance of the wearer, but the new glasses look conventional visually while they speed up the processing and transfer of information.

Another standard theme in science fiction has been the exploration of the nature of humanity and of our relation to constructs like hybrid combinations of machine and organism — the cyborg — or projected versions of humanity which have become known as “avatars”. While he was working on his film Avatar (2009), James Cameron explained his title term as follows:  “In this film what that means is that the human technology in the future is capable of injecting a human’s intelligence into a remotely located body, a biological body.”

Cameron’s application follows a principle of transference and repeats the old science fiction dream of the human mind being projected beyond its bodily limits. Indeed, Cameron admitted that he was drawing on the whole tradition of science fiction for his film and attempting to apply ‘wrap-round’ technology to give the viewer maximum immersion in the spectacle. The more common use of “avatar” denotes a computerized human simulation, introduced as early as 1975 in John Brunner’s The Shockwave Rider and then further dramatized in Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash (1992).  Brunner shows his character in flight from a threatening government programme; Stephenson evokes a more complex situation where his protagonist negotiates his way between different information systems. In Snow Crash avatars confuse their observers by blurring the boundaries between the physical body and its representations, whereas since the 1990s they have become staples of modelling and self-modification. The website Technovelgy includes these cases among many others embodying links between SF and technology.

As the UK novelist Paul Kincaid has said, science fiction is uniquely concerned with novelty, which very quickly produces ennui and so in that sense it is a “genre at the end of time.”

This is another way of saying that science fiction is constantly re-inventing itself. A concern with novelty involves a hyper-awareness of time. As Kincaid argues, maybe it’s a paradoxical sign of the continuing energy of science fiction that we hear so often of its demise.

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Plato’s mistake

Happy Hanukkah from OUP! This year we’re celebrating with a series of eight books celebrating Jewish history and culture over the eight nights of Hanukkah. As your menorah candles burn bright, take this opportunity to honour both the endurance of the Maccabees and the Jewish people.

In this blog post, Norman Solomon, the author of Judaism: A Very Short Introduction, considers how ambivalence towards past violence comes out in the way the rabbis told the story of Chanukah.

It started innocently enough at a lunch-time event with some friends at the Randolph Hotel in the centre of Oxford. ‘The trouble with Islam …’ began some self-opinioned pundit, and I knew where he was going. Simple. Islam lends itself to fanaticism, and that is why Muslims perpetrate so much violence in the name of religion.

The pundit saw himself as Christian, and therefore a man of peace, so I had my cue. ‘Look out of the window. Over there in the fork of the road you see the Martyr’s Memorial. In 1555 the Wars of Religion were in full spate, Catholics were burning Protestants at the stake, Protestants were no less fanatical when their turn came, and things got even worse with the Civil War. So why are Muslims any worse?’

‘But that was 500 years ago. We’ve come a long way since then! And what about you, and all those atrocities in the Old Testament?’ That stung me. Ignoramus – didn’t he know that Judaism has moved a long way from the days of the ancient Hebrews?

‘That was 2,500 years ago!’ I retorted, and we moved onto a less contentious topic.

Being Jewish, I am of course impartial as between Christianity and Islam, both of which shout for peace but have bloody histories, with violence committed in the name of God by Christian against Christian, Muslim against Muslim, one against the other or either against some other unfortunate victim, such as the Jews.

But can I really wash my hands of all this? Not a Jewish problem, at least not for thousands of years? Well now, think again. The Bible is still a part of my history and I have to take some attitude to the fact that it often encourages violence in the name of God. We are about to celebrate the Jewish festival of Chanukah, so do I take sides with the ‘valiant Maccabees’ who – in God’s name – carried on a guerrilla war against the Seleucids and eventually, with much bloodshed and mutual slaughter, gained control of Judea? (OK, the story is not in the Hebrew scriptures, and the events are more recent by a couple of centuries, but so what?) By modern standards the Maccabean warriors were violent religious fanatics. Judas Maccabeus is not the sort of man I would be comfortable to invite to tea; I would be pretty guarded in my answers if he asked me any awkward questions, and probably looking over my back to see if I was being watched by MI5, or the Seleucid equivalent. One person’s religious fanatic is another person’s freedom fighter; hardly an excuse, more like a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea.

