Speaker 1: Hello everybody, Ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends.
Speaker 1: We are back again with another special episode of History Impossible,
Speaker 1: this time another direct adaptation of research that I've conducted
Speaker 1: during my time in graduate school. Before we get into that,
Speaker 1: I want to first give a shout out to the
Speaker 1: people supporting History Impossible at the executive producer level or
Speaker 1: even above, if that is ever the case, specifically my
Speaker 1: longtime supporters John Andre Saither and Mike Maylebin. You guys
Speaker 1: are the best for sticking with me all this time.
Speaker 1: Really appreciate it, Really love getting feedback from you guys directly,
Speaker 1: and that includes everybody, not just those guys. I mean,
Speaker 1: I talk to them a fair bit at this point.
Speaker 1: But if you ever want to get a hold of me,
Speaker 1: just reach out to History Impossible at gmail dot com.
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Speaker 1: appreciate any support you can give this show and give
Speaker 1: me as I go further into debt to get my
Speaker 1: history education finished up. In all serious as though, you know,
Speaker 1: financial support is welcome, but if you can't make that work,
Speaker 1: just telling people about this show, people who might be
Speaker 1: interested in history but you know, don't really have anything
Speaker 1: to listen to, will be much appreciated. So with that said,
Speaker 1: thank you to everybody. Please consider supporting the show, like
Speaker 1: I said, and let's get into it, because you guys
Speaker 1: have probably some of you at least have listened, but
Speaker 1: some of you probably are still you know, have it
Speaker 1: on your that catalog. Listening to my most recent episode,
Speaker 1: Mother's Wrath, Mankind's Cope, where I talk about the Los
Speaker 1: Angeles fires of twenty twenty five as well as the
Speaker 1: downstream effects of them, and more broadly, how humankind copes
Speaker 1: with natural disasters, I recommend giving that a listen if
Speaker 1: you haven't already. You don't have to hear it to
Speaker 1: have This episode makes sense, but it's definitely related in
Speaker 1: the sense that it is, or was rather my first
Speaker 1: exploration into environmental history in grad school. What this episode
Speaker 1: you're about to listen to is at least the paper
Speaker 1: that it's based on this time. I mean, we are
Speaker 1: gonna be talking on environmental history, but it's going to
Speaker 1: be a little different in its approach. It'll be less
Speaker 1: story related to, you know, specific events in history, and
Speaker 1: more related to subject, more related to theme. Because this
Speaker 1: is the reason I like to say that I am
Speaker 1: subjecting you all to the quote unquote delights of historiography.
Speaker 1: I say that somewhat jokingly. Historiography is not my favorite
Speaker 1: thing in history, but I've started to grow on me,
Speaker 1: and we have a couple other things that I've written
Speaker 1: so far for school that have to do with historiography,
Speaker 1: and like I said, it's grown on me. It's a
Speaker 1: history of history, so to speak. Though. Topic that we're
Speaker 1: talking about now, though, is, like I said, environmental history,
Speaker 1: specifically the role of infectious disease, which is sort of
Speaker 1: the cornerstone, and really it was my entry point into
Speaker 1: being interested in environmental history. As a lot of you
Speaker 1: listening probably remember, I've spoken a number of times on
Speaker 1: history impossible about infectious disease in history, we had the
Speaker 1: Spanish flu pandemic episode back in twenty twenty and then
Speaker 1: the Black Death and downstream effects episode in twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: I believe, and in this particular case, we're not going
Speaker 1: to be looking at any disease in particular, but a
Speaker 1: more zoomed out approach is going to be taken. Something
Speaker 1: you might be surprised to hear that there actually isn't
Speaker 1: that much in the way of literature on this subject,
Speaker 1: as you might think, or in my opinion, as there
Speaker 1: should be, because as I've made pretty clear, I do
Speaker 1: think that the role of infectious disease, but also the
Speaker 1: role of nature itself, the environment in which we live,
Speaker 1: the ecology in which humankind exists, is vital for understanding
Speaker 1: the human condition and sometimes even the decisions that we
Speaker 1: make that we believe we might have a little more
Speaker 1: agency over than we actually do. But without totally downplaying
Speaker 1: the role of agency, which is something that comes up
Speaker 1: in this essay, the fact that there's not that much
Speaker 1: literature about the subject in the grand scheme of things,
Speaker 1: I should say, compared to history of war, for example,
Speaker 1: the history of politics, or ideology even has added to
Speaker 1: my suspicion that while there are plenty of people interested
Speaker 1: in the subject of infectious disease at particular historical crossroads
Speaker 1: or causing them, even there does seem to be a
Speaker 1: bit of an avoidance of the subject. I recently appeared
Speaker 1: on C. J. Kilmer's Dangerous History podcast to talk about
Speaker 1: a number of things. It was actually a very wide
Speaker 1: ranging conversation, but among those things, we talked about the
Speaker 1: role of nature impact humankind to a certain degree, and
Speaker 1: how there just doesn't really seem to be a lot
Speaker 1: of appreciation of that. I'd add to what I said
Speaker 1: in that interview that we did. I think the reason
Speaker 1: people want to avoid such things is because they don't
Speaker 1: like the idea of there being stuff that challenges our agency.
Speaker 1: Because we do like to believe that we're in control
Speaker 1: of everything, and we ultimately are for all intents and purposes.
Speaker 1: But anything that challenges that is, you know, is hard
Speaker 1: to stomach. It is natural, I would argue that. But
Speaker 1: the important thing is that agency can be found in
Speaker 1: this subject, and I think that we should make an
Speaker 1: attempt to do so. And that's what I tried to
Speaker 1: do with this research. That I did just over a
Speaker 1: year ago. So with all that said, let's get into
Speaker 1: some impossible historiography, and lets me to.
Speaker 2: Tell you what you would have seen and heard if
Speaker 2: we're not being pleasants listening, if you're at lunch, or
Speaker 2: if you have no appetite, knowledge a good time to
Speaker 2: switch off the radio.
Speaker 3: An ancestor of mine maintained, if you eliminate the impossible,
Speaker 3: whatever remains, however.
Speaker 2: Improbable, elevation lessen banji ot to it.
Speaker 1: You know I despise a thousand. I wish I could
Speaker 1: say tonight that a lasting peace is inside.
