Oxford University Press's Blog, page 1007

Barry Landau’s coat pockets

By Travis McDade

On a “60 Minutes” episode on Sunday 28 October, Bob Simon looked at the Barry Landau archives theft case. Aside from some official-sounding but unsupportable claims (“Barry Landau carried out the largest theft of these treasures in American history”) it was a pretty good show. Still, one part rankled.

In the middle of the segment, Simon was shown several coats Landau had outfitted with special pockets in which he could secret documents before leaving victim institutions. Everyone on camera seemed alternately baffled or impressed by the gee-whiz ingenuity of the things. It played very much as if jackets with deep pockets were some sort of demonstration of the lengths to which criminals will go instead of what they actually are: a theft technique so old and hackneyed that if there was a class called Library-and-Archives-Thief 101, it would be covered in the first hour. Sewing trick pockets into coats is, quite simply, as old as coats.

Loose topcoat has front panels of monotone cloth with pockets set in of plaid. (Oct 14 1940) Pearl Levy Alexander, Designer. André Fashion Illustrations from NYPL's Picture Collection

My favorite description of these garments comes from writer Harry Kurnitz, who wrote in a 1938 novel of a book thief who had “a loose raglan coat, so artfully fitted with hooks, slings and pockets that the works of Charles Dickens, on large paper, could nestle under it without showing a bulge.” Kurnitz spent a lot of time in the 1930s hanging around the Philadelphia book trade, so he came by this sort of information honestly. Not that the coat trick even then was exactly inside-baseball: it had been a recognized technique for half a century.

Witness the 1893 tale told by Melvil Dewey. He recounted to a crowd the story of a library thief who was caught because the inside of his coat was so weighed down with books it did not flap in the Chicago wind — a fact noticed by a watchful guard. A year earlier, the Pratt Institute Free Library recorded in the Library Journal its first run-in with a thief, a young man who would secret books into a “pocket he had specially made for the purpose.” This was the sort of thing Publisher’s Circular was referring to, in 1907, when it warned of a coat’s “hare pocket.” A quarter century earlier, an article in The American Bookmaker told subscribers to “Look out for the bibliokleptomaniac…. While pretending to be looking over the new books he contrives to slip one into an inside pocket.”

But it was not just pockets; men’s coats were the Swiss Army knife of book theft, a fact noted in William Roberts’ 1895 The book-hunter in London. A coat whose lining had been ripped out would allow a thief to reach through from the inside and grab what he was looking for. A coat folded over an arm was a great screen for a nimble thief to disguise his light fingers. There was almost no end to the use of a correctly outfitted garment including, presumably, protection from the elements. Fully understanding the danger these things presented, Adolph Growoll gave, in an 1890s practical guide to American bookmen, this advice: “strangers with cloaks or loose coats with capacious pockets should be closely watched.”

In every decade of the 20th century, and each of the first two of this one, some man has used his coat to steal valuable documents, maps, and books. It is the hardy perennial of cultural heritage theft. And that is why it was so galling to see Barry Landau’s togs treated as some sort of next-level adaptation that made his thefts impossible to anticipate, or foil. In truth, Landau was no savant. He was as typical and mundane as these sorts of thieves get, and the only thing about his coats that should attract attention is how sad it is they managed to serve him so well.

Just imagine, for instance, a world where people had been, for decades, stealing cars with the same tool, again and again. Imagine that, despite this, few car manufactures, car owners, and members of law enforcement took any steps to adapt to the practice, nor even recognize its existence. Imagine them, in a 2012 news magazine segment, smiling and shaking their heads with wonder at the ingenuity of this particular tool. In reality, car manufacturers routinely design features that make their products harder to steal, owners take common sense — even outlandish — steps to keep their cars safe and law enforcement adapts to the changing circumstances. But of course they do. Cars are important.

Travis McDade is Curator of Law Rare Books at the University of Illinois College of Law. He is the author of the upcoming Thieves of Book Row: New York’s Most Notorious Rare Book Ring and the Man Who Stopped It and The Book Thief: The True Crimes of Daniel Spiegelman. He teaches a class called “Rare Books, Crime & Punishment.” Read his previous blog posts: “Barry Landau and the grim decade of archives theft” and “The difficulty of insider book theft.”

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Image credits: Headline image via spxChrome, iStockphoto.

Human rights on steroids: Kony 2012 in review

By Lucy Harding

In March 2012 an online video campaigning for the arrest of Joseph Kony, alleged Commander-in-Chief of the Lord’s Resistance Army, was launched by Invisible Children Inc. Within six days the video had been watched by over 100 million people. If you hate Joseph Kony you are now joined by a host of celebrities including Rihanna, Kim Kardashian and Justin Bieber. A few months on, the Journal of Human Rights Practice has released a collection of four reviews on the Kony 2012 video and campaign. The reviewers reflect a range of disciplinary perspectives, providing comment on the most widely shared human rights video ever. They seek to reveal how the campaign captured public attention and question whether it’s time to celebrate (and replicate) Kony 2012’s success.

Click here to view the embedded video.

So, how did a video focusing on prosecution at the International Criminal Court end up going viral? The reviews go some way towards providing an answer. Lars Waldorf identifies three key features of the campaign. First, its repackaging of humanitarianism as commodity activism; the video focuses on the producers and consumers of humanitarian products rather than desired beneficiaries of the campaign. Second, the video offers a militant version of human rights by, for instance, combining powerful ideas of both international justice and military intervention. Finally, Kony 2012 uses clicktivism – it invites viewers to simply act through a few clicks. Similarly, Sam Gregory, notes the campaign is audience-orientated and provides a space for the viewer to take manageable action. David Hickman offers a differing perspective noting that Kony 2012 employs a range of documentary modes: poetic, expository, participatory, reflexive and performative. This kitchen-sink approach acts as a powerful call to action.

