Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Blog

Questions and Answers about Fidel Castro’s Resignation

by Philip Brenner

I answered many questions for reporters on February 19th about Fidel Castro’s statement that he will not be a candidate when the Cuban National Assembly chooses Cuba's president on Sunday. Readers of Rowman and Littlefield’s blog -– and of its recently published anthology, A Contemporary Cuba Reader, of which I am a co-editor –- also deserve to know the answers to these questions. So here are a few of the Frequently Asked Questions about Castro, and my answers.

Question: Is Fidel Castro finally stepping down from power?

Answer: Not quite. He holds three key offices: President, First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, and Commander-in-Chief. When he became gravely ill on July 31, 2006, he temporarily turned over these positions to his brother, Raúl Castro. It appears that he may continue to hold the titles of First Secretary and Commander-in-Chief. Those are not at issue in Sunday’s election. Raúl Castro is the Minister of the Armed Forces, and in effect heads the military. If Fidel Castro remains as First Secretary of the Communist Party, it is likely that he will essentially serve as Cuba’s titular leader. Raúl Castro, if he is elected President on Sunday, will be the official head of state and operational head of the government.

Question: Well, this still seems like a pretty big change. What kind of transformation in Cuba can we expect from this?

Answer: The transition in Cuba has been underway already for more than 18 months. Contrary to expectations in Washington, there was not a huge explosion when Fidel Castro gave up the reigns of power in 2006. Instead, there was extraordinary calm, and daily life for Cubans continued without a blip. Fidel Castro actually had stopped running the daily affairs of the Cuban government several years earlier, and the people he designated as the collective leadership in his absence had been the very people who were already doing those jobs. And so, we have a fairly good picture of what is likely to happen in the near future. Raúl Castro tends to prefer working in a team, and to delegate considerable responsibility to others. The values of the group of men in the collective leadership – which includes Vice President Carlos Lagé, Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque, Central Bank President Francisco Soberon Valdés – very much resemble those of Fidel Castro. These officials are determined to maintain as much social equity as possible in the country, and to avoid plans that will increase inequality. They are also very wary about economic or political reforms that they believe will make Cuba more vulnerable.

Question: So, does this mean that there will be very little political change in Cuba?

Answer: No, and yes. There already has been some change. Notably, Raúl Castro’s daughter initiated a round of criticism about the government in a public statement that was printed one of Cuba’s major papers. Raúl himself has attacked corruption and poor services. Recently, the president of Cuba’s national assembly, Ricardo Alarcon, had an open meeting with university students in which he discussed some very harsh critiques they made about current affairs. Last week, several dissidents were released from prison, well short of their full sentences. There may well be some relaxation of the stringent requirements imposed on those who want to open small businesses. The number of such operations has declined 50% in the last 10 years, but there is a great clamor for more to open. On the other hand, there is not likely to be a major restructuring of the economy that would permit Cubans to invest in large enterprises, that would allow foreign capitalists to operate without much restraint, or that would establish political liberalization – with a free press and elections. Apart from concerns about equality, the Cuban leaders fear that the United States would seize the opportunity that such openings provide, to intervene covertly, in order to destabilize the regime.

 

Question: Aren’t such paranoid rantings simply a show -– do Cubans really believe the stuff they say about the United States?

Answer: They do believe it, and not without reason. The official U.S. policy calls for regime change in Cuba. The main law governing the U.S. embargo against Cuba–- the Helms-Burton law –- stipulates in its first paragraph that the law’s purpose is to bring about regime change in Cuba. The United States government has spent more than $100 million in the last four years to support opponents of the Cuban government, to fund studies on how to bring about a change in the Cuban regime, and even to fund an office in the State Department for a U.S. government official named the Cuban Transition Coordinator – much like the position Paul Bremer held as transition coordinator in Iraq after the U.S. occupation there. Moreover, the United States has a sorry history of abusing democratic processes in countries where it disapproves of the policies. Latin Americans readily recall, for example, how the Central Intelligence Agency paid newspapers in Chile, Jamaica, and Nicaragua, to print lies that discredited leftist governments. Cubans are astounded that the United States has not prosecuted Luis Posada Carriles, an acknowledged international terrorist who entered the United States openly and remains free. He was convicted in Venezuela –- well before Hugo Chavez became president –- of planning the bombing of a Cuban civilian airliner that killed 73 people in 1976.

