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In memoriam: Nelson Mandela

By Kenneth S. Broun

Nelson Mandela began his 27-year prison term in 1962, when he was convicted of illegally leaving the country and inciting workers to strike. He was brought back from his Robben Island imprisonment to face far more serious charges in 1963 under South Africa’s Sabotage Act. This time he could face the death penalty. His trial was to become known as the Rivonia trial, named for the Johannesburg suburb where most of the other nine defendants had been arrested.

The evidence against him at the Rivonia trial was overwhelming. A raid on the headquarters of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the militant organization formed the by leadership of the African National Congress (ANC) and the Communist Party of South Africa had yielded a treasure trove of incriminating documents – some of which were in Mandela’s handwriting.

Despite the fact that there had been no deaths or injuries as result of the any of the Rivonia defendants’ actions or plans, a death sentence was a real possibility. Indeed, when the trial began in October 1963, most observers, both within South Africa and abroad, expected Mandela and the other principal leaders to be hanged.

The fact that the Rivonia trial ended in life sentences for Mandela and other leaders rather than death was a result of a combination of factors. Superb advocacy on the part of the defense team led by the brilliant Afrikaner advocate Bram Fischer played a major role. It may also be that the South African government came to believe that, in light of international opinion, a life sentence would serve its needs better than death.

One cannot discount the role that Mandela himself played in the trial. In an over four-hour speech to the court, Mandela essentially admitted the actions that were the basis of the charges against him. But, in addition, he gave a brilliant exposition of the reasons why the government’s actions had left him no choice other than militancy. Rather than seeking black power, he told the court that what was seeking was a nation in which no racial group was dominant. His struggle and that of the ANC was for the “right to live.”

He ended his speech:

“During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African People. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for, and see realized. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

Nelson Mandela has now left us. But his legacy remains important for South Africa and for the world. The fact that he was alive to walk out of prison to assume a leadership role in the largely peaceful transition from the oppression of apartheid to a struggling but viable democracy was enormous bonus to us all.

Nelson Mandela’s intellect, sturdy leadership and political savvy were crucial to the process that brought a peaceful end to apartheid. But negotiation skills were not the only contributions that this extraordinary man brought to the country that had treated him so harshly. As president of the newly constituted Republic, he healed the wide racial divisions to an extent that few had though possible. Mandela worked not only to assure that the black people of the nation would achieve their political rights but also – as much as was possible given the history of the country – to convince the white population that they were still very much a part of the nation.

Mandela set the tone in his inaugural address, telling the nation: “We enter into a covenant that we shall build a society in which all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall, without any fear in their hearts, assured of their inalienable right to human dignity – a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.”

In Nelson Mandela’s passing, the world has lost one of its greatest leaders. We can only hope that the example of his life and his message will guide us all in the future.

Kenneth S. Broun, Henry Brandis Professor of Law Emeritus, University of North Carolina School of Law. Broun is the author of Saving Nelson Mandela: The Rivonia Trial and the Fate of South Africa (Oxford Univ. Press 2012).

Image credit: Johannesburg, South Africa – February 13, 1990 : Former South African President Nelson Mandela, shows the freedom salute after his release from prison. © ruvanboshoff via iStockphoto.

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Ancient Syria: trouble-prone and politically volatile

By Trevor Bryce

I have long been fascinated with Syria. Like other Middle Eastern regions, it has many layers of civilization and has seen many conquerors and raiders tramp and gallop through its lands over the centuries. That of course has been the fate of lots of countries, ancient and modern. But there is something quite distinctive about Syria. It has often been called the crossroads of the ancient Near East, because through it passed some of the most important routes that linked Mesopotamia and lands further east with the land of the Nile, and the lands of the Mediterranean and the western world beyond it. That helps account for the rich cultural melting pot that Syria became, clearly reflected in its archaeological remains as well as in its written records. It also accounts for the wealth and affluence that characterized many regions and cities of Syria throughout its history. The downside of all this is that Syria provided killing grounds and plunder houses for many rapacious outsiders. Their quest was often not only for booty and plunder. Syria was strategically important. If you wanted to be a Great King in the Near Eastern world, you had to have control of Syria, or at least a good deal of it. That’s why so much of Syria’s history has to do with outsiders who fought one another for control of it, like Hittites and Egyptians and Assyrians and Babylonians and Persians and Macedonians and Romans. Syria suffered at least as much as it benefited from its international intruders.

When I visited the country several years ago, its modern cities, its museums, its ancient sites, I became deeply impressed, more than ever before, by the wonderful cultural heritage produced by a blend of so many diverse civilizations and passed on from the ancient to the modern land. We should never lose sight of this, especially in the midst of the country’s present tragedies. In asking the question why Syria is suffering so much today, we are inevitably led back into the region’s past. Was it always like this?

Palmyra Grand Colonnade. Photo by Trevor Bryce. Used with permission.