The reviews offer different takes on the campaign’s success. Mark Drumbl sees the campaign as falling short in relation to both an ethics of representation and effectiveness. By obscuring the complexities of child soldiering we end up advocating ineffectual solutions – misguided law and the neglect of the root causes of violations. In contrast, the other reviewers suggest there are trade-offs between ethics and effectiveness; local voices and global reach. The campaigns’ audience-driven approach is implicated in its success at mobilising interest yet has led to critiques regarding the video’s lack of representation of Ugandan voices and agency. David Hickman argues the film would have benefited from an observational curiosity but such narratives, which take time to unfold, are ultimately incompatible with the bullet-pointed messages of campaigning. The reviewers each have a different take on the video’s legacy. Mark Drumbl, on the one hand, points to rapidly waning public attention. Lars Waldorf, on the other, asks how we can replicate such short-term noise in relation to human rights and humanitarian disasters.

Examining Kony 2012 in light of the constraints of human rights practice affects our take on the campaign in two ways. First, it suggests our critique of the campaign should account for both what is right and what works. Secondly, it forces us to confront how things could be done better. Sam Gregory provides a tangible recommendation, arguing for increased drillability in campaigning (enabling the audience to dig down beyond a core message).

Ultimately, the reviews explore and leave readers with a challenge: Can we build on the campaign’s use of social media whilst campaigning with responsibility to the stories we tell and generating sustained interest?

Lucy Harding is Reviews Editor of the Journal of Human Rights Practice and a researcher at the Centre for Applied Human Rights (University of York).

The Journal of Human Rights Practice (JHRP) contains four reviews of Kony 2012 which have been made free for a limited time. Authors: Sam Gregory, the Director of video advocacy organisation WITNESS; Mark Drumbl, Director of the Washington & Lee University’s Transnational Law Institute (and author of Reimagining Child Soldiers in International Law and Policy); David Hickman, a freelance documentary filmmaker; and Lars Waldorf, senior lecturer at the Centre for Applied Human Rights (University of York). The blog title, ‘human rights on steroids’, is a quote taken from Lars’ review.

JHRP is the main academic journal focusing on human rights practice and activism. The application of human rights, and its study, has grown exponentially over the last two decades. The journal covers all aspects of human rights activism, spanning professional and geographical boundaries. It seeks to challenge conventional ways of working, stimulate innovation, encourage reflective practice, highlight fieldwork and evidence, and engage a global audience.

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Who did Sandy help?

By Elvin Lim

Everything is political at this time of the electoral calendar, so there is no use pretending that Hurricane Sandy will not have an effect on the presidential race.

President Obama has been given a new life line. Forced to take politics out of his campaign, he can take a break from defending his record for two days. When an incumbent president is forced by emergency events to stop talking politics, he always enjoys the glow emanating form the Oval Office. This is especially so for a candidate who appears, to some undecided voters, to have lost his luster from 2008, so campaigning has limited marginal returns for him anyway. It’s a difficult balancing act for an incumbent president campaigning to keep his job, because he must both be president and a politician. For two days, Barack Obama can be the latter by being the former.

If any candidate was enjoying any momentum in this last week of the campaign, it was probably Romney; and the news stories about Sandy have put a pause on that. Romney was out collecting canned food and donations, and he will benefit from the humanizing pictures of his campaign’s outreach. However, the challenger always does better when he can be in unfettered attack mode.

Voters now weigh the closing arguments of both campaigns. The Republicans have been successfully pushing a narrative of chaos, uncertainty, and an America in decline; this has hurt the president’s numbers. The critical question is if the Romney campaign managed to congeal this declension narrative with the post-Sandy chaos. This is a high-risk thing to attempt — not least because Governor Chris Christie has praised Barack Obama’s handling of this crisis and declared it out of bounds.

The Obama campaign also has an opportunity here. Americans have a love-hate relationship with the welfare state, but in war and emergency situations, most embrace the federal government without reservation. The Obama campaign likely recognize an opportunity here to showcase what the government can do for us, when individuals and states are incapacitated by acts of God.

One thing we do not yet know, however, is how Sandy may have affected early voting in Ohio. Obama has been up in almost every poll in the last month in Michigan (16), Nevada (6), Pennsylvania (20), and Wisconsin (10), which gives Obama 252 electoral college votes. If he wins Ohio’s 18, he wins; that is why Sandy’s impact matters. (If he wins Florida, he also wins.)

Assuming that Romney takes Colorado (9), North Carolina (15), Virginia (13), and Florida (29), he will have 257 votes in the electoral college. If he takes New Hampshire (4) and/or Iowa (6) he still needs to peel one of the industrial mid-west states to his column. But if Romney takes Ohio, he wins. That is why there is a tremendous spin war going on about who is winning the early vote in Ohio.

Elvin Lim is Associate Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and author of The Anti-Intellectual Presidency, which draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate this relentless qualitative decline, over the course of 200 years, in our presidents’ ability to communicate with the public. He also blogs at www.elvinlim.com and his column on politics appears on the OUPblog regularly.

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Who needs another translation of Homer’s Iliad?