Speaker 3: I don't see any laughing dream.
Speaker 1: I feel an a laughing night.
Speaker 3: Moore.
Speaker 1: I f if we share for issue to kill, if
Speaker 1: we share for hued to guill. Some say the world
Speaker 1: will end, empire, some stay a night. From what I've
Speaker 1: tasted of desire, I.
Speaker 3: Hold for those of favor fire.
Speaker 1: But if it had to perish twice, I think I
Speaker 1: know enough of hate to say that the destruction ice
Speaker 1: is also great and would sufficed.
Speaker 3: This is history impossible.
Speaker 1: When the COVID nineteen pandemic of twenty twenty hit, humanity's
Speaker 1: past relationship with infectious disease became of greater interest, to
Speaker 1: say the least, there is no shortage of diseases that
Speaker 1: have occurred in the past and cause equal, if not
Speaker 1: far more profound disruptions of the human experience than COVID nineteen.
Speaker 1: The pandemic forced us to consider how significantly transformative historical
Speaker 1: events might have been impacted by the presence of infectious disease,
Speaker 1: and how that might allow us to reframe their significance
Speaker 1: in a different context. However, despite the renewed interests after
Speaker 1: the pandemic in twenty twenty, previous scholarship had been ax
Speaker 1: glorying the role of infectious disease and shaping significant human
Speaker 1: driven historical events for decades. Like I said in the intro,
Speaker 1: this was and is still a relatively niche corner of
Speaker 1: not just history, but even the subfield of environmental history.
Speaker 1: But it was there, there was a significant number of
Speaker 1: books that cover that and a fair amount of study,
Speaker 1: and that became my area of interest for the paper
Speaker 1: that inspires this podcast that you're listening to right now now.
Speaker 1: Studying the role of infectious disease on human driven historical
Speaker 1: events had frequently faced controversy, thanks largely to its supposedly
Speaker 1: deterministic nature that felt, at least to a number of critics,
Speaker 1: like it robbed human beings of agency. No one likes
Speaker 1: to feel that way. After all, This concern over agency
Speaker 1: became particularly acute in conversations about infections diseases role in
Speaker 1: moments of significant historical change like conflict, conquest, and colonization,
Speaker 1: which had for many years been ascribed with, for lack
Speaker 1: of a better way of putting it, total or okay,
Speaker 1: maybe near total human agency, like, for example, the only
Speaker 1: reason Europeans were able to conquer North and South America
Speaker 1: for a long time was just seen as bloody human conquest. Obviously,
Speaker 1: that view has changed over the years, and it's pretty
Speaker 1: much common knowledge now that the indigenous people of North
Speaker 1: and South America just couldn't handle the role that infectious
Speaker 1: disease played in their interactions with these new European peoples. Now,
Speaker 1: this concern was obviously understandable, like I was saying, with
Speaker 1: many pioneers in this field of environmental history edging closer
Speaker 1: to various levels of determinism in their analyzes. But from
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies onward, there was a constant conversation occurring
Speaker 1: within the field and a more nuanced view began to
Speaker 1: take shape. I mentioned this book in the last episode
Speaker 1: of History Impossible when talking about environmental history, so it
Speaker 1: might sound familiar when I mentioned the publication of J. R.
Speaker 1: McNeil's Mosquito Empires, Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean
Speaker 1: sixteen twenty to nineteen fourteen, and with its publication in
Speaker 1: twenty ten, it became pretty apparent that this more nuanced
Speaker 1: view of infectious diseases role in human history really started
Speaker 1: to come into greater focus. A number of other books
Speaker 1: since then have been published, but McNeil's Mosquito Empires kind
Speaker 1: of serves as the culmination point of this change in
Speaker 1: the continuity of the scholarship. It had taken many years
Speaker 1: for us to get to that point anyway, and it
Speaker 1: had not been without controversy and a fair amount of
Speaker 1: interdisciplinary soul searching on the part of scholars who wanted
Speaker 1: to take on this task of recontextualizing the human experience's
Speaker 1: most dramatic and in a lot of cases, well known
Speaker 1: historical events. This recontextualization casts the supposedly human driven events
Speaker 1: of conflict, conquest, and colonization, The Big Three c's there.
Speaker 1: I guess we could call them in a new light
Speaker 1: in which a greater deeper understanding of just how much
Speaker 1: agency human beings actually have neither total nor all that limited,
Speaker 1: can be appreciated by the historian. Within some circles, the
Speaker 1: first half of the twentieth century had seen some discussion
Speaker 1: of the role that infectious disease had played in human history,
Speaker 1: but it was relatively limited. Remember, German theory is not
Speaker 1: that old at this point, and I can't recall the
Speaker 1: year that it was proven, but it was in the
Speaker 1: nineteen thirties that a virus was proven to exist at all,
Speaker 1: at least in terms of visual evidence, something we talked
Speaker 1: about in the Spanish flu episode that we did on
Speaker 1: History Impossible a number of years ago. Regardless, the biologist
Speaker 1: Hans Zincer had written a book called Rats License History
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty five to some moderate success, and in
Speaker 1: nineteen forty one a junior statistician named Clara E. Council
Speaker 1: had written a paper for Public Health Reports in which
Speaker 1: he stated that quote the waging of war has always
Speaker 1: been attended by increases in the prevalence of disease unquote,
Speaker 1: but noted that quote only a blurred picture can be
Speaker 1: obtained of the true character and incidents of the great
Speaker 1: waves of fatal illness that decimated the nations involved in
Speaker 1: early Wars unquote. This limited appreciation was fully articulated in
Speaker 1: nineteen forty nine, when the godfather of modern environmentalism, Eldo Leopold,
Speaker 1: called for a rewriting of history from an ecological perspective.
Speaker 1: I mentioned him in the previous episode of History Impossible
Speaker 1: as well, you might recall, however, a true shift in
Speaker 1: this direction towards looking at history from an ecological perspective
Speaker 1: would not begin to appear in earnest until the early
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies. During this time, and increasing number of scholars
Speaker 1: began to take the role of disease far more seriously
Speaker 1: as a significant contributing factor in events otherwise thought to
Speaker 1: be primarily the result of human win Like I was
Speaker 1: saying earlier, and I just mentioned it a little bit ago,
Speaker 1: but it's worth reiterating and looking at one of the
Speaker 1: primary books, if not really the first primary major work
Speaker 1: that recontextualized the conquest of the Americas. Because of the
Speaker 1: obvious downstream effects the so called discovery of North America.
