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For the Week of 11/12/08 |
Assignment 11
Agriculture, Industrial Revolution, and Explosives
ÒThe African QueenÓ (1951) has
it all: Steam engines, boats,
explosives (not much agriculture though).
This is actually a great
movie. Here is the trailer: Youtube-African_Queen-trailer
Note the over-the-top sexual
innuendo throughout.
Hands down the best explosives
movie ever made was ÒWages of FearÓ [Le Salaire de la peur (French) – 1953]
starring hunky Yves Montand and VŽra Clouzot. It was remade in 1977 in English as ÒSorcererÓ starring Roy
Scheider, but it opened opposite ÒStar WarsÓ and guess which movie got more
attention. I havenÕt seen
ÒSorcerer,Ó but ÒWages of FearÓ is unbelievably intense. I highly recommend it.
Be sure to have McClellan and
Dorn, the steam engine animation and the sailing simulator covered for
WednesdayÕs class:
Read in McClellan and Dorn: Chapter
14, ÒTimber, Coal, Cloth, and SteamÓ [Chapter 13, ÒThe Industrial RevolutionÓ
in older editions].
Look at this animation of the
Newcomen Steam engine: http://www.keveney.com/newcommen.html
Question:
If you were to quit boiling water in this engine and just open up all the
valves, what position would the piston assume in the cylinder? This may be in a quiz on Wednesday. Here are some other less clear
animations: http://animations.technologydiamonds.com/.
Play with this sailing simulator: Sailing
Simulator [Click on ÒTake the HelmÓ]
Read Bown: Chs. 3-5. pp. 51-100, 109-119. Beware! Bown completely misrepresents
Japanese firearm history on p. 112.
This is an interesting myth that has been propagated in the western
world due to a few western historians not being careful and everybody else
quoting them. There was a general
ban on all weapons in Japan starting in 1588 that applied to commoners, but it
was only sporadically enforced and it turns out that exceptions were frequently
made for firearms if used for hunting and guarding agriculture interests from
wild animals. The general
population had access to firearms and there was a healthy manufacturing
industry throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. It is true that because there was
little warfare going on during this period that gun tech. advancements
stagnated, but production didnÕt cease.
This error in history can be found in many sources. I have found it in 3 prominent sources
so far, including Jared Diamond and it is clear that there are several more out
there. The moral to the story: If you are going to write about Japanese history
and you donÕt read Japanese, you might want to run your ideas by a Japanese
historian just to see if s/he sees a glaring error. [See Chase, Kenneth Warren. Firearms: A Global History to 1700. New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. – n. 84, p. 253.]
Read ÒThis SteerÕs LifeÓ by Pollan: Pollan_This_Steers_Life-391KB.pdf
Citations:
Bown, Stephen R. A Most Damnable
Invention : Dynamite, Nitrates, and the Making of the Modern World. 1st ed.
New York: T. Dunne Books, 2005.
McClellan, James E., and Harold
Dorn. Science
and Technology in World History : An Introduction. Baltimore, Md.: The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.
Pollan, Michael. "This
Steer's Life (Power Steer)." New York Times Magazine, March 31, 2002.
Presentations:
Wednesday: Jasko
Thursday: Stross-Krichman and
Hollin
Back to Syllabus [HoST Fall 2008]
Me – hostf08@mifami.org
Review materials:
Posted: 12/6/08 8:29 AM
Here are my notes on Bown and these pretty much cover the
whole book excluding chapters 1-3.
I would suggest looking at the book itself and your own notes too, as I
also took additional notes in the book itself, so these notes are both too much
and too little at the same time.
There are also lots of typos, spelling, and grammatical errors
throughout. Do with them what you will.
Bown-Notes-ch3-end-Review-2.1MB.pdf
and
Here are some notes on the McClellan and Dorn reading with my
additions for lecture. I didnÕt
get to some of this, so use your judgment on whether or not this material is
useful.
McClellan-Dorn-Notes-279-323-Review-2.4MB.pdf
A few of the images compressed strangely in PDF compressionÉ
They are not critical images.