By Anthony Verity

Who needs another translation of Homer’s Iliad? There must have been hundreds of English versions since Chapman (c.1560-1634), a good many of them on bookshop shelves today. The usual answer is that great literature needs frequent reinterpretation. If students of antiquity and curious general readers are being urged today to return to the first work in writing in the Western canon, those who can read Greek will continue to translate the Iliad for their benefit, in the hope of recreating something of the “feel” of the original. It doesn’t do any harm, either, to have more than one version to browse among before buying. Teachers will choose a translation that captures what they think are the essentials of Homer; the casual reader may well go simply for a rattling good yarn.

Translation, as everyone knows, always fall short. All one can hope for is a degree of success. Homerists bring with them various kinds of baggage, among them: current views (if any) of what epic poetry should sound like in English; their own prejudices about what should be preserved, and what regretfully abandoned; and perhaps recent Homeric scholarship.

Dryden (1631-1700) aimed at a version of the Iliad “such as would have been composed by the original author were he alive now and writing in English.” Pope (1688-1744) latinized unfamiliar Greek gods, elided the rough corners of heroes’ gross conduct, and skated over Homer’s fascination with fatal wounds, all in the interests of poetic and social decorum. Neither was much interested in recreating a distant heroic world. “It is a pretty poem, Mr Pope,” said the Greek scholar Bentley, “but you must not call it Homer.” Indeed not; but it is a superb Augustan creation.

The Victorians were fascinated by Homer, possibly because, as George Steiner has observed, they saw in it qualities they admired: an ideal of virility and masculine intimacy, and also a portrayal of the good loser (Hector). Post-Romantics, they tried in various ways to transport their readers back to heroic times. Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), a better critic than translator, opted for clunky English hexameters in imitation of Homeric verse (“So shone forth, in front of Troy, by the bed of Xanthus / Between that and the ships, the Trojans’ numerous fires”). Lang, Leaf, and Myers’s prose version appeared at roughly the same time as Schliemann’s dramatic discoveries at Troy (1882). Once unkindly described as the Authorized Version meeting Morte d’Arthur (“Wherefore thus among the ships and through the camp do ye wander alone, in the ambrosial night; what so great need cometh over you?”), it is unusually faithful to the Greek, but often strained and obscure — as Homer never is — possibly even to generations of schoolboys for whom it was a popular crib.

Since then, most translators have tried to reproduce something of Homer’s heroic vitality, many of them seeking to reproduce Arnold’s famous four qualities of rapidity, plainness, directness, and nobility (the first three easier to catch today than the last). No one writes epic poetry any more (Christopher Logue’s strikingly successful poems are not translations but recreations based loosely on Homer), and we no longer have at hand an accessible elevated diction to describe great deeds. So we aim for a kind of middle register between colloquial and fustian, always mindful that something has to go. I like some modern versions, which often tell the tale with vigour and rapidity, though the teacher in me objects to imported material and beefed-up imagery, and the exclusion of essentially Homeric features such as repetition and fixed epithets. Nor can I take seriously a translator who thinks that Homeric language can “cramp and distort my own.” But translation isn’t one thing, and depends on what you set out to do.

My own starting principles were:

To keep close to the Greek and let Homer speak as far as possible in his own words;
To render line by line — for ease of reference, not because I thought I was writing poetry; my version is often fairly prosaic;
To preserve echoes of heroic oral poetry, such as repetition, stock descriptions, and fixed epithets (“swift-footed Achilles; Hector, breaker of horses”);
To follow where possible Homer’s syntax (“and…and…but…then…”);
To translate just about every word (mainly for the benefit of students).

Other approaches are possible, and legitimate. Readers will judge for themselves. All one can hope for is that they will catch something of the immediacy and yet otherness of the original. And perhaps one or two will be impelled to learn Greek, which is the only way to read Homer with satisfaction.

Anthony Verity taught Classics in several schools in England, his last job being Master of Dulwich College. He has translated Theocritus and Pindar for Oxford World’s Classics, his OWC edition of The Illiad was published in September, and he is currently working on a version of Homer’s Odyssey.

For over 100 years Oxford World’s Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford’s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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New Atlantis at Voodoo Fest

By John Swenson

I had the great thrill over the week to perform as part of the Paul Sanchez Rolling Road Show at the Voodoo Experience in New Orleans. The three day music extravaganza takes place under the live oaks in beautiful City Park. Sanchez asked me to read from New Atlantis: Musicians Battle for the Future of New Orleans at the beginning of his set on the Preservation Hall stage. I read about my return to New Orleans after hurricane Katrina as the band played the melodic swells of “At the Foot of Canal Street” behind me. It was a wonderful moment, but the greatest reward came when I walked out in front of the stage and a firefighter from St. Bernard Parish came up to me and thanked me for writing the book. “We were downriver from the lower ninth ward and the same things happened to us, we were flooded to the rooftops,” he said emotionally. “You expressed exactly how it felt to be back in those days after it was over.”

John Swenson reading at Voodoo Fest. Photo by Amanda Schurr. Used with permission

Sanchez continued on to perform an abbreviated version of his musical adaption of Dan Baum’s Nine Lives. The themes of New Atlantis and Nine Lives overlap at the climax of the Sanchez piece when his troupe sings the inspirational song about bringing the city back. “Rebuild, renew… that’s what people do!”