Speaker 1: Therefore proved fertile ground for questions of human agency the
Speaker 1: hands of environmental forces like disease. This was at the
Speaker 1: center of Alfred W. Crosby's The Colombian Exchange, Biological and
Speaker 1: Cultural Consequences of fourteen ninety two, which was published in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two, in which Crosby demonstrates that quote the
Speaker 1: fatal diseases of the old world killed more effectively in
Speaker 1: the new unquote. This recontextualization of one of the modern
Speaker 1: world's most significant changes, really the creation of the modern
Speaker 1: world when you think about it as we know it today,
Speaker 1: was profoundly significant because it challenged the fundamental assumptions that
Speaker 1: most historians up until that point and the general public
Speaker 1: as well, had about the arrival of Europeans on the
Speaker 1: American continents. Like I said, it was believed to be
Speaker 1: just a simple act of human conquest, simple in air quotes.
Speaker 3: There.
Speaker 1: Of course, the Crosby notes the fundamental contradiction at the
Speaker 1: heart of Native American resistance and the fact that they
Speaker 1: still were un able to stop the tide of European conquest,
Speaker 1: and he sought to explain why this was the case.
Speaker 1: He didn't think that simple human conquest was the answer,
Speaker 1: or another big assumption is the technological differences between the
Speaker 1: two cultures. As we know, that doesn't necessarily matter all
Speaker 1: that much on its own at least, and that was
Speaker 1: what previous scholarship had highlighted, the technological and in some
Speaker 1: cases in a sort of dated, politically incorrect way of
Speaker 1: putting it, cultural superiority of the Europeans, and Crosby knew
Speaker 1: that that wouldn't suffice to explain this significant phenomenon in history,
Speaker 1: especially because it all neglected the role infectious disease actually played,
Speaker 1: as evidence written by accounts from indigenous survivors in the
Speaker 1: years after European contact. This is an important thing to
Speaker 1: point out. There were a lot of pieces of evidence
Speaker 1: out there, primary sources, that made it very clear infectious
Speaker 1: disease was a major problem, and it wasn't just the
Speaker 1: smallpox blankets that we've become colloquially aware of. Evidence of
Speaker 1: mass die offs, complete negation of villages and the like
Speaker 1: was well known and recorded at the time. Just awareness
Speaker 1: of it or appreciation of it as a force, had
Speaker 1: fallen by the wayside, likely thanks to the like I said,
Speaker 1: discomfort with the idea that human agencies sometimes can take
Speaker 1: a back seat, even relatively speaking, so Crosby sought to
Speaker 1: correct a record by exploring the role of biological exchange,
Speaker 1: which included narratives of disease exchange, and how that led
Speaker 1: to shifts that changed and shaped the landscape of the
Speaker 1: New World. This included an examination of the botanical and
Speaker 1: zoological imports from the Old World and how they specifically
Speaker 1: impacted the peoples already living in the Americas. Because animals
Speaker 1: are one of the largest vectors for disease exposure, if
Speaker 1: not the largest, the introduction of several species into the
Speaker 1: new environment brought with them several of the diseases that
Speaker 1: ultimately wrought so much havoc on indigenous Americans. Like measles
Speaker 1: comes to mind. However, if one counts the arrival of
Speaker 1: new humans as a zoological import, not just the animals,
Speaker 1: and Crosby thinks that we should, then that helps explain
Speaker 1: the introduction of human exclusive disease into the American ecosystem,
Speaker 1: like smallpox. These introductions and interactions created massive effects on
Speaker 1: the indigenous populations that went well beyond just killing them
Speaker 1: off in droves. As Crosby explains, quote, one can only
Speaker 1: imagine the psychological impact on quote of the epidemics felt
Speaker 1: by indigenous people, which quote must have shaken the confidence
Speaker 1: of the Incans that they still enjoyed the esteem of
Speaker 1: their gods unquote. Crosby's ability to reasonably infer the cultural
Speaker 1: significance of infectious disease upon a people who had once
Speaker 1: seen few equals, like in the case of the Incas,
Speaker 1: helps demonstrate the previously less appreciated downstream effects of affectious disease.
Speaker 1: In the Conquest of the New World. Crosby made some
Speaker 1: assertions in the Columbian Exchange that would turn out to
Speaker 1: be challenged by later scholarships. So it's important for us
Speaker 1: to remember that none of these claims were infallible, and
Speaker 1: none of them ever will be. No claim in history
Speaker 1: in the actual literature will be considered infallible, just varying
Speaker 1: levels of difficult to challenge meaningfully. For example, Crosby made
Speaker 1: the claim that syphilis was likely introduced to Europe by
Speaker 1: indigenous Americans. There's not really much evidence to support that notion,
Speaker 1: not anymore, at least not exclusively. However, Crosby's inquiries were
Speaker 1: central in starting the conversation about what determined the outcomes
Speaker 1: of European contact. This, in turn opened the field of
Speaker 1: environmental history to broader questions about the role played by
Speaker 1: infectious disease on significant historical events. Essentially supplementing Crosby's work
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy two was medical historian Frederick F. Cartwright
Speaker 1: an historian Michael D. Biddis's book Disease and History, which
Speaker 1: offered a broader view than Crosby of the various diseases
Speaker 1: that have affected mankind across time and helped to universalize
Speaker 1: the idea that infectious disease played a significant role in
Speaker 1: human history's most dramatic moments. Cartwright and Biddis made a
Speaker 1: noteworthy contribution with their work by demonstrating infectious diseases quote
Speaker 1: effect not only upon historically important individuals, but also upon
Speaker 1: the people's quote, ranging from diseases of the ancient world
Speaker 1: to more modern maladies. For example, they pointed the spread
Speaker 1: of malaria into romes surrounding agricultural districts in the first
Speaker 1: century BCE as being quote probably more catastrophic than the
Speaker 1: attacks of the Goths and the Vandals unquote, since the
Speaker 1: effects of such an outbreak quote accounted for the slackness
Speaker 1: of spirit which characterized the later years of Rome. They
Speaker 1: also followed the same chain of cultural logic basically used
Speaker 1: by Crosby and suggests that had it not been for
Speaker 1: these centuries of plague that convulsed Rome after the death
Speaker 1: of Christ, the people of the Roman world would not
Speaker 1: have been so susceptible to the rhetoric and world vision
Speaker 1: of early Christianity. This kind of reminds me of how
Speaker 1: the old religions of Indonesia of Java, specifically the faith
Speaker 1: in them was so shaken by the explosion of Krakatoa
Speaker 1: and the apocalyptic destruction that wrought upon so many thousands
Speaker 1: of people, and how Islam filled that vacuum for a
Speaker 1: lot of them, leading ultimately to what we now recognize
Speaker 1: as the most populous Islamic country in the world today.
