Author: Logan Skorupa

Calculated Values: Finance, Politics, and the Quantitative Age was written by William Deringer, an associate professor of science technology and society at MIT in 2018. Deringer received his bachelors degree in History at Harvard in 2006 and his masters and Ph.D. degrees on the History of Science at Princeton University in 2009 and 2012 respectively. Deringer has focused his research on the history of the social sciences, finance, and the sociology of quantification, with most of his publications and collaborations centered on the history of finance and ‘calculations’[1]. Within Calculated Values, Deringer argues that numbers and ‘calculations’ gained the authoritative status that we associate with them today in the decades after 1688’s Glorious Revolution and the subsequent financial debates that occurred in the English Parliament. Deringer attempts to show how the highly publicized debates over England’s finances and the idea of ‘calculating’ revenues and expenditures in part lead to wider acceptance of numbers as an objective arbiter of facts despite the often-misleading tactics of those who employed ‘calculations’ to sway public opinion.

In the introduction Deringer ‘briefly’ discusses contemporary states such as France, Prussia and the Dutch Republic’s relationship with calculations and financial policy, specifically in regards to the secrecy often associated with the discussion had between the leaders of these states and their financial ministers. Deringer compares these states approaches to England’s fiscal policies and institutions under the reigns of Charles II and James II visa a vis William and Mary’s relationship with Parliament in 1688. Despite this initial focus, Deringer does not discuss why relations between the crown and parliament changed after the Dutch ‘invasion’ nor are the efforts and ideals of the royal’s discussed. Each subsequent chapter details a major event and financial debate that took place after 1688 and the evolution of numbers and calculations use in English (and then British) politics.

The first few chapters deal with the ‘introduction’ of calculating and numbers into English political debate. Chapter one focuses on Parliament’s efforts to figure out where England’s revenues came from and where they went in spite of traditions that kept royal affairs such as the payment of crown officials (and bribes of parliament members) under wraps as well as the public conception of calculation and numbers in general as a form of sorcery (a sentiment that continues to thrive in the modern day). Chapter two discusses the financial wizardry that was involved in determining how much Scotland should be pre-emptively compensated for English national debt and other considerations of the Act of Union (the unification of England and Scotland into Great Britain). Deringer mentions some incidents relevant to his financial focus that prompted the Act of Union such as the Darien fiasco and the desires of Scottish imperialists but does not delve deeply into the motivations or effects behind this momentous event in British history. Chapter three details the rise of two-party politics in Britain (again without going into how and why these parties formed), their conflict over the perceived trade deficit with France and the solidification of attitudes towards numbers and calculations as political tools useful in proving one’s position while denigrating one’s opponent.

Chapter four departs from the pattern established in previous chapters by focusing primarily on the influential figures that created and promoted financial theories during the late 17^th and early 18^th centuries. While Deringer has incorporated individual narratives in his work to highlight the origins of certain calculations and arguments into previous chapters, it is in this chapter that Deringer argues that the arguments and calculations advanced by these individuals were often far more influential (and long lasting) than the people who created them. Of more import however is Deringers argument that the questions/arguments raised by these calculations could be more impactful on how people perceived financial matters and England/Britain’s financial status than responses and rebuttals. Chapter five is largely a demonstration of how real-world events could vindicate certain arguments, as the bursting of a financial ‘bubble’ surrounding a particular English company resulted in praise for those whose financial calculations had predicted the event and greater acceptance of the importance on numbers in political discussions.

Returning to the typical layout in this book, chapters six deals with the use of ‘political arithmetic’ to predict future economic or societal developments. Chapter seven ends the ‘meat’ of the book by showing how some in Britain had begun to discuss the problems and dangers in trusting numbers and calculations inherently, demonstrating how thoroughly the initial skepticism surrounding the use of calculations in political arguments had been supplanted by (in some people’s eyes) uncritical acceptance of any numbers presented to the public by their political opponents. While the subject of chapter six is arguably more ‘important’ to the development of our modern understanding of calculation’s place in political discussions, chapter seven does more neatly bookend Deringers discussion on how the societal view of ‘calculating’ changed dramatically in the decades after 1688.

