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Many Possible Worlds
An Interdisciplinary History of
the World Economy Since 1800

Cameron Gordon
Many Possible Worlds
 Cameron Gordon

Many Possible Worlds

An Interdisciplinary History of the World Economy
Since 1800
Cameron Gordon
Tax and Transfer Policy Institute
Crawford School of Public Policy
Australian National University
Canberra, ACT, Australia

ISBN 978-981-19-9280-3 ISBN 978-981-19-9281-0 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9281-0

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc.
in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such
names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for
general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and informa-
tion in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither
the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with
respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been
made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps
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Cover illustration: Unfinished steel structure intact after quake, San Francisco. San
Francisco California, ca. 1906. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2004680400/

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Singapore Pte Ltd.
The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore
189721, Singapore
To Josephine, my wife, the love of my life, found later in life.
 Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following people who kindly reviewed chap-
ters of my book and gave me valuable feedback, almost all of which I
incorporated in my revisions: Aditya Balasubramanian, Richard Flanagan,
Timothy Hatton, John Hawkins, Helga Henckel, Timo Henckel, Maria
Racionero Llorente, Ben Mercer, David Paynter, Will Steffen and Alan
Zimmerman. The usual caveat about all the errors being mine applies.
I also want to thank the staff at Palgrave Macmillan who worked
very hard to find reviewers for the proposal and have been most accom-
modating in the publishing and production processes. Thanks also to
anyone else whose names I don’t know. I know there are many who
work in the background and I very much appreciate their anonymous
labours. And thanks also to the anonymous reviewer(s) who gave very
thoughtful, detailed and positive comments on both the initial proposal
and the completed draft manuscript itself that resulted in some important
improvements that I hope are reflected in the final book.
Finally, this book would never have been written if not for the third-
year undergraduate class, World Economy Since 1800, that I taught at the
Australian National University. That class inspired me to do a wide range
of reading that I normally would not have undertaken, and showed me
that there was a need for a truly interdisciplinary history of the modern
economy. As always, teaching is a wonderful gift, and I am grateful for
the opportunity to have taught the class and for the students who were
part of it.

vii
 A Very Brief Reader’s Guide

Roughly 250 years ago, a startling thing happened: material output,

income and wealth began to take off in Europe, first leaving the rest
of the world and, then, historical precedent, behind. As the twentieth
century progressed, Europe and its white settler “offshoots” attained
unprecedented levels of opulence, while the non-European world increas-
ingly adopted “capitalist” methods to achieve its own parallel growth
acceleration.
Economists have defined this transformation in a narrow economic
frame, generally focusing on individual economic agents moving within
and constrained by competitive markets, their institutional arrangements,
and the behavioural incentives the overall system provides to economic
actors. This book uses that model but goes beyond it to look at economic
change as a constant interplay of individual and social evolution, a process
here presented in one cross-cutting interdisciplinary narrative. Sociology,
political science, economics, anthropology, biology, geography, organ-
isational theory and environmental science, amongst others, all have
legitimate claims to being part of a true interdisciplinary economic
history. Immodestly, and certainly incompletely, I have attempted to tell
the story of the world economy since 1800 using a set of multiple lenses.
The book approaches this task across 32 chapters. Chapter 1 discusses
some general issues arising in the writing and practice of interdisciplinary
history, while Chapter 32 presents overall conclusions. The remaining 30

ix
x A VERY BRIEF READER’S GUIDE

chapters are organized in 10 subsets of 3 that take the following sequence,

repeated ten times:

• One chapter presents a relevant core idea for a phase of economic

history (e.g. Chapter 2 on “Understanding the Anthropocene”).
• The next chapter presents a broad historical narrative pivoting
around a critical or illustrative year (e.g. Chapter 3 on “1800”).
• A final chapter then pulls out a relevant associated cross-cutting
theme considered in the prior two chapters (e.g. Chapter 4 on
“Political Economy”: the making of a North/South planet).

This is not a tight structure, and there is much overlapping and cross-
cutting. The intent is to break a long and varied history into relatively
digestible chunks that highlight key motive forces and impacts. The book
is meant to be read sequentially, of course. But one may focus on one of
the 10 “sets” of 3. Individual chapters can also be read in isolation, but
some cross-referencing may be required in some cases. To that end, there
are relatively frequent parenthetical pointers to other relevant chapters.
Most chapters contain at least one text-box, of lengths ranging from
a paragraph up to a page and half. These have varying aims. Technical
models and diagrams are used very sparingly in this book. But in a few
cases, boxes are used to present such material for those interested, to
be safely skipped by those otherwise inclined. Much more often the box
material expands on or illustrates something presented in the main narra-
tive, such as how a particular country experienced a particular epoch
under discussion, or going more deeply into a single topic referenced
broadly in the text. In quite a few instances, the boxes focus on what is
deemed to be an interesting sideline or story. In general, these boxes can
be read or not read as preferred.
A final noted on the illustrations used here: they are an integral part
of the narrative. Sometimes, they play the conventional role of providing
a visual to supplement the historical description provided in words. But
they are also meant to serve as visual narratives in their own right, a bit like
poetry, provoking nonlinear thought and bringing in the right hemisphere
of the brain to augment what the left hemisphere is reading. A concerted
effort has been undertaken to use only images that have been determined
to be free to use by being in the public domain or under licences that
allow unlimited use. Whether the underlying licence requires it or not,
 A VERY BRIEF READER’S GUIDE xi

full attribution of sources have been given, as well as the nature of the
licence itself. If any errors have been made, please notify the publisher
and these will be corrected in subsequent editions.
 Contents

1 Practising Interdisciplinary Economic History 1

1.1 Stitching Histories Together 2
1.1.1 Surmising and Validating “General Laws” 3
1.1.2 Story-Telling to Bring Out
the Comprehensible Patterns from Messy
Reality 3
1.1.3 Historical Imagination
and the Singularity of the Past 3
1.2 Historiographical Pitfalls 4
1.2.1 Causal Determinism 4
1.2.2 Reductionism 5
1.2.3 Uniformitarianism 5
1.3 “Truth” and History 6
References 7
2 Understanding the “Anthropocene” 9
2.1 Travelling on “Spaceship” Earth 10
2.2 Three Paradigms of the World Economy 13
2.3 Paradigm 1: The Anthropocene (It’s All About
Earth System Limits) 14
2.4 Paradigm 2: Modernity and Modernisation (It’s
All About the Society) 22
2.5 Paradigm 3: The Growth Model (It’s All About
the Economy) 30

xiii
xiv CONTENTS

2.6 Consistent or Inconsistent Paradigms? 35

References 37
3 “1800” 43
3.1 The Beginning of a “Modern” Economy 44
3.2 The Vantage Point from 1800 46
3.3 The Industrial Revolution and the Great
Divergence: The Unified Growth Model (UGM) 50
3.4 The Industrial Revolution on the Ground 52
3.5 The Industrial Revolution: Why and How Did It
Happen? 55
3.6 From Competition Between Nations to a “World
System”? 63
3.7 Core-Periphery Examples: Monetary Standards
and Slavery 65
3.8 What About “Society”? 67
3.9 “Institutions” 69
References 74
4 “Political Economy”: The Making of a North-South
Planet 79
4.1 Classical Economics and “Political Economy” 80
4.2 Adam Smith and the Wealth of Nations 81
4.3 Rationalism and Its Emotional Tones 85
4.4 Science, Mechanism, Deism
and the Self-Regulating System 87
4.5 A Revised Role for the State 89
4.6 Power, Politics and Economics 91
4.7 Thomas Robert Malthus and Malthusian Economics 92
4.8 David Ricardo and the Ricardian Synthesis 94
4.9 “Man” and “Nature” and Classical “Liberalism” 97
4.10 Emerging Cracks in the Political Economy Edifice 98
4.11 The Making of a North-South World 100
4.12 The Dual Nature of Technical System Making 105
4.13 The Self-Regulating System Point of View 108
4.14 A Bottom Line? 110
References 113
 CONTENTS xv

5 Self, Socialisation, Organisation, Culture 117

5.1 Prelude: The Origins of the Term Industrial
Revolution 118
5.2 Sociality 120
5.3 Socialisation, Culture and Society 123
5.4 Economic Change and Society 126
5.5 Case Studies of Economy/Society Modernisation 133
5.5.1 “The Great Transformation” 133
5.5.2 “The Industrious Revolution” 135
5.5.3 “Factory Discipline” 136
5.5.4 Entrepreneurship 138
References 139
6 “1848” 143
6.1 The Napoleonic Transition in Europe 145
6.2 New Ideas About Old Institutions 149
6.3 Colonial Ferment, Change and Upheaval 155
6.4 A Cementing of a World Economic System 159
6.5 “Structural Change” in Europe 162
6.6 The European Restoration and Its Rapid Breakdown 164
6.7 1848 from a Global Perspective 166
6.8 Economic Causes of “1848”: Long- and Short Term 168
6.9 Aftermath: The Developmental State 170
6.10 Aftermath: Reform of the City 172
6.11 Aftermath: Managing Popular Consent 173
6.12 A Summing Up: The World Economy
at Mid-Century 174
References 176
7 “Revolution” 181
7.1 A Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party 182
7.2 Theorising About Revolutions 185
7.3 Social Fabric, Social Capital and Social Movements 186
7.4 Economic Impetuses of Revolution 190
7.5 The Role of Ideas 192
7.6 Political Economy Revisited 194
7.7 “East” v “West” 195
7.8 Great Power Politics 196
7.9 1848 as a Case Study 198
References 200
xvi CONTENTS

8 Technology, Innovation and Invention 203

8.1 A Technological Revolution? 204
8.2 “Technology” and Productivity 204
8.3 Entrepreneurs Versus Technology “Systems” 208
8.4 The Finance Connection and Beyond 209
8.5 Technology and Society 211
8.6 A Case Study: Railroads and Economic Growth 215
8.6.1 Embodied and Disembodied Effects 220
8.6.2 Role of Topography and Physical Space 221
8.6.3 Market Access and Size Effects 222
8.6.4 Static v Dynamic Effects 225
8.7 An Intermediate Reckoning 227
References 228
9 “1870” 231
9.1 The Psychic Costs of Modernisation 232
9.2 Material Modernisation in Europe 236
9.3 The “Second” Industrial Revolution and the Role
of the State 238
9.4 A Changing World of Work and Lifestyle 241
9.4.1 Work Organisation 241
9.4.2 Hours and Wages and “Standard of Living” 243
9.5 A Changing World of Home and Family 245
9.6 A Globalising Economy 247
9.7 The “Concert of Europe” in 1870 251
9.8 The “Production Possibility Frontier” 254
References 255
10 La Belle Époque 259
10.1 “The Beautiful Epoch”—For Some 260
10.2 Social and Economic Life Inside the Core: The
Case of France 263
10.3 Mass Media, “News” and Nationalism 269
10.4 Girdling the Globe 271
10.5 Internationalisation and Its Nationalist Backlashes 275
10.6 An Exceptional Case: Japan 276
10.7 A Growing Bittersweet Decadence in Europe 281
References 285
 CONTENTS xvii

11 “Civilisation”, Gender, Race and Class 289

11.1 Civilisation: The Birth of a Concept 290
11.2 Civilisational Analysis 292
11.3 “Western” “European” Civilisation 295
11.3.1 Ancient Greece 296
11.3.2 Ancient Rome 297
11.3.3 Christianity 297
11.4 Civilisational Sources and Aspects of Economic
Growth 297
11.5 Modernisation and the Individual 303
11.6 Economic Change and Changing Categories
of Gender, Race and Class 304
11.6.1 Gender 305
11.6.2 Race 308
11.6.3 Class 311
11.7 “Axial” Movements, Modernisation and “Multiple
Modernities” 313
References 315
12 “1900” 319
12.1 Prelude: When Does a New Century Begin? 321
12.2 Material Expansion as of “1900” 321
12.3 A Global Trade System 327
12.4 International Finance and System Driven
Turbulences 329
12.5 Science—Industry—Productivity: The Second
Industrial Revolution 332
12.6 Big Capital and Labour Movements 334
12.7 The First Age of Modern Inequality and the Rise
of Radicalism 337
12.8 Pollution and Waste 341
12.9 Northern Industrialisation and Southern
Deindustrialisation 346
12.10 The Conundrum of “Rational Planning” 349
References 352
13 Imperialism 355
13.1 The “Age of Imperialism” 356
13.2 Forms and Styles of Imperialism 358
13.3 Motivations for Imperialism 362
xviii CONTENTS