Speaker 1: Now this could well be overstated, all of it, but
Speaker 1: we do see the beginning of a more environmental and
Speaker 1: arguably deterministic view of human history forming with work like
Speaker 1: that of Cartwright and Biddus. And this can be seen
Speaker 1: when Cartwright and Biddus highlight the Black Death of the
Speaker 1: fourteenth century as a worldwide pandemic quote unquote, after which
Speaker 1: they make the argument that quote the devastation wrought in
Speaker 1: Scandinavia may ultimately have had a greater effect upon world
Speaker 1: history than did the English catastrophe of the Black Death unquote.
Speaker 1: When you read Cartwrite and Biddus, one can sense a
Speaker 1: bit of the traditional historiography from before the early seventies
Speaker 1: slipping into their analyzes, with their frequent invocations of the
Speaker 1: great men of history, like the Borgeaus, Ivan the than
Speaker 1: Henry the Eighth in their exploration of the effect that
Speaker 1: syphilis has had on the course of history. It's not
Speaker 1: to say that the great men don't matter. They certainly do.
Speaker 1: Great man theory is a little underrated at this point,
Speaker 1: i would say, at least in some circles. And while
Speaker 1: it is certainly significant that they would approach the behavior
Speaker 1: of well known rulers and historical figures from this standpoint
Speaker 1: as opposed to a moral one, this does suggest that
Speaker 1: some old habits of just singularly placing focus on the
Speaker 1: great men of history, rather than combining them with the
Speaker 1: trends and forces out there, that that habit of just
Speaker 1: focusing on one dies hard. It would be another four
Speaker 1: years before the insights explored by the likes of Crosby,
Speaker 1: Cartwright and Biddus would be given new life within the field.
Speaker 1: William McNeil, the father of J. R. McNeil. Funny enough,
Speaker 1: his book Plagues and Peoples from nineteen seventy six helped
Speaker 1: break new ground with its more nuanced approach than the
Speaker 1: previous scholarship that we just looked at. It did so
Speaker 1: by attempting to further provide quote a fuller comprehension of
Speaker 1: humanity's ever changing place and the balance of nature unquote,
Speaker 1: to use McNeil's words, by providing a broad analysis of
Speaker 1: humanity's interaction with disease, including conflict, conquest, and colonization. There's
Speaker 1: those three c's again, starting his chronology with the beginning
Speaker 1: of humankind itself, so don't mistake him for being modest
Speaker 1: with his timeline. McNeil was the first to place human
Speaker 1: beings in a truly environmental context, beginning in prehistory in
Speaker 1: other words, pre civilization, showing how we are animals and
Speaker 1: like all animals, are part of a constantly shifting ecosystem.
Speaker 1: He notes that despite our incredible ability to adapt to
Speaker 1: rapidly changing circumstances, our species is quote relations with microparasites
Speaker 1: remained until the nineteenth century largely biological, that is, beyond
Speaker 1: or beneath human capacity for conscious control unquote. This recontextualization
Speaker 1: went well beyond historical events and instead focused on humankind
Speaker 1: as a biological species, which helped then make the case
Speaker 1: the ultimate case really for which environmental historians had been
Speaker 1: advocating that human beings are not exempt from environmentally driven forces.
Speaker 1: Despite his significant recontextualization of humanity as a species, McNeil
Speaker 1: follows the trend that had been set by Cartwright and
Speaker 1: Biddhus by moving through the rest of human history from
Speaker 1: the ancient world until the modern day and exploring how
Speaker 1: disease made impacts along the way in broad terms at least,
Speaker 1: Like Cartwright and Biddus, he also uses cultural responses to
Speaker 1: disease to help explain the rise of certain religious views,
Speaker 1: including Christianity, noting that for Christians believe that quote care
Speaker 1: of the even in time of pestilence was for them
Speaker 1: a recognized religious duty. McNeil argues that Christianity thus had
Speaker 1: an advantage over the old pagan religions of Europe that
Speaker 1: did not share such views, at least in terms of
Speaker 1: incentivizing conversions. He cites early Christian writers such as Cyprian
Speaker 1: in making this case at least, though unlike Cartwright and Bidus,
Speaker 1: he outright admits that this is just speculation, however compelling,
Speaker 1: and therefore cannot be proven. It's still a very interesting idea, though,
Speaker 1: that the ethics the morals baked into Christian theology in
Speaker 1: Christian teaching might have actually served a sociobiological purpose in
Speaker 1: furthering the at least the civilizations that felt under the
Speaker 1: sway of Christianity during times of epidemics and whatnot. Now,
Speaker 1: William McNeil does not always follow his own advice throughout
Speaker 1: the rest of his monograph, but what this shows is
Speaker 1: a growing awareness of the limitation of unchecked environmental views
Speaker 1: of history, especially when they begin to veer too close
Speaker 1: to cultural determinism. Some of you listening probably already picked
Speaker 1: up on how we could be going down that path
Speaker 1: if we just kept following the logical trail being established
Speaker 1: by these observations made by people like McNeil. After all,
Speaker 1: who is to say what singular natural force quote unquote
Speaker 1: caused a cultural shift more in favor of Christianity, especially
Speaker 1: in such monocausal terms. Whether he was aware of it
Speaker 1: or not, McNeil was starting a trend in greater intellectual
Speaker 1: humility when he hedged his observations in this way. While
Speaker 1: some future writers of environmental history would not heed this advice,
Speaker 1: it does represent the moment that a shift of the historiography,
Speaker 1: a real shift, began to occur.
