Fourteen Large: Grexiting the Late Bronze Age, 2

First, I've just read Oliver Dickinson's new attempt to synthesise the Greek Bronze Age--Iron Age transition.  Powerfully scholarly, Dickinson first sets the terms: whatever else we know or do not know about the "catastrophe" which ended the Late Bronze Age, there is an irreducible core of facts to consider. At the end of the Palatial Period, "Mycenaean Greek" civilisation was building monumental structures. At the dawning of the Classical Period, "Ancient Greeks" were again building monumental structures. Their nature had changed significantly over the course of 400 years, from spectacular tombs and not-quite-so-spectacular palace sites to temples, but from some kind of functional point of view, their absence in the intervening almost half-millennium constitutes definitive proof that some kind of social caesura had taken place. Call it a catastrophe, or a decomplexification, or a collapse of the Late Bronze Age state, but something.

However, Dickinson feels himself compelled to adopt the version of the thesis in which decomplexification leads to a significant local population decline. He wants to argue that whatever the problems so far invoked with using area surveys to measure populations, we are at the point where we can accept them as evidence. I am not convinced, so, all digressions aside, this post is mostly a disagreement with that. (Spoiler: I continue to be persuaded by the idea that they all went away to live in the hills. Still have to motivate the argument, though.)  

Second, since this is a blog about grass and technology, can a claim that technological exogeneity lies in back of the Late Bronze Age collapse be sustained? That is, for we moderns who worry that robots are about to take our jobs, is there a parallel example in iron axes, presumably taking the jobs, and perhaps lives, of the bronze merchants (bankers-in-bronze?) Or is technology endogenous, with Late Bronze Age society giving way to a new lifestyle which makes iron possible.

Or, even more radically, is technology an epiphenomena of economic growth, in which case the Late Bronze Age-Iron Age transition is an episode of economic-growth-with-political-catastrophe-characteristics? (That would be a contrarian interpretation, indeed.) 

Third, a little buried compared with the force of the anecdote: fourteen grand, in case you were wondering, is, I have just learned, what you pay in student loan-funded tuition to go to truck driver school in Vancouver right now.  All scholarly caution about overly dramatic intepretations of the end of the Late Bronze Age aside, I want there to have been an episode in which the peasants burned down the wanax's palace and went off to live in Arcadia. "By the time we're done, Linear B will be spoken only in Hell." 

There is evidence burning a hole in my pocket, and since this is a blog, and not a monograph, I can spend it. Right now. That evidence is locality. If you read about the Greek War of Independence, you are inspired by events in Bessarabia to land in called Messalonghi. You go on to see a war proclaimed at Arepoli and  Kalamata by the men of Monemvasia and "unconquered Mani" and bold klephts of Arcadia ("On horse they go to church/on horse they kiss the icons/on horse they receive communion/From the priest's hand"), who advance on Tripoli, Nafplio and Ypati.and fight at Navarino and Petra. 

Even granted that we don't know as much as we think we do about the geography of Classical Greece, a striking number of turn-of-modernity Greeks seem to have been living in the wrong place. The hellenophiles of the time seem to have taken it that their contemporary Greeks were a bit degenerate, but that it was something that could be fixed. Greece's new Bavarian monarch chose Athens as his capital in 1834, and promptly announced the restoration of Sparta --the episode out of which this story springs. The people of Laconia of circa 1834 didn't think that Sparta needed to be restored, because although they did not call their town "Sparta," they were pretty clear that  Mystras was the new town to Sparta's old. The ancient Spartans had built a city in a pretty dumb place; the new location was better. 

They lost that argument, as the Peloponnese has been losing arguments with Athens ever since. The question here, if it is not too anachronistic, is whether or not the Greeks of 1830 had a point. Always tiptoeing around accusations of anachronism, we are already in the habit of interpreting the archaeological record of the Greek countryside at the end of the Late Bronze Age in the light of other eras. Why not start at Mystras?

"Botzaris Suprises the Turkish Camp and Falls Mortally Wounded," Eugene Delacroix

(Or Tripoli.)

Postblogging Technology: March, 1945, I: Out Ride the Sons of Terra, Far Drives the Thundering Jet

Captain (E) J_. C_., R.N., D.S.O. (Bar), D.S.C., M.M.