13.3.1 Geopolitical 362

13.3.2 Cultural/Ideological 363
13.3.3 Economic 365
13.4 The Burdens Imposed by Colonial Rule 368
13.5 Imperialism and Postcolonial Economic Growth 372
13.5.1 Latin America 373
13.5.2 Africa 379
13.6 Assessing the Modern Legacy of Imperialism 381
References 382
14 Modernity 387
14.1 Modernity’s Etymology 388
14.2 Commodification, Marketisation, Industrialism,
Bureaucracy 391
14.3 Modernity, Intensification, Depersonalisation
and the Consolidation of the “Masses” 396
14.4 Mass Media and the Changing Self-Image
of “Modern Man” 399
14.5 Modernity and the Problem of Violence 402
14.6 The First Age of Anxiety and the Weight of Western
Civilisation 404
14.7 Modernity Outside Europe 407
References 410
15 “1914” 413
15.1 A Long Nineteenth Century 414
15.2 A High Tide of Systems Thinking and Mechanism
Ideals 415
15.3 Nineteenth Century Europe in Political Transition
and the Rise of “Geopolitics” 417
15.4 A Complexifying Order 421
15.5 A New Industry of Arms 423
15.6 Reasons War Came 427
15.7 During the War 430
15.8 After the War Was Over 437
References 441
16 Global Demographic Change 443
16.1 Industrialisation and the Modern Demographic
Transition 444
 CONTENTS xix

16.2 Demographic Forces and Economic Modernisation 447

16.3 Possible Causes of Falling Fertility 449
16.4 The Mortality Transition 454
16.5 Migration 457
16.6 Economic Impacts of Migration 460
16.7 Migration as a Safety Valve for Capitalism 461
16.8 The Shifting Well-Being of the World 462
References 464
17 Ideas and Ideologies 467
17.1 A Political Economist Grapples with the Individual
in a Mass Age 468
17.2 Industrialisation and Changing Ideas About
Economy and Society 474
17.3 Ideas and Economic Change 476
17.4 Changing Conceptions of the Self in Society 479
17.5 Ideas Versus Ideologies 485
17.6 Violence and Ideology 488
17.7 An Evolutionary Strategy? 489
17.8 The Void of Meaning 491
References 492
18 “1929” 495
18.1 “The Economic Consequences of the Peace” 496
18.2 Remaking a Problematic Europe 497
18.3 An “Interwar” Order 502
18.4 Interwar Global Finance 503
18.5 American Prosperity and the Roots of the Great
Depression 505
18.6 The Great Crash 508
18.7 Full-Blown Financial and Economic Crisis
in America 509
18.8 A Worldwide Conflagration 515
18.9 Outmoded Policy Responses and Policy
Experimentation 518
18.9.1 Alternative Visions 522
18.9.2 “Macroeconomics” and “Social Democracy” 523
18.10 The Ongoing Mystery of the Great Depression 525
References 527
xx CONTENTS

19 Global Finance 531

19.1 Open Markets in Money and Things 532
19.2 Financial Integration: Good or Bad? 534
19.3 North/South Finance and Financial Hegemony 536
19.4 The Rise of Central Banking and the Lender
of Last Resort (LOLR) 540
19.5 The Classical Gold Standard and the Global
Politics of Money 543
19.6 Infrastructure and Money 546
19.7 Falling Standards 549
19.8 Reparations and “Hot Money” 554
19.9 Goodbye to All that 558
References 559
20 Exceptionalism 563
20.1 American “Exceptionalism” 564
20.2 Varieties and Limits of Exceptionalism 574
20.3 Is America Economically Exceptional? 577
20.4 The Limits of Exceptionalism as a Method of Analysis 582
References 584
21 “1945” 587
21.1 Economic Prelude to Another World War 588
21.2 First Stages of the War 592
21.3 Course of the War 595
21.4 A Series of Difficult Questions 599
21.4.1 Causes of the War 600
21.4.2 Who Won the War? 601
21.4.3 Atrocities 602
21.4.4 Preventing Another World War
and Another Depression 604
21.5 Same War, Different Meanings 604
References 607
22 War 609
22.1 War…What Is It Good for? 610
22.2 A Changing Face of War 611
22.3 “Total War” 613
22.4 War and the Economy According to the Growth
Model 614
 CONTENTS xxi

22.4.1 The Phoenix Effect 615

22.4.2 Institutional Clearance 619
22.4.3 Military Keynesianism 620
22.5 Military Technology and Dual Uses 622
22.6 War-Making and State-Making 624
22.7 Military-Industrial Complexes 626
22.8 “Iron Triangles” 630
References 631
23 Comparative Economic, Social and Political Systems 633
23.1 Industrialism Versus Capitalism 635
23.2 Social, Political, Economic and Cultural
Comparisons 636
23.3 Political System Choice and the Role of the State 640
23.4 The Fascist Challenge of the Interwar Period 643
23.5 “Cold War” and “Comparative Economic Systems” 648
23.6 Post-Cold War “New Comparative Economics” 655
23.7 Going Forward 656
References 658
24 “1968” 661
24.1 The Great Post-War Prosperity 663
24.2 A Demographic Boom 666
24.3 Suburbanisation 667
24.4 A “Youth” Generation 672
24.5 Materialism and Consumerism 676
24.6 The Organisation Man 677
24.7 Ennui and a Crisis of Meaning 679
24.8 A Year of Global Unrest 682
24.9 The Aftermath 690
References 693
25 Cold War 695
25.1 The Beginnings of a Manichean World 696
25.2 Prelude to a Dichotomy 698
25.3 Making of a Cold War 700
25.4 Economic Performance of Competing Models 706
25.5 A Development Model for the Developing World 708
25.6 American Hegemony in the Capitalist Bloc 711
25.7 Varieties of Capitalism 715
xxii CONTENTS

25.8 Major Geopolitical Elements of the Cold War 718

25.8.1 The “Balance of Terror” and “Mutually
Assured Destruction” (MAD) 718
25.8.2 Proxy Wars, decolonisation
and Non-alignment 719
25.8.3 Propaganda and “Hearts and Minds” 727
25.9 The “National Security State” and “Big Science” 728
25.10 A Paradigm of “Control” and the Cold War
Paranoiac 730
References 735
26 Time and “Progress” 739
26.1 The “End” of History? 740
26.2 Is There Progress in Time? 743
26.3 Is There Time in Progress? 745
26.4 The Industrialisation of Time 746
26.5 The Technisation of Time Past, Present and Future 750
26.6 Politics as a Technical Problem in Search
of a Technical Solution 752
26.7 Round and Round It Goes 753
References 756
27 “1989” “1991” 757
27.1 Separate Worlds 759
27.2 A Golden Age of the Socialist Bloc 760
27.3 Pressures Beneath the Surface 761
27.4 A Disruptive Economic Opening to the West 763
27.5 “1989” 765
27.6 “1991” 768
27.7 The Chinese Exception 775
27.8 The “New World Order” 779
27.9 The Meaning of the Cold War’s End 782
References 784
28 Neoliberalism 785
28.1 What’s so “Neo” About “Neoliberalism”? 786
28.2 The Bretton Woods International Order 789
28.3 The Keynesian Consensus and Domestic
“Fine-Tuning” 792
28.4 Business, Labour, Accords and the Social Wage 795
 CONTENTS xxiii

28.5 A Turn for the Better; then a Turn for the Worse 797
28.6 What Happened? 799
28.7 A Changing Political Economy 802
28.8 Globalisation and Financialisation 808
28.9 Ongoing Implications of Neoliberalism 813
References 814
29 Structural Change 817
29.1 Economic Modernisation and Economic Structure 818
29.2 A Postwar Shift to Services 820
29.3 The “Post-Industrial” Economy and Society 822
29.4 Managerialism 825
29.5 Technocracy, Digitalisation and Changing
Production Processes 827
29.6 Northern Deindustrialisation 829
29.7 “Financialisation” 832
29.7.1 The “Hot Money” Problem 838
29.7.2 The “Rentier” Problem 838
29.7.3 The “Political Economy” Problem 839
29.8 The Production Possibility Frontier (PPF) Revisited 839
References 843
30 “2016” 847
30.1 2016: An Unusual year 849
30.2 Superficial Placidity and Technocratic Paradigms 852
30.3 Anger Movements 854
30.4 A Passing of “Big Ideas” 857
30.5 Actions Without Equal and Opposite Reactions 859
30.6 Broken Mirrors 863
30.7 The Roots of 2016 866
30.8 A Turning Point, But Nowhere to Turn? 868
References 871
31 Populism, Elitism and Identity 875
31.1 A Misunderstood Neologism 876
31.2 The Rise of Democracy 878
31.3 Order Versus Chaos 880
31.4 Technocracy and the Ideology of Elitism 883
31.5 The California Ideology 885
31.6 Networks Versus Hierarchies 887
xxiv CONTENTS

31.7 The Elitism of the Professional Class 888

31.8 The Degradation of Political Institutions 890
31.9 The Imperfect Refuges of Identity and Populism 894
31.9.1 Identity 894
31.9.2 Populism 897
31.10 Identity Politics, Citizenship and the Modern
Liberal Democratic Challenge 898
References 903
32 Old Models, New Realities 907
32.1 Two Mid-Century Visions of the Future 909
32.2 A Scientific Paradise 912
32.3 The New Optimists 914
32.4 The World as It Is? 915
32.4.1 Limits to Resources 916
32.4.2 Limits to Control 920
32.4.3 Limits to Knowing 925
32.4.4 Corporatisation, Formalisation,
Bureaucratisation 927
32.4.5 Instrumentalism Versus Values 930
32.4.6 Unintegrated Meaning and Immateriality 933
32.4.7 Mediated Reality 935
32.4.8 “Mass Everything” 938
32.4.9 Freedom and Identity 938
32.5 Old Models, New Realities 941
References 944

Bibliography 949
Index 1001
 List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Can you make a story out of windblown fragments?

(Image source U.S. National Archives [Project
DOCUMERICA]. Original Caption: Magazines
and Newspapers Litter the Intersection of Sixth &
Broadway After Debris Was Spilled from a Passing Truck,
September 1972. U.S. National Archives’ Local Identifier:
412-DA-1397. Photographer Strode, William. Persistent
URL: research.archives.gov/description/543890. No
known copyright restrictions) 2
Fig. 2.1 Shooting for the moon (Image source Photo provided
by Repository: San Diego Air and Space Museum.
Original caption: “Here men from the planet Earth set
foot on the Moon, July 1969. We came in peace for all
mankind”. Note No known copyright restrictions) 10
Fig. 3.1 A puzzle of the world—and the puzzle of the Industrial
Revolution circa 1800 (Image source Wallis, J. [1800]
A New Map of the World. London: John Wallis. [Map]
Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.
gov/item/85694393/. Map produced as a puzzle. No
known copyright restrictions) 44
Fig. 3.2 “Menu” of factors affecting material growth per capita
(Source Created by author) 58

xxv
xxvi LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 4.1 Europe as the centre of the world (Image source

Goodrich, S.G. [1857]. Peter Parley’s common school
history. Illustrated by engravings. E. H. Butler & Co.
Page 84. Contributing Library: Information and Library
Science Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill. No known copyright restrictions) 80
Fig. 4.2 Page from a letter by Adam Smith (Image
sourceA catalogue of the library of Adam Smith: author
of the ‘Moral sentiments’ and ‘The wealth of nations ’
[1894], Macmillan and Co. Contributing Library:
University of Connecticut Libraries. No known copyright
restrictions) 83
Fig. 5.1 The dance of human sociality (Image source Image taken
from Russell, W.H. [1865]. The Atlantic Telegraph.
[1865]. Original caption: Interior of One of the Tanks
on Board the Great Eastern: Cable Passing Out. https://
historyarchive.org/images/books/books-t/the-atlantic-tel
egraph-1865/plates/25-interior-of-one-of-the-tanks-on-
board-the-great-eastern-cable-passing-out.jpg. No known
copyright restrictions) 118
Fig. 5.2 Bottlenose dolphins off the coast of North Carolina, USA
(1979) (Image source page 127 of “Coast watch” [1979],
\UNC Sea Grant College Program, Publisher: [Raleigh,
N. C.: UNC Sea Grant College Program], Contributing
Library: State Library of North Carolina, Digitizing
Sponsor: North Carolina Digital Heritage Center [No
known copyright restrictions]) 126
Fig. 6.1 Les Cirondins, Mourir pour la patrie, revolutionary song
‘48 (sheet music cover) (Image source Varney, A. &
Dumas, A. [1848] Les Cirondins, Mourir pour la patrie,
revolutionary song ‘48. Atwill, New York, monographic.
[Notated Music] Retrieved from the Library of Congress,
https://www.loc.gov/item/sm1848.440490/.Librar
y of Congress, Music Division. No known copyright
restrictions) 144
Fig. 6.2 “The Double-Faced Napoleon” (Image source [page 29]
in Maurice, A .B. & Cooper, F. T. [1904]. The
history of the nineteenth century in caricature. Dodd,
Mead. Contributing Library: The Library of Congress.
Title of this figure is taken from the original caption
in the source. No known copyright restrictions) 145
 LIST OF FIGURES xxvii