Speaker 2: In stall hold so dearly in myt me.
Speaker 3: War lo.
Speaker 2: Lo yes hay.
Speaker 3: To blistiny to dosy long has any ham sho sore her.
Speaker 1: While less apparent than it was in the nineteen seventies
Speaker 1: or the nineteen nineties, as we'll see, there remains a
Speaker 1: historical interest in the role that disease played in human
Speaker 1: history during the nineteen eighties, which saw the growth of
Speaker 1: an appreciation of a more ecological rather than a purely
Speaker 1: environmental approach to history, which included the study of the
Speaker 1: effects of infectious disease. Most apparent and arguably famous in
Speaker 1: this trend from this decade was William Cronin's famous nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty three monograph Changes in the Land, which had influence
Speaker 1: matched by very few other historians. On a funny side note,
Speaker 1: Cronin wrote that as a dissertation, while he was just
Speaker 1: in a master's program. He just ended up getting essentially
Speaker 1: carried away with his own studies, which one can relate
Speaker 1: to that, especially if they have a tendency to overdo
Speaker 1: it on making things a little too long, as listeners
Speaker 1: of this show probably know, has happened more than once
Speaker 1: to me at least. But I can't even begin to
Speaker 1: imagine writing something as great as Changes in the Land.
Speaker 1: It's one of the best historical books I've ever read,
Speaker 1: and I never thought I would say that about a
Speaker 1: book so pastoral, but it's a very incredible book that
Speaker 1: I recommend people check out. It's probably the most accessible
Speaker 1: book that I will talk about in this episode here.
Speaker 1: Like I said, the influence on other historians is great,
Speaker 1: and it's not just because the scholarship was so superb
Speaker 1: and everything was written so tightly together and concisely. Despite
Speaker 1: being a full length book. It's just very well written
Speaker 1: and very compelling, and as J. R. McNeill put it
Speaker 1: when he was writing a historiography of environmental history and
Speaker 1: a paper, Changes in the Land quote enjoyed great success
Speaker 1: and inspired unabashed imitation unquote. So it's a very well
Speaker 1: known book, at least in the field of environmental history,
Speaker 1: and I highly recommend people check it out. Like I
Speaker 1: was saying, it makes use of primary source documents like diaries, letters,
Speaker 1: and other period accounts, as well interestingly as archaeological records,
Speaker 1: and in doing that, Cronin takes a broader approach similar
Speaker 1: to Crosby's when looking at the eponymous changes in the
Speaker 1: North American landscape, but he spends some significant energy exploring
Speaker 1: the role of infectious disease in working to the European
Speaker 1: colonist's advantage. As he refers to it, it was quote
Speaker 1: the single most dramatic ecological change in Indian lives, one
Speaker 1: whose full significance historians have only recently come to understand. Quote.
Speaker 1: By describing the lack of natural defenses against Eurasian and
Speaker 1: African diseases as simultaneously a blessing and a curse, Cronin
Speaker 1: broke ground by detailing the human cost of Old World
Speaker 1: diseases upon the people of the New World, noting astonishing
Speaker 1: village mortality rates of up to ninety five percent like
Speaker 1: I was mentioning off the cuff a little bit ago,
Speaker 1: as well as documenting the social cost of epidemics that
Speaker 1: brought low more than just tribal leaders, including the effect
Speaker 1: on powwows and interestingly, the christianizing effect on some of
Speaker 1: the populations. This again makes sure to de emphasize the
Speaker 1: role of great men in history in order to emphasize
Speaker 1: the role of environmental forces. But Cronin pushed the field
Speaker 1: forward in one very important way by noting how the
Speaker 1: interaction between indigenous Americans and European colonists, including the introduction
Speaker 1: of infectious disease, created different relationships between human being and landscape,
Speaker 1: thus demonstrating a novel causal chain that at that point
Speaker 1: had not yet been fully appreciated. As Cronin notes at
Speaker 1: the very end of his work, quote colonists and Indians
Speaker 1: together began a dynamic and unstable process of ecological change quote,
Speaker 1: suggesting as much of what I just said. This notion
Speaker 1: of an ecologically driven causal chain was noteworthy for highlighting
Speaker 1: the relationship implied by the term ecological, symbiotic, parasitic, or otherwise,
Speaker 1: which in turn provided a future foothold for scholars and
Speaker 1: critics of environmental history that were concerned by the question
Speaker 1: of agency. By emphasizing the ecological role of infectious disease
Speaker 1: in conflict, conquest, and colonization. Cronin was laying a more
Speaker 1: interdisciplinary groundwork for further development in the scholarship of infectious
Speaker 1: diseases role on history. It was not until the nineteen
Speaker 1: nineties that the question of whether or not disease was
Speaker 1: a significant causal driver for historical events like conflict, conquest,
Speaker 1: and colonization began to take a clearer shape. It was
Speaker 1: during this time that we saw the rise in non
Speaker 1: historians contributing to the conversation, including the geographically focused book Guns,
Speaker 1: Germs and Steel by the Physiologists by Training Jared Diamond,
Speaker 1: probably one of the most famous books in broad scale
Speaker 1: global environmental history that likely a lot of you listening
Speaker 1: have read, or at the very least heard of. Diamond's
Speaker 1: core argument that the answer to the question of why
Speaker 1: history unfolded differently on different continents lays in expanding the
Speaker 1: scientific frontiers of the study of history, was provocative for
Speaker 1: the time and remained so to this very day. This
Speaker 1: was for many reasons, not least of which was Diamonds
Speaker 1: status as a non historian, combined with his work winning
Speaker 1: the esteemed Pulitzer Prize. However, it was also because Diamond
Speaker 1: considered his work part of the environmental history canon, something
Speaker 1: with which many environmental historians did not and do not agree.