HMAS Kuttabul,

New South Wales, Australia.

Davidcmc58

My Dearest:

You are probably wondering why this packet is so thick, and have clawed it open, your heart torn between hopes of photographs of our babies, and fears of some horrid legal entanglement.
At least, so I conceive the balance, so that I do not imagine you, my darling, being disappointed by the tedious details you will in fact encounter in the document this letter wraps. The future is no brighter for it, but it remains bright as ever, at least.

To explain: as you know, I have been carrying on Uncle George's regular "investing newsletter," to your father since he left for the war. Well, he's in Australia, as I am sure your throbbing head of a morning has told you on a few occasions since he arrived. (At least you wil get some practice in holding your liquor ahead of dealing with more sailors!) Well, here's the newsletter, so please pass it on. It's especially important, since Uncle George places infinite reliance on your father's charm and tact in carrying his case with the Earl, to whom these sentiments will eventually be forwarded.

But enough of that. You are sadly deprived: of Santa Cruz in the bright spring, of the excitement as we ready ourselves for the United Nations Conference, of your babies and even your half-brothers' entertaining enthusiasms, the bright youth of Miss V_C._,, the adventures of Miss Von Q. and Mrs. (I cannot write that without a smile) Wong in the city, of Fanny's courting by Jimmy Ho (of which I am supposed to know nothing), even the continuing saga of Arcadia's roof and the malign plotting of the Engineer and his lieutenant, the Lieutenant.

As to the latter, it's all very sad. The Engineer fancies a bracing confrontation with the Russians, since he conceives Communism to be all around him, and us. We silly ladies are more concerned with dances and balls and parties, for what is a Peace Conference without them? And one cannot have whirling and music and romance, and clever old diplomats showing us how to waltz (am I odd to wish that I had been there to dance with Metternich and Talleyrand, whatever their politics? I shan't mention dashing Uhlans, as I have a dashing engineer, instead) if there is to be a great battle of ideologies instead! Well, actually, Miss v. Q. and Mrs. Wong will be very much involved in all of this, unless the FBI finds better linguists somewhere, as plans to eavesdrop on unnamed foreign delegations go ahead. The Russians, I am told, quite sensibly conduct all of their correspondence in cypher, but that does not mean that it cannot be compromised. Lieutenant A_ is on about technical means of doing so. I wonder if he has ever heard of the concept of "burglary?"

Perhaps, I have had the strangest passing conversation with the Engineer's son on the subject of whether Wong Lee might be to hand. And, yes, this is work that Wong Lee could do. But surely the FBI has its men?

Even sadder, your worries about Aunt Bessie were all too justified. Her habits and her health have caught up with her, and I have been spending entirely too much time with her and with Uncle Henry of late. In fact, just the other day I was called out of the University Library, where I have been taking notes for these newsletters of late, with news of an emergency up in Oakland.

While the emergency on that occasion proved to be Uncle Henry calculating that I could be pressurised into coming over a few hours early, the need is real enough. I do not think Aunt Bessie has very much longer to live.

Though it's an ill wind that blows no-one any good, as the rearrangement meant that Fanny's weekly afternoon off was put over from Sunday to Friday, and she left with a song in her lip! 

 

The Great Siege: PLUNDER, VARSITY, Gotterdamerung

OPERATION PLUNDER; OPERATION VARSITY; The Twilight of the Gods. Three things, naturally linked.

Except that PLUNDER and VARSITY were real things that happened. The "Twilight of the Gods" turned out to be grandiose fantasy. 

We don't write much about the combined assault on the Rhine by 21st Army Group (including US 9th Army), which led to the greatest opposed river crossings in historys. (In the interests of accuracy i hyperbole, it should be noted that any given assault crossing the Yangzi was probably a bigger deal in terms of water work, but the Mandate of Heaven has not yet been transferred by a modern mechanised army.) That a vast army, supported by enormous logistical preparations, closed the world's eleventh-largest river and fought its way across against the resistance of the army of the world's second largest economy, should be a big deal.