John Swenson is the author of New Atlantis: Musicians Battle for the Survival of New Orleans, which won the 2011 JazzTimes Critics Poll “Book of the Year” Award. He has been writing about popular music since 1967. He edited the website jazze.com for Knit Media and has worked as an editor at Crawdaddy, Rolling Stone, Circus, Saturday Review, Rock World, and OffBeat magazine, while publishing articles in virtually every American popular-music magazine of note. Among his previous books are biographies of Bill Haley, John Lennon, Simon and Garfunkel, and Stevie Wonder, as well as reference works such as The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide. In addition, his writing has won two awards from the Press Club of New Orleans: Best Entertainment Feature in 2007 and Best Critical Review in 2008.

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Election fraud and electoral integrity

By Ines Levin

Last week, stories emerged about irregularities in elections in Lithuania and Ukraine that took place over the weekend. In the case of Ukraine, ahead of the election Yanukovyc’s government had been blamed of engaging in unfair campaign advertising practices, persecution of opposition leaders, and the fashioning of fake opposition parties; and following the election, international observers from the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) noted a series of problems with the conduct the election. In the case of Lithuania, the process of coalition formation following the two rounds of parliamentary election got stuck following allegations of vote buying and other forms of electoral misconduct involving the Labor Party. These two elections are only an example of the type of concerns surrounding a large portion of elections taking place periodically around the world.

Ukraine 2012 Election Observation Mission. Image courtesy of The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly

Among possible manipulations of the electoral process, the ones posing the stronger threats to electoral integrity are direct attempts at influencing the election outcome by preventing groups of citizens from voting, coercing voters to support a particular candidate (through vote buying or threats), or destroying, inflating, or purposely miscounting votes. These practices — which distort voters’ intents and often give an unfair advantage to one candidate or party — are usually grouped under the label of “electoral fraud;” although the term is often broadened to encompass other forms of manipulation of the electoral process, such as unlawful redirection of government resources to electoral ends.

With the increased public and media scrutiny of elections in both established democracies and countries that are still undergoing democratic transitions, comes the need to develop clear standards and procedures for evaluating the integrity of electoral processes. The development of these procedures will contribute, among other things, to the deterrence of fraud and to the improvement of election administration procedures and voting systems. Political scientists have not been unresponsive to these needs. On the contrary, some scholars have already began the process of developing “election forensic” techniques that, when applied to elections data, are capable of detecting precincts or specific geographic areas where manipulation might have occurred.

While the electoral fraud debate often centers around the easiness of manipulating election results under alternative voting systems and technologies, the real key to preventing fraud might not lie on the development of entirely fraud-proof voting systems — an ideal that is not only hard to achieve, but that might entail trade offs with other desirable properties of voting systems, such as the convenience of voting using the system — but on ensuring with a high level of confidence that that manipulations of election returns, and particularly outcome-altering manipulations, will be detected. The reason lies in the incentives faced by violators; much in the same way as happens with other types of fraud, such as financial and research fraud, election fraud is more likely to take place when the misdeed is expected to go undetected.

Thus, the development of election forensics techniques capable of detecting election irregularities is not only important in order to produce evidence that can be used to challenge unfair election outcomes or expose illegitimate governments, but also for deterring the occurrence of fraud in the first place. Results produced by election forensics analyses may also help prevent unjustified post-electoral challenges of election outcomes in those cases in which an opposition party contests official results in the absence of systematic evidence of electoral fraud. If the democratic ideal of political equality is to prevail, it is important to provide incentives for all political actors to abide by voter choices.

Ines Levin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Georgia. In an effort to put together some of the cutting-edge research in this emerging area of scholarship, Political Analysis recently published a virtual issue on “Election Fraud and Electoral Integrity”.

The relatively new field of political methodology is growing exponentially; is improving empirical work in every field of the discipline; and is even making major contributions to empirical and methodological scholarship well outside the diffuse borders of political science. Political Analysis chronicles these exciting developments by publishing the most sophisticated scholarship in the field. It is the place to learn new methods, to find some of the best empirical scholarship, and to publish your best research. Political Analysis is ranked #1 out of 148 journals in Political Science by 5-year impact factor, according to the 2011 ISI Journal Citation Reports. You can follow them on Twitter at @polanalysis or on Facebook.

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Health information that travels with you

While books provide a convenient reference, they don’t work well in every situation. We’ve recently adapted The Yellow Book as an iPhone application (or ‘app’), so we asked a member of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about the importance of accessing information anytime.

By Megan Crawley, MPH

Imagine you’re a health care provider, taking the subway to work. You suddenly remember that your first patient of the day is preparing for a trip overseas. You want to prepare for this pre-travel consultation, but all your reference books are at the office and you won’t have time once you get there.

Now imagine you are the traveler, picking up last-minute supplies at the store while you wait for your prescription to be filled. You know that your doctor recommended buying bug spray for your trip, but you can’t remember why or which kind. There are so many options and different ingredients. How are you supposed to choose?

Without immediate access to information, the health of this traveler is put at risk. While the US Government provides frequent updates on health recommendations for international travel, ensuring that the right people have the right information at the right time is a struggle.

How many cases of malaria could have been prevented with the latest disease risk maps? How many travelers didn’t get accurate information on the area they’re visiting?

As people become more mobile, the health of travelers and those with whom they interact is more vulnerable without the proper precautions. At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, we update the Health Information for International Travel (commonly referred to as The Yellow Book) biennially, yet we realize this still isn’t enough. It’s essential to address physicians offering pre- and post-travel health care as they juggle busy schedules. We must give travelers exploring the globe the opportunity to make informed decisions about their health.