Fig. 6.3 The Napoleonic reorganisation of Europe (1810) (Image

source Meyers, P. V. N. [1889]. A general history
for colleges and high schools. Ginn & Company, p. 748.
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress. Digitizing
Sponsor: Sloan Foundation. No known copyright
restrictions) 149
Fig. 7.1 “Unite or Die” flag from the American revolution
(Image source Wikipedia Commons. No known copyright
restrictions) 182
Fig. 8.1 The dance of humans and machines (Image source The
Fabricator: New Bedford Textile School yearbook [1922].
New Bedford Textile School). Contributing Library:
Claire T. Carney Library, University of Massachusetts
Dartmouth. Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library
Consortium Member Libraries. Original caption:
“A Freshman mechanical student’s dream of the deep
after one of Mr. Crompton’s lectures.” No known
copyright restrictions 204
Fig. 8.2 Three trunk lines crossing each other—USA circa
1919 (Image source Manufacturer: Southern Bargain
House, Richmond, Va. Date Postmarked: 1919 From
Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries. URL:
dig.library.vcu.edu/u?/postcard, 182. Notes provided
from source: “This unique photograph presents to view
the only point in the world where three trunk line trains
cross each other at the same time, and over their separate
tracks. At the top is shown a passenger train of the C. &
O. Railway leaving Richmond for the upper James River
Valley just beneath it a train of the S.A.L. Railway
leaving the Main Street (Union) Deport for the South,
and on the ground a train of the Southern Railway
coming into Richmond from West Point on the York
River. Rights: This item is in the public domain)” 217
Fig. 8.3 Travel time contours from London (1881) (Image source
Francis Galton’s original “Isochronic Passage Chart.”
Francis Galton/Public Domain. Converted to Black
and White by the author. Public domain) 223
Fig. 8.4 Travel times from London 1914 (Image source
Bartholomew, J. G. [1914]. Public domain) 224
xxviii LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 8.5 “Compression” of the travel-time space of the European

Alps using a modern example: the building of a High
Speed Rail (HSR) connection. (Compare with Fig. 8.6)
(Image source Ravazzoli et al. [2017] [Map by Elisa
Ravazzoli] MDS-based rescaling of major points
along HSR lines. © 2017 Ravazzoli et al. This open
access image is used as licensed by the authors through
a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
[http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/]) 226
Fig. 8.6 European Alps “actual size” (Image source https://www.
loc.gov/resource/g5700.ct001356/ Map of Europe
[2004]. U.S. Central Intelligence Agency). No known
copyright restrictions 226
Fig. 9.1 Philadelphia: Centennial Photographic Co., 1876.
Interior view of Machinery Hall (Image source
and original notes “Machinery Hall was designed by Pettit
and Wilson and constructed as one of the temporary
buildings of the Centennial Exhibition. It showcased
the technological advancements of the America’s Second
Industrial Revolution from steam and hydraulic power
to electricity and the internal combustion engine. At
the center of attention, the 56-ton flywheel of the Corliss
Centennial Steam Engine drove a mile of shafting
to provide steam power to exhibitors.” P.2011.47.288
[Public Domain]. Raymond Holstein Stereograph
Collection, library company of Philadelphia) 232
Fig. 9.2 “Ladies” admission ticket to the Crystal Palace Exhibition
of 1851 (Image source The National Archives UK,
Catalogue # BT 342/2 f.6. No known copyright
restrictions) 233
Fig. 9.3 The Concert of Europe circa 1870 (Image source Wells,
H. G. & Horrabin, J. F. [1920]. The outline of history:
Being a plain history of life and mankind. Cassell.
Page 310. Contributing Library: University of California
Libraries Digitizing Sponsor: MSN) 253
Fig. 9.4 The “Production Possibility Frontier” (PPF) (Created
by author) 255
Fig. 10.1 “En Famille” (Image source From Le Monde
moderne [1895]. The Centre for 19th Century
French Studies—University of Toronto. Digitising
Sponsor: University of Ottawa//External-identifier:
urn:oclc:record:848128196. Public domain) 260
 LIST OF FIGURES xxix

Fig. 10.2 Map of France: describing the new limits according

to the treaty of peace, 1874 (Source [1874], London,
J. Wyld. Public domain image courtesy Yale University
Library) 264
Fig. 10.3 “Fake News” and other variants of old (Image source US
Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/201264
8704/. Illus. from Puck, v. 35, no. 887, [1894 March
7], centrefold. With detail below. No known copyright
restrictions) 272
Fig. 10.4 The Atlantic Telegraph Line and plans for future overland
lines (1865) (Image source The Atlantic Telegraph. Map
Shewing the Atlantic telegraph, and other submarine
cables in Europe and America. Map Showing the Proposed
Ocean Telegraphs and Overland Route Around the World.
Date: 1865. London: Bacon & Co. No known copyright
restrictions) 274
Fig. 10.5 The floor of a large Silk Factory in Japan (ca. 1868)
(Image source University of Victoria, Hebert Geddes
collection [public domain] https://vault.library.uvic.ca/
concern/generic_works/50299f2c-93e7-4549-8061-
fa97ac015aff. Nots from Collection: “Herbert Geddes
was a manager for G.R. Gregg and Company, importers
and exporters, in Vancouver and Winnipeg. He was sent
to Japan and was based in Yokohama between 1908
and 1918. …The collection consists of photographic
glass-plate transparencies depicting life in Japan, including
scenery, street scenes, workers, farming, fishing, silk
production, stone carvers, wood carvers, metal workers,
potters, and artists. These “Yokohama photographs” were
sold to foreign tourists between about 1868 and 1912,
before cameras and postcards were generally available.”
No known copyright restrictions) 281
Fig. 11.1 An example of civilisation’s iconography: “The lion-killing
hero of Khorsabad” (Image source Carus, P. [1900]. The
history of the devil and the idea of evil, from the earliest
times to the present day. Open Court Publishing
Company. Page 209. Original caption used above. Public
domain) 290
Fig. 11.2 Augustus, Roman Emperor (Image source West, W. M.
[1913]. The ancient world, from the earliest times to 800
A. D. [Revised edition]. Norwood Press, Page 461.
Contributing Library The Library of Congress. Digitizing
Sponsor: Sloan Foundation. No known copyright
restrictions) 298
xxx LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 12.1 Commerce and a new century (Image source Ranch

and range. [North Yakima, Wash.], 18 January 1900.
Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers.
Lib. of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/
lccn/2007252185/1900-01-18/ed-1/seq-1/. No known
copyright restrictions) 320
Fig. 12.2 World trade volumes 1800–1910 (and trade composition
by nation in 1885 and 1910) (Source Bartholomew
[1914]. No known copyright restrictions) 328
Fig. 12.3 Tariffs and Currency standards worldwide (ca. 1910)
(Source Bartholomew [1914]. No known copyright
restrictions) 331
Fig. 12.4 Anarchist “terror” (Image source July 9, 1914. The Day
Book [Chicago, IL], Noon Edition, Image 9. Chronicling
America: Historic American Newspapers. Original
caption: “A New York building wrecked by the explosion
of a bomb which was made by Joseph Caron, said to be
an anarchist”). No known copyright restrictions 340
Fig. 13.1 Western empires—the fairy-tale version (Image source
Golding, H. [1925]. The wonder book of empire. Ward,
Lock & Co, Limited, book cover). Image is in the public
domain 356
Fig. 13.2 The expansion of British in South Asia in the nineteenth
century (Image source and notes British Library digitised
image from page 155 of “History for ready reference,
from the best historians … Their own words in a complete
system of history … With … maps … by A. C. Reiley”
Date of publication: 1895 Publisher: C. A. Nichols.
British Library’s catalogue: 002,078,454 [physical copy]
and 014,860,646 [digitised copy]. No known copyright
restrictions) 360
 LIST OF FIGURES xxxi

Fig. 13.3 The European takeover of Africa (Authors note The left
panel map, circa 1920, shows a prevailing colonialist
attitude that continued well into the twentieth century,
designating much of the continent “unexplored”,
reflecting earlier European tropes about the “dark
continent”, made so because of European ignorance
of its peoples and also its racist bias. Source Wells, H.
G., & Horrabin, J. F. [1920]. The outline of history:
Being a plain history of life and mankind. Cassell. P.
321; Contributing Library: University of California
Libraries; Digitizing Sponsor: MSN. Right panel: Rose,
J. H. [1916]. The development of the European nations,
1870–1914. G.P. Putnam’s sons. P. 809. Contributing
Library: University of California Libraries. Digitizing
Sponsor: Internet Archive. No known copyright
restrictions) 364
Fig. 13.4 The British Empire circa 1914 (Image source Bartholomew
[1914]. No known copyright restrictions) 369
Fig. 13.5 Other European and offshoot empires circa 1914 (Image
source Bartholomew [1914]. No known copyright
restrictions) 370
Fig. 14.1 Geronimo—detail showing photographer reflected
in his eye (ca. 1904) (Author notes This picture
of the eye of the American Indian Geronimo,
the pupil of which is reflecting back the image
of the photographer, typifies the combination
of objectified self- and other-reflexivity which is
perhaps the most iconic characteristic of modernity
[see Sect. 13.9]. Image source Library of Congress,
Prints and Photographs Division, Washington,
DC 20540 USA, hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print.
Persistent URL: hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3a19902.
hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.31491. Call Number: LOT
4863, no. 14 [item]. No known copyright restrictions) 388
Fig. 14.2 A representation of “marketisation”
and “commodification” (Image source From
page 483 of Breeder and sportsman [1882]. Contributing
Library: San Francisco Public Library; Digitizing Sponsor:
California State Library. No known copyright restrictions) 393
xxxii LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 14.3 “Industrialism” on the ground in Canada (late

nineteenth century) (Image source Deseronto
Archives. RATHCO-06–30 “Panoramic view
of the town of Deseronto, Ontario, entitled “Fig. 3.
Machine and Blacksmith shops-sash, door and blind
factory-general woodworking department-locomotive
shops and stables-Deseronto”, as published in The
Lumberman [Chicago, September 5 1891. A locomotive
is visible on the turntable to the right of the image,
while the machine and blacksmiths shops are
in the foreground at the left side.” No known copyright
restrictions]) 394
Fig. 14.4 The typewriter: the essential tool of bureaucracy
and planning (Image source Contractors’ and Dealers’
Association of California [1914]. Building & engineering
news. L. A. Larson. P. 632. Contributing Library:
San Francisco Public Library. Digitizing Sponsor: San
Francisco Public Library. No known copyright restrictions) 395
Fig. 14.5 Filmic encouragement (Image source Library of Congress
Prints and Photographs Division Washington, DC 20540
USA. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print. Digital Id:
cph 3a11230 hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3a11230. No
known restrictions on publication. https://lccn.loc.
gov/2012645951 Created / Published c1912. Item
notes: Please applaud with hands only. “Positive paper
print from lantern slide used in motion picture theaters
as announcement. Each text superimposed on humorous
photograph, and the whole shown in a fancy carved frame) 401
Fig. 15.1 Kaiser Wilhelm and his six sons (Image source Hau, G. W.
[1915]. War echoes; or Germany and Austria in the crisis.
Chicago, M. M. Malone. P. 196. Contributing Library:
The Library of Congress. Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan
Foundation. No known copyright restrictions) 414
Fig. 15.2 Europe on the eve of First World War (Image source
“L’Europe de 1914”, Peltier, Georges, [1914?] Boston
Public Library, Norman B. Leventhal Map Center
Collection, No known copyright restrictions, No known
restrictions on use) 420
Fig. 15.3 Asia-Pacific in 1914 (Image source Hazen, C. D. [1919].
Fifty years of Europe, 1870–1919. H. Holt and company.
p. 315; Contributing Library: Cornell University Library;
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN. No known copyright restrictions) 424
 LIST OF FIGURES xxxiii