While I cannot fault Deringer’s use of sources or his inclusion of direct narratives throughout his book, I similarly cannot deny that this book was very difficult to get through for me. The choice of subject, falling under the much-maligned category of ‘Math’, perhaps doomed Deringer’s attempts at engaging this reader from the start as I found myself largely ignoring the graphical and statistical evidence presented throughout the book. While Deringer would occasionally bring up how the common people interacted with numbers and calculations in their daily lives and even argued that it would be reductive to say the adoption of calculating was a ‘top-down’ affair or that it diffused from London and the cities into the countryside, I still feel that something is missing in the discussion of why and how numbers became such an integral part of daily life despite Deringer using over 300 pages to ostensibly show how this occurred.

[1] https://sts-program.mit.edu/people/sts-faculty/william-deringer/

Dr. Sam White, the author of A Cold Welcome: The Little Ica Age and Europe’s Encounter with North America is a history professor at The Ohio State University, where he teaches courses on environmental history (in global and American contexts). White received his M.A. in middle East Studies and Modern History from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland before going on to gain his Ph.D. at Columbia University in 2008. His first book on the Ottoman Empire during the “Little Ice Age” was very well received, winning prizes from Associations focused on the region much like A Cold Welcome, which has received awards from the Sixteenth-Century society in addition to many other accolades detailed on his university website[1]. To overly simplify things, Dr. White is very knowledgeable and highly regarded for his contributions to environmental history. This book is about how climate affected the initial European colonies in the Americas with special emphasis on how preconceptions and misconceptions about the New World’s climate negatively affected attempts to settle these areas as it colored the interactions between settlers and natives during a time of climate change known as the “Little Ice Age”.

The book is divided along geographical lines in that it focuses on each of the major Colonial Empires of the New World (Spanish, French and English) in turn and their efforts at colonization over the centuries. Within each of the subsections, the book maintains a chronological narrative as Dr. White seeks to demonstrate how chance and contingency played a massive role in the initial settlement of North America, especially on the matter of which settlements succeeded and failed.

Aside from the introduction which briefly discusses the Viking settlements in Greenland and ‘Vinland’ (modern day Newfoundland) Dr. White’s book begins with the Spanish and their first colonies in the Caribbean, followed by their efforts in Mexico and first settlements in Florida. Dr. White makes heavy use of both primary and secondary sources in his detailing of the many misconceptions that caused the Spanish colonists no end of difficulties in adapting to the environments they encountered. Indeed, the very first ‘story’ for lack of a better term that White tells us about the preconceptions held by European colonists was their belief in the old Greco-Roman idea that climate zones were effectively rings around the world and that the climate of the Old World at one latitude would be equivalently transposed to that of the New. Indeed, Dr. White points out in most European languages there was no word for ‘climate’ as we use it today, with instead the word latitude fulfilling the same role. I found the small narratives that Dr. White wove throughout his work to be very interesting and helpful in connecting with the otherwise seemingly disconnected source material, allowing for more ‘continuity’ between expeditions to the same region by the same state over the 16^th and 17^th centuries. As Dr. White states in his chapters on Spanish and French colonial efforts, expeditions to less inhabitable regions like Florida were often separated by years or decades, preventing colonists from ‘acclimating’ to the region’s climate or gaining a good sense of what to expect from the lands to their North.

As the book continues, Dr. White details how the preconceptions carried from Europe, combined with the often incredibly short-lived efforts by the initial colonies (not to mention the generally catastrophic climatic changes brought about by the Little Ice Age) led to the Spanish abdicating their claims to all the New World granted to them by the Pope in the Treaty of Tordesillas. These chance failures, Dr. White argues, directly led to the French and English colonial efforts along the Eastern Seaboard of the modern U.S. and Canada. The difficulties the French and English had in establishing their own permanent settlements led to Spain, under the leadership of Philip the II, to vacillate between destroying their rivals’ colonies as they did with the French in the Carolinas or ignoring their efforts, as exemplified by the English in Roanoke and later, Jamestown. Dr. White goes on to connect the effects of the Little Ice Age in Europe to these colonial expeditions, as the environmental turmoil on the continent made the objectively horrific experiences at Jamestown (starvation, disease, cannibalism) seem much less hazardous or at least bearable when compared to the tensions in Europe.

