March 2011 Issue of the Journal of the Historical Society

Randall Stephens

The new issue of the Journal of the Historical Society has been arriving in mailboxes this past week. Articles from it can be downloaded at the Wiley Online Library. The March 2011 issue features:

"Blind Men of Industan"
F. S. Naiden

"Three Weeks in Mississippi: James Meredith, Aubrey Norvell, and the Politics of Bird Shot"
Aram Goudsouzian

"Neither a Secular nor Confessional Age: The Bonn Reunion Conferences of 1874 and 1875"
Thomas Albert Howard

"Tar and Feathers"
Barry Levy

"The Age of Reagan? Three Questions for Future Research"
John Ehrman

Here is a little from Howard's "Neither a Secular nor Confessional Age: The Bonn Reunion Conferences of 1874 and 1875":

Europe's "revolutionary century," the nineteenth, has experienced its own historiographical revolution in recent decades. Not too long ago its direction reflected the academy's penchant to think in terms of "secularization"; the title of Owen Chadwick's The Secularization of the European Mind in the Nineteenth Century (1975) might serve as an illustration of an earlier status quo. Encouraged by the advent of the so-called "new cultural history" in the 1990s and building momentum ever since, religious topics have emerged as a significant focus of scholarship. One German scholar, Olaf Blaschke, has influentially proposed that, far from a "secular age," we might do better to think of the nineteenth century as a "second confessional era," in light of the persistence of Catholic and Protestant "milieus" throughout Western Europe and lingering confessional animosities and prejudices. Blaschke's words have received much deserved attention. read more >>>

History through the Eyes of . . . Xuanzang: Indian Life, 7th Century AD

Randall Stephens

From 629 to 645 AD the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang wandered through Central Asia and India. His observations provide some insight into the customs, religious beliefs, and life in general in that land. He sailed down the Ganges, hobnobbed with Indian royalty, and traveled extensively on the subcontinent.

He developed a considerable reputation as a scholar in India. Much of his time there he spent studying at the Nalanda monastery, a well-known religious scholarly community. He would translate the sacred texts of Buddhism from Sanskrit into Chinese.

In the passages excerpted here, Xuanzang observes the towns, streets, customs, and behaviors of some of the sites he visited in India.

Si-Yu-Ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World, Vol 1, Samuel Beal, trans. (London, 1906), 73-74, 83, 85.

Towns and Buildings

The towns and villages have inner gates; the walls are wide and high; the streets and lanes are tortuous, and the roads winding. The thorough fares are dirty and the stalls arranged on both sides of the road with appropriate signs. Butchers, fishers, dancers, executioners, and scavengers, and so on, have their abodes without the city. In coming and going these persons are bound to keep on the left side of the road till they arrive at their homes. Their houses are surrounded by low walls, and form the suburbs. The earth being soft and muddy, the walls of the towns are mostly built of brick or tiles. The towers on the walls are constructed of wood or bamboo; the houses have balconies and belvederes, which are made of wood, with a coating of lime or mortar, and covered with tiles. The different buildings have the same form as those in China: rushes, or dry branches, or tiles, or boards are used for covering them. The walls are covered with lime and mud, mixed with cow's dung for purity. At different seasons they scatter flowers about. Such are some of their different customs. . . .

Manners, Administration of Law, Ordeals

With respect to the ordinary people, although they are naturally light-minded, yet theyare upright and honourable. In money matters they are without craft, and in administering justice they are considerate. They dread the retribution of another state of existence, and make light of the things of the present world. They are not deceitful or treacherous in their conduct, and are faithful to their oaths and promises. In their rules of government there is remarkable rectitude, whilst in their behaviour there is much gentleness and sweetness. . . .

Forms of Politeness

There are nine methods of showing outward respect— (1) by selecting words of a soothing character in making requests; (2) by bowing the head to show respect; (3) by raising the hands and bowing; (4) by joining the hands and bowing low; (5) by bending the knee; (6) by a prostration;29 (7) by a prostration on hands and knees; (8) by touching the ground with the five circles; (9) by stretching the five parts of the body on the ground.

Of these nine methods the most respectful is to make one prostration on the ground and then to kneel and laud the virtues of the one addressed. When at a distance it is usual to bow low; when near, then it is customary to kiss the feet and rub the ankles (of the person addressed).

