A Very Short Fact: On this day in 1561, English philosopher and statesman Francis Bacon was born in London. Often called the father of empiricism, Bacon is credited with developing the scientific method.
““The linkage of scientific discovery to...

A Very Short Fact: On this day in 1561, English philosopher and statesman Francis Bacon was born in London. Often called the father of empiricism, Bacon is credited with developing the scientific method.

“The linkage of scientific discovery to practical application is perhaps most often associated with Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626). Born into a well-placed family, educated as a lawyer, elected to Parliament, ennobled as Lord Verulam, and eventually named Lord Chancellor of England (and ousted on bribery charges), Bacon lived most of his life in the halls of power. Accordingly, the topic of power and the building of empire was rarely far from his thoughts. He asserted that natural philosophical knowledge should be used; it promised power for the good of mankind and the state. He characterized – or caricatured – the natural philosophy of his day as barren, its methods and goals misguided, its practitioners busy with words but neglecting works. Indeed, although Bacon expressed skepticism of natural magic’s metaphysical foundations, he praised magic because it ‘proposes to recall natural philosophy from a miscellany of speculations to a magnitude of works’. Natural philosophy should be operative not speculative – it should do things, make things, and give human beings power. He considered printing, the compass, and gunpowder – all technological achievements – to have been the most transformative forces in human history. As a result, Bacon called for nothing less than a ‘total reconstruction of sciences, arts, and all human knowledge’.

Methodology is crucial to Bacon’s desired reform. He advocated the compilation of ‘natural histories’, vast collections of observations of phenomena whether spontaneously occurring or the result of human experimentation, what he called forcing nature out of her usual course. After sufficient raw materials had been collected, natural philosophers could fit them together to formulate increasingly universal principles by a process of induction. The key was to avoid premature theorizing, navel-gazing speculations, and the building of grand explanatory systems. Once the more general principles of nature had been uncovered, they should then be used productively. Yet Bacon did not advocate a crass utilitarianism. Experiments were useful not only when they produced fruit (practical application) but also when they brought light to the mind. True knowledge of nature served both for ‘the glory of the Creator and the relief of man’s estate’. While Bacon is clear that one goal of his enterprise is to strengthen and expand Britain – although neither Elizabeth I nor James I responded to his petitions for state support of his ideas for reform – on a larger scale Bacon saw the goal of such operative knowledge as to regain the power and human dominion over nature bestowed by God in Genesis, but lost with Adam’s Fall.” — From ‘The Scientific Revolution: A Very Short Introduction’ by Lawrence M. Principe.

[Pg. 120-1 — From ‘The Scientific Revolution: A Very Short Introduction’ by Lawrence M. Principe.]

 Image via Wikimedia Commons

White Fury: A Jamaican Slaveholder and the Age of Revolution by Christer Petley
The sugar planter Simon Taylor, who claimed ownership of over 2,248 enslaved people in Jamaica at the point of his death in 1813, was one of the wealthiest slaveholders...

White Fury: A Jamaican Slaveholder and the Age of Revolution by Christer Petley

The sugar planter Simon Taylor, who claimed ownership of over 2,248 enslaved people in Jamaica at the point of his death in 1813, was one of the wealthiest slaveholders ever to have lived in the British empire.

In White Fury, Christer Petley uses Taylor’s rich and expressive letters to allow us an intimate glimpse into the aspirations and frustrations of a wealthy and powerful British slaveholder during the Age of Revolution. The letters provide a fascinating insight into the merciless machinery and unpredictable hazards of the Jamaican plantation world; into the ambitions of planters who used the great wealth they extracted from Jamaica to join the ranks of the British elite; and into the impact of wars, revolutions, and fierce political struggles that led, eventually, to the reform of the exploitative slave system that Taylor had helped build … and which he defended right up until the last weak scratches of his pen.

GIF by Harry Orme for Oxford University Press

“ “On December 14 2010, a street vendor named Mohammad Bouazizi in Tunisia immolated himself after his fruit cart was taken away by police. Inspired by this powerful act, thousands took to the streets to protest the Tunisian government, setting off a...

“On December 14 2010, a street vendor named Mohammad Bouazizi in Tunisia immolated himself after his fruit cart was taken away by police. Inspired by this powerful act, thousands took to the streets to protest the Tunisian government, setting off a series of protests across Muslim north Africa commonly referred to as the Arab Spring. Whether in Egypt, Morocco, or beyond, the Arab Spring brought change to the region, not all of it for the better. Morocco was unique insofar as its protests did not lead to the ouster of its head of state, the King of Morocco. A constitutional referendum was called and supported by 98.49% of voters, in which the rights of the king were curtailed and more power given to a freely elected parliament and the prime minister of the majority party.”