The problem was that it was dead easy, so no-one cares about it, which is why this post is two weeks late. (Apart from yours truly having to deal with a congenital lack of labour in the Canadian economy that somehow does not show up as a "labour shortage.") This is because, as it turns out, "Gotterdamerung" springs from Snorri Sturlusson's head. Gods and heroes heroes may go down in glorious last stands, but the spear carriers have made a discrete departure. 

Germany, ever so quietly, was going from this to this. Germans, actual living Germans, had learned a lesson that the rest of us could stand to remember. "Blood and nation" are not things immanent in us, unalterable and compelling. Trapped by an idea? Defect in your head,  hollow out your will to be a German landser, drag your feet until the tail of the column turns the corner ahead, leave your rifle by the side of the road.

Congratulations: you're a "straggler." Keep it up for eight weeks more, and you'll be a live straggler. It's nothing to be proud of later. Lost causes flourish in romantic legend; not the men who kept their heads down and came home to their families --or made new ones. Spring is coming, the world needs to be renewed, and the glorious dead will make no babies. 

For those who cling to lost causes, the first week of April is bitter. One-hundred fifty years ago, the Confederate States of America collapsed; 75 years ago, the Wehrmacht was vanishing, tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of men simply not on the rolls.

That's  the German Fifteenth Army under watch below. 

On the other hand, OPERATION KIKUSUI was 75 years ago. Another of the horrifying moral aporia of the world war, the attack of the floating crysanthenums is not easy for me to parse. The young men who piloted the suicide bombers do not seem to have been particularly traditionalist, nationalist or right wing. It is certainly not very helpful to focus on the supposedly fixed essentials of Japanese character to explain them, and it certainly is possible to frame a narrative around inescapable social pressure to commit suicide, which is pretty horrible in its own right.

The kamikazes flew while the German and Confederate armies were disintegrating. I'm not going to present a half-baked explanation for this, only point to it as a problem. The "national character" thing usually invoked does not convince. I grew up on the Pacific shore, after all, surrounded by Japanese Canadians and German Canadians, and on and on, so I can claim some experiential credibility for my skepticism. So could Californians, which I think might explain why the actual response to the kamikazes proved so ambiguous in the end. 

 I would gesture out at the Pacific and conjure up Owen Chase's arrival in San Francisco on the whaleship Winslow sometime between 1825 and 1827, and notice that while whalers and sealers are already ranging from the Japan Grounds to Alaska and down past the Bass Strait, where "sea rats" and "pirates" took seals for the China trade in cockleshell boats ranging all the way to Middle Island off Western Australia. 

That is, twenty years before San Francisco became American, it looked out on a Pacific where there were already sealing plantations and offshore fisheries off multiple future Australian and American states, one Canadian province, New Zealand, various pelagic nations and "overseas territories," The Empire of Japan and the Kingdom of Hawaii. The process by which the only autochhthonous state formation in a non-state ordered society became the American territory of Hawaii, while New Zealand became a resolutely British nation. How? It's all so slippery. But disintegrating armies have to fit in here somehow..

This is an introduction to a discussion of floating and other temporary bridges.

Postblogging Technology, February 1945, II: Queen of the Pacific

Group Captain R_. C_., RCAFVR, DSO, DFC (Bar)

Suez,

Egypt.

I imagine this letter will find you somewhat late, as, until we have set up a secure chain of transmission to Sydney, our courier must pursue you across the ends of the Earth to your new assignment.

Source

On this connection, I can now confirm that Rose of Allendale docked in Sydney last month with Du's men still on board. James has fellows looking for them in Australia, although this is a bit tricky. White Russians, especially ones with some English, will find it a great deal easier to blend into Australian society than Chinese, at least outside Chinatown. At the moment, though, it seems that they left with Rose, which left Sydney two weeks ago, in ballast for Tulagi, to take on copra and a deckload of steel scrap for San Diego. Wong Lee is preparing a welcoming party there, and there is a certain irony, in that all that U.S. government steel scrap is probably intended for Fontana, at least after the alloy is salvaged.

I am more than a little concerned that they did not head for India, although at least now my concerns for Father are at rest. You may have heard that he has departed Chungking with our distant cousins, now that Chou has offered sanctuary to his household. I just wish that I did not hear sardonic comments from Yenan to the effect that he who wants to know the Chairman of the Party should study the Hongwu Emperor.