Fig. 15.4 Corner of a battlefield, Haelen, Belgium (Image source

Forms part of: George Grantham Bain Collection
[Library of Congress]. No known restrictions
on publication. Repository: Library of Congress, Prints
and Photographs Division, Washington, DC 20540
USA, hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print [Persistent URL]:
hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ggbain.17368. Call Number: LC-B2-
3248–14 Title from data provided by the Bain News
Service on the negative. Photograph shows dead soldiers
and horses in a field after the Battle of Haelen which
was fought by the German and Belgian armies on August
12, 1914 near Haelen, Belgium during World War I. No
known copyright restrictions) 432
Fig. 15.5 A wider war (Image source The war of the nations:
portfolio in rotogravure etchings: compiled
from the Mid-week pictorial. New York: New York Times,
Co, 1919. Book. Retrieved from the Library of Congress,
www.loc.gov/item/19013740/. No known copyright
restrictions) 438
Fig. 16.1 An example of population growth curves—limited
and unlimited (Image source Marsland, D. [1964].
Principles of modern biology. Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Contributing Library: Cornell University Library,
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN. No known copyright restrictions) 444
Fig. 16.2 Demographic Transition in England and Wales,
1751–1914 (Image source Our World in Data, used
under a CC BY license) 447
Fig. 16.3 Immigrants undergoing medical examination in Ellis
Island New York, circa 1902–1913 (Image source Levick,
Edwin—Photographer. 1902–1913 Photographs of Ellis
Island, 1902–1913. Repository: The New York Public
Library. Photography Collection, Miriam and Ira D.
Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs. Persistent
URL: digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?416754. No
known copyright restrictions) 458
Fig. 17.1 HIPO inspecting identity cards when people cross
Langebro (bridge) in Copenhagen. Date: Winter
1944–1945 (Image source National Museum
of Denmark/The Museum of Danish Resistance:
erez.natmus.dk/FHMbilleder/Site/index.jsp. No known
copyright restrictions) 468
xxxiv LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 17.2 Harriet Taylor and John Stuart Mill (Image source
Miniature oil portrait of Harriet Taylor [nee Hardy],
1807–1858. London School of Economics (LSE) Library
Persistent URL: http://archives.lse.ac.uk/Record.aspx?
src=CalmView.Catalog&id=IMAGELIBRARY/1350.
John Stuart Mill [1806–1873]; husband of Harriet Taylor.
London School of Economics Library, http://archives.lse.
ac.uk/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=IMAGEL
IBRARY/1353). No known copyright restrictions 473
Fig. 17.3 Charles Darwin’s voyage on the Beagle temporarily
waylaid in 1834 (Note During one of Darwin’s South
American journeys, the captain of the Beagle, the ship
Darwin was traveling on, decided to inspect Beagle’s keel,
and so landed at Santa Cruz on16th April 1834 to do so.
Some damage was found and expertly repaired and they
were off again within a matter of hours. Image source
Darwin, C., & Darwin, F. [1896]. The life and letters
of Charles Darwin: including an autobiographical
chapter. D. Appleton. Plate inserted between pages 160
and 161. Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library.
Digitising Sponsor: Brigham Young University). No
known copyright restrictions 481
Fig. 18.1 Christmas poor relief appeal tent. Sydney,
Australia, December 1938 (Image source
acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/item/itemDetailPaged.aspx?itemID=24071.
From the collection of the State Library of New South
Wales www.sl.nsw.gov.au. Sam Hood, photographer. No
known copyright restrictions) 496
Fig. 18.2 Adjustments to Europe’s east in 1922 (Authors note
“Jugo-slavia” was ultimately renamed as “Yugoslavia”.
Image source Unstead, J. F. [1922]. Europe of to-day
1922. Moffat, Yard and Company, p. 129. Contributing
Library: The Library of Congress; Digitising Sponsor: The
Library of Congress. No known copyright restrictions) 499
Fig. 18.3 Provisional German boundaries in 1922 (Image Source
Schapiro, J. S., & Shotwell, J. T. [1922]. Modern
and contemporary European history [1815–1921].
Houghton Mifflin company, p. 852. Contributing Library:
The Library of Congress. Digitising Sponsor: Sloan
Foundation. No known copyright restrictions) 501
 LIST OF FIGURES xxxv

Fig. 18.4 A fictional bank run of 1895—a precursor

of the Depression’s massive wave of them (Image
source US Library of Congress: The war of wealth. Call
number: POS - TH - 1895.W37, no. 1 [C size] [P&P].
Reproduction number: LC-USZC4-591 [color film copy
transparency]. LC-USZ6-380 [b&w film copy neg.].
Original created by C.T. Dazey, Published by: Cin’ti;
NY: Strobridge Lith. Co., c1895. No known restrictions
on publication) 510
Fig. 18.5 Son of depression refugee from Oklahoma now
in California (1936) (Image source US Library
of Congress, Call number LC-USF34- 009872-E [P&P].
Reproduction Number: LC-USF34-009872-E [b&w film
nitrate neg.] LC-USZ62-130927 [b&w film copy neg.
from print], 1936 Nov., Lange, Dorothea, photographer.
No known copyright restrictions) 516
Fig. 18.6 The Federal Theater Project, one of many New Deal
programs (Image source US Library of Congress,
Prints and Photographs Division Washington, DC
20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print.
Call Number: POS - WPA - NY.S58, no. 1 [B size]
[P&P]. Original Creator: Spellens, Irving, artist.
Federal Theatre Project [New York, N.Y.], sponsor.
Date Created/Published: NYC: WPA Federal Art
Project [between 1936 and 1939]. Medium: 1 print
on board [poster]: silkscreen, color. Poster for the show
of the same title at the Adelphi Theatre in New York.
Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-ppmsca-31218 [digital
file from original item] LC-USZC2-5393 [color film copy
slide] LC-USZC4-2090 [color film copy transparency].
No known restrictions on publication) 521
Fig. 19.1 Counting money stacks in the US Treasury circa 1907
(Image source US Library of Congress. Title: U.S.
Treasury. CALL NUMBER: LOT 10,801 [P&P].
REPRODUCTION NUMBER: LC-USZ62-91643
[b&w film copy neg]. CREATED/PUBLISHED: c1907.
DIGITAL ID: [b&w film copy neg.] cph 3b37981
hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3b37981. CONTROL #:
96510963. No known copyright restrictions) 532
xxxvi LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 19.2 Colonised currency (Image source Von Bergen, W.

[1889]. The rare coins of America, England, Ireland,
Scotland, France, Germany, and Spain … a complete list
of and prices paid for rare American … coins, fractional
currency, colonial, continental and Confederate paper
money; a list of all counterfeit U. S. Treasury and national
bank notes and Canadian banks notes, and how to detect
them; the market value of all nations’ coins and bank
notes in U.S. money; a list of and prices paid for rare
English, Irish, Scotch, French, German and Spanish
coins. Illustrated with about 150 cuts. W. Von Bergen.
Page 162. Digitizing sponsor: The Library of Congress.
No known copyright restrictions) 539
Fig. 19.3 Notice of French invasion of Essen, Ruhr Valley, Germany,
1923 (Image source US Library of Congress, Prints
and Photographs Division, hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print.
Part Of: Bain News Service photograph collection
(DLC) 2,005,682,517 hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.ggbain.
Call Number: LC-B2- 5919–13. No known copyright
restrictions) 556
Fig. 20.1 Bicycle riders in parade on the Fourth of July at Vale,
Oregon July 1941 (Image source US Library of Congress;
Lee, Russell, photographer. United States. Office of War
Information. Overseas Picture Division. Washington
Division; 1944. Repository: Library of Congress, Prints
and Photographs Division, Washington, DC 20,540
USA, hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print, Part Of: Farm
Security Administration - Office of War Information
Photograph Collection (Library of Congress) Persistent
URL: hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.01538. Call Number:
LC-USF33- 013,082-M4 No known restrictions
on publication) 564
Fig. 20.2 American expansion on the North American Continent
(Image source Brooks, L. (1922). A regional geography
of the world, with diagrams and entirely new maps.
University Press. Page 427. Contributing Library:
Robarts—University of Toronto, Digitizing Sponsor:
University of Toronto. No known copyright restrictions) 566
Fig. 20.3 The Panama canal zone (Image source O’Shea, M.
V., Foster, E. D., & Locke, G. H. [1917]. The world
book; [electronic resource] organized knowledge in story
and picture. Hanson-Roach-Fowler Co. Digitizing
sponsor Internet Archive. Contributor: Internet Archive.
No known copyright restrictions) 572
 LIST OF FIGURES xxxvii

Fig. 21.1 The sequel: the Second World War (Image source The
National Archives UK, Propaganda poster by an unknown
artist. Catalogue Reference: INF 3/140. No known
copyright restrictions) 588
Fig. 21.2 Some low dishonesty at decade’s end (after Auden—see
text) (Image source Collectie Spaarnestad:
www.spaarnestadphoto.nl/ Nationaal Archief /
Spaarnestad Photo, SFA002017138. Poster in a London
travel agency advising people to book their holidays
in spite of the tense situation in Europe (Hitler, Germany,
the Second World War. About 1939) 590
Fig. 21.3 The Axis-view of the war at its high point (for them)
(Image source Up-to-date map of the world war (1942)
by Manila Shinbun-sha. Original from The Beinecke Rare
Book & Manuscript Library. Public domain) 596
Fig. 21.4 (World) War is hell. Original caption: “Ten Minute
Break” 1944 May 12. (Image source World War
II sketchbooks from the Victor A. Lundy Archive,
v.1. [p. 15]. Victor A. Lundy Archive (Library
of Congress). Information about the archive is available
at www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2010650114/). No
known copyright restrictions 598
Fig. 22.1 Allied bombing raid during the Korean War (Image
source Catalog #: 10_0015926, Title: Korean War,
Date: 1950–1954. Repository: San Diego Air and Space
Museum Archive. No known copyright restrictions) 610
Fig. 22.2 Honor Roll, Victory Liberty Loan (Image source Library
Company of Philadelphia archive, Accession number:
P.2284.265a. No known copyright restrictions. Image
notes: Under a Victory Liberty Loan flag, there are empty
spaces to write the names of people who had bought
Victory Liberty Loans. The fifth in the Liberty Loan
series, Victory Liberty Loans were used by the American
Government to pay war debts. Created in 1919) 618
Fig. 22.3 Eisenhower and the Military-Industrial Complex head
off into space (Image Source US NASA. Image Number:
jsc2001e25132. Date: August 19, 1958. Original notes:
President Dwight D. Eisenhower is pictured with Dr.
Hugh Dryden [left] and Dr. T. Keith Glennan. NASA
was created on 1 October 1958, to perform civilian
research related to space flight and aeronautics. President
Eisenhower commissioned Dr. Glennan as the first
administrator for NASA and Dr Dryden as deputy
administrator, swearing them in on 19 August 1958.
Government created image put into public domain) 627
xxxviii LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 23.1 Every system has its headaches (Image source Evening
star. March 18, 1951, Page 7, Image 112 [Washington,
DC], 18 March 1951. Chronicling America: Historic
American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. https://chroni
clingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1951-03-18/ed-
1/seq-112/ No known copyright restrictions) 634
Fig. 23.2 Italian dictator Mussolini with a working worker. Italy,
Ostia, 1931 (Image source Nationaal Archief [The
Netherlands]. Collectie SPAARNESTAD PHOTO/Het
Leven. Dictator naast spittende arbeider/Dictator
and digging worker. Spaarnestad Photo, SFA022003531.
No known copyright restrictions) 647
Fig. 24.1 The push against the “old” normal (Image source Vector
image of the poster made for student and worker’s strikes
in Paris in 1968. Black-and-white drawing of a poster
satirising the authorities’ calls for a return to normal
during the political upheaval then. Public Domain. Source
https://freesvg.org/return-to-normal-poster-vector-illust
ration) 662
Fig. 24.2 Dublin suburban sprawl—1954 (Image source The
National Library of Ireland, http://catalogue.nli.ie/
Collection/vtls000033928, The State Express Tobacco
Factory and environs, Date: Tuesday, 27 April 1954,
Morgan Aeriel Photographs collection, NLI Ref: NPA
MOR16. No known copyright restrictions) 669
Fig. 24.3 Driving across the wide open spaces (Canada) (Image
source Postcard: Rogers Pass, BC, c.1962. THE SWISS
PEAKS. Hermit Mountain and Mount Tupper as seen
from the Trans-Canada Highway Glacier National Park,
British Columbia. Color Photo by Bruno Engler Original
caption: View looking north from the Trans-Canada
Highway [Hwy. 1] in Glacier National Park of Canada
near Rogers Pass National Historic Site [9520 TCH,
Rogers Pass, BC]. Public domain) 670
Fig. 24.4 Allen’s festive windows, Newcastle, UK 1963 (Image
source Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums. “This
photograph is from the Robert Sanderson collection
which was kindly donated to Tyne & Wear Archives &
Museums. This is a photograph of the illuminated
windows of Allen’s department store in South Shields.
This is a 35 mm slide. It was taken in 1963. [Copyright]
We’re happy for you to share this digital image
within the spirit of The Commons. Please cite ‘Tyne &
Wear Archives & Museums’ when reusing”) 678
 LIST OF FIGURES xxxix