 

Question: But now that Fidel Castro will no longer be Cuba’s president, and George W. Bush will soon be out of the White House, isn’t it likely that relations between Cuba and the United States could improve?

Answer: Sadly, no. Cubans view the three remaining U.S. presidential candidates as having essentially similar policies towards Cuba. John McCain has called for toughening the already draconian economic sanctions against Cuba. Hillary Clinton has said that she favors continuing the policy of the Bush Administration. Barack Obama advocates relaxing the embargo so that Cuban-Americans would be able to travel to Cuba without restrictions. (In 2004 the Bush Administration tightened regulations so that Cuban-Americans are now permitted to visit immediate family members, for emergencies, only once in three years.) Sen. Obama also has said he would be willing to meet with Cuban leaders during his first year in office. But unless the United States is willing to renounce its ambition to overthrow the Cuban government, negotiations are not likely to accomplish much. In fact, unless the Helm-Burton law were changed, the next U.S. president would not be permitted to have normal relations with Cuba Helms-Burton stipulates that its sanctions can be lifted only if the Cuban government "does not include Fidel Castro or Raúl Castro." Moreover, Cuba has much more self-confidence now that it did sixteen years ago, when the Cold War ended and its economy went into a free fall without Soviet support. It needs the United States much less than it once did. The U.S. embargo was intended to strangle Cuba and isolate it. Instead it has isolated the United States. The U.N. General Assembly, by a vote in November of 184 - 4, condemned the U.S. embargo for the sixteenth year in a row. In January, Brazil and Cuba negotiated a major agreement under which the South American giant will explore Cuba’s coastal waters for oil, where there may be vast reserves. China is modernizing Cuba's nickel mines, which hold the third largest reserves in the world of that critical metal. And throughout Latin America, as the presidents of Brazil, Venezuela, Chile, Argentina, Ecuador, Uruguay, and Nicaragua attempt to chart new directions that depart from the dictates of the United States, they appreciate that they are the children of Fidel Castro. They are taking a path that is different from the one on which he led Cuba. But they believe that his success has made their dreams attainable.

 

Philip Brenner is professor of international relations and director of the Inter-Disciplinary Council on Latin America at American University. He is co-editor of A Contemporary Cuba Reader: Reinventing the Revolution with Marguerite Rose Jiménez, John M. Kirk, William M. LeoGrande, and Sad and Luminous Days: Cuba's Struggle with the Superpowers after the Missile Crisis with James G. Blight.

Freedom’s Journal receives Honorable Mention

              Freedom’s Journal: The First African-American Newspaper, by Jacqueline Bacon, received an Honorable Mention from the 2007 Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award. This award commends works published in a given year which extend our understanding of the root causes of bigotry and the range of options we as humans have in constructing alternative ways to share power. For more information about Freedom's Journal, please visit our website http://www.rowmanlittlefield.com/ISBN/0739118935.

The Fresh Face in American Politics

By Gary A. Donaldson

This election cycle has exhibited an important American political phenomenon: the fresh face, the political outsider, the candidate who is the antidote to politics as usual. Accompanying the fresh face is the rhetoric of renewal, change and the implied promises of new ideas and attitudes and solutions toward old problems.

Since the end of World War II both parties have looked in the direction of the political outsider and the fresh face to bring renewed excitement and victory to their parties. Sometimes it has worked, sometimes not.

Perhaps one of the best examples of a political fresh face was Eisenhower. Ike had been in the public eye for some time, but he had only been discussed seriously as a politician since the end of the war. He was always perceived in the American mind as someone outside the political spectrum; and in fact, Ike worked hard to show his disdain for politics by insisting often that he would not run for office, that he had no intention of getting down into the mud and slugging it out with politicos like Truman. At one point, he even admitted that he had never found a need to cast a ballot, and he often let it be known that he had no party affiliation (although behind the scenes he told those close to him that he was a life-long Republican.) In 1953, when Ike became President, he brought to Washington the new outlook he promised—perhaps the fulfillment of the fresh face in politics.

In 1960 the Democrats tapped John Kennedy, the freshest of all fresh political faces. Although Kennedy had been in national politics since the end of the war, he campaigned in 1960 as a political outsider who would bring a new atmosphere to Washington, take the nation in a new direction, and change the old rhetoric—then portrayed by the eight years of the now stale Eisenhower administration. He worked hard to cast Nixon, the presumptive successor to Ike and the Republican nominee that year, as the keeper of the ancien regime, the man who would carry on the old Eisenhower policies.