Most people think of medical technology as PET scans and blood tests — ways to detect and solve problems. But new ways to convey information are a crucial part of how medicine is evolving. As knowledge can be shared and accessed more easily, doctors’ practices and their patients lives transform.

Megan Crawley, MPH is a Health Communications Specialist in the Travelers’ Health Branch, Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC Health Information for International Travel 2012 (The Yellow Book) by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and edited by Gary W. Brunette is now available as a mobile application for iPhone.




CDC Yellow Book App: Home

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CDC Yellow Book App: Country Overviews

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CDC Yellow Book App: Maps and Advice

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CDC Yellow Book App: Vaccine Recommendations

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CDC Yellow Book App: Search

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For decades, health care professionals and travelers alike have relied on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s user-friendly Health Information for International Travel (commonly referred to as The Yellow Book) as a trusted reference to stay abreast of the most up-to-date health recommendations for international travel. For the first time, OUP and CDC are releasing a mobile app version of The Yellow Book, available on iPhone and for purchase in the App Store. Now you can access this information anytime, anywhere, directly from your mobile device. Built by MARTEAU, Inc. and Oxford University Press.

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George McGovern

By Edward Zelinsky

On 15 November 1969, I was shivering on the Mall in Washington, D.C., surrounded by a band of self-proclaimed Maoists celebrating the prospect of a Viet Cong victory. This was the second “Moratorium” against the Vietnam War. While the first Moratorium in October had a decidedly mainstream flavor, the tone of the November event was markedly different.

I was conflicted on that cold November day in Washington. I opposed the Vietnam War, as did the thousands of others standing on the Mall that day. But, unlike many of the people surrounding me, I did not oppose America (or Amerika, as they spelled it on their banners).

And then Senator George McGovern came to the podium. In the tones of his native South Dakota (also evocative of my home state of Nebraska), McGovern proclaimed: “We oppose this war because we love the flag.” This was an unpopular message with many on the Mall that day.

But it was a message I wanted to hear. While those surrounding me started booing, I stood up to applaud. As I did so, I thought of the flag the Marine Corps had handed my mother six years earlier at my father’s funeral in Omaha. I was grateful to Senator McGovern for articulating what I felt.

In the spring, I subsequently met Senator McGovern. After the tragic shootings at Kent State, Yale College, like many other educational institutions, effectively suspended its educational mission. I was one of the student leaders of a Yale anti-war lobbying day in Washington. One thousand students bussed from New Haven to the nation’s capital where, joined by Yale President Kingman Brewster and other leaders of the university, they implored the members of Congress to end the war.

At the conclusion of the day in a auditorium on Capitol Hill, I stood before my impatient student peers, not quite knowing what to do. Then, Senator McGovern led three of his senatorial colleagues to address the assembly. While I was grateful to Senator McGovern in November for his comments, at this dramatic moment, I felt that Senator McGovern had personally rescued me.

As the 1972 presidential campaign began, the influential economist James Tobin (later a Nobel prize winner) conveyed his assessment to me (and others) that McGovern was the best candidate the Democratic Party had to offer. While I was not active in the campaign, I initially shared Professor Tobin’s enthusiasm.

And then things started going wrong. Many of Senator McGovern’s obituaries describe the McGovern campaign as an inept, leftward lunge from which the Democratic Party has yet to fully recover. McGovern himself later joked that he had run for president in the worst possible way.

The McGovern campaign’s handling of Tobin’s “demogrant” proposal was, for me, the low point. Tobin’s proposal was a variation of the negative income tax, then favored by such conservative thinkers as Milton Friedman. The Nixon Administration itself had advanced similar proposals for a federal guaranteed income.

However, when the Nixon campaign ridiculed Tobin’s plan, the McGovern campaign unceremoniously dumped Tobin and his proposal. This was particularly shabby treatment of a distinguished intellectual and public servant.

The historian Stephen Ambrose bemoaned that McGovern was a genuine war hero (a decorated pilot during World War II) who refused to exploit his war record during his presidential campaign. Only twelve years earlier, John Kennedy had made PT 109 a catchword of American politics.

While the criticisms of McGovern as presidential candidate contain much force, I remain grateful to Senator McGovern for his comments on the Mall four decades ago. R.I.P.

Edward A. Zelinsky is the Morris and Annie Trachman Professor of Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva University. He is the author of The Origins of the Ownership Society: How The Defined Contribution Paradigm Changed America. His monthly column appears here.

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Place of the Year 2012: A Q&A with Joshua Hagen

As we continue to prepare for Place of the Year 2012, we’ve invited Joshua Hagen, Professor of Geography at Marshall University and co-author of Borders: A Very Short Introduction, to share his thoughts on the relationship between geography and current events. Here’s what he has to say….

1)      Has Europe’s geography affected its fiscal crises?