Fig. 24.5 Human “computers” in the office (Image source US

NASA. Photograph published in Winds of Change, 75th
Anniversary NASA publication [page 48], by James
Schultz. Image Number: NIX-EL-2001–00,471.
Original caption: The female staff at Langley performed
mathematical computations for male staff. No known
copyright restrictions) 680
Fig. 25.1 “Checkpoint Charlie” between East and West Berlin
(Image source https://worldhistorypics.weebly.com/
Donated to the public domain, taken on 4 August 2016
by Gary Lee Todd) 696
Fig. 25.2 Churchill lowers the Curtain in Missouri (1946)
(Image source Missouri State Archives. Collection
Name: MS192 Gerald Massie Photograph Collection.
Photographer/Studio: Massie, Gerald R. Description:
British Statesman and former Prime Minister Winston
Churchill delivers his Iron Curtain “Sinews of Peace”
speech at Westminster College Date: 5 March 1946
Rights: Permission Granted Credit: Courtesy of Missouri
State Archives. Image Number: MS192_047_111.Tif.
Institution: Missouri State Archives. No Known Copyright
Restrictions) 703
Fig. 25.3 Cold War division in Europe (Image source United
States Central Intelligence Agency [1963] European
Communist States. 3-63 [Washington] [Map] Retrieved
from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/
item/75694114/. Credit Line: Library of Congress,
Geography and Map Division. No known copyright
restrictions) 705
xl LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 25.4 Marshall Plan aid in West German action (Image

source U.S. International Development Cooperation
Agency. Agency for International Development [1
October 1979–ca. 1998] [Most Recent], Department
of State. International Cooperation Administration
[30 May 1955–November 1961] [Predecessor],
Foreign Operations Administration [1 August
1953–30 June 1955] [Predecessor], Economic
Cooperation Administration [1948–30 December
1951] [Predecessor], Mutual Security Agency
[1951–1 August 1953] [Predecessor]. Persistent URL:
arcweb.archives.gov/arc/action/ExternalIdSearch?id=541691.
Original Title/Caption: West Berlin, Germany. Marshall
Plan aid to Germany totalled $1,390,600 and enabled
that country to rise from the ashes of defeat, as symbolised
by this worker in West Berlin. Even a year before the end
of the Marshall Plan in 1951, Germany had surpassed her
pre-war industrial production level, ca. 1948–ca. 1955.
No known copyright restrictions) 713
Fig. 25.5 A proxy war that didn’t go to plan (Image source US
National Archives. ARC Identifier: 531,441. Location:
Still Picture Records LICON, Special Media Archives
Services Division [NWCS-S], National Archives at College
Park, 8601 Adelphi Road, College Park, MD 20,740-6001
PHONE: 301-837-3530, FAX: 301-837-3621, EMAIL:
[email protected]. Production Date: 7 February 1965.
NAIL Control Number: NWDNS-111-SC-613587.
Local Identifier: NWDNS-111-SC-613587 Original
Title: Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara’s press
conference, at the Pentagon, 7 February 1965 Creator:
Department of Defense. Department of the Army. Office
of the Chief Signal Officer [18 September 1947–28
February 1964] [Most Recent]. Use Restrictions:
Unrestricted) 721
Fig. 25.6 European colonial empires circa 1945 (Image source
United States Central Intelligence Agency [1945]
Changing face of Europe and colonial tension, late.
[Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency] [Map]
Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.
gov/item/81690522/. No known copyright restrictions) 722
 LIST OF FIGURES xli

Fig. 25.7 Collapse of the colonial system between 1953–1968

(Image source United States Central Intelligence Agency
[1978] Collapse of Colonial System, 68 [Washington,
DC: Central Intelligence Agency] [Map] Retrieved
from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/
item/81690524/. No known copyright restrictions) 724
Fig. 25.8 Comic book nightmares of the nuclear apocalypse
(Image source Ace Comics 1952. Copyright expired
and not renewed) 734
Fig. 26.1 The twists and turns of time (Image source Bernard
Spragg. Passing Time 2010 [Placed by photographer
in Public Domain] Anton Parsons Passing Time sculpture,
Christchurch, NZ, University of Canterbury campus.
Taken on June 9, 2011 Photographer note: Passing
Time is by Auckland-based sculptor Anton Parsons,
a graduate of the University of Canterbury’s School
of Fine Arts. The work consists of a twisting ribbon
of randomly linked boxes—with each box depicting one
of the years between 1906 [founding of CPIT] and 2010
[the date of the sculpture’s installation]. The work can
be walked around, walked through, touched and sat on.
“The winding form of the sculpture—placed on a street
within the original 1851 grid plan commissioned
by the Canterbury Association for their new settlement—is
also a nod to the winding Avon River, an irregular feature
of the landscape over which a street grid was placed,” says
Anton Parsons) 740
Fig. 26.2 “Spacetime” (Image source Eddington, A.S. (1920).
Space, time and gravitation: an outline of the general
relativity theory. Cambridge University Press. P. 100,
Fig. 14. Contributing Library: PIMS - University
of Toronto. Digitizing Sponsor: University of Ottawa. No
known copyright restrictions. Original caption: A contrast
between the old “linear” time of Newtonian mechanics
and the curved “spacetime” of relativity) 746
Fig. 26.3 Time and motion in the abstract (Image source Marey,
E. (1874). Animal mechanism: a treatise on terrestrial
and aërial locomotion. D. Appleton & Co. Page 193.
Original caption: “Fig. 80 shows the tracing furnished
by a wing of a humming-bird moth, arranged so
as to touch the cylinder with its posterior edge.”
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries Digitizing
Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library. No known
copyright restrictions) 751
xlii LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 27.1 After the Wall was over (Image source US National
Archives [National Archives Identifier 6460121]. Original
caption: At a newly created opening at Potsdamer Platz,
an East German policeman looks at a small Christmas tree
on the west side of the Berlin Wall. No known copyright
restrictions) 759
Fig. 27.2 The Soviet Union in 1991, just before its demise (Image
source United States Central Intelligence Agency [1991]
Republics of the Soviet Union [Washington, DC: Central
Intelligence Agency] [Map]. Retrieved from the Library
of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2005626536/.
No known copyright restrictions) 773
Fig. 27.3 The Soviet Union’s replacement: the Russian Federaion
in 2000 (Image source United States Central Intelligence
Agency [2000] Asia [Washington, DC: Central
Intelligence Agency] [Map]. Retrieved from the Library
of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2001621192/.
No known copyright restrictions) 774
Fig. 27.4 Mao’s China in 1959 (Image source United States Central
Intelligence Agency [1959] China railroads and selected
roads, May [Washington, DC: Central Intelligence
Agency] [Map]. Retrieved from the Library of Congress,
https://www.loc.gov/item/2007627271/. No known
copyright restrictions) 776
Fig. 28.1 Neoliberalism: not just a museum piece (Image source
Loz PycockFollow, The Museum of Neoliberalism, Lee,
Lewisham, England.Photo taken on January 12, 2020.
Photographer has applied a CC BY-SA 2.0 license.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/blahflowers/493902915
77. No modifications have been made) 786
Fig. 28.2 Coversheet of a document outlining the articles
of Bretton-Woods (Image source Archives New Zealand,
Reference: AECO 18,675 PM23 Box 2 3/2. http://arc
hway.archives.govt.nz/ViewFullItem.do?code=20470599
Attribution 2.0 Generic [CC BY 2.0]) 790
Fig. 28.3 The “Phillips Curve” (Created by author. See text
for explanation) 793
Fig. 28.4 Professor A.W.H (Bill) Phillips and his Machine circa
1958–1967 (Image source London School of Economics
Archives. Extracts from http://archives.lse.ac.uk/dserve.
exe?dsqServer=lib-4.lse.ac.uk&dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsq
App=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Catalog&dsq
Pos=0&dsqSearch=(RefNo=%27IMAGELIBRARY/6%27.
No known copyright restrictions) 794
 LIST OF FIGURES xliii

Fig. 28.5 The 1970s “Energy Crisis” (Image source U.S. National
Archives’ Local Identifier: 412-DA-12965. Photographer:
Falconer, David. Project DOCUMERICA; Persistent
URL: https://arcweb.archives.gov/arc/action/Extern
alIdSearch?id=555417; Repository: Still Picture Records
Section, Special Media Archives Services Division
[NWCS-S], National Archives at College Park, 8601
Adelphi Road, College Park, MD, 20,740–6001. Original
Caption: “Turn Off the Damn Lights” Stickers Mirrored
the Seriousness of the Energy Situation in Oregon
During the Fall of 1973. This Sticker, in a Portland
Business Office, Was Used in Newspaper Ads as Well
as on Television, Billboards and Car Bumpers 10/1973.
No known copyright restrictions) 800
Fig. 28.6 Municipal services under a financial crisis regime (City
services under default conditions: U.S. National
Archives’ Local Identifier: 412-DA-5774 Photographer:
Calonius, Erik Project DOCUMERICA), Persistent URL:
https://research.archives.gov/description/548261. No
known copyright restrictions. Original Caption: Many
Subway Cars in New York City Have Been Spray-Painted
by Vandals. 05/1973) 812
Fig. 29.1 Offshoring in action: West Java (Original caption: Rio
Lecatompessy, Ciawi, Bogor, West Java, Indonesia
Published on October 27, 2020. Image source
Rio Lecatompessy [photographer]. Free to use
under the Unsplash License, https://unsplash.com/pho
tos/cfDURuQKABk) 818
Fig. 29.2 Industrial ruins of the global North (Image source Photo
by Daniel Lincoln on Unsplash, https://unsplash.com/
photos/23fk429Ayok Packard Plant, Detroit, Published
on December 3, 2018. Free to use under the Unsplash
License) 831
Fig. 29.3 Students in front of old style screens (Austria,
1954) (Image source Austrian National Library,
under an Unsplash licence https://unsplash.com/photos/
3c1Jv1EXYtc) 842
Fig. 30.1 No news or fake news (Image source Photo by Elvis
Bekmanis on Unsplash Riga, Latvia, Published on April 8,
2019, Free to use under the Unsplash License. https://
unsplash.com/photos/HORKkCWWBsM) 848
Fig. 30.2 GDP per capita growth in the 1990s, by global region
(Image source Roser [2013]. Used under a CC-BY license) 853
xliv LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 30.3 Euro area (19 countries) share price average between May
1991 to June 2001 (2015 = 100) (Image source Data
extracted from OECD [2021], Share prices (indicator).
https://doi.org/10.1787/6ad82f42-en [Accessed
on 14 November 2021]. Used under license granted
for commercial use as per OECD terms and conditions) 858
Fig. 30.4 Share price performance Euro area and the US, December
2004 and April 2009 (2015 = 100) (Image source Data
extracted from OECD [2021], Share prices [indicator].
https://doi.org/10.1787/6ad82f42-en [Accessed
on 14 November 2021]. Used under license granted
for commercial use as per OECD terms and conditions) 860
Fig. 30.5 Relative changes in GDP per capita, selected countries,
2007–2011 (2007 baseline) (Image source Roser [2013].
Used under a CC-BY license) 861
Fig. 30.6 Increasing inequality in the West (Note Online data
are updated dynamically and may have been adjusted
since this publication. Used under a CC BY license. Image
source Roser and Esteban [2013]) 868
Fig. 30.7 Sluggish post-GFC growth in the developed world (Note
Online data are updated dynamically and may have been
adjusted since this publication. Used under a CC BY
license. Image source Roser [2013]) 869
Fig. 31.1 Meritocratic truths spoken through graffiti on a wall
(Image source Photo by Arie Wubben on Unsplash, Red
Factory, Zürich, Switzerland. Published on July 1, 2019
Free to use under the Unsplash License “A wise graffiti
in the famous Red Factory Culture Centre in Zürich”.
https://unsplash.com/photos/YLPGqPgX3vo) 876
Fig. 31.2 The public right to vote—but not to decide? (see
text) (Image source State Library of Queensland.
hdl.handle.net/10462/deriv/82061 Original description:
“Two nurses voting at an outdoor polling station
on election day. The Queensland state elections were
held on 12 April 1938. The buildings in the background
appear to be those of the Royal Brisbane Hospital
at Herston”. No known copyright restrictions) 883
 LIST OF FIGURES xlv

Fig. 31.3 The mandarinate: original version (see text) (Note

an actual mandarin, in the original sense of a Confucian
order, in this case emplaced in nineteenth century
Vietnam. Image source Bibliothèque de l’ancien Musée
des colonies [Paris], Créateur: Gsell, Émile, Éditeur:
Studio photographique Gsell [Saigon]. Original notes:
“Tong-King - Mandarin de la province d’Hay-Dzu,o,ng
/B´ăc Kỳ - Ông quan o, tinh Hai Du,o,ng. Date:
ij ij
ij