This placed Nixon in an awful position as the 1960 election approached. Kennedy was winning points (and presumably votes) with his “let’s get American moving again” slogan. If Nixon tried to step out on his own by proposing new ideas he appeared to be criticizing Eisenhower and his policies, even ungrateful to his mentor. If he simply parroted the Eisenhower line, he appeared to have no new ideas, and was little more than Ike’s “lapdog with a five o’clock shadow,” as one pundit described Nixon in this period. So, Nixon fought the 1960 campaign mostly with one hand tied behind his back.

By portraying himself as an outsider and a new comer with new ideas, Kennedy also placed himself at a disadvantage—although he did not have nearly the problems Nixon had. Kennedy found himself answering claims that he was too inexperienced to be president. Clearly, Kennedy could not have it both ways. He could not be the new young fresh face in politics and an experienced politician as well. He spent much of the campaign defending his record in Congress and making such statements that he was older than Christopher Columbus when he came to American, and older than Thomas Jefferson when he wrote the Declaration of Independence. Kennedy spent much of the 1960 primary season trying to show that he was experienced enough to attract votes. In office, JFK’s promises and hopes translated into very little legislation, despite a Democratic Congress.

In 1976 the Democrats turned to another outsider, Jimmy Carter. The nation was clearly fed up with the antics of Washington insiders in those years. The conduct of the war in Vietnam and then finally the Watergate scandal had turned the nation away from Washington insider politics. Carter stepped into the breach. A Georgia governor and peanut farmer, Carter actually prided himself on not understanding the workings of Washington—and that seemed to endear him to voters. He was a wonderful campaigner. He spoke good words; he energized the Democratic Party and the nation. But when Carter got to Washington he could not work his will, and to most observers it was because he did not know the nuances of Washington politics. And he foundered. Four years later he was vulnerable to attacks from a Republican outsider, a new fresh face with new ideas from the other side of the political spectrum, Ronald Reagan. Carter went from the outsider to the insider, from the new fresh face to the old politico who needed to be bumped from office.

That brings us back to the current election cycle and Barak Obama, the new fresh face, the candidate with the charisma and the good words. He has energized the Democrats with talk of new ideas and change. Democrats have to ask, will that translate into a good president?

 

Gary A. Donaldson is professor of history at Xavier University of Louisiana. He is the author of many books on American history in the 20th century, including The First Modern Campaign: Kennedy, Nixon, and the Election of 1960.

Revitalizing America’s Historic Sites

By Monta Lee Dakin, Executive Director

Mountain-Plains Museums Association

 
• Your site is significant. Yet, attendance could be better.

• Your historic site has a great collection, but few see it.

• Your historic site is special, but it seems lost among the dense urban area that grew up around it.

• Entrance fees do not sustain your historic site anymore.

• Financial backers of your site grouse that it costs too much to maintain.

• Staff and programs at your historic site don’t get the funding they deserve and need.

• Staff at your site think the programs are good, but attendance never matches the energy, time and money it takes to put them on.

• Your site has a revolving door with staff because of poor pay and long hours.

• The traditional tourism model is no longer a sustainable business model for your historic site.

Ever find yourself saying these things about YOUR historic site? Most of us who have worked at historic places have. And when we were the staff, we looked hard for solutions to these problems, trying to convince donors to give more money or suffering burnout from too many special events that in the end didn’t bring in much money. Very few of us found a golden goose (or program or donor) to shore up our failing site and most of us left, leaving the headaches of our under-funded yet beloved site to a new and usually younger group of folks. Much to everyone’s dismay, that cycle continues to present day.

While there is still no sighting of a golden goose to report, there may be some relief around the corner. Ideas, mainly. Yet, ideas that could be the springboard to bringing your site back to life and to gaining over-due respectability in your community.

These ideas came out of a forum I attended called Historic Site Stewardship in the 21st Century, held this past April at the National Trust site, Kykuit, in Tarrytown, NY. Thirty senior museum leaders from around the country engaged in dialogue over three days to discuss critical issues facing the many historic sites that are in decline all over the nation. The forum was a follow-up to one held five years earlier at which evidence was presented that proved there was a decline in historic house museums across the country. The recent convening in April built upon the first by broadening its scope from historic houses to historic sites. It considered models of innovation & success for historic sites as well as challenges to their sustainability and possible alternative uses.