Speaker 1: This includes JR. McNeil, who wrote in twenty ten at
Speaker 1: the quote aroused sharp criticisms for its efforts to explain
Speaker 1: the long term distribution of wealth and power around the
Speaker 1: world in environmental terms. It is understandable that this pushback
Speaker 1: would occur not just because Diamond is not a historian,
Speaker 1: but because his argument that geographical distribution lies at the
Speaker 1: core of civilization's success or failure in air quotes there
Speaker 1: struck a lot of historians understandably as fundamentally deterministic. However,
Speaker 1: because Diamond's analysis allowed for a significant role of infectious
Speaker 1: disease than this sweeping narrative of civilization's rise and fall,
Speaker 1: and was so culturally resonant to the point of becoming
Speaker 1: a household name, it is without question that his place,
Speaker 1: Jared Diamond's, that is, in the historiography, is deserved. While
Speaker 1: discussing the broader implications of Eurasian germ exposure, reaching beyond
Speaker 1: the quote collision of the Old and New World's unquote
Speaker 1: into the worlds of quote, the Pacific Islanders, Aboriginal Australians
Speaker 1: and the Hojin peoples of southern Africa. While doing that,
Speaker 1: Diamond is calling to mind the same kind of all
Speaker 1: encompassing arguments made by the likes of William McNeil two
Speaker 1: decades earlier. But he is more forthrightly answering the oftentimes
Speaker 1: silent question that makes many historians shift in their shoes,
Speaker 1: why do some societies fail and why do some succeed?
Speaker 1: To be clear, Diamond does not stoop as previous generations
Speaker 1: of historians and scholars did by invoking arguments that suggested
Speaker 1: inherent cultural or in darker cases, biological superiority of some
Speaker 1: peoples over others. Rather, he acknowledges from the outset that
Speaker 1: quote the so called blessings of civilization are mixed, and
Speaker 1: that quote history followed different courses for different peoples because
Speaker 1: of differences among people's environments, not because of biological differences
Speaker 1: among peoples themselves. This, combined with Diamond's desire to see
Speaker 1: history become more scientific, demonstrates both a preemptive awareness of
Speaker 1: many criticisms that would be directed at his book and
Speaker 1: a desire to see his work expanded upon in the
Speaker 1: years to come, and his contribution however controversial in the
Speaker 1: eye of trained historians, did indeed serve as a very
Speaker 1: important catalyst for further study of infectious disease in the
Speaker 1: field of environmental history. In nineteen ninety eight, Diamond was
Speaker 1: joined by several other writers, some historians and others not
Speaker 1: demonstrating both the influence of Diamond's arguments and the need
Speaker 1: to approach the history of infectious disease in ways apart
Speaker 1: from a strictly historical perspective. The virologist by training, doctor
Speaker 1: Michael Oldstone, was one of these non historians with his
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight monograph Viruses, Plagues, and History, which sought
Speaker 1: to describe quote the politics and the superstitions evoked by
Speaker 1: viruses and the diseases they cause unquote to use Oldstone's
Speaker 1: words in his introduction, Oldstone uses his background to explain
Speaker 1: the principles of virology and immunology, setting the groundwork for
Speaker 1: the rest of the monograph, in which he discusses what
Speaker 1: he calls the quote unquote success stories of smallpox, yellow fever, measles,
Speaker 1: and polio. This places Oldstone's work in a unique context
Speaker 1: where his professional expertise in medicine prompts him to look
Speaker 1: at infectious disease as something to be solved, even with
Speaker 1: its attendant power over the course of human events. For example,
Speaker 1: old Stone makes it clear that quote smallpox played a
Speaker 1: crucial role in the Spanish conquest of Mexico and Peru,
Speaker 1: the Portuguese colonization of Brazil, the settlement of North America
Speaker 1: by the English and French, as well as the settlements
Speaker 1: of Australia. And While old Stone explores the downstream effects
Speaker 1: of smallpox, including the incentive it created to import more
Speaker 1: African slaves for labor, he also spends considerable time exploring
Speaker 1: the progress made towards vaccination against smallpox and eventually the
Speaker 1: eradication of the disease. In this way, Oldstone's approach casts
Speaker 1: human agency in a brighter light than the pre scholarship
Speaker 1: on the subject and is something that would start to
Speaker 1: make a greater appearance in the years to come. That
Speaker 1: is agency. That same year, nineteen ninety eight also included
Speaker 1: the works from more traditional historians like the medievalist John
Speaker 1: Abberth's The First Horseman Disease in Human History and Philip D.
Speaker 1: Curtin's Disease in Empire, The Health of European troops in
Speaker 1: the conquest of Africa. Aberth's book takes a broader approach
Speaker 1: by building on his previous work that solely focused on
Speaker 1: medieval Europe and expanding it to include the epidemics of
Speaker 1: European diseases in the Americas, the spread of the plague
Speaker 1: in India and China during the nineteenth century, and even
Speaker 1: the modern spread of HIV AIDS in Africa after nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty two. This mirrors the global approach that made its
Speaker 1: appearance from the very beginning of the historiography that we
Speaker 1: were talking about. But where Aberth diverged from the likes
Speaker 1: of William McNeil was his interest in the policies that
Speaker 1: were put forth by the authorities. For example, in the
Speaker 1: middle section of his book exploring the outbreaks of bubonic
Speaker 1: and pneumonic plague in India during the reign of the
Speaker 1: British Raj in the late nineteenth century, Aberth looks at
Speaker 1: quote the most concerted effort ever undertaken to date in
Speaker 1: order to combat a disease unquote, referring to the passage
Speaker 1: of something called the Epidemic Diseases Act in eighteen ninety seven.
Speaker 1: This colonial policy was not just altruistic, Abirth notes, but also,
Speaker 1: like in true colonialist imperialist fashion, self serving in the
Speaker 1: sense that quote, the preservation of its lucrative trade within
Speaker 1: and without India was a high priority for the British government.
Speaker 1: This interest in imperial policy from Abirth makes it clear
Speaker 1: that the view being adopted by historians of infectious disease
Speaker 1: was taking on the same ecological tint that had been
Speaker 1: pioneered by the likes of William Cronin during the previous
Speaker 1: fifteen years. The word ecology, to make clear again, in
Speaker 1: this case, implies more than just the natural world. It
Speaker 1: indeed implies a relationship, and in the historical context, the
Speaker 1: relationship between human decision making and environmental pressure is the
Speaker 1: ecosystem at work. Aberth is among the first historians to
Speaker 1: make this point explicit. The relationship between policy and infectious
Speaker 1: disease only really hinted at from the likes of Michael
Speaker 1: Oldstone places human agency in an even more nuanced light.