One hazard at a time, though. If Du's men are not returning to Chungking, and they are not pursuing Father, amongst, of course, many other potential targets in India, what are they after?

So that is one concern, and one that you may well allay by finding these men!

You will find this letter (that is, the nespaper review part) a little truncated. I have had no chance to look at the recent numbers of Aero Digest.  You will notice that I am upset about some technical coverage in Time, and perhaps all my fulminations would be set aside after reading the latest numbers of the technical press. You may take both my anger and my shortness of time as showing just how blasted busy we are around here.

The reason for that is the bombshell announcement at Yalta that we are to have the conference that establishes the United Nations Secretariat here (or up the Bay, close enough) in April! It is hard to imagine how San Francisco can possibly be ready so soon! There does not seem to be enough room for everyone who wants to live here already, although as some relief, the universities will go into intersession and the dormitories will be available.

Many famous people will descend on the city. You will see below that the President has done his best to keep the American delegation diverse, but there is no such luck with the Chinese, which will inevitably all be Soongs and their hangers-on. No Communists, unless America provides, and there in hangs. . .

With their close connections, it is no wonder that I have heard from the Engineer, very obliquely. His youngest came to visit me the other day. He is as much a delight in person, and I must keep those letters he sends to the FBI in mind to not fall completely for his charms. Like Uncle George's friend (of whom more soon), he puts on the stage-Irishness he inherits from his foster-father with aplomb. Although, unlike our friend, he does not have to "sell" a Catholic faith, since he can take refuge in his mother's people, and their small-sect Midwesternism.

The issue here is that the Soongs are looking for . . .shall I say, intelligence. . . in San Francisco? I cannot imagine that the Engineer thinks that we will provide it, so I assume that we are the object. 

At once I hurried to Berkeley, to see our gay young wives. (I had a mission from from Mrs. Wong's mother-in-law, who is quite convinced that the young woman lacks the sense to come in out of the rain, but no fears there.) Has Mrs. Wong been contacted by her friends in the Navy? If so, can she carry off the guise of a Russian translator? Can she turn to Miss v. Q., without drawing unwelcome attention to her Dutch cover? Has Miss v. Q. progressed far enough in her language studies that we can use her against the Soongs? (Not surprisingly, no; but soon, probably.) What is it like to live in a former anthropology lab?

That last sounds frivolous, and it is, but I do have a point, which is that I met with Professor K., and, well, with housing at issue, and battlelines to be drawn, and no sign of, say, Chinese Communists at San Francisco, I was very pleased to discover that an eminent colleague of Professor K wishes to spend some time in San Francisco. He is an anthropologist, of the sort who studies Mongolia and even advises Chiang. And, like everyone who has seen both, puts more faith, however little, in Yenan than in Chungking.

We shall be putting this eminent gentleman up, and perhaps some of his friends, as much for a stick in the eye of the Soongs as anything. I have even decided to stir things up by hosting a dinner in the Main Hall at Arcadia. (Which means getting the roof patched up, but I think this is manageable.) I am very much loooking forward to Professor K. seeing the Whale Man. It is pretty much unrecognisable to someone versed in the later flourishing of Northwestern art, but perhaps his eye will pick up the ancestral traits?

And now I must end, as, somehow, I have found myself agreeing to take Miss K. out for a ride, although I do not think it will be a long one, in my condition.  She is amusing, and surprisingly at ease with my other regular companion, Miss V. C., and with your youngest, who shares her literary interests, as you know, and is currently idled for a day by a drastic revision of his classroom curriculum. These are based, I gather, on the success of Mitscher's attack on Tokyo. Radio in the darkness and all that, with the additional input of a most unpleasant (it is a theme, you will see) scientist from Bell Labs, who oversaw some aspects of the matter from Saipan, and is now on his way home to report.

Oh, my. I say that I must end, and still I go on, digressing all over the place. Well, it positively must end, because there is so much to be done ahead of April. But I haven't told you about the progress we have made in sound-recording, and the absurd infrared project underway at Stanford, and Lieutenant A_., even more ebullient than usual at the news that San Francisco will shortly be the epicentre of American "counterintelligence." (Which is to say, looking under beds for Communists. I'm going to be a better hostess than that, and put my Communists on them. They may even get clean sheets.)

"GRACE."

Source