Not all historic sites are in decline. Many are, however. And a growing number of them across the country have either closed or struggle to stay open in the face of dwindling interest, reduced staff and lack of funding. Some people have wondered publicly if there aren’t too many historic sites. Others have worried that increasing competition has put many historic sites in survivor mode, causing the quality of their preservation and maintenance to drop drastically. These are the ones that perhaps might benefit from the new way of thinking that came out of Kykuit. This new thinking may make people squirm, but should with time generate new models that are intended to strengthen historic sites and turn them back into places that people love.

What is this new thinking? It suggests among other things that historic sites have been applying inappropriate standards to their operations. Instead of following standards that work well for other kinds of museums such as art museums, historic sites should find their own standards. It also warns that many historic sites will have to make fundamental changes if they are to survive as museums. And finally, it supports a growing belief that historic sites do not have to be a museum to be successful. There are now successful models of alternative uses that can be used to revitalize an historic site without ever having to open the doors for tours again.

Alternative uses may be one of the more controversial notions to emerge in this new movement. However, transitioning to different uses is already happening. Donna Harris’ recently published book, New Solutions for House Museums, outlines eight “other” models besides museums for historic sites for which she presents case studies already in play: study houses, co-stewardship agreements, merger, long-term leases, short-term leases, sale with easements to a private owner, sale to a non profit stewardship, donation to a government entity and reprogram for mission-based use (or adaptive re-use). These different models convey a radical concept for what is becoming acceptable as good stewardship of historic sites: no longer do they need full time staff, daily hours of operation, “velvet-rope” tours, period or display rooms filled with specialized collections, or changing exhibits. The models instead encourage boards, staff and volunteers to consider deaccessioning under-used collections, finding a use that enriches the local community, and thinking creatively to achieve long-term sustainability for the site.

While Harris presents only eight case studies, they are enough to blow the lid off of traditional historic site models because they clearly show that not only do alternative uses exist, they can be successfully used to preserve an historic site. Presenting these case studies in public forums is also akin to throwing down a gauntlet, urging the museum community to give stewards of historic sites permission to do what they must to ensure a building’s future. This unconventional concept may be a little bold for a museum community steeped in tradition. But once it is understood that boldness may be necessary to attain good stewardship, the concept may find ready converts.

Underlying these new ideas and part of their appeal are three fundamental principles: acknowledging that taking care of historic sites is not easy, giving permission to believe that historic sites don’t have to operate as museums to be successful, and re-establishing the ethic that historic sites deserve proper stewardship.

Proper stewardship forms the guts behind this re-thinking of historic sites. It is what it all comes down to, preserving significant sites for the long term. To do less than that should not be acceptable practices in any community. And with new tools coming to the fore -– such as proven models, resources and a regional and national advocacy that supports local efforts --it should start to get easier to revitalize historic sites in ways we never thought possible.

To learn more, attend the session on this topic at MPMA’s 2007 Conference in Fargo this fall.

The planning for this forum was a joint venture of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, American Association for State and Local History, American Association of Museums and American Architectural Foundation. Primary financial support was provided by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the National Trust.

 

This article was written by Monta Lee Dakin, Executive Director, Mountain-Plains Museums Association based on materials prepared for this meeting and the discussions that took place there. It reflects the views of the author and not necessarily those of other conference participants or of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

Idealism and Realism in the Political Economic Thought of John Adams and Adam Smith

By John E. Hill

John Adams (and the founders in general) and Adam Smith were pragmatic idealists. Think of the meaning of these words in the Declaration of Independence: “…That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness….” Today we have forgotten how revolutionary those ideals were in 1776. Equality in the pursuit of happiness? Preposterous! The founders’ idealism was combined with the pragmatic willingness to wage a long, and eventually successful, struggle for independence.

However, since independence, many, but not all, economic thinkers have forgotten (or never understood) some fundamental things about the thought of the founders and Adam Smith. For instance, John Adams argued that commerce makes it obvious even to someone with the weakest eyesight “‘…that we are made for one another, that our destination is to be useful reciprocally, that we are members of the same body and children of the same family’” (Democracy, Equality, and Justice, p. 89).

Similarly, Adam Smith argued in Wealth of Nations that commerce, the market system, was cooperative, a social system. That dimension of capitalism has been forgotten or ignored. Instead, 21st century capitalism has been extremely individualistic with a fixation on laissez-faire. This is not Adam Smith’s capitalism.