1877–1879. Description: Portrait d’un mandarin de

la province de Hai Duong, revêtu de son costume
d’audience solennelle. Le terme de mandarin est utilisé
par les Occidentaux pour désigner un haut fonctionnaire
lettré et éduqué dans la tradition de Confucius, mis au
service de l’Empereur de Chine, à l’issue d’une sélection
rigoureuse et très limitative des meilleurs candidats. Les
mandarins ont aussi existé dans certains états voisins, dont
le Vietnam”. Public domain) 893
Fig. 32.1 The unintended consequences of modernisation (Image
source Bell Telephone Magazine Summer 1966, back
cover. American Telephone and Telegraph Company;
American Telephone and Telegraph Company. Information
Dept. Collection. Digitizing sponsor: Internet Archive.
Contributor: Prelinger Library. No known copyright
restrictions) 908
Fig. 32.2 “Spaceship Earth” off course? (Image source US NASA,
https://images.nasa.gov/, 3 February 1984. Original
notes: “Mission Control activities during Day 1 First TV
Pass of STS-11 S84-26297 [3 February 1984]—Robert
E. Castle, Integrated Communications Officer [INCO],
plays an important role in the first television transmission
from the Earth-orbiting Space Shuttle Challenger. Castle,
at a console in the Johnson Space Center’s [JSC] Mission
Operations Control Room [MOCR] in the Mission
Control Center [MCC], is responsible for ground
controlled television from the Orbiter on his shift. Here,
the Westar VI satellite is seen in the cargo bay just
after opening of the payload bay doors”). No known
copyright restrictions 921
Fig. 32.3 An early, and prescient, vision of a mediated future (Image
source As shown in illustration. Public domain) 936
xlvi LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 32.4 The road to success is paved with mass intentions (Image
source Kent, W. [1918]. Bookkeeping and cost accounting
for factories. Wiley, p. 119. Contributing library:
University of California Libraries. Digitising sponsor:
Internet Archive. No known copyright restrictions) 939
 List of Tables

Table 2.1 Changes in selected socioeconomic and earth system

trends, 1800–2000 19
Table 2.2 Regional averages of GDP per capita, 1820–2010
(Selected years) (2011 US$) 32
Table 3.1 Rates of growth of real Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
per capita (average annual compound growth rates [%]) 45
Table 3.2 World population 47
Table 3.3 Shares of world manufacturing output (%) 54
Table 5.1 Selected English legislative actions critical
to industrialisation 134
Table 6.1 Abolition of slavery in the Americas: by year 152
Table 6.2 British and French economic structure, circa 1800
to 1845: selected statistics 163
Table 6.3 Urbanisation rates for selected European countries,
1800–1850 (% of population living in cities
of populations over 5,000) 172
Table 7.1 Selected major revolutions since circa “1800” 183
Table 8.1 Major inventions of the First Industrial Revolution’s dawn 205
Table 9.1 Regional averages of GDP per capita, 1820–1870 (US
dollars at 1990 PPP [Purchasing Power Parity]) 237
Table 9.2 Distribution of Gross National Product (GNP) by final
use for selected countries (% share of GNP) last half
of the nineteenth century (roughly) 240
Table 10.1 Selected statistics on the French Economy,
between 1825/35 and 1910/11 266
Table 10.2 Per capita GDP and per capita GDP growth rates
for Japan, China and India, 1820–1913 (2011 $) 277

xlvii
xlviii LIST OF TABLES

Table 12.1 Per capita GDP by region—1820, 1850, 1870, 1900

(2011 $) 322
Table 12.2 GDP by region—1820, 1850, 1870, 1900 (2011 $)
(millions) 323
Table 12.3 GDP share of total (%) by region—1820, 1850, 1870,
1900 (2011 $) 324
Table 12.4 Employment shares by sector, France and the US 1800
and 1900 327
Table 12.5 Share of the top 10%, 1% and 0,1% in total wealth
for selected European nations and Europe as a whole,
1810–1910 338
Table 12.6 Regional totals of CO2 emissions, 1820–1910 344
Table 12.7 Regional totals of SO2 emissions, 1850–1910 345
Table 13.1 A matrix of forms of imperialism 358
Table 15.1 Army and navy combined personnel sizes and warship
tonnage for major First World War combatants 428
Table 16.1 World population estimates by regional totals (‘000s),
1700–1950 445
Table 16.2 European migration, 1801–1910 459
Table 16.3 Share of foreign-born population (in per cent) 459
Table 16.4 Historical life-expectancy estimates for India and the UK,
1363–1913 463
Table 18.1 Indices of total industrial production, 1927 to 1935
(1929 = 100) 518
Table 18.2 GDP Growth between 1929 and 1932 (%) for selected
countries 518
Table 21.1 European GNP—selected countries (at market prices)
1913, 1925, 1938 in millions of 1960 US dollars 591
Table 21.2 Selected data on war spending and armed forces
for Allies and Axis Powers 597
Table 23.1 The elements of comparative systems analysis 637
Table 23.2 The Cold War comparative economic systems template 649
Table 23.3 The basic building blocks of the New Comparative
Economics 655
Table 24.1 Year-to-year percentage change in world per capita GDP,
by region (1951–1975) 663
Table 25.1 Structural change in the US and USSR in the first half
of the century 706
Table 25.2 Economic measures for the two superpowers, China,
and India—1958 (US $of factor costs) 706
Table 28.1 Annual growth rates in fifteen Western European
countries (%), 1890–1994 798
Table 29.1 Sector distribution of total value added by region
(percentage shares at current prices), 1970 and 2008 821
 LIST OF TABLES xlix

Table 29.2 China and India selected global export and import
shares, 1990 and 2004 (%) 822
Table 32.1 A template of changes in social and individual psychic
changes wrought by economic and social modernisation 916
Table 32.2 Crosscutting issues for now and the future 916
 List of Boxes

Box 2.1 When Did the Anthropocene Actually Begin? 15

Box 2.2 The Climate Change Debate 17
Box 2.3 The IPAT model 20
Box 2.4 Norbert Elias and Psychogenesis and Sociogenesis 28
Box 2.5 The Growth Model (and the Production Function) 34
Box 3.1 Ships, Trade and British Hegemony 71
Box 3.2 An “Idealist” Conception of Industrialisation 72
Box 4.1 The British East India Company 102
Box 5.1 Human Aggression, Violence and War 122
Box 5.2 Do Non-humans Have Culture? 124
Box 5.3 Freud, Elias, Civilisation and the Holocaust 131
Box 6.1 Abolitionism 153
Box 7.1 Economic impacts of revolutions 199
Box 8.1 Africa’s history of technological progress 212
Box 8.2 Fogel, social savings and counterfactual history 218
Box 9.1 The Production Possibility Frontier (PPF) 254
Box 10.1 America and the “Gilded Age” 283
Box 11.1 Are Turkey and Russia “European”? 294
Box 11.2 Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilisations” 302
Box 12.1 The new image-makers 340
Box 14.1 The psychological syndromes of modern war 403
Box 15.1 Total war, public relations and the making of mass opinion 434
Box 16.1 “Exogenous” demographic shocks 453
Box 17.1 Mr Mill and Mrs Taylor 471
Box 18.1 Irving Fisher 512
Box 19.1 Gold Rushes 551
Box 20.1 The American style of imperialism 570

li
lii LIST OF BOXES

Box 21.1 More on Soviet losses 601

Box 22.1 A Note on War Finance 616
Box 23.1 Yugoslavia as an independent Socialist model 652
Box 24.1 China’s Cultural Revolution, the New Left
and the Counterculture 684
Box 25.1 Indonesia and the Cold War 724
Box 26.1 The changing ways of spending time 749
Box 28.1 The default of New York City 810
Box 29.1 The “Great Moderation” 836
Box 30.1 Modern day secession movements 870
Box 31.1 The contested concept of the human individual 900
 CHAPTER 1

Practising Interdisciplinary Economic

History

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023
C. Gordon, Many Possible Worlds,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9281-0_1
2 C. GORDON

Fig. 1.1 Can you make a story out of windblown fragments? (Image source
U.S. National Archives [Project DOCUMERICA]. Original Caption: Maga-
zines and Newspapers Litter the Intersection of Sixth & Broadway After Debris
Was Spilled from a Passing Truck, September 1972. U.S. National Archives’
Local Identifier: 412-DA-1397. Photographer Strode, William. Persistent URL:
research.archives.gov/description/543890. No known copyright restrictions)

1.1 Stitching Histories Together

Humanity seeks to learn from its past in order to improve its potential
future. Yet the “past” is not something standing there like a mountain,
to be surveyed by the relevant professionals. It must be put together first.
And it must be put together in such a way as to yield useful lessons.
This is the central challenge to anyone seeking to do history, whether an
historian or not. How this might be done depends on one’s approach, of
which there are at least three (Fig. 1.1).
Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
Mohammedans and the Imperialists. But, after a while, the despotic
and violent acts of the rulers of Taly exasperated even this pacific
race; and, led by an energetic chief named Tong, the Min-kia long
maintained a successful resistance against the Mohammedans. Tong
fell in battle in 1866, and the conquerors pursued his family with
merciless vengeance. At present, the natives of the districts
contiguous to Taly, disorganized and without a leader, submit to,
while hating, the domination of the sultan. The Pen-ti occupy more
particularly the plain of Tong-chuen, north of the lake, and the
district of the Pe-yen-tsin. Their costume is original and
characteristic.
Under different names, the Lolos, or
THE MOUNTAIN
TRIBES.
representatives of the autochthonous race, inhabit
the summits of the mountains, and assert their
independence. With their continual forays they harass the dwellers in
the plains. Certain districts in the vicinity of Pien-kio pay to one of
these tribes, the Tcha-Su, an annual sum by way of blackmail, in
order to secure their cattle. Even this payment, however, does not
protect them from occasional depredations; and they cannot claim,
when their herds are carried off, more than half their value.
A considerable trade is carried on between Taly and Tibet, consisting
of imports of kuang-lien, a bitter root much used in Chinese
medicine, woollen stuffs, stag-horns, bear-skins, fox-skins, wax, oils,
and resinous gums. Exports from Yunnan include tea, cottons, rice,
wine, sugar, mercery, and hardware.
The industrial production of the kingdom of Taly
MINERAL
TREASURES.
has diminished considerably since the war.
Formerly, it was of much importance from a
metallurgical point of view. The copper mines of Long-pao, Ta-kong,
and Pe-iang are the most valuable in the whole country, where are
also found deposits of gold, silver, mercury, iron, lead, and zinc. At
Ho-kin paper is made from bamboo. The stems of the plant are
made up into bundles of equal length, which are peeled and
macerated in lime. They are afterwards placed in an oven, and
steamed for twenty days; then they are exposed to a current of cold
water, and deposited in layers in a second oven, each layer being
covered with a coating of pease-meal and lard. After another
“cooking,” they are converted into a kind of paste, which is extended
on trellis-work in excessively thin layers, and dried in the sun. In this
way the manufacturers turn out their sheets of a paper coarse and
uneven enough, but very stout.
 CHAPTER III.
RETURN TO SAIGON.

HE French expedition, finding further progress

impossible, resolved at length on retracing its steps to
Saigon, and accordingly set out in that direction on
the 15th of March. On the 3rd of April it arrived at
Tong-chuen, where Lieutenant Garnier heard of the
death of his chief, M. de Lagrée. Four days later, the
gallant little band, several of its members suffering from fever,
resumed its march. On the 9th, M. Garnier crossed the deep swift
waters of the Ngieoo-nan in a ferry-boat, which runs on a cable
moored from bank to bank. On the 11th he reached Tchao-tong.
Here he and his comrades met with a kindly
AT TCHAO-TONG.
welcome, and were lodged in the house of a
native priest, who had charge of the few Christian
inhabitants of the town. The crowd, as usual, displayed an
extraordinary amount of curiosity and importunity. The tche-hien, or
administrator of the Tchao-tong district, paid them a visit
immediately on their arrival, and invited them to dine with him on
the following evening. The repast included fourteen courses at the
least, to say nothing of the cucumber-seed, the mandarinas, and the
li-tchi, served up as preliminaries. There was nothing, however,
peculiarly worthy of the attention of gourmands, except a dainty dish
of pigeons’ eggs, and a particular kind of fish, caught in a
neighbouring pond, the flesh of which had a peculiar flavour. During
the repast, the ladies of the household closely scrutinized the
features of the strangers through a lattice, laughing heartily at their
awkwardness in using the Chinese utensils.
Tchao-tong, like all Chinese towns of importance, is surrounded by a
bastioned wall, of rectangular plan, measuring about a mile and a
half each way. Considerable suburbs prolong to the north, east, and
west the streets which abut on the gates of the town. The latter has
never been captured by the Mohammedans, and its inhabitants
cherish a fierce hatred against the rebels of Taly.
The plain of Tchao-tong seems to be the most extensive in Yunnan,
and is carefully cultivated—a large portion of its area being
appropriated to the growth of poppies for the manufacture of opium.
Its inhabitants complain of want of water; and, in fact, their only
sources of supply are some tiny rills, almost dry in the hot season.
There are extensive deposits of anthracite and peat. A small pond,
abounding in fish, lies to the south-west.
MERCHANT TRAIN IN YUNNAN.
 Tchao-tong is one of the most important
ARTICLES OF
commercial entrepôts between China and Yunnan.
COMMERCE.
Enormous convoys of raw cotton, of English or
native cotton stuffs, and of salt from Se-chuen, are here exchanged
for the metals—tin and zinc more particularly—furnished by the
environs of Tong-chuen, the medicinal substances which come from
the west of Yunnan and the north of Tibet, and the nests of the
coccus sinensis, which yield the pe-la wax. This insect breeds on a
species of privet which grows in the mountainous parts of Yunnan
and Se-chuen, and is thence transported to other trees favourable
for the production of wax, which flourish in the warmer lowlands.
Necessarily, these nests must be conveyed from point to point with
great rapidity, lest the newly-hatched insects should die before
arriving at their new abode; they are stored away in large baskets,
divided into numerous compartments, and their bearers frequently
accomplish thirty or forty leagues at double quick marching step.