Europe’s ongoing fiscal crisis has served to exacerbate pre-existing regional and national divisions. In the process, this has added an array of political, cultural, and linguistic challenges to the dire economic situation ravaging much of Europe. In Spain, for example, the national government appears on the verge of joining the list of states seeking to tap the Euro-zone bailout fund. The Spanish government has seen its tax revenues dry up as unemployment has climbed to an astounding 25 percent. Additionally, the national government has had to bailout banks and several regional governments, including Catalonia. Home to Spain’s largest regional economy, Catalans have maintained a strong regional identity, including their own language, despite recurring efforts by Spanish governments to centralize authority and suppress regionalism. Recent decades have seen improved relations between Catalonia and the Spanish government, including official recognition of the Catalan language and a significant degree of autonomy for the regional government. Unfortunately, anger and resentment emanating from the recent economic depression has spilled over into culture and politics causing long-standing Spanish-Catalan antagonisms to flare up again. The Catalonian government has scheduled a referendum on full independence from Spain this fall, although this appears to violate the national constitution. Regardless, anger at the Spanish government and frustrations with the lack of economic progress have led many Catalans to conclude the region would be better off as an independent state. It is unclear if the referendum will actually go forward, much less what the result and consequences might be. The continuing economic crisis has exacerbated similar cultural-linguistic disputes in Belgium, Italy, and the United Kingdom. On an even broader scale, the fiscal crisis has revived long-standing stereotypes of Germans versus Greeks and Europe’s Nordic countries versus the Mediterranean. Depending on one’s perspective, Germany and Europe’s North is portrayed as responsible, hard-working, and frugal or stingy, bossy, and arrogant. Conversely, Mediterranean Europe is viewed as lazy, corrupt, and hapless or victimized, swindled, and resilient. Each situation features its own unique dynamic but all illustrate how the economic crisis and challenges of fiscal integration have served to arouse long-standing regional and national divisions.

2)      What does the geography of Syria say about the future of its civil war?

Like the other states of North Africa and the Middle East, the borders of Syria are rather arbitrary creations reflecting the shifting regional balance of power between European colonial powers and the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Syria’s current government is dominated by Alawites, a religious minority that comprises only about 12 percent of the total population but an absolute majority in Syria’s Mediterranean coast region. The forces rebelling against the Syrian government are mainly drawn from the country’s dominant Sunni Arab populations. The tide of war has shifted back and forth with both sides benefiting from external allies: Iran and Russia supporting the government and the Arab Gulf States and Turkey backing the rebels. It is impossible to predict the exact course of future events, but Syria’s demographic and physical geography make it very unlikely that the government will succeed in re-establishing undisputed control over the country. Nor does it appear that rebel forces currently have the firepower or organization to oust government forces from their strongholds. Instead, it is likely that rebel groups will wage an ad hoc war of attrition that gradually wears down the regime’s advantages in technology and equipment. At some point, the regime will either be forced to consolidate their troops in Damascus and the Alawite homeland, effectively partitioning the country, or segments of the Alawite plutocracy will switch sides leading to the shift collapse of the ruling Assad family. In any event, the geography of Syria will likely be changed irreversibly as ethnic-linguistic-religious groups sort themselves out into relatively homogenous enclaves and significant numbers of minority groups leave the country all together. This would parallel the unfortunate precedents set in Iraq, Libya, and Egypt.

3)      Is there a geographically-volatile place or concept that is not getting a lot of press?  What do you see in geographical tea leaves for the coming years?

Homeland: The idea of ‘homeland’ has demonstrated power as a driving force of history. If times of turmoil and insecurity have normally invested the idea with increased emotional power, the coming years could witness a resurgence of territorial antagonism and conflict among ethnic groups. The continuing accusations over the global economic crisis, political instability across the Arab world, renewed saber-rattling in East and Southeast Asia, mounting calls for economic protectionism, and rising anti-immigrant sentiment in seemingly every part of the world are all entangled with a rising tide of nationalism and national territory. Ironically, this follows several decades of predictions announcing the arrival of a borderless world and the end of geography. In contrast, growing fears of insecurity, scarcity, and powerlessness are likely to fuel increased pressures to define and defend national homelands.

4) What do you think should be Place of the Year in 2012?

That’s up to you, dear reader!  Make sure you’ve voted below or submitted your nomination in the comments.  We’re excited to announce the short-list on November 12th!

What should be the place of the year in 2012?




AfricaMyanmar/BurmaSyriaIranGreeceEgyptBelizeTimbuktu, MaliLondon, United KingdomCalabasas, California, USABenghazi, LibyaIstanbul, TurkeyShanghai, ChinaMontauk, New York, USABaltimore, Maryland, USAPass Christian, Mississippi, USAPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, USABed-Stuy, Brooklyn, New York, USACERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research), Switzerland Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, DC, USABryant Park, New York City, USAThe Senkaku or Diaoyu Islands, contested by Japan, China, and TaiwanCambridge, New York, USAOne World Trade Center, New York City, USAArctic CircleHalf Moon Island, Antarctica MarsThe Standard Hotel in West Hollywood, California, USAHarry's Bar, Venice, ItalyThe Dokdo or Takeshima islands, contested by South Korea and Japan








View Result



Total votes: 102Africa (2 votes, 2%)Myanmar/Burma (5 votes, 5%)Syria (5 votes, 5%)Iran (0 votes, 0%)Greece (3 votes, 3%)Egypt (2 votes, 2%)Belize (3 votes, 3%)Timbuktu, Mali (0 votes, 0%)London, United Kingdom (25 votes, 25%)Calabasas, California, USA (3 votes, 3%)Benghazi, Libya (2 votes, 2%)Istanbul, Turkey (7 votes, 7%)Shanghai, China (0 votes, 0%)Montauk, New York, USA (0 votes, 0%)Baltimore, Maryland, USA (2 votes, 2%)Pass Christian, Mississippi, USA (0 votes, 0%)Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (1 votes, 1%)Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, New York, USA (0 votes, 0%)CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research), Switzerland (9 votes, 9%)Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, DC, USA (2 votes, 2%)Bryant Park, New York City, USA (0 votes, 0%)The Senkaku or Diaoyu Islands, contested by Japan, China, and Taiwan (1 votes, 1%)Cambridge, New York, USA (0 votes, 0%)One World Trade Center, New York City, USA (0 votes, 0%)Arctic Circle (5 votes, 5%)Half Moon Island, Antarctica (1 votes, 1%)Mars (22 votes, 22%)The Standard Hotel in West Hollywood, California, USA (0 votes, 0%)Harry's Bar, Venice, Italy (0 votes, 0%)The Dokdo or Takeshima islands, contested by South Korea and Japan (2 votes, 0%)