Smith did not advocate laissez-faire; his ideal system would combine natural liberty with justice. To give just a taste of why I argue this, look at some of the things Smith argued the government could do to provide a level playing field for all.

He listed three major responsibilities for government. I doubt that anyone would quarrel with the duty of a government to defend its territory against other nations. Second, the government should administer justice. Public works was the third duty Smith listed; I will focus on that duty.

In discussing public works, Smith writes about the commonwealth (think of the implications of that term) facilitating commerce and “promoting the instruction of the people” (Wealth of Nations, p. 779). The government role in education includes not only youth but also “people of all ages” (Wealth of Nations, p. 779). He even wrote that, because instruction in religion would be beneficial for the whole society, government could pay for religious instruction (Wealth of Nations, p. 877). I certainly am not advocating that policy; I mention it here simply to illustrate how very far Smith was from being an advocate of laissez-faire.

Facilitating commerce includes providing infrastructure such as good roads, bridges, harbors. Has the laissez-faire attitude dominant in the US in recent decades severely weakened the ability of government to provide the infrastructure that businesses require to function efficiently?

Smith also included under public works government support for science and “public diversions” (Wealth of Nations, p. 855). He thought that, to prevent fraud, government should place quality control stamps on sterling silver and linen and woolen textiles (Wealth of Nations, pp. 140-141). And while Smith was a strong critic of taxes on the “necessaries of life,” he advocated luxury taxes to restrain and possibly prevent the poor from unnecessary expenses. Such paternalistic roles for government are definitely not laissez-faire.

Smith believed that it would be good for government to provide incentives for artisans and manufacturers who excel in their occupations because such prizes would help improve quality without overturning “…the natural balance of employments…” (Wealth of Nations, p. 560). Can you imagine a government program to award, say, a $50 million prize to the first corporation to market an affordable zero-emissions automobile or cost-effective solar electricity cells?

Smith not only argued for a larger role for government than commentators usually note, but he was also egalitarian. There are several examples of this idealist streak in his thinking. “The difference between the most dissimilar characters, between a philosopher and a common street porter, for example, seems to arise not so much from nature, as from habit, custom, and education” (Wealth of Nations, p. 17). Whether or not he has taken the correct side in the nature vs. nurture argument is not the point here. The point is that this statement is egalitarian.

In addition, he repeatedly supported the workers; for instance, he argued for higher wages for workers, for the end of regressive taxation, and for governmental programs to mitigate the mentally deadening effects of repetitive work.

He understood that there would always be wealthy people, who were useful to society as models for emulation, but he wrote that huge differences in wealth were dangerous for society. Note also that he sharply criticized the wealthy for their corrupt control of members of parliament.

My final argument is this. If Smith was a strong supporter of laissez-faire, why did he actively solicit government officials for an appointment as a Commissioner of Customs in Edinburgh? He succeeded in that quest and happily carried out his duties as Commissioner for the last twelve years of his life. He did advocate free trade, but he was not an extremist on free trade. In contrast to the unlimited free trade policy of recent Democratic and Republican administrations, Smith was more subtle. He wrote that, if free trade would put workmen out of their jobs, it should be approached gradually.

If I am right that US government economic power has been eviscerated in recent decades by an individualistic, laissez-faire fixation, most, if not all of us, have been harmed because, as Smith recognized, there are some things which government must do. This goes beyond national defense and roads and bridges that are safe to drive on. This goes to the heart of what we are as a country.

Remember our founders’ claim that all are created equal, with an unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Can we logically claim today that all have an equal opportunity to pursue happiness when educational quality varies so much from community to community? Would Smith today advocate that instruction for people of all ages include tuition for higher education? (I think it is abundantly clear that the pursuit of happiness today is severely undercut for many people by the cost of higher education. There are too many stories of people ending up in careers they do not like because of the burden of college loans. How many potentially superb teachers have never been able to follow that love because of the Catch-22 of low salaries for teachers and the need to repay $10’s of thousands of college loans?) Can we claim equality in the pursuit of happiness when 47 million US citizens lack health insurance (the same number who lacked health insurance decades ago before Medicaid and Medicare became law)?

In Democracy, Equality, and Justice, I argue that a deeper understanding of Adam Smith and John Adams would result in a wealthier and more just nation. To get to that wealthier and more just nation, we have to accept that there are certain things government can and should do. Under laissez-faire ideology, the pendulum of government economic power has swung too far in one direction. But we must also take care that the pendulum not swing too far in the opposite direction. Our founders were right: unlimited government power is dangerous. Like Smith (and the founders) we need a subtle appreciation of what government can do, as well as the need to limit its power.