The book culminates in an in-depth discussion of the trials and tribulations of the Jamestown Colony, such as its overly optimistic plannings by the Virginia Company in London, its difficulties in establishing basic subsistence farming and its growing hostilities with the natives, with Dr. White closing off the ‘story’ of the Jamestown colony with a description of how the surviving settlers decided to abandon the colony and sail away only to run into their reinforcements arriving in the mouth of the Chesapeake, whose combined efforts allowed the colony to persist despite its perennial lack of food and hostile neighbors.

All-in-all, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and will be honestly adding it to the list of books I would like to personally have a copy of. I would say that Dr. White does an excellent job of showing how the experiences of these initial colonists shaped the approaches of their respective nations and how relatively simple misunderstandings and preconceptions led to immense suffering on the part of colonists and lasting negative impressions regarding the viability of settlement in North America. This book, I believe, would be a good read for anyone interested in understanding how the environment has and can have a massive impact on the course of history and how the initial settlement of the Americas by Europeans was dictated by far more than economic, geographic, or political realities.

[1] https://history.osu.edu/people/white.2426

The author of this book, Dr. L. H. Roper, is a history professor at the New Paltz State University of New York who received his PhD in History from the University of Rochester in 1992. He primarily writes about Colonial America and has written many papers and two books (including this one) on the colonization of North America by the English in the 17th Century. According to his profile page on the State University of New York website, he is currently researching European colonization of North America and 17th century English activities in West Africa. In Advancing Empire, Dr. Roper’s initial argument seems to be that English Colonial efforts were not State directed or Imperial in the traditional sense of the word but were instead undertaken by private individuals and corporations with the bare minimum of State intervention, with what little state intervention often provided at the request of said individuals and corporations.

Dr. Roper’s primary argument makes the case that the British settlements in North America and the Caribbean were implemented and funded by private corporations so that the societal prerequisites for the forms of commerce these individuals were accustomed to could exist. In the northern colonies this was accomplished via direct settlement and indentured servitude while the Caribbean and in Southern colonies this was accomplished via the importation of slaves from Africa, with varying degrees of overlap between these two forms of colonization. Dr. Roper points to the large degree of overlap between those who were in charge of supplying slaves from Africa to the New World and those who traded New World products within Europe in support of his arguments and refers to sources such as cargo manifests and other financial documentation alongside many references to other scholarly works created in the last century.

Dr. Roper’s work is chronologically structured, with each chapter building on the developments of the previous. Chapter 1 deals with the basic organizational principles and initial goals of these early English colonial ventures, while Chapters 2 through 4 detail how local conditions in the Americas led to different approaches in the establishment of colonial societies. Chapters 5 through 7 show how these systems grew and evolved over decades as the political system in England shifted, with Dr. Roper specifically discussing how the interregnum allowed many of the individuals responsible for these colonial efforts to gain direct access to England’s governmental structure and thus gain the ability to direct the state in such a way that they hoped would benefit their endeavors. Dr. Roper does show that the efforts of these colonial ‘investors’ were not always successful in getting the results that they desired, with Dr. Roper concluding the book with an explanation of how the growing stakes and importance of these colonial and now Imperial ventures led to the breakdown of the mostly autonomous corporate backed efforts and the establishment of direct authority by the British government over their subjects commercial ventures and the ultimate ‘formalization’ of the British Empire.

Dr. Roper’s use of records on economic transactions and the cargo manifests of ships heading to and from the colonies to support his arguments on the nature of said colonies is interesting. Coupled with his points on how the ideals expressed by many of the figures involved in the running of the colonial enterprises often conflicted with the realities they themselves created in the colonies in their pursuit of profit, Dr. Roper effectively provides the reader with reasons to doubt the direct statements of these investors as to their purpose in establishing and supporting colonial endeavors. I was personally particularly interested in how Dr. Roper shows that the attitudes held by the backers of colonial projects in the New World did not significantly change after the English civil war and the Regicide. While Dr. Roper highlights the fractious nature of Interregnum politics discussed in Chapter 6 as the reason behind the earliest attempts by the English ‘state’ at providing a uniform stance on colonial matters and its overseas territories, the long-term effects on England’s colonial ventures of its initial indifference was not explored in this work.

While the subject matter was interesting and well-presented, with Dr. Roper often providing both interesting and compelling arguments for the complexities in the administrative minutia present in initially creating and governing the disparate territories of the ‘English overseas Emipre’, I overall do not believe he fully tied together the political developments within England and Europe to the attitudes of the colonial backers that he (in my eyes effectively) argued were most directly involved and responsible for England’s overseas possessions situation. I feel that his work would have benefited greatly from the inclusion of the direct testimony of those involved in these colonial ventures at all levels as the absence of many firsthand accounts or descriptions makes it difficult for the reader to understand how these various forms of society-building were perceived by those within them and those back in England.