Vote

And don’t forget to share your vote on Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, and other networks:

“I voted [my choice] for Place of the Year http://oxford.ly/poty12 #POTY12 via @OUPAcademic”

Oxford’s Atlas of the World — the only world atlas updated annually, guaranteeing that users will find the most current geographic information — is the most authoritative resource on the market. The Nineteenth Edition includes new census information, dozens of city maps, gorgeous satellite images of Earth, and a geographical glossary, once again offering exceptional value at a reasonable price.

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Contrasting profiles in hope

By Anthony Scioli

I have made a career of studying hope. As a clinical psychologist most of my focus has been on the role of hope in relation to anxiety and depression, or the healing power of hope when confronting a serious illness. As a result of Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign of “hope and change,” I have increasingly been asked to comment on the role of hope in presidential politics. In 2010, I decided to do some research on hope and the presidency to see what I might learn. I am revisiting the topic in this blog as we approach the 2012 election and Romney pits his own message of “optimism” and “change” against that of the president.

Barack Obama "Hope" poster by Shepard Fairey.

The major study conducted by my research team focused on the last ten elected presidents, from Eisenhower to Obama, five Republicans and five Democrats. We wanted to find out how much and what kind of hope these men offered in their first (or only) inaugural address. More recently, we decided to supplement our research by looking at the amount and kind of hope expressed in Mitt Romney’s 2003 inaugural address when he became governor of Massachusetts.

Presidential inaugural speeches were studied years ago by David Winter at the University of Michigan to explore the motives of US presidents (he studied power, achievement, and affiliation). Winter was able to relate the motive profiles of each president to their behavior in office. Could “hope profiles” yield the same or even higher levels of predictive power?

Hope is based on four great needs: attachment (trust and openness), mastery (empowerment and purpose), survival (liberation and self-regulation), and spirituality (empowerment, connection, and assurance via a higher power).

Using with this integrative perspective, my research team (Kristen Wallin, Daniel Graham, and Sarah Stevenson) spent six months in 2010 developing a scoring system to measure the levels and kinds of hope contained in a sample of text. In other words, we created scoring rules to identify themes of hopeful mastery, attachment, survival, and spirituality. As part of the process we broke down each of these four dimensions of hope into the following more basic sub-units.

Mastery

Plans: The president promises successful planning and goal setting.
Collaboration: The president commits to collaborate and/or encourages a spirit of teamwork.
Higher Goals: The president calls for the pursuit of higher goals, ideals or transcendent values.

Attachment

Trust: The president and administration will be trustworthy and honest.
Continued presence: The president promises to be inclusive and engaged with the public.
Openness: The president invites public feedback; the administration will be transparent.

Survival

Protection/liberation: The president promises to protect or liberate.
Resilience: The president notes the resilience of the American people.
Fear reduction: The president uses words to calm the public or assuage fears.

Spirituality

Spiritual inspiration: The president invokes a higher power to empower or justify actions.
Spiritual presence: The president suggests a higher power is continually present.
Spiritual assurance: The president appeals to a higher power for protection of the nation.

Highlights of 2010 Findings

Obama scored highest in total hope with 32 themes. This was an interesting finding given that we were able to empirically validate Obama’s platform of hope and change via his inaugural speech. Nixon ranked first in attachment. While this may appear ironic to casual observers of the presidency, more in-depth psychological studies of Nixon have unearth the strong role of frustrated attachment needs in his background. Kennedy ranked highest in themes of survival. Obama ranked second. This is significant because we found that survival was the type of hope most strongly associated with historian’s rankings of presidential greatness. Perhaps this is because some of our greatest presidents have ushered the nation through great crises (e.g. Lincoln or FDR). GW Bush ranked first in Spiritual hope. This was also not surprising given his documented efforts to “integrate faith with public policy at the most practical level”, including the establishment of “faith-based” initiatives”.

We also created “hope profiles” for each president based on the amount of attachment, mastery, survival, and spiritual content in their speech. These profiles proved to be a good fit with the kind of policy initiatives each president undertook during their time in office.

For example, it was noted that Kennedy had the highest survival score. In particular, he relied on many themes of liberation. In his inaugural address he vowed to “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and success of liberty.” For much of his presidency, Kennedy’s focus was on liberation abroad. In the Bay of Pigs, the intent was the liberation of Cuba. In Vietnam, the aim was to curtail the perceived loss of liberty from spreading Communism. Kennedy, hesitant at first, eventually put his political resources behind the Civil Rights Movement to liberate minorities.

Ronald Reagan ranked third in mastery (he was high in idealism, moderate in both mastery and collaboration). He ranked third in survival, focusing on themes of protection/liberation and resilience. Political observers pay respect to Reagan’s optimistic vision for America. His stress on personal freedom spanned both domestic and foreign policies. He championed a return to “rugged individualism” and promised to get big government “off our backs”. He railed against the Soviet “evil empire”, culminating in his speech on the Berlin Wall, “Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

Romney’s Hope Profile

Earlier this month, we repeated our method of having two raters on different ends of the political spectrum score a speech sample. This time we scored Romney’s inaugural address as governor. We explored how Romney’s hope scores would compare with the past ten elected presidents. We also went back to see which of the past nine presidents were most similar to Obama.