Such a cautious attitude toward government power is realistic. The founders and Smith based their ideas on real life experience and deep reading of history. But they balanced that realism with democratic ideals: the founders’ ideals of equality in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and Smith’s ideal of justice in the market.

The US has been magnetically attractive to people throughout the world for decades, perhaps centuries, both because of our ideals and because of the reality of our economic success. But more recently, many people, in various parts of the world, have learned to hate us. Obviously, there are foreign policy reasons for this. But we could regain that appeal in the 21st century if we were to remove the foreign policy impediments and change our domestic policy to combine the Declaration of Independence with Adam Smith. Our ideals are powerful; they could produce a better country for everyone and could help our foreign policy. In short, our government’s policy should be to provide, in the words of the pledge of allegiance, “…liberty and justice for all.”

 

For additional information about the author and to read excerpts from the book visit http://stumail.curry.edu/~jhill

 

R&L Authors to Appear at National Press Club

What do R&L authors Arthur Caplan , Craig Crawford , Bob Deans, Dr. Arthur Garson, and David Yount  have in common with literary luminaries Stephen Hunter, Sebastian Junger, Howard  Kurtz, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, and Jay Winik? They are all appearing at the 30^th Annual National Press Club Book Fair to be held this Thursday, November 1, 2007 at 5:30pm.

One of Washington's most prestigious literary events, the National Press Club Book Fair attracts authors from across the nation, and draws hundreds of fans and Club members who enjoy browsing the children's books, cookbooks, photography books, Washington exposés, histories, and fiction, all new on the market this year or as yet unreleased.

Admission is free for members of the National Press Club and $5 for non-members, with tickets available for purchase at the door. The Book Fair is open from 5:30 to 6 p.m. for members only; and from 6 to 8:30 p.m. to non-members.

Books for the event are provided by Barnes & Noble. Because this is a fundraiser, no outside books are permitted. Meet the authors, get the story behind the story, and have them sign your purchase. An ideal place to begin your holiday gift-buying!

For more information, contact Lisa Miller at (202) 662-7564 or at lmiller@press.org

Sponsored by: National Press Club   
Location: Ballroom

The complete list of authors is available on the NPC website.

Witchcraft, Magic, and Superstition in Europe

By Michael D. Bailey
      
            History is often obsessed with beginnings and endings, some more real than others. The Roman Empire fell in 476 when the Germanic warlord Odoacer deposed the boy-emperor Romulus Augustulus. The Reformation began in 1517 when Martin Luther issued his Ninety-Five Theses. The United States was inaugurated with a pen-stroke on July 4, 1776, and the ancient régime fell when the Bastille succumbed to the Parisian mob on July 14, 1789. In 1782, Anna Göldi, a Swiss maidservant, was executed for witchcraft in what is generally regarded as the last fully legal witch trial in Europe. The museum recently opened to honor her in the Canton of Glarus, therefore, memorializes not just any victim of the witch hunts, but Europe’s “last witch.”

           Switzerland has a fair claim to being site of the beginning as well as the end of the European witch hunts, for in the mid-fifteenth century Alpine lands witnessed both the construction of the stereotype of diabolical witchcraft – that is, of witches as demon-worshiping, sabbat-attending servants of Satan – and some of the first applications of that stereotype in trials. Yet these beginnings and endings, and indeed the entire history of European witchcraft, tell only a small part of a much larger story. Belief in the real existence and power of supernatural spirits (demons among them) and of occult natural forces (such as might be contained in witches’ potions and poisons) has been a major aspect of human culture, and certainly of European culture at least until characteristically modern forms of rationality emerged during the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Perennial too has been the belief that human beings could access and manipulate such power via words and rites, as well as the conviction that certain people would utilize such power for evil ends, and that society needed to be protected from them.

             In my recent book Magic and Superstition in Europe: A Concise History from Antiquity to the Present,I have tried to set the important and dismal story of the European witch hunts within this larger history. I have also tried to tell a story without artificial beginnings and endings. I begin in the depths of antiquity and proceed to the twenty-first century. My purpose is not to chart the movement through time of some static construct that modern opinion might label “magic” or “witchcraft,” but rather to trace how successive societies and cultures constructed and categorized such practices, taking into account both what contemporaries might understand as magical (even when they employed no such word) and what modern minds might perceive in the past. I saw no reason to stop in the eighteenth century, with the advent of the Enlightenment, because magical beliefs and practices persist in modern Europe and North America. Modern magical groups, such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in the early twentieth century, or modern witches (Wiccans) in the twenty-first are often regarded as being wholly separate from the magicians and witches of the past. They certainly occupy a different position in society, and in many ways arise from specifically modern cultural currents. Yet they are nonetheless very much a part of the not-yet-ended history of magic in the West.