Resuming their journey, M. Garnier and his

THE JOURNEY
CONTINUED.
companions traversed a country of great beauty,
studded with villages, and broken up into romantic
highlands and wooded valleys, watered by copious rivers. On the
20th of April they reached Lao-oua-tan, a busy town on the Huang-
kiang, at the point where the navigation of the river begins. Here
they embarked on board a large boat with a capacity of thirty to
forty tons, and began the descent of the river, admiring the skill with
which the Chinese carried them through the successive rapids. In a
couple of hours they arrived at Pou-eul-tou, a small port on the left
bank, where Garnier and his companions landed, while their
baggage and a part of the escort continued the journey by water.
Garnier pressed forward through a truly Arcadian valley to Long-ki,
the residence of the Vicar-Apostolic of Yunnan, Monseigneur Ponsot.
It is needless to say that he was received with the warmest
hospitality.
 The next stage was Siu-tcheou-fou, a lively and
THE BLUE RIVER.
busy town, where several Roman Catholic
missionaries are stationed. Thence, in a couple of
junks, the travellers descended the Blue River to Tchong-kin-fou, the
great commercial centre of the province of Se-chuen. Resting here a
while, they then continued their voyage to Han-keou, entering a
region which has been carefully explored and described by officers
of the British navy. The river all along its course presents an
animated scene,—the junks ascending the stream being towed by
boatmen on the banks, who time their steps to a rude and noisy
song. M. Garnier arrived at Han-keou on the 4th of June, and once
more entered upon the enjoyment of the comfort and security of
civilized life, after a long, difficult, and perilous expedition, in which
he had added largely to our knowledge of a region of vast
commercial resources. On the 10th he embarked on board a steamer
for Shanghai,—arriving there on the 12th. After a week’s stay he set
out for Saigon; where he presented himself on the 29th, and was
received with the honours due to his courage, his patience, and his
perseverance. He has shown that the Mekong must hereafter
become an important highway of commerce, and one of the great
channels of communication with Yunnan and Tibet.
 CHAPTER IV.
DR. MORICE AND THE MEKONG.

E owe some additional information respecting the

great river of Cambodia to Dr. Morice, who travelled
in Cochin-China in 1872.
ANNAMITE LADY AND HER SERVANT.
Of the Annamites, the inhabitants of Cochin-China, he says at the
outset, that his first feeling with respect to them was one of disgust.
Those faces more or less flattened, and often devoid of all
intelligence or animation; those livid eyes; and, especially, that broad
nose, and those thick upturned lips, reddened and discoloured by
the constant use of betel-nut, do not answer to the European ideal
of beauty. But after a long acquaintance with them, he, as is the
case with other Western visitors, began to discern a glimpse of
meaning in most countenances, and even to make distinctions
between the ugly ones. He met with some eyes which were not
oblique, some noses which had an almost Caucasian character, and
his repugnance gradually disappeared.
Still, from the most favourable point of view, they are a race of low
stature and unprepossessing appearance; feeble, deficient in
stamina, and never likely to make a noise in the world. Their French
rulers grow into giants when compared with these dwarfs; and their
muscular energy is far inferior to that of Europeans, whether owing
to natural causes or to want of hygienic knowledge. As for their
complexion, while some are deeply tinted, others are quite wan and
pale. In two respects only can the Annamites be said to surpass
their masters: in their ability to row ten hours consecutively, and in
the impunity with which they can encounter the burning rays of a
tropical sun.
As for their character, it is that of a people whom
CHARACTER OF
THE ANNAMITES.
slavery, ignorance, and sloth have rendered poor,
timid, and apathetic. Yet they are capable of being
raised to a higher moral and intellectual standard. They have many
serious defects, it is true; they are deficient, for example, in the
artistic sentiment. Even of the latter evidence is found in some
surprising mural paintings, which reproduce, with loving fidelity, all
that is bright and living in nature,—birds, insects, flowers. But, as a
rule, the Annamites are insensible to the arts. Their shrill
monotonous music is terrible to a cultured ear; and it may be
doubted whether ours is agreeable to them. Of sculpture they know
only the rudiments; their poetry is indifferent; they cannot dance.
Their literary research is confined to an acquaintance with a few
Chinese characters; and their scientific acquirements are a blank.
Then as to their attire. They never abandon their
THEIR DRESS AND
HABITATIONS.
clothes until they fall into rags and tatters, though
they are insufficient to protect them against the
variations of their climate, and more particularly against the keen
frosty mornings of December and January. Their huts or hovels,
nearly all built upon piles, half in the water and half in the earth or
mud, are singularly unhealthy. The cultivation of rice, and their
occupation as fishermen, have rendered them almost amphibious.
Water rises frequently to the floor of an Annamite house, particularly
in high tides, but it does not discompose the owner; who, in such an
event, crouches contentedly on the domestic hearth, or rocks to and
fro in his rude hammock, murmuring some monotonous air, or
smoking a cigarette shaped like a blunderbuss.
At Saigon (or Sai-gun), the French settlement and
THE PLAIN OF THE
TOMBS.
seaport, situated at the mouth of a river of the
same name, the traveller finds much to interest
him. The Botanic Garden, for instance, will well repay inspection,
stocked as it is with rare, beautiful, and curious specimens of tropical
vegetation. Close at hand lies the so-called Plain of the Tombs; the
scene, a century agone, of numerous battles between the
inhabitants of Lower Cochin-China and the Annamites; and, between
1860 and 1864, of several engagements between the Annamites and
the French. The uniformity of its vast expanse is broken by a number
of mounds or tumuli; some on a modest, others on a splendid scale.
Constructed of earth or brick, they are covered with a kind of
cement, on which are depicted in vivid colours the figures of
fantastic animals and impossible plants, while the name and titles of
the deceased are inscribed in conspicuous characters.
Here, one day, Dr. Morice chanced to be the spectator of an
Annamite funeral, which is always celebrated with a certain amount
of pomp, and attended by a numerous train of mourners. The coffin
is planted in the centre of a small portable house, made of paper
painted in brilliant colours, and cut into curious shapes. A score of
bearers carry this miniature temple, resting upon their shoulders the
bamboos which support it. A company of persons with torches
scatter along the road their prayers to Buddha, traced on golden and
silver papers, and set fire to them. In the rear march the friends and
relatives of the departed, some uttering forced lamentations, all
smiling “in their sleeves;” for these singular people are never so
moved by their sorrow that they cannot laugh at a jest, or at any
incident of which they immediately seize, as by intuition, the comic
side.

Here too he saw some geckos: indeed, they were

THE GECKO
numerous enough to be considered the genii of
DESCRIBED.
the place. Inhabiting the forests and waste places,
as well as the huts of the Annamites and the houses of the French,
this large lizard, so common in Cochin-China, is one of the animals
which give to the fauna of the country its peculiar character. Does
the reader know what a gecko is like? If not, let him try to conceive
of a gigantic terrestrial salamander; its skin, of a bluish-gray,
covered with a quantity of tiny tubercles rising in the middle of an
orange-tinted patch; its great eyes having a large gold-yellow iris;
while, owing to the sucker-like lamellæ that line the under surface of
its feet, it is able to walk easily on the smoothest surfaces, and
utterly to defy the laws of gravitation. Its cry, to which it owes the
name given to it in every language, is curiously sonorous; and when
first heard, fairly startles the hearer. A shaky grumble or grunt
serves as prelude; then, five, six, or eight times, lowering its voice
regularly half a tone on each occasion, it jerks out its cadenced
notes, which are sometimes written gecko, and sometimes tacke;
the performance terminating with a grunt of satisfaction.
The gecko grows as familiar with man as the
ITS FAMILIARITY
WITH MAN.
domestic cat or dog,—entering human habitations
freely, and rendering valuable service by the
eagerness with which it devours flies, spiders, and other insect-
plagues. During the day, it lurks generally in some obscure nook or
dark corner; but at dusk sallies forth in search of prey, running up or
down the steepest walls with wonderful swiftness, and giving
utterance to a quick shrill noise by smacking its tongue against its
palate. So flexible is its body, that it can adapt itself readily to any
depression or irregularity in the surface of the ground, forming
apparently a component part of it. This deception is facilitated by its
dulness of colouring. It is a home-keeping animal, and never strays
to any great distance from the lair which it has chosen. Despite its
ugliness and its cry, which at night, when a dozen are heard replying
to one another, becomes insupportably wearisome, it is one of man’s
most useful allies in the animal-world, and merits his respect.
A word as to the formation of its wide feet. All the toes are
broadened considerably at the edges, and their under surface is
divided into numerous transverse laminæ, from which exudes an
adhesive fluid. Its claws are sharp, crooked, and retractile like those
of a cat.
Another animal of the same group, but much
ABOUT THE
MARGOUILLA.
smaller, and closely resembling the tarenta of
which the Toulonese are so afraid, is the
margouilla, the “con-tan-lan” of the Annamites. It inhabits trees and
houses with equal complacency. Every evening, when the tapers are
lighted, it may be seen promenading along the ceiling, where it
pounces upon the insects, uttering from time to time its short cry of
satisfaction, which may be translated by the syllable toc ten times
repeated. It is partial to sugar; but as it is the inveterate enemy of
the mosquitoes, no one begrudges it a dainty morsel from the sugar-
basin.
 From Saigon Dr. Morice made an excursion to
EXCURSION TO
Kholen, the second town in size and population in
KHOLEN.
Cochin-China. It lies about three miles from
Saigon, but is connected with it by a line of villages, of pagodas, and
of the country-houses of the wealthier Chinese merchants. Kholen is
the centre of all the Chinese commerce of the colony. The amount of
rice, stuffs, and products exported from China, which is sold there,
almost passes belief; and the stranger surveys with interest the
animation of its busy streets, and the numerous Chinese junks and
Annamite sampans moored alongside its quays.

CHINESE HOUSE AT KHOLEN.

Among its peculiarities may be specialized its parks or preserves of
crocodiles. A barrier of long and solid piles surrounds a space of
about twenty square yards on the river-bank; in the mud and slime
thus enclosed, and regularly inundated at high water, sprawl from
one hundred to two hundred crocodiles. When the people wish to
sacrifice one of these monsters, two of the piles are lifted up; a
running knot is flung round the neck of the largest of the herd,
which is then hauled outside; its tail is fastened close to its body
lengthwise; its feet are cut off, and used to garnish its back; the
jaws are tied together with ratan; and these vegetable bonds are so
firm that the huge creature is incapable of movement, and can offer
no defence. As for the flesh, though rather leathery, it appears to
have a certain value, and is not so strongly impregnated with the
odour of musk as some writers pretend. On Annamite tables it
figures as a favourite dish.