See also, Richard Bernstein, Ultimate Journey: Retracing the Path of an Ancient Buddhist Monk Who Crossed Asia in Search of Enlightenment (Alfred A. Knopf, 2001); Sally Hovey Wriggins Xuanzang: A Buddhist Pilgrim on the Silk Road (Boulder: Westview Press, 1996); and D. Devahuti, ed, The Unknown Hsuan-Tsang (Oxford University Press, 2001).

Islamism Series: Mumbai

Radical Islam has once again reared its ugly head, this time in Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay, the financial and entertainment capital of the largest Democracy on the face of the earth in India. This marks yet another major attack by Islamic military forces against the free world in their efforts to spread the rule of Islam around the globe - which is their ultimate goal. Their aim in attacks such as this is not only to kill, injure, and generally terrorize those in the free world, but it is much larger. Their aim in Mumbai was the same as in New York, in Madrid, in London, in Paris. It is nothing less than creating enough fear and damage, both physical and psychological, to effect political and societal changes in those nations that will make it easier and easier over time to effectuate the ultimate control of these nations by Islam. They wish to unite the world in a new Caliphate, the rule by Muslims of every nation under Islamic Sharia law. They will play off governments such as those in Pakistan and India, Russia and the United States, China and Tibet, against one another anywhere that they can to use existing differences to undermine these governments. As is evident from the elections here in the United States earlier this month, normal everyday people simply cannot stomach fighting a lengthy war of civilizations. That is exactly what the Jihadist forces are counting on: their victory in the long term over more physically and financially powerful forces by demoralizing the citizens of those non-Islamic nations. They will fight, deceive, and by any means necessary spread their Jihad slowly but surely. Meanwhile, many Western news and political sources will look only at the distraction of ethnic and national differences and disputes, will be distracted by smaller terror groups and individual ideological leaders, and will miss the bigger, more important picture. Radical Islam has declared war on the West, and any nation or government that is not Islamic. The attacks in Mumbai, like those in the U.S. and other places around the world, are not isolated. They are another front opened in the global Jihad, just one more battle to them in a larger war. It bears being mentioned once again that if we fail to fight them fully and defeat them utterly, this will be a battle that our grandchildren's granchildren will be fighting. Since we appear to be unwilling to do the heavy lifting, there will be many, many more attacks like those in Mumbai, many more governments turning sympathetic towards Islam, many more Americans eventually paying the price here on our home soil. More to come in the days to come on the developing Mumbai situation and its relation to the big picture.

Energy Answer: Drill, Refine, Alternate

As was stated in this week's edition of The Patriot Post: "...ours is an economy that relies on a stable energy supply, and this volatility in fuel prices is a reflection of the instability of our present supply." Bottom line, there are more people that want the world's fuel then there is currently fuel to give them. Two decades ago when gas prices were cheap here in America, we were not competing against the rapidly emerging and gigantic economies of China and India. These two nations alone are rapidly expanding and growing with enormous populations of people, and thus the energy needs involved in the expansion is tremendous. It creates enormous demand from the world's limited supply, thus driving up prices. Had we here in America been taking advantage of the vast amount of oil resources right here in our own back yards over the past few decades by both drilling for it and refining it, we would have a far greater advantage, a much stronger weapon with which to fight this volatility. As it is, we have become completely dependent on foreign oil. At the same time, we have been reluctant at best, negligent at worst, in pursuing new energy options for the future. The United States of America needs to begin a comprehensive effort of drilling for oil both off-shore and at places such as the ANWAR area in order to tap those tremendous reserves. At the same time we need to be greatly increasing our refining capacity by building new facilities. Finally, we need to accelerate research and production of alternative energy sources, including the building of many more nuclear power plants for electricity. None of these steps will alleviate prices overnight. We may never see $2 or $3 per gallon gasoline prices ever again at American pumps. But we can stop buying gas-guzzling SUV's and mini-vans, start tapping our own resources, and stop funding the very terrorists who would destroy our way of life. Drill, refine, research, modernize. No matter who we elect as President this fall, it will not change the current oil situation. But we can begin to change the future of the next few decades for ourselves, and the ensuing generations of our children and grandchildren.