Michael D. Bailey is assistant professor of history at Iowa State University.

Museums Outside-In

“Museums are in the midst of another transition … from the government/corporate sector to the realm of civil society.”

So says Gail Dexter Lord in her remarks to the second Stephen Weil Memorial Lecture on August 20, 2007 at the International Council of Museums General Conference in Vienna, Austria.

 Visit http://www.lord.ca/Media/MuseumsOutsideIn.pdf for her provocative and inspiring speech.

Here is an excerpt from the speech entitled “Museums Outside-In”:

Over the past few decades there has been a slow stealthy transition of museums from the government to the civil society realm; and like most change in museums, it is not always by choice. This momentous change started with small cutbacks in government grant aid. On average, government subsidy to individual museums has declined by 20% to 50% over the past 30 years. However, it needs to be said that overall government subsidy to the sector may even have increased. But there are more museums and museums are more professional so they want to do more - selling even better quality services at below the cost of production!

But something very exciting is also going on. Because the museum must look outside for support -- not only financial but social – it becomes a more outward focussed organization with more links to the community. Good reviews are very important--not just for your professional standing--but because it is important that your museum is embraced by your community. The Deputy Director now needs to learn about the tourism industry and the Head of Education has to learn how to welcome learners of all ages and all ethnic groups exhibitions becomes more of a dialogue and less of a monologue and so a more vital type of museum has emerged. A more outside-in museum has emerged.

I would suggest that, whether or not a museum becomes de-linked from government, there is a tipping point in the proportion of government versus income from other sources at which the museum becomes de facto a civil society institution. Whether this tipping point occurs at 50% or 75% or 85% single source funding is relative to the local culture, politics and the size of museum. Does the museum director and his or her team have a different role before and after this tipping point has been reached?

Much of the recent business literature on this subject makes a big distinction between the two roles:

These texts say that Management is about “doing the thing right”.

But Leadership is about “doing the right thing”.

I question whether this distinction is valid for museums?

Gail Dexter Lord is the author of many other speeches as well as the co-author of The Manual of Museum Management (1997) and The Manual of Strategic Planning for Museums (2007), and co-editor of The Manual of Museum Planning (1991) and The Manual of Museum Exhibitions (2001), published by AltaMira Press. Visit http://www.lord.ca for more information.

At the Borderline of Armageddon

 

By James E. Goodby

The sixth anniversary of 9/11 coincides with a renewed debate about Iraq. The coincidence should remind us that diplomacy has proved more effective than the use of force in containing the nuclear threat.

In my book, At the Borderline of Armageddon (Rowman and Littlefield, 2006) I described how the current administration campaigned for war against Iraq. It claimed that Saddam Hussein was reconstituting a nuclear weapons program which could only be stopped by force. Even when Secretary of State Colin Powell’s own intelligence analysts expressed skepticism, no real effort was made to get to the bottom of the matter. The war decision had been made. 

My book also shows how determined the administration was to dismantle the legal structure for U.S.-Russian cooperation in controlling nuclear weapons. Fundamental changes in the U.S.-Russian relationship justified a different approach to controlling nuclear weapons, but rejecting the whole idea of joint controls was not called for.

The Bush administration came into office saying that arms control agreements were outmoded. But it has become evident in recent years that a U.S.-Russian effort to reduce their own holdings of nuclear weapons to as close to zero as is possible is necessary to block the spread of nuclear weapons to many other nations. That can only be done through verified treaties, which the Bush administration has rejected.

This administration seems unable either to anticipate events or to recall the past. It is oblivious to history. Anyone listing the most bitterly contested issues in today’s public policy debates would certainly include these: Should the United States have invaded Iraq to block its non-existent nuclear weapons program? Should the United States launch a preventive war against Iran to destroy that nation’s nuclear programs? Should U.S. diplomats negotiate with an authoritarian North Korean leader whose people are suffering under his rule? These questions rank among the handful of life-or-death decisions the Bush administration has faced, but U.S. presidents have faced very similar questions before. Their answers were very different from the ones given us by President Bush.