The dilemma is ancient. Ambivalence towards past violence comes out in the way the rabbis told the story of Chanukah. There is a vague reference to some ‘victory over the Greeks’, but the kernel of the story is about a miracle that happened with a jar of oil when, following the victory, they rededicated the Jerusalem Temple. The idolatrous ‘Greeks’ had contaminated all the oil, but one jar was found with the high priest’s seal still on it, and that miraculously lasted for 8 days until pure oil could again be sourced. Nowhere else — in the copious contemporary or near-contemporary accounts of the military campaigns and of atrocities perpetrated by the ‘other side’ — is such a story mentioned. No. The rabbis retold the story their way, using it not to incite violence but to instil faith in God’s saving grace. Which has at least dissociated them from the violence of the situation, even if from time to time others have revived the older stories and set up the Maccabees as models for emulation.

So why head this blog ‘Plato’s mistake’? Don’t blame the Greeks! Because my Islamophobic friend and others like him who generalize about Muslims, or Christians, or Jews, or whatever other group they happen to target have fallen prey to the just error made by the great philosopher. It was Plato who dreamed up the notion of perfect forms (ideas) to which we can only aspire, and even though his own disciple Aristotle spotted the confusion, the error of essentialism took root and people still like to believe that there is some entity out there which is the ‘true’ Christianity, Islam or Judaism, just as Plato taught there was a true ‘good’ whose existence was superior to anything on earth.

But there really is no such thing. ‘Islam’, ‘Christianity’, ‘Judaism’ are abstractions, not real things. What actually exists are Muslims, Christians, Jews – and of course, Hindus, Buddhist, Sikhs and so on. Real individual people in relationship with others who share a common name. There are violent Muslims; it does not follow that ‘Islam is violent’, or that they are not ‘really’ Muslims. Conversely, I would not be right to claim, ‘Judaism is peaceful’. All I can say is that this, that, or the other Jew is a peaceful person. All of us can tell our stories in many different ways. Some are violent, some peaceful.

Nor is the secular world different. Nationalism, socialism and other secular creeds are all as variable as the individuals who take them on. Crimes have been committed in the name of each and every philosophy, and good has been done in the name of most of them too. It is not the creed that should shoulder the blame, but we ourselves.

Feature image credit: “Synagogue Ceiling Brighton” by Hurk. CCO via Pixabay.

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The history of The Declaration of the Rights of the Child

Virtually every news cycle seems to feature children as victims of military actions, gun violence, economic injustice, racism, sexism, sexual abuse, hunger, underfunded schools, unbridled commercialism—the list is endless. Each violates our sense of what childhood ought to be and challenges what we believe childhood has always been.

But the ideas that shape our notions of childhood emerged less than a century ago. Reformers and policy-makers had struggled toward creating a modern childhood since the 1830s. They sought to build an extended, nurturing childhood, one that freed children of responsibility and allowed them simply to be children. Their efforts led to modest improvements in education, efforts to eliminate the worst forms of child labor and somewhat better medical care.

By the early 1900s, enough progress had been made—both in terms of material improvements and rising expectations—that the American social worker, civil rights advocate and anti-child labor activist Florence Kelley could declare in Some Ethical Gains Through Legislation that youngsters had “a right to childhood.” But the catastrophic effects of the First World War on civilians in general and children in particular energized child welfare reformers, including Eglantyne Jebb, the Englishwoman who founded the Save the Children Fund. Jebb would be one of the leading figures in the movement that led to the “invention” of childhood in 1924.

Of course, there have always been children, and through most of history their experiences have naturally differed from those of adults. Yet, on 26 September 1924, when the League of Nations adopted the “Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child,” it recognized not only their different needs and roles in society, but established benchmarks against which communities’ or nations’ treatment of children could be measured. In so doing, the League established the standards for a childhood that resembled one that we would recognize as “modern.”

The Declaration’s preamble declared “that mankind owes to the Child the best that it has to give.” “Beyond and above all considerations of race, nationality or creed,” children possessed certain rights simply because they were children. It affirmed:

• The child must be given the means requisite for its normal development, both materially and spiritually
• The child that is hungry must be fed; the child that is sick must be nursed; the child that is backward must be helped; the delinquent child must be reclaimed; and the orphan and the waif must be sheltered and succored
• The child must be the first to receive relief in times of distress
• The child must be put in a position to earn a livelihood, and must be protected against every form of exploitation
• The child must be brought up in the consciousness that its talents must be devoted to the service of fellow men

The Declaration emerged from empathy for children that had been building for decades. Yet the promises it made would ring hollow in the face of a world-wide depression, and a second, even more devastating world war. Indeed, violence and disorder would plague children’s lives for the rest of the 20th and into the 21st centuries.