Speaker 1: Instead of simply looking at disease the way a physician
Speaker 1: or a scientist would, Abirth makes it clear that it
Speaker 1: is a driving force and something with which humans interact. Conversely,
Speaker 1: yet similarly, historian Philip D. Curtin uses his expertise in
Speaker 1: African history to explore the role disease and its treatment
Speaker 1: played during the relatively brief window of eighteen fifteen to
Speaker 1: nineteen fourteen, during which European troops grappled with infectious disease
Speaker 1: while attempting to conquer Africa. This was novel in that
Speaker 1: it narrowed the focus of scholarship on the role of
Speaker 1: infectious disease to specifically question its role in the idea
Speaker 1: creation and maintenance of empire during the nineteenth century. While
Speaker 1: Abirth placed focus on imperial policy as it related to
Speaker 1: infectious disease in some instances of his work, Curtain made
Speaker 1: it his monograph's entire focus. Compiling data of mortality rates
Speaker 1: from different periods of conquest and conflict and the reactions
Speaker 1: experienced by citizens of the home country, Curtin is able
Speaker 1: to demonstrate that attitudes on disease were strongly correlated with
Speaker 1: attitudes of imperial conquest. For example, while death rates due
Speaker 1: to disease were shockingly high at times, sometimes as high
Speaker 1: as twenty five percent, in Curtain's words quote, the public
Speaker 1: was apparently unconcerned as long as the actual number seemed
Speaker 1: small and the national gain seemed large. By linking public
Speaker 1: attitudes toward imperial conquest the disease related death rates, Philip
Speaker 1: Kurton is engaging in an ecological argument in which the
Speaker 1: ideas at the core of imperial conquest could override what
Speaker 1: might be seen as a typical appreciation of public health.
Speaker 1: Curtain also explores the role of imperial competition in Africa
Speaker 1: in the last decade of the nineteenth century and how
Speaker 1: infectious disease played a role in affecting that competition. While
Speaker 1: malaria infections drove back French forces in Madagascar, the British
Speaker 1: used their knowledge gained over their years dealing with tropical
Speaker 1: diseases to secure a victory in Soudan and more importantly,
Speaker 1: quote a major victory over a European rival, thus placing
Speaker 1: imperial conquest and competition in a disease based context. This,
Speaker 1: like aberth recontextualization, shows the further development of the field
Speaker 1: toward a broader scale ecological approach to explaining the role
Speaker 1: infectious disease has played in the most significant events of
Speaker 1: modern history, and more importantly, paving the way for scholarship
Speaker 1: that was to come over the next decade. In the
Speaker 1: two thousands, the scholarship on diseases role in historical events
Speaker 1: grew ever more diverse, with many non historians continuing to
Speaker 1: discuss the role disease played in human history, sometimes in
Speaker 1: the context of public health and other times in the
Speaker 1: context of national security. However, historians M. R. Smallman, Rayner
Speaker 1: and Ad Cliff sought to examine the role disease played
Speaker 1: in the history of modern conflict. In their work War Epidemics,
Speaker 1: An Historical Geography of Infectious Diseases in Military Conflict and
Speaker 1: Civil Strife eighteen fifty to two thousand from the year
Speaker 1: two thousand four, they demonstrate that, in their words quote,
Speaker 1: the link between war and disease remains as strong as ever. They,
Speaker 1: like Philip Curtin before them, restrain their time scale to
Speaker 1: the modern era, but like Michael Oldstone, bring it up
Speaker 1: to what was for them at least present day. They
Speaker 1: first provide a general overview of infectious diseases relationship to
Speaker 1: war and conflict throughout history, and then transition to trends
Speaker 1: across space that is, regional and time. Smallman, Rainers and
Speaker 1: Cliff's granular data driven approach demonstrates that death rates during war.
Speaker 1: Even in the modern era, which we often associate with
Speaker 1: scientific progress, were vastly inflated by the role played by
Speaker 1: infectious disease. As a write quote, infectious diseases were the
Speaker 1: most significant causes of mortality in the nineteenth century. However,
Speaker 1: they take a different approach than one might expect, pointing
Speaker 1: to the fact that it is war that increases the
Speaker 1: casualties caused by disease, not the other way around. In
Speaker 1: pointing to the fact that disease spreads among the civilian
Speaker 1: population thanks to the effects of war such as mass
Speaker 1: population displacement combined with the lowering of hygienic standards, Smallman, Rayner,
Speaker 1: and Cliff demonstrate that disease is part of the relationship
Speaker 1: the ecology, if you will, of human conflict. Their approach
Speaker 1: came closer to Jared Diamond's sweeping vision to applying scientific
Speaker 1: rigor to the study of history, but six years later,
Speaker 1: the relationship between disease and supposedly human driven events would
Speaker 1: be distilled into a more singular essence. In twenty ten,
Speaker 1: J R. McNeil, the son of William McNeil, who we've
Speaker 1: quoted from before, released his book Mosquito Empires, Ecology and
Speaker 1: War in the Greater Caribbe in sixteen twenty to nineteen fourteen,
Speaker 1: which persuasively answers the question of diseases role in the
Speaker 1: shaping of the New World's formative conflicts and revolutions. We
Speaker 1: briefly touched on it in the previous episode, you guys
Speaker 1: might recall in which I was talking about humankind's relationship
Speaker 1: with natural disasters. But in focusing on this book, what
Speaker 1: makes it so important to the historiography is that McNeil's
Speaker 1: contribution to the scholarship is to fully foreground the relationship
Speaker 1: between disease and human behavior and thus historical consequences. As
Speaker 1: he writes, quote, viruses made history, but they did so
Speaker 1: only because soldiers and statesmen, slaves and revolutionaries acted in
Speaker 1: certain specific ways unquote. McNeil examines what is frequently cited
Speaker 1: as the most significant change in modern history, that is,
Speaker 1: the Concqoes West and colonization of the New World, and
Speaker 1: he examines how infectious disease played a role in the
Speaker 1: outcomes of this conquest in colonization as well as the
Speaker 1: conflicts that followed. He does not discount agency. Again, we're
Speaker 1: kind of past that at this point, but he also
Speaker 1: explains that quote outbreaks were not random except in their
Speaker 1: timing quote and quote formed a regular pattern that constrained