Find out more about the Arab Spring

Image credit: Protester thanking Tunisian revolution by Sherif9282. CC-BY-SA-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

New Books in New York. Don’t you know they’re talkin’ bout a revolution? It sounds like a whisper

GIF and photos by Sara Levine for Oxford University Press

"In 2011, revolutions across the Middle East carried the torch of nonviolence and deposed three entrenched dictators and shook the throne of several kings and emirs. This is known as the Arab Spring, an awkward metaphor which misses the phenomenon by limiting it to Arabs. […] What is remarkable is that probably the most violent region of the world, the Middle East, was capable of rallying around a nonviolent philosophy of historical change in 2011."

— Chibli Mallat, an author, professor, and human rights proponent, on the philosophy of nonviolence, constitutionalism, and the Arab Spring

““Revolution” is a term laden with controversy. Its use and misuse throughout the political controversies of the twentieth century have given it complex layers of meanings. A revolution in the classical sense is a violent transition between forms of...

“Revolution” is a term laden with controversy. Its use and misuse throughout the political controversies of the twentieth century have given it complex layers of meanings. A revolution in the classical sense is a violent transition between forms of government. Classical political theory, transmitted through Aristotle, Polybius, Cicero, and Machiavelli, envisaged three basic forms of government: monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. Each mode has its virtuous form, but each is subject to corruption, with monarchy degenerating to tyranny, aristocracy to oligarchy, and democracy to mob rule. The revolutionary moment comes when the citizens, recognizing the corruption within the government, violently overthrow the degenerate form and establish a moral form in its place.

On 15 March 44 BC a group of senators stabbed Julius Caesar, the dictator of Rome. By his death, they hoped to restore Rome’s Republic. Instead, they unleashed a revolution. Richard Alston sheds new light on the motivations that drove men to march on their capital city and slaughter their compatriots in Rome’s Revolution: Death of the Republic and Birth of the Empire.

Image Credit: “La morte di Cesare” by Vincenzo Camuccini. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

On the Shelves in Oxford, or rather, On the Trees in Oxford this week, we have two books dealing with two very different empires…

Rome’s Revolution provides a riveting narrative of the ‘death of the Roman Republic’ to the ‘birth of Empire.’ On 15th March, 44 BC, a group of senators stabbed Julius Caesar, the dictator of Rome. In doing so, they unleashed a revolution. In this text, historian Richard Alston sheds new light on the motivations that drove men to march on their capital city and slaughter their compatriots. The revolutionary tale ends with the immensely successful, though equally ruthless reign of Rome’s first Emperor; Augustus.

The Guardians portrays a world of empires not on the ascent – but facing irreversible decline. At the end of the First World War, the Paris Peace Conference saw a battle over the future of empire. The victorious allied powers wanted to annex the Ottoman territories and German colonies they had occupied, but Woodrow Wilson and a groundswell of anti-imperialist activism stood in their way. Tracing the history of the League of Nations from its creation in 1920 until its demise in 1939, Susan Pedersen tells the story of the system of mandates - and Empire in crisis. 

Both books offer authoritative accounts of European history, power and empire - the effects of which are still being felt today.

Photos by Amelia Carruthers for Oxford University Press.

"A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restricted and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence whereby one class overthrows another."

— Daniel P. Ritter cites Mao Zedong in The Iron Cage of Liberalism

"This extraordinary claim—that the power of kings came not from God but that all governments should derive their power from consent of the governed—led to eight years of war with Britain, which sought to enforce its claims to royal rule. George Washington, the colonists’ general, brilliantly organized and shepherded the ragged colonial army through several years when mere survival was remarkable. Eventually, France decided that it could avenge its defeat in the French and Indian War by helping the colonies against Britain, providing first financial support and then military intervention."

Jack A. Goldstone, author of Revolutions: A Very Short Introduction, compares the constitutional revolutions of America, France, Europe (1830 and 1848), and Meiji Japan

“The 25 January Egyptian Revolution opened the floodgates for a wave of street art, which had been impossible under Mubarak’s regime, where the Ministry of Culture controlled all public expression.”

“The 25 January Egyptian Revolution opened the floodgates for a wave of street art, which had been impossible under Mubarak’s regime, where the Ministry of Culture controlled all public expression.”

(via Gallery: Revolution Graffiti | Foreign Affairs)