Yet the hopeful words of 1924 set a precedent that would eventually create a set of assumptions about children’s rights that would become nearly universal. Of course, many nations struggled to fulfill those assumptions, but the League’s successor, the United Nations, would pass much-expanded statements on children’s rights in 1959 and again in 1989. The ideals articulated in the Declaration would inspire the creation of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in 1946 and the founding of countless governmental agencies and NGOs around the world dedicated to the relief and well-being of children. Despite the many challenges that have emerged during the century since the League issued the Declaration, it remains a beacon reminding the world community of its shared responsibility to advocate for the “right to childhood.”

Featured image credit:  “Children forced from their homes in Ekaterinodar (now Krasnador) during the Russian Civil War, 1919.” Public domain via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, 

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The ever-evolving US Supreme Court

Justice Byron R. White, who served on the Supreme Court for 31 years (1962-1993), once observed that every time a new justice joins the court, it’s a new court.

His observation may sound counter-intuitive: after all, a new justice joins eight incumbents. Can a single new member make such a difference? But consider the dynamics of an institution in which each of the nine members has an equal vote, and where no one can accomplish anything without persuading colleagues to go along – four other justices, in the case of crafting a majority opinion, and three others when it comes to adding new cases to the court’s docket. While most justices do choose to retire rather than take literally the Constitution’s promise of life tenure, they typically serve for decades. They get to know each other very well. Each departure and each new arrival up-ends established patterns and presents a shock to the system.

And certainly, a Supreme Court vacancy is a shock to the political system. In the afternoon of June 27, 2018, when Justice Anthony M. Kennedy announced his decision to retire, time in Washington, D.C. seemed to stand still, at least in the moments before the partisan contenders caught their collective breath and took to their battle stations in anticipation that President Trump would soon choose a nominee. Among the questions: would the Democrats try to pay back the Republicans for the Senate’s unprecedented stonewalling of President Obama’s last Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland? Would President Trump’s replacement for Justice Kennedy, a 30-year veteran who had long been the “swing justice” on a polarized court, finally bring about the conservative triumph that had proven elusive for a generation, despite the fact that during the last half-century, Republican presidents have succeeded in naming 13 Supreme Court justices while Democrats have appointed only four?

On July 9, President Trump nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Judge Kavanaugh, long a familiar figure in Washington legal circles, was himself a law clerk to Justice Kennedy. Clearly, he knows the Supreme Court very well. Whether the American public will get to know him well depends in part on how probing senators are during his confirmation hearing, and on how forthcoming he chooses to be in answer to their questions. President Trump’s first Supreme Court nominee, Judge Neil Gorsuch, answered almost none of the senators’ questions. He was confirmed by a party-line vote of 54 to 45 to the seat President Obama had intended for Judge Garland. Only three Democrats joined all the Senate’s Republicans in voting for confirmation.

In the country’s history, there have been only 113 Supreme Court justices. Most of them have labored in obscurity. That includes the current incumbents: a recent survey showed that under half the public can name a single Supreme Court justice. Surveys over the years have shown that few people have a clear idea of how the Supreme Court works.

So as the country turns its attention, however fleetingly, to the Supreme Court, here are some often overlooked points to keep in mind.

The Supreme Court sets our legal agenda. One of the court’s most important but least understood functions is deciding what to decide. Unlike most appellate courts, which have to decide all the properly presented cases that reach them, the Supreme Court has nearly unfettered discretion to choose the cases it wants to decide. And in making those choices–roughly 70 cases out of the 7,000 or so that reach the court every term–the justices necessarily set the country’s legal agenda.

It takes the votes of four justices to grant a case for argument and decision. The most obvious reason for granting a case is what the court calls a “conflict in the circuits”–when two or more of the federal appellate courts, organized into 13 circuits, have disagreed on the meaning of a statute or the constitutionality of an official action, the justices feel an obligation to provide a uniform national rule.