Speaker 1: randomness and severely narrowed the range of likely outcomes of
Speaker 1: the political struggles of the Greater Caribbean. Taking a page
Speaker 1: from William Cronin by focusing on the land itself, McNeil
Speaker 1: also shows that the environment itself was ideal for the
Speaker 1: flourishing of the disease carrying mosquitoes that ravaged the Caribbean
Speaker 1: Sea and all the islands there because quote no native
Speaker 1: American mosquito occupied a Egypti's favored niche unquote, leaving it
Speaker 1: free from basically natural competition, and that the Caribbean's rainy
Speaker 1: season and subsequent humidity quote normally brought a surge in
Speaker 1: mosquito populations. This demonstrates that while human agency may have
Speaker 1: been behind the introduction of such invasive species with virulent
Speaker 1: diseases carried within them, the environment didn't even need human
Speaker 1: activity to let these species and diseases to thrive and spread,
Speaker 1: though it did certainly help in addition by finding an
Speaker 1: environment perfectly suited for the spread of infectious disease the
Speaker 1: early European colonists also secured their domination and ability to
Speaker 1: resist rival imperial forces, not just the indigenous peoples that
Speaker 1: they were conquering. As McNeil shows, the presence of disease
Speaker 1: also helped determine the outcomes of military campaigns, primarily those
Speaker 1: between the British and the Spanish in the mid eight century,
Speaker 1: and thus the outcome of imperial dominance in the region
Speaker 1: for years to come centuries. Even the fact that infectious
Speaker 1: disease was responsible for such staggering losses at Cartena by
Speaker 1: the British eight thousand dead total, by the way, with
Speaker 1: one regiment suffering eighty five percent losses, is very significant
Speaker 1: when quote the black vomit left the Spanish untouched thanks
Speaker 1: largely to the differential immunity possessed by the defending Spanish,
Speaker 1: since they had developed it over the years that the
Speaker 1: British didn't have. Remember, the Spanish got to the New
Speaker 1: World well before the British did. That gave them a
Speaker 1: sort of home team advantage one could call it, in
Speaker 1: terms of their immunity. By centering differential immunity in this way,
Speaker 1: McNeil actually helps us see the importance of forces well
Speaker 1: beyond the locus of human control, but also shows us
Speaker 1: how human agency was able to flourish had it not
Speaker 1: been for the differential immunity itself and the Spanish knowledge
Speaker 1: of it. Because they did have it, they did know
Speaker 1: that they had an advantage. In this way, the outcomes
Speaker 1: of many of the Caribbean's conflicts in the seventeenth, eighteenth,
Speaker 1: and even nineteenth centuries might have been very different, producing
Speaker 1: vastly different outcomes over time. That potential alone is what
Speaker 1: demonstrates the significance of the complex ecological relationship at work
Speaker 1: between human behavior and environmental pressure. One could reduce it
Speaker 1: to between great men and trends enforces, or, if you
Speaker 1: want to go down the psychology route, nature and nurture.
Speaker 1: The continuity of historical scholarship from Crosby's to Colombian Exchange
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy two to JR. McNeil's Mosquito Empires in
Speaker 1: twenty ten suggests that our interest in infectious disease playing
Speaker 1: a role in affecting the outcomes of significant pasties events
Speaker 1: is still developing. More books have been written on this
Speaker 1: subject since twenty ten, but that was where we ended
Speaker 1: our historiography In this particular case, the movement from a
Speaker 1: more general view of environmental effects determining outcomes to a
Speaker 1: more ecological view of environmental pressures interacting constantly with human
Speaker 1: agency has really left the door open for future scholarship.
Speaker 1: This scholarship can take a more nuanced view both on
Speaker 1: the effects of infectious diseases on event shaping behavior and
Speaker 1: on how the outcomes of significant events like conflict, conquest,
Speaker 1: and colonization are Big three c's may require some recontextualization.
Speaker 1: The continued embrace of a multidisciplinary approach may also yield rewards,
Speaker 1: such as incorporating things things that I really like, like
Speaker 1: psychology or sociology and to the study of infectious diseases
Speaker 1: of FEFFE on human history. This could do the same
Speaker 1: for say, for example, political history, as it has done
Speaker 1: for military history or the history of colonization or revolution.
Speaker 1: This is a theme that I've returned to multiple times
Speaker 1: on history Impossible, so it should be no surprise that
Speaker 1: I feel this way, But I really do. I think
Speaker 1: that there is major opportunities at hand here. We can
Speaker 1: recognize the importance of agency while also acknowledging that as
Speaker 1: these four decades of scholarship and environmental history have shown
Speaker 1: us that agency only takes us so far. Striking this
Speaker 1: balance has not been easy, and it will continue to
Speaker 1: create challenges and probably a lot of controversies with future scholarship.
Speaker 1: But the potential for a deeper understanding of human agency
Speaker 1: and environmental pressures always interacting together like a dance in
Speaker 1: history is immense. History Impossible has been made possible by
Speaker 1: the kind and generous donations of great folks like the
Speaker 1: following people. I want to shout out Bob Downing, Greg Hunter,
Speaker 1: s O, Skip, Pa Chaco, Molly Pan, John Pisano, Anna
Speaker 1: R PJ Raider, Matthew m Rice, Emily Schmidt, Pierre Vorpuni,
Speaker 1: and of course Fu. I really appreciate all the support
Speaker 1: you guys have been giving me over the years. At
Speaker 1: this point, I really can't express enough gratitude, I think,
Speaker 1: but I hope this is enough. If you like what
Speaker 1: you just heard, this little foray into historiography this time
Speaker 1: that serves as a nice addendum to my natural Disasters
Speaker 1: episode I just put out, then please consider supporting History
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Speaker 1: or going to History Impossible dot substack dot com and
Speaker 1: becoming a paid subscriber or supporter Today, I really appreciate
Speaker 1: any kind of help you can throw my way, but honestly,
Speaker 1: just having you here to listen to me ramble on
Speaker 1: and on about history for all these years is oftentimes
Speaker 1: enough to get me out of bed in the morning.
Speaker 1: So thank you again, guys, very much again, and stay
Speaker 1: tuned for the next episode of History Impossible.
Speaker 3: St