Romney’s 20.5 themes of hope put him in sixth place, tied with GWH Bush. His 13 mastery themes put him in second place, right behind Obama. His 3.5 attachment themes put him in the eighth spot. Romney’s three survival themes put him in a tie for eighth place with Carter and Johnson. His single spiritual reference would put him in a tie for fifth place. In summary, Romney’s hope profile consists of high mastery, low attachment, low survival, and moderate spirituality.

Obama vs. Romney: Hope for mastery

Romney’s mastery profile (high planning, high collaboration, zero higher goals) is most similar to Clinton. Neither has ever been accused of being an ideologue. Obama’s mastery score (high planning, high collaboration, high higher goals) is most similar to Reagan. Interesting both Obama and Reagan ran on explicit platforms of hope or optimism.

Obama vs. Romney: Hope for attachment

Romney’s attachment score was similar to that of GHW Bush (low to moderate trust). Obama’s was closest to Carter (high trust). Many readers will recall the night that GHW Bush looked at his watch during the presidential debate with Clinton which reinforced the stereotype of an “out of touch” leader. Carter, despite many criticisms of his policies, has always rated high in integrity in presidential surveys. Romney has been characterized as distant and “walled off” by fellow Republicans as well as Democrats. Obama began as a community organizer and has been both praised and criticized for his effort to “reach across the aisle”.

Obama vs. Romney: Hope for survival

Romney’s survival score is most similar to Johnson (low protection, high resilience, zero fear reduction). Obama’s was closest to Kennedy (high protection, high resilience, moderate fear reduction). Johnson‘s primary goal was to stay the course after Kennedy’s assassination. Romney’s former business associates have praised his cool, efficient handling of crises. In the final presidential debate, Romney also appeared to endorse a strategy of “staying the course” in foreign policy. Kennedy came into power at the height of the cold war and fears of encroaching Communism. Obama came into power in the midst of a global recession and two wars against terrorism.

Obama vs. Romney: Hope through spirituality

Romney’s spirituality score was unique in that he was the only one in our sample whose single reference to God or a higher power did not revolve around empowerment but instead referenced continued presence. Obama’s spirituality score was most similar to Eisenhower (high empowerment). One possible interpretation of these findings is that Romney has had a close and deep involvement with the Mormon Church for decades while Obama’s combination of documented paternal estrangement and more diffuse spiritual foundation leads him to invoke higher powers primarily for empowerment purposes.

Speculating on a Romney Presidency

An abrupt political shift is likely. In terms of attachment hope, Romney was most similar to GHW Bush and Bill Clinton. Interestingly, these are also the two leaders that Eleanor Clift compared to Romney in her recent piece on how he might govern. She and her sources suggest that Romney might either move to the center like a “Republican Bill Clinton” or similar to Bush senior, detaching while trying to fashion a patchwork of policies to hold together disparate parts of his party.

I agree with Clift that whether Romney moves center or stays right may depend on how much control Republicans gain in the November election and how much leverage the right will have to push him. Here is my guess. Whatever happens, Romney will remain detached. If Republicans hold or gain more power in the house, he will quickly move right, not from any sense of party affiliation but because it is strategically the best move. If Democrats gain power, he will abruptly move to the center. Like Bush senior and Clinton his push for trust was in the bottom half of the sample. In addition, while both Bush senior and Clinton had at least one reference to hope based on secular “continued presence”, Romney had none.

Grand new programs are unlikely. Romney has been a lifelong businessman. In his approach to running the state of Massachusetts, Romney was dubbed the commonwealth’s first “CEO Governor”. The country is in a slow recovery from a brutal recession. Much of the focus is now on what the country can or cannot retain or sustain, and not what can be added. In fact, some have suggested that the Democratic clarion call, which was once “yes we can” has become “no you won’t” (cut programs). Equally significant, transcendent is just not part of Romney’s hope profile. His “hope for mastery” is built on planning and collaborating, not operating as a visionary. Romney’s spirituality is framed around a sense of continued presence, not support for higher goals.

Major cuts are very likely. When Romney took over in Massachusetts, the state was facing a deficit of more than a billion dollars. Forced by state law to balance the budget, Romney made deep cuts in Medicaid, Education, and other state office payrolls. If he were elected president, he would similarly face a large deficit, concerns about sustaining entitlement programs, funding the military, and the nation’s ambivalence towards healthcare reform. Again, Romney’s “hope for survival” is based on resilience, not protection or fear reduction. His spirituality is grounded in presence, not reducing anxiety. I would expect major cuts in Medicaid and Medicare, and challenges to social security as well as attempts to significantly pare down Obamacare. However, I would also be surprised if Romney increased military spending as he has suggested. I sense that his focus on resilience and “inner strength” might lead him away from expenditures to sustain “strength abroad” and a greater interest in internal national security.

Anthony Scioli is Professor of Clinical Psychology at Keene State College. He is the co-author of Hope in the Age of Anxiety with Henry Biller. Dr. Scioli completed Harvard fellowships in human motivation and behavioral medicine. He co-authored the chapter on emotion for the Encyclopedia of Mental Health and currently serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Positive Psychology and the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality.

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Image credit: Barack Obama “Hope” poster by Shepard Fairey (via Wikimedia Commons) used for the purposes of illustration.