But there are other reasons for granting a “petition for a writ of certiorari,” or “granting cert,” as the court calls the decision to accept a new case. One reason is that the case offers a group of justices the chance to move the law in the desired direction, to accomplish a particular agenda.

Yes, the Supreme Court justices respect precedent, but respect goes only so far. To the extent that Supreme Court nominees say anything at their confirmation hearings, they express respect for the body of precedent that they will inherit as new Supreme Court justices. The rule of adherence precedent, known by the Latin phrase stare decisis, meaning to stand by what has been decided, is indeed important because without it, every day would be a new day and every argument could be considered afresh. But as every Supreme Court nominee surely knows, and as the senators should, stare decisis “is not an inexorable command,” as the late Chief Justice Rehnquist put it in a 1989 decision.

Lower courts are bound by Supreme Court precedent, but the Supreme Court itself is free to change its mind with the vote of five justices.

Extreme polarization is the exception, not the norm. In the final decade of Justice Kennedy’s long tenure, it was common to hear references to the “Kennedy Court,” meaning that in many important cases, there were four votes on one side, four on the other, with Justice Kennedy in the position to determine the outcome. This happened so often (last term’s decision upholding President Trump’s Muslim entry ban being one example and the 2015 decision recognizing a constitutional right to same-sex marriage being another that we have come to think of the situation as normal.

But it’s a historical anomaly.

Certainly, the polarized court reflects the country’s polarization, including the politically charged confirmation process of recent years. As a result, the court finds itself in a delicate, even perilous situation. At what point does the public come to see the justices as simply politicians in robes? How can the court maintain the public’s trust? In Justice Byron White’s words, a new Supreme Court is about to be born. Its future, our future, is in its hands.

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Global Health Days – immunity and community

24 April marks the start of World Immunization Week – an annual campaign first launched in 2012. The week is one of 8 WHO international public health events, which include those targeting major infectious diseases – World AIDS day, World Tuberculosis (TB) day, World Malaria day, and World Hepatitis Day. These infections share a few features with each other which mean they all will continue to be global health threats for some time to come – this includes in particular the need for new or better vaccines. Where are we with vaccines for these very challenging diseases and indeed why are they so challenging?

AIDS is caused by HIV, a retroviral infection which crossed in to humans from chimpanzees in the last century and has spread to pandemic proportions. In humans, HIV targets the immune system ultimately leading to its collapse and the development of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). HIV has evolved complex strategies for long term infection and as a result is very hard to eliminate, either through immune responses or through drugs. The most modern drug treatments can lead to very effective suppression of the virus and thus protect the immune system. This approach – which requires the use of drug combinations – has saved countless lives and is the mainstay of therapy. Such drugs can also be used (along with other methods) to protect people against infection if they are at risk – so called Pre-exposure prophylaxis or PrEP. This situation is a remarkable turnaround from 30 years ago, when World AIDS day was launched. Things have not improved in this way in some of the other infections mentioned – drugs which were widely used to treat malaria and TB 3 decades ago are now plagued by widespread resistance in the micro-organisms.

However, effective as they are, HIV drugs cannot lead to a cure, as there is a long-term “reservoir” of virus in the body which is not eliminated by such an approach. Of the many millions infected, only one individual (the “Berlin patient”) has been cured of HIV – this was following complex medical therapy including a bone marrow transplant. There have been some individuals who have come close and there are a rare, but well recognised subset of “elite controllers” who show almost no signs of ongoing infection, largely as a result of very powerful immune responses. All these observations have spurred the field on to try and develop new cure strategies to eliminate the reservoir and allow people to stop taking antiviral therapy in the long term. Such approaches are still very much at the experimental stage and typically target the HIV reservoir using a combination of methods to reactivate the virus in the reservoir and then kill those cells through enhanced immune responses – potentially using novel “therapeutic” vaccines.

This situation contrasts markedly with that in hepatitis C – this is recognised with other hepatitis viruses affecting 500 million people globally on World Hepatitis Day in July each year. Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) causes, like HIV, long term infection, with potentially the development of liver failure and liver cancer. HCV was only discovered as an infectious agent in 1989 and like HIV is hard to eliminate as it has evolved an array of techniques to evade the host’s immune system. However, unlike HIV, it does not set up a “latent” or hidden reservoir. This means that antiviral drug treatments taken for a few weeks can lead to long-term cure. In the last 5 years, several such treatments (again drugs taken in combination) have been developed and are now available for  different HCV strains. There are still many issues to solve, particularly identifying those at risk, and paying for the high costs of such treatments – but this three-decade arc, from discovery to effective cures has shown what can be done with concerted international effort.