Eisenhower was asked to consider preventive war to block the Soviet Union’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. He refused. Kennedy and Johnson were asked to consider the same action against China’s nascent nuclear weapons program. They understood the folly of that. Reagan said and he believed that the Soviet government was an “Evil Empire,” yet he negotiated with that government because he saw that the nuclear weapon was humanity’s common enemy. Ultimately, Reagan succeeded in eliminating a whole class of nuclear-armed missiles. We are even beginning to see some progress with North Korea, now that diplomacy has been unleashed. The lessons of history are clear. The judgments of these American presidents saved the world from what surely would have been devastation on a grand scale. More diplomacy and less war will improve the world’s chances of escaping nuclear catastrophe.

 

James E. Goodby is a research affiliate with MIT's Program on Science, Technology, and Society, where he dedicates his research to issues involving nuclear weapons. Goodby has served in a variety of diplomatic and policy positions in both Europe and Washington, placing strong emphasis on international security affairs. He is the recipient of the Presidential Distinguished Service Award, the State Department's Superior and Distinguished Honor Award, and the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit from the German government. In 1995, Goodby received the inaugural Heinz Award in Public Policy.

 

More Q & A with Jacqueline Bacon on Freedom’s Journal: The First African American Newspaper

Q: How did the newspaper cover slavery? 

A: Freedom’s Journal exposed the cruelties of slavery and the ways that enslaved people fought their oppression. Articles by the editors and contributors countered common proslavery arguments and the assumptions—scriptural, economic, and political—on which they were based. A significant number of articles explored judicial decisions that considered slavery’s reach onto “free” soil when slaves accompanying traveling masters to non-slave states sued for their freedom, from the 1772 British Somerset case to cases from various regions of the United States that explored the power of slavery throughout the nation and set the stage for more well later known decisions such as the Dred Scott case. 

Q: Did the newspaper help free slaves?

A: For obvious reasons, Freedom’s Journal did not publicize specifics about the underground channels for assisting fugitives. However, Russwurm offered help in the newspaper to runaways by notifying them about locations where they would be unsafe because of slave hunters, the devious methods used by those who would capture them, and the names of captors and their accomplices. Freedom’s Journal also publicized efforts by individuals and organizations who aided free African Americans who had been kidnapped and sold into slavery or whose loved ones had suffered this fate, allowing African Americans and white allies to seek assistance in specific cases and free particular victims. Slaves could also be freed through the controversial (but sometimes effective) method of purchasing their freedom, and such initiatives were publicized in the newspaper, such as the campaign to free the children of Reverend George Erskine, a Presbyterian minister and former slave who had been manumitted in 1815, and the poet George Moses Horton. (Although at least some of Erskine’s children obtained freedom, the effort to buy the liberty of Horton failed.)

Q: How did Freedom’s Journal influence American abolition and the history of American journalism? 

A: Freedom’s Journal established connections among African-American leaders in different cities; created a force of writers and activists whose impact on American abolition was crucial, such as David Walker and Samuel Cornish, who went on to edit other newspapers and served on both the Board of Managers and the Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society; and publicized the arguments against colonization and slavery and for black freedom and civil rights that convinced white reformers such as William Lloyd Garrison to support abolition. Because one of the goals of <I>Freedom’s Journal<I> was to encourage debate on important subjects, we discover in the pages of <I>Freedom’s Journal<I> discussions of issues that white abolitionists did not take up until subsequent decades, such the role of women role in reform and in the public sphere, the use of physical resistance and extralegal action, and the reliance on or rejection of political institutions. 

Q: What is the significance of Freedom’s Journal for African-American newspapers of today?

A: Freedom’s Journal established the power of the black press as a tool in building community and fighting oppression. Numerous newspapers can be considered the legacy of Freedom’s Journal, from Frederick Douglass’s North Star, which began publication in 1847, to the Chicago Defender, which from 1905 to today has played a key role as a source of information and a forum for discussions of issues relating to people of color. As various historians and journalists have noted, the issues raised in Freedom’s Journal have been discussed in the African-American press in various forms since its publication, and the principles upon which it was founded remain relevant. As did Freedom’s Journal, African-American newspapers continue to report stories that are ignored in the mainstream white-dominated media, to interpret news in ways that make it relevant to people of color, to educate and empower, and to critique the nation and challenge it to live up to its ideals.