In the end, I would say that this book would be of value to anyone wanting to learn more about the reasoning behind England’s early colonial/Imperial efforts and the lack of official support for most of these ventures. While I do have issues with Dr. Roper’s presentation of the colonial investor’s motivations and goals, I would still consider this work to be an excellent source of information on the interplay between English internal politics and the treatment of England’s overseas territories.

Caroline Boswell is an associate professor of Humanistic studies and European History at the University of Wisconsin. According to the university’s website, Boswell’s works focus on popular dissent and changes in government during times of political/social crisis. This is reflected in her book Disaffection in Everyday Life in Interregnum England, as the book is dedicated to unpacking the nuance and realities of popular movements during the tumultuous decade(ish) after Charles the first was executed, including the Interregnum, Protectorate, and the very beginnings of Charles the Seconds reign.

In writing this book, Boswell seeks to better understand and explore how popular action, protests, and everyday social interactions were used by ordinary people to influence the policies of the Interregnum government. By extension, Boswell demonstrates how the existence of these points of conflict between the state and its subjects could and often did undermine the states legitimacy when the people felt that their traditional rights were being violated by said state and its representatives; a process exploited by royalist authors to sway the public towards supporting Charles II’s bid for the throne. Whether discussing the relocation of marketplaces (21) or the Sectarian associations of soldiers and the Excise tax (130 and 165 respectively), Boswell emphasizes how disagreements and conflicts between the state and its subjects were used by royalist propagandists and authors to tie an idealized past where these issues did not exist to the return of the monarchy, regardless of the monarchies’ actual position on the issues or the common peoples involved stances on the matter of royal restoration.

Structurally, the book is divided into two parts that focus on the places where unrest occurred and the sources of that unrest respectively. The book is thus not chronologically based, as each development and concept is examined more or less in its entirety before moving on to the next topic; despite this, Boswell does manage to create a sense of continuity and interconnectedness however, as the later chapters are not only positioned in the very places discussed in the first chapters, they are also constantly referring to common principles and justifications established early on as the traditional means by which common people express dissatisfaction and resistance towards unpopular policies. For example, policies introduced in an attempt to police morality by the state discussed around page 80 are referenced in subsequent chapters dealing with the public perception and reception of soldiers as the ones tasked with enforcing these deeply unpopular policies.

The points the author chooses to focus on as areas of conflict between English citizens and Parliamentary leaders are all interesting and insightful into the mindset of those on both ends of government policy. I personally found the chapter on drinking to be the most interesting due to the unintentional parallels between the policies that attempted to regulate public consumption of alcohol described and those of the American government almost three centuries later (not so much in their implementation but in their perception by the public). One particular commonality between many of these government policies worth noting was the exacerbation of societal tensions and issues meant to be reduced by said policies. To put it another way, many of the states attempts to reduce unrest by regulating behaviors only increased popular dissatisfaction with the government, as these measures were seen as arbitrary interference within daily affairs by an incompetent and potentially illegitimate wielder of power. Boswell articulates this point most clearly when discussing later implementations of the much-hated excise tax as protests against this practice led formerly staunch Parliamentarian towns to oppose the governments efforts (197-198).

One area in which Parliamentarian policy was in direct and expected conflict with the will of the English people was the toleration of religious minorities in England, specifically in the New Model Army. Boswell shows how despite the small number of religious nonconformists actually present in England the imagined threat of heretical teachings that upended established norms and customs led to animosity and even violence against religious ‘Others’ and those associated with them by ordinary English citizens (206-209). While questions are raised at the end of the chapter on ‘Fanatics’ as to whether repression was as preferable as people evidently remembered it to be following the Restoration, this section nonetheless shows how dissatisfaction with the government did not need to be uniform in character (i.e. each town saw a different group as religiously ‘Other’) to be seen as evidence of royalist support by both Parliament and Royalists.