The issue of vaccine development unites HIV, HCV, TB, and malaria. Vaccination for a range of infections has saved countless lives globally and provides one of the key global health tools at our disposal. Although a vaccine exists for TB in the form of BCG, this is only really effective in infants and around 1 in 3 of the world’s population is infected. Malarial vaccines have been developed and approved but the long-term efficacy of these is still not proven. Even for hepatitis C, where the new drugs have transformed the outlook for patients, an effective vaccine would still have a major impact in interrupting spread and preventing new infections. One vaccine trial for HIV has shown marginal efficacy, while others, which looked impressive in pre-clinical trials, have been shown to be ineffective in the real-world setting.

The reason we lack a good vaccine for these infections is in some ways specific to each but there is an underlying commonality, which is that microbes have had a head start for thousands of years. Co-evolution between viruses or bacteria and their hosts have selected out micro-organisms which can exploit weaknesses in the immune system. One common trick, which is used by HIV, HCV, and malaria, is to keep modifying its shape, such that new immune responses must continuously chase a moving target. Generating a protective vaccine in each case will mean targeting the immune response to regions of the microbe which cannot be so readily mutated. These approaches are quite painstaking and the development (including the field testing) of new vaccines for these infections will be slow – but it is still an important task and even if the risk of failure for any one approach is still high, the gain for all of us is potentially huge.

World Immunization Week and the other internationally recognised public health days serve to remind of the everyday crises we face as a global population. They also serve to remind us that we need to fight these as a global population – the microbes themselves do not recognise international barriers. The stigma attached to many of these infections even today is also a problem which needs to be addressed – effective education, understanding, and acceptance of the issues surrounding the spread and prevention of such infections is the first step in controlling them. The development of new vaccines for all these major infections (and many others) is a priority which needs sustained public investment – but the human immune system can only do so much. It needs everybody’s commitment and, ultimately, everybody’s support.

Featured image credit: doctors office by annekarakash. Public domain via Pixabay.

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Learning to live in the age of humans

A new “great force of nature” is so rapidly and profoundly transforming our planet that many scientists now believe that Earth has entered a new chapter in its history. That force of nature is us, and that new chapter is called the Anthropocene epoch.

In reshaping Earth to sustain our societies, we humans have altered Earth’s climate, polluted her atmosphere, oceans, freshwater, and soils, driven thousands of species extinct, and spread weeds, pests, and diseases around the world. Even as human populations continue to grow and develop, more than three quarters of Earth’s land is already covered by farms, pastures, cities and other human infrastructure, or fragmented into smaller parcels in the lands in between. While most humans are living longer, healthier lives and eating higher on the food chain, the rest of life on Earth is being pushed into the margins. More than 90% of Earth’s mammal biomass is now composed of humans, livestock, and pets. Should plastic pollution continue at current rates, there will be more plastic than fish in the sea by 2050. It is not hard to see why so many consider the Anthropocene to be an unmitigated disaster.

Can human societies change these trends and bend Earth’s trajectory towards a better future? Will the Anthropocene become a story of awakening and redemption, or a story of senseless destruction? At this point in Earth history, the Anthropocene is still young and the jury is still out. But even at this early stage, there are already many diverging narratives explaining the emergence of the ‘age of humans’.

Some see the start of the Anthropocene as a clean break from an earlier time when human societies lived within the limits of a ‘natural’ Earth system – a time when natural environments shaped human history, and never the other way around. Others, including the stratigraphers of the Anthropocene Working Group, recognize the continuous nature of anthropogenic environmental change and its deep roots in prehistory, yet still choose to focus on defining a discrete time boundary for the Anthropocene in the middle of the 20th century. Others look deeper still, observing significant human transformations of Earth’s biosphere, atmosphere, and climate starting in prehistory as the result of megafauna extinctions, deforestation and land clearing using fire, the tillage and irrigation of agricultural soils, the domestication and transport of species around the world, and other increasingly globalized social-ecological transformations that continue to shape our planet at increasing scales into the present day.