From Saigon Dr. Morice’s next excursion was to

HATIAN-OF-THE-
Gocong, which lies in the centre of a district
ROSES.
famous for its rice-fields. Thence he made his way
to Hatian (or Cancao), of which he gives a lively description
furnished to him by a French colonist:—
“Hatian-of-the-Roses is a small gem of flowers and verdure;
magnificent pagodas, wooded hills, the limestone mass of Bonnet-à-
Poil; everything which one finds nowhere else.”
But, says Dr. Morice, he forgot the fever.
There can be no doubt that Hatian is a lovely spot. It is situated on
the borders of a lake which opens into the Gulf of Siam; a lake
bordered on the west by ranges of green hills, luxuriantly clothed
with magnificent trees. To the east extends a vast plain, in the
centre of which rises the isolated mass of limestone known as the
Bonnet-à-Poil. The fields are enamelled with flowers and studded
with flowering bushes; and winding paths lead through a succession
of scenes of the most various beauty.
The plant chiefly cultivated is the pepper-plant. On
THE PEPPER-PLANT.
a soil raised several feet above the ordinary level
are disposed parallel rows of sticks like those
which are used in the Kentish hop-gardens, and round each of these
coils a vigorous plant. It takes five years for a plant to become
productive. Maize is also cultivated, but not to so large an extent.
While Dr. Morice was at Hatian, its Annamite
FEAST OF THE TÊT.
inhabitants celebrated their feast of the Têt or
New-Year’s Day, in which are oddly mingled the
religious rites of Buddhism, and the worship of the manes of their
forefathers, the fear of the devil or Maqui, and the noisiest possible
manifestations of popular mirth. It lasts at the least seven days,—
with the rich much longer; and the entire settlement gives itself up
for this period to the most unrestrained enjoyment.
Before each house, on a table covered with a mat, is to be seen the
offering of meat and drink, rice-spirit in a small white porcelain
teapot, tea, betel with all its ingredients, fish, various kinds of
Annamite vermicelli, roast duck, a quarter of pork, rice, bananas,
and oranges. All this display is set out with flowers; then a couple of
small tapers are lighted, and the manes, or domestic spirits, are
respectfully invited to come and take their share of the consecrated
love-feast. More: on a plate supported on a moderately high post,
other and more delicate offerings are displayed,—composed
generally of a bouquet of only two species of flowers, the one violet-
tinted, the other yellow. As they are seen everywhere, it is probable
that a symbolical meaning attaches to the union of these two
flowers. Moreover, the rich plant an areca, the poor a large bamboo,
in front of the various oblations, and to the top of each fasten a tiny
basket of ratan, divided into five compartments. Finally, the altar of
Buddha, which forms an indispensable appendage of every hut, is
decked out with special pomp; and strips of yellow, red, and violet
papers, inscribed with Chinese characters, are affixed to every door.
These are intended to avert the presence of the evil spirit during the
new year.
Meantime everybody, clothed in their best attire,—
AN ANNAMITE
PASTIME.
men, women, and children,—that is to say, in a
striped tunic and pantaloons blue, red, yellow,
violet, green, often with the two legs of different colours,—sallied
forth to exchange greetings, or amuse themselves as best they
might. Among the pastimes most in favour were the following.
Javelin-throwing; in which a long lance of black wood was made to
pass through a ring suspended from a post about three feet high,
and this at a distance of six to nine yards. This game, which
resembles the old Scotch exercise of tilting at a mark, requires
considerable skill on the part of those who engage in it. Still more
popular, especially among women and children, was the swing,
single or double. And it was not without astonishment that the
traveller found here, in the far East, a kind of “merry-go-round,”
such as we see at our fairs and holiday fêtes, with a score of
persons enjoying its revolutions. There was also the game of shuttle-
cock, which was launched either with hand or foot. In the midst of
all this turmoil might be heard the monotonous tomtom, the isolated
sounds of some three-stringed guitars, and especially the sharp
reports of petards, which are indispensable at every festival, and
resemble sometimes the file-firing of infantry.
For this great yearly revel every Annamite saves
THEATRICAL
PERFORMANCES.
up his money for months, and when it comes he
disburses his little store most conscientiously.
Frequently an itinerant troop of actors comes—at least in the
principal towns—to contribute its part to the general rejoicings. As it
is the wealthy citizens who in turn defray the expense of its
representations, we need hardly say that they are very largely
attended. The plays included in their repertory are always of a noisy
character, and plentifully sprinkled with coarse jokes, at the expense
of the military mandarins, husbands, and especially the Chinese.
Actors hideously painted, with the view of giving them a formidable
appearance, perform in desperate combats, diversified by guttural
cries and heroic poses of the most ridiculous character.

During his sojourn at Hatian, Dr. Morice paid a visit to a singularly

constructed edifice—the ancient Chinese palace of the Maqueuou.
 This Chinese worthy, it is said, was a simple
THE FOUNDER OF
fisherman; but as the products of his avocation did
HATIAN.
not enrich him with sufficient rapidity, he began to
cultivate a little ground, and started a pepper plantation. One day,
while digging, he turned up a store of money,—a supply so ample
that it enabled him to bring over to Hatian a large number of his
compatriots. He trained them, enrolled them, practised them; and
the result was that, one fine morning, Hatian, enriched and largely
increased in population, declared itself independent of the empire of
Annam, or rather Cambodia, and raised Maqueuou to the throne. He
built for himself a splendid palace, and lived for many years
afterwards, enjoying the rare pleasure of witnessing the realisation
of his dreams. But when he died his organizing genius died with him.
Hatian was again annexed to the empire, and the palace fell into
ruin; only its four walls are now extant.
The European stranger visits the spot with a feeling of respect for
the memory of a bold and energetic man. With some difficulty he
clears a path through the luxuriant vegetation, and arrives in front of
walls of Cyclopean solidity. Two vast halls, almost choked with
balsam, daturas, caster-oil plants, parasites, and refuse, form the
entrance. Then come four smaller apartments, in better condition,
and each provided with a great circular window. Here some geckos
have established their abode, saluting the stranger with astonished
glances and piercing cries.
Next comes an immense chamber, almost exactly
MAQUEUOU’S
TOMB.
square; and several tombs or memorial buildings
are here overshadowed by venerable trees. The
highest, raised in honour of Maqueuou himself, consists of
successive courses of masonry, diminishing gradually from base to
summit. Unfortunately, built of bad materials, it has been seriously
injured by the action of the sun and the rains. A swarm of bees was
domiciled in one of the crannies; and a tree, the seed of which had
probably dropped from the bill of some wandering bird, soared
upward from the very apex of the pyramid. Four smaller
monuments, all oblong in shape, and traditionally appropriated to
Maqueuou’s family, are scattered around the former. They still bear
traces of the carving with which they were formerly decorated.
Solitude and silence prevail within the precincts of this vast ruin. The
geckos, the birds, and a squirrel or two, are its only inmates.
Another remarkable object is the so-called pagoda of Maqui, or the
devil. Dr. Morice was greatly surprised to see appended to its walls a
complete series of water-colour sketches, on very stout paper,
representing the tortures of an Inferno which would bear
comparison with Dante’s. The satellites of the Annamite devil are
shown in those pictures as engaged in the variety of occupations
which the old medieval legends attributed to the imps of Beelzebub.
They are roasting, impaling, cutting to pieces, and flaying the guilty;
throwing them into caldrons of boiling water, grilling them over fires,
and flinging them to the hungry jaws of enormous tigers.
That Hatian is not without its unpleasantnesses,
AN UNPLEASANT
GUEST.
Dr. Morice discovered in an unexpected fashion.
Some workmen, in pulling down an old wall, came
on the lair of a large serpent, which lay in “multitudinous coils”
hatching its store of eggs. As everybody knew Dr. Morice’s zoological
tastes, the workmen sent him immediate information of their “find,”
and he quickly arrived on the spot, armed with a stick and a long
and strong pair of nippers. Had it not been for its eggs, the animal
would probably have retreated; but it remained rolled up in its hole,
showing only its spotted and dusky-coloured head. To seize its neck
with his nippers, was Dr. Morice’s instant manœuvre; and then, to
the great terror of the Chinese workmen, he raised it up bodily, and
proceeded to carry it off in triumph. Meanwhile, the irritated
creature discharged at its captor’s forehead a jet of liquid, from
which, at the time, he felt no disagreeable sensation. On reaching
home, Dr. Morice deposited the reptile and its eggs in a chest lined
with straw; which he nailed down carefully, and raised above the
ground on vessels of water, as a protection against the attacks of
ants. Then, and not till then, he washed his forehead, bathing, with
due caution, the part touched by the fluid discharge; but still not
believing that the serpent was one of the venomous kind. He
troubled himself no more about his prisoner until, a few days later,
he found in his chamber four tiny serpents, which he took up in his
hand, in spite of their angry hissing. These he transferred to a glass
jar. The next morning, wishing to examine them, he was
unpleasantly surprised to find them rearing their head erect and
expanding their neck laterally; and still more disagreeably surprised
to detect on the neck thus expanded the characteristic V. They
belonged to the genus of the spectacled serpent,
A COBRA CAPELLA.
the naja of India, the dreaded cobra capella!
Dr. Morice hastened to bore some large holes in
MOTHER AND
PROGENY.
the chest containing the serpent and the eggs,
and by means of these he introduced into the
interior a quantity of burning sulphur. When, after a sufficient time
had elapsed, he opened it, he found the mother and eighteen young
ones suffocated, while four eggs still remained intact. How had the
others been hatched? The circumstance was a novel one, for it was
supposed that only the great serpents—the pythons and boas—
hatched their eggs. At all events, it was an interesting fact that this
animal had remained faithful to its brood. Among the sixteen young
serpents, only one was a female, and most of them had already
once changed their skin. They were about thirteen inches long, and
their fangs were clearly discernible. Dr. Morice felt that he had good
reason to be thankful that he had not been wounded by the cobra
capella when he so rashly pounced upon it.

We next find our unwearied travellers undertaking a journey to

Chaudoc, which is situated near the mouth of the Mekong. On both
banks of the river, but more particularly on the right bank, are
arranged the numerous Annamite huts; and above them frown the
grim walls of a fort, which is in itself of the size of a small town. The
province, of which Chaudoc is the capital, includes one hundred and
five villages, and has a population of eighty-nine thousand souls, of
whom eight thousand are Cambodians and sixteen thousand Malays.

VINH-LONG.
Five days later Dr. Morice was at Vinh-Long, the
AT VINH-LONG.
fort of which is equal in magnitude to that of
Chaudoc. In the rear of the great muddy moats
and embankments of earth, sustained by huge piles, rise the officers’
barracks, and the entrenched redoubt containing the soldiers’
quarters and the hospital. Bamboos and tall grasses have overgrown
a portion of the immense enclosure, and in their tangled mass
enormous pythons are frequently killed, while the najas lie asleep in
the dank inextricable vegetation of the trenches. The town itself is
not without a certain agreeableness of aspect; its broad, straight
streets are shaded by gigantic cocoa-nut palms.
 Still continuing his explorations in the districts
THE “BLACK LADY.”
watered by the mouths of the Mekong, which
forms a considerable delta, traversed by
innumerable canals and branches, Dr. Morice arrived at Tayninh,
which lies to the east of Saigon. It lines the river-bank for some
distance; the houses of the Annamite population being built, not of
mud and clay, as in the western districts of Cochin-China, but of
good solid timber, and with much care and good taste. Their roofs
are also of better construction: instead of the leaves of the water-
palm, a close fine thatch is used, to which the action of the
atmosphere soon gives a pleasant tint of age. Flourishing coffee-
plantations surround the town, in the rear of which spread the
shadows of a mighty forest, that spreads far up the sides of a chain
of granite mountains of moderate elevation. The highest of these is
the “Black Lady” (Nui-ba-dinh). On the summit, in a picturesque
nook, stands a celebrated pagoda, the cells of its bonzes being
excavated out of the neighbouring rock. The pagoda owes its repute
to the neighbourhood of a miraculous spring; and this spring rejoices
in a legend, which may be told as follows:—
A bonze of indescribable holiness, who loved to
THE PERPETUAL
FOUNTAIN.
offer up his prayers in the high places of earth,
climbed the mountain one day in order to make
his devotions on its lofty summit. Despite his sanctity, however, he
was human; and as the mountain was of great elevation and equal
barrenness, he soon grew faint with hunger, but more particularly
with thirst. Disdainful, like all sages, of purely physical needs, he had
not taken the precaution of providing himself with these precious
necessaries of food and drink, which are the first thought of ordinary
mortals. What was he to do? He began to pray; and lo! as he
prayed, an enormous rock, which reared its dark front before him,
was suddenly cleft open, and revealed to his delighted gaze a crystal
spring falling into a basin of stone. From that time the well has
never ceased to pour out abundant waters, which heal all the
diseases of humanity;—though, strange to say, men, women, and
children still die in Cochin-China!
Ten minutes’ climbing brought Dr. Morice face to face with this
perpetual marvel. His companions hastened to drink copious
draughts of the fresh cold water; but Dr. Morice, rejecting the
legend, and having less confidence than he ought to have had in
temperance principles, resorted to his pocket flask, poured out a
glass of French wine, and drank to the majesty of the glorious
mountain.

SCENE AT TAYNINH.

On another occasion Dr. Morice took part in an exciting adventure,

which had a painful issue. A tiger, whose depredations had become
intolerable, having carried off the best dog of one of the best
hunters of the country, it was decided that he must undergo
immediate and condign punishment.
The tiger is not often hunted in Cochin-China, where the elephant,
that living fortress, does not place at the disposal of the European its
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