Overall, I would say that Boswell’s book is an interesting and very insightful look into the mindset of ordinary people during a very unordinary time. The book was not difficult to read nor was it overly long while simultaneously offering good arguments for its positions. This work makes me want to look into how the arguments made by common people during the Interregnum for resisting certain policies might’ve changed in the following years and how many of the ideas expressed by them made it into our own history.

Angela Nicholls is an Associate Fellow at the university of Warwick whose research and stated interests on Warwick universities staff page “…focus on the provision of housing for the poor in early modern England, in particular the nature and variety of post-Reformation almshouses”.[1] Nicholls has published ‘only’ one book on the subject though she has written in other scholarly works and published several papers on related subjects. Almshouses in Early Modern England: Charitable Housing in the Mixed Economy of Welfare, 1550-1735 is an academic analysis of the nature of Almshouses and associated poor-relief charity in early modern England. Nicholls states as much in the books prologue and delivers on this promise throughout the book by analyzing almshouses in the English counties of Durham, Kent, and Warwickshire alongside an entire chapter dedicated to an in-depth exploration of a single almshouse in Nicholls native Warwick.

Nicholls main argument is that Almshouses in the early modern period were distinct from earlier forms of housing offered to the poor (namely medieval hospitals) and often far smaller and less well-endowed than the surviving examples of almshouses would suggest, with many consisting of a row of small cottages or a room or two in a larger home that would not have had the resources of the wealthier almshouse to persist over the centuries (61). Rather than maintaining a timeline of all concurrent changes to the structure and functions of almshouses over the centuries, Nicholls makes the structural decision to focus on one particular aspect of almshouses and any related developments over her chosen time period in each chapter while using her final ‘information-presenting’ chapter to show all these developments as they occur over the lifespan of a single almshouse. I personally found this approach to be extremely helpful in both understanding the changes to specific aspects of almshouse life such as accommodations, rules, stipends, and the like while providing a useful example with which to demonstrate how these changes were interconnected and combined to form a picture of life in a specific almshouse.

In my opinion, Nicholls seems to adequately address the concerns she raises with many of the common perceptions of almshouses and charity/poverty in early modern England while detailing how the physical and organizational structure of these institutions lead to certain outcomes such as the issues with inflation faced by many almshouses (164) or how changing attitudes towards the poor lead to changes in who would be admitted to an almshouse (93). One point that Nicholls mentions throughout the book is how the change in religious life in England brought about by Henry VIII changed or failed to change the practices and continuing existences of almshouses in England. Nicholls argues that the increase in poverty in England noticed in this time period had far more to do with population increases and growing urbanization rather than a decline in the number of almshouses in existence as a result of monastic forfeiture. Nicholls further argues that the stated justifications for founding almshouses simply shifted from explicitly catholic motivations towards more generalized Christian ones and that the founding of almshouses was never solely about theological concerns, as evidenced by the proliferation of almshouses meant specifically for certain trades and guild members (100).

Throughout this book, Nicholls uses primary sources mainly in the form of local records to illustrate her arguments while analyzing any data which does not ‘fit’ with the majority of her findings, often stressing the small and largely localized data sets that she is forced to use due to a lack of surviving records. Nicholls is very candid about her difficulties in finding large data sets with which to form generalizations and therefore is highly critical of earlier historians who did so (page 169 has a particularly noteworthy example that may border on excessive). Speaking of other historians, Nicholls frequently references the work of earlier historians throughout her work and makes ample use of secondary sources; making note of any inconsistencies between her own findings and the conclusions presented by her peers with varying degrees of favorableness (169). When reading the arguments and counterexamples, I feel that Nicholls got ‘lost in the reeds’ at times when discussing specific examples/exceptions towards her points; at times I found myself having to go back to earlier in the chapter to remind myself what the initial point of contention or example was, though this was not too frequent of an occurrence. Having said that, this heavy use of primary and secondary sources does appear to support the conclusions presented by Nicholls, namely that the situation of those residing within almshouses could vary drastically from one location to another and that ‘almsmen’ themselves were a diverse group that nevertheless did trend towards being elderly and poor.

Overall, I would say that this book is a good example of an academic work that presents all relevant information and counterarguments while incorporating both data-based trends and specific case studies. While I would not call this book a page-turner, I do believe that it is an informative and well-researched work that achieves its goals of demonstrating the distinctive characteristics of almshouses and the near impossibility of making any generalized statements about them or their inhabitants.

[1] https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/people/honorary/nicholls/