Outside the sciences, arguments rage over the meanings and societal implications of a new age of humans. The politics of inequality, environmental ethics, and the challenges of responsible action under conditions of potentially catastrophic global change have all been connected with the proposal to recognize the Anthropocene. Is naming an age of Earth history after ourselves anything more than the ultimate act of hubris by a species that is rapidly driving Earth to ruin? Will recognizing a time in which the natural world is reshaped by humans cause people to give up on efforts to conserve nature? Who is causing the Anthropocene? Is global environmental change – and global climate change in particular  – the product of ‘human activity’ in general, or the result of a capitalist conspiracy among rich elites and the producers of fossil fuels? Indeed, billions of Earth’s poorest use hardly any fossil fuels at all – and yet will suffer the most from their planetary consequences. It is not hard to understand why the Anthropocene has emerged as a flashpoint of discussions about nature of humanity, the role of humans in nature, and even what it means to be human.

One thing is sure. At this time in which we change the world as we know it, we must also change the way we know the world. The Anthropocene calls on us to think bigger than our individual lives, to imagine the operations of an entire planet and its changes over timescales longer than human societies, from start to finish.

The Anthropocene tells us that, together, humans are a force of nature. On the road ahead, better and worse anthropocenes exist. The story of the Anthropocene has only just begun. There is still time to shape a future in which both humans and non-human nature thrive together for millennia. There is still a chance for each of us to write a better future into the permanent rock records of Earth history.

Featured image credit: lego doll the per amphitheatre by eak_kkk. Public domain via Pixabay.

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What is biblical archaeology? [Extract]

In the following excerpt from Biblical Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction, Eric H. Cline explains the interests of biblical archaeologists, and explores the types of questions that those in the field set out to answer.

While biblical archaeologists working today are generally more interested in learning about details of daily life in the ancient biblical world than proving or disproving the accounts in the Bible, many lay people have these priorities reversed. They want to know: Did the Flood take place? Did Abraham and the Patriarchs exist? Were Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed by fire and brimstone? Did the Exodus occur? These were some of the original questions in biblical archaeology that intrigued the earliest pioneers of the field. They still resonate today but are far from being answered.

Most biblical archaeologists do not deliberately set out to either prove or disprove elements of the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament through archaeology. Instead, they investigate the material culture of the lands and time periods mentioned in the Bible, and the people, places, and events discussed in those ancient texts, in order to bring them to life and to reconstruct the culture and history of the region. This is particularly evident in New Testament archaeology, where the excavation of cities like Caesarea, Capernaum, and Sepphoris has shed light on the social, religious, and geographic situation in the time before, during, and after the life of Jesus.

However, biblical archaeology has generally provided more relevant information that can be correlated with the narratives of the Hebrew Bible than with those of the New Testament. There are several reasons for this disparity. The events depicted in the Hebrew Bible occurred over a much longer time period than those depicted in the New Testament—over millennia rather than over approximately two hundred years. Moreover, the stories and events described in the Hebrew Bible occurred throughout a much larger geographic area than those of the New Testament. The entire Middle East and North Africa provide the backdrop for the stories of the Hebrews, whereas the drama of the early Christians played out mainly in Syro-Palestine and to a lesser extent in ancient Greece and Italy.

For many scholars, the Bible is an important source of data that helps to shed light on ancient life and practices. Leaving aside for the moment the religious significance and the questions of the historical accuracy of the text, there is no question that the Bible is a historical document of seminal importance. It is an ancient source that often contains abundant details and descriptions of the Holy Land in antiquity. It is a source that can be used—with caution—to shed light on the ancient world, just as Syro- Palestinian archaeologists use Egyptian, Neo-Assyrian, or Neo-Babylonian inscriptions covering the same time period.

It is in the question of the historical accuracy of the texts where the interests of professional biblical archaeologists and the educated public overlap, for it is frequently the quintessential biblical questions—the ones that fueled the birth of the field—that still intrigue the public. Did Joshua capture Jericho? Was there someone named Abraham who wandered from Mesopotamia to Canaan? Did David and Solomon exist? Where was Jesus buried? Although biblical archaeology today is a far cry from what it was a hundred or more years ago—it is now more scientifically rigorous, and its practitioners have generally moved on to more anthropologically oriented topics—these basic questions still resonate. Unfortunately, answering them is not always easy.

Featured image credit: Bible church christian by Stempow. Public domain via Pixabay.

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