We can perhaps begin Syria’s story with the early appearance of writing there, some four and a half thousand years ago, in the palace archives of the northern Syrian city Ebla (about 2400 BC). (Of course, Syria’s archaeological remains go back much earlier than this.) Our written records provide us with many stories from ancient Syria, which can be woven into a continuous narrative extending from the Bronze Age to the late Roman empire, and indeed well beyond this. Hittites, Babylonians, Assyrians, Egyptians, Persians, Macedonians, and Romans all played their part in Syria’s history. Ancient Syria produced luminaries of its own, most notably, perhaps, Zenobia, ruler of the city of Palmyra, and for a brief time the most formidable challenger of the might of Rome. But all too briefly. Syria’s story can be seen as a kind of morality tale. For so often it serves to highlight the absurdity of human pretensions and ultimately the pointlessness of the lust for power which abruptly and violently ended the careers and lives of many who sought to impose their control upon the land. Almost inevitably, a historical narrative of ancient Syria (as this is) focuses on the ‘big people’ of the Syrian world and the outsiders who sought to control this world — the kings, the military leaders, the lords and princes, the usurpers, the elite bureaucrats — for it is with them that our written records are mostly concerned. Alas, we know little about the common people who formed the great bulk of this world’s populations, the people who produced many of its artistic masterpieces and generated much of its wealth – and who so often became the victims of those who ruled over them and plundered their possessions.

Syria has long been one of the most trouble-prone and politically volatile regions of the Near and Middle Eastern world. Can we learn from its history anything at all about what is happening now in the country? Answers to this question remain elusive. But it has to be said that history is not on the side of Syria’s ever being a land that will be allowed to live in peace. Outside forces have too much vested interest in it to let it be so. That at least, sadly, is one lesson its history does teach us.

Trevor Bryce is Honorary Professor and Research Consultant, University of Queensland and Emeritus Professor of the University of New England (Australia). He is the author of Ancient Syria: A Three Thousand Year History. He has held the posts of Professor of Classics and Ancient History, University of England, and Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Lincoln University (New Zealand), and fellowships and scholarships at various other institutions, including at Oxford, Princeton, Canberra, and Sydney. He  is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and a recipient of an Australian Centenary medal for services to history. He has specialized in the history and civilization of the ancient Near East, and has published many books and articles in this field.

The Oxford Atlas Place of the Year 2013 is Syria. The Oxford Atlas Place of the Year is a location — from street corners to planets — around the globe (and beyond) which has attracted a great deal of interest during the year to date and judged to reflect the important discoveries, conflicts, challenges, and successes of that particular year. Learn more about Place of the Year on the OUPblog.

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And the Grammy goes to…

Every year, musicians, artists, and producers come together to be recognized and honored for their work at the Grammy Awards. The Grammy awards began as an effort to recognize the musical talent neglected by shows like the Oscar’s and Emmy’s and has since transformed into the music industry’s most anticipated event.

As we draw closer to the Grammy nominations tomorrow, artists from all different genres patiently await a selection. With over 82 categories for this year’s ceremony, many will receive one. However, of the 82 categories, four reign supreme: album of the year, song of the year, record of the year, and best new artist. A Grammy in these four general categories is considered to be the highest accolade of the ceremony. While most of us hope to see our favorite artist receive the golden gramophone, how much do we really know about the history behind the event?

Come test your knowledge to see if you are red carpet ready!

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All of these answers and more can be found in Oxford’s latest edition of The Grove Dictionary of American Music. The dictionary’s eight volumes house 9,000 entries on the history, development, and diversity of American music.

The Grove Dictionary of American Music, Second edition is the largest, most comprehensive reference publication on American Music. Twenty-five years ago, the four volumes of the first edition of the dictionary initiated a great expansion in American music scholarship. This second edition reflects the growth in scholarship the first edition initiated.

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Image credit: Miami, FL, USA – August 16, 2012: Grammy Award isolated on white. © Tomas_Mina via iStockphoto.

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Ink, stink, and sweetmeats

By Simon Eliot

All powered printing machines needed an effective means of inking type at speed. In most cases this was done by the use of rollers. The earliest prototypes had been covered with leather but, as a sheet of leather had to be joined to create covering for a cylinder, there was always a sewn seam that did not distribute the ink evenly. By 1814 this problem had been overcome by rollers covered in a ‘composition’ consisting usually of glue, molasses and some carbonate of soda. This created a seamless surface that distributed ink evenly and then provided the main inking system for powered printing machines, until replaced later by rollers made of rubber or synthetic materials. Composite inking rollers for hand inking had been introduced into the Press by 1819, some years before powered printing machines. No doubt the pressmen would have been grateful for their relatively quick adoption not only because they made inking type easier but also because the ink balls which they superseded tended to stink. One writer who had experience of their manufacture described it as one of the ‘nastiest processes imaginable, which converted the room into a stinking cloaca.’ This was no exaggeration, as traditionally the ink balls were soaked in urine overnight to soften the leather.

A kettle used for making “composition”, a mixture of glue and molasses or treacle and later glycerin, which was poured out to make rollers for inking type in letterpress printing.

Later the Press began to manufacture its own rollers which were cast in the ‘Inking Roller Manufactory’ located next to the Stereotype Foundry in the Walton Street printing works. This fact explains a rather Lewis Carroll-like list of items contained in a Bible side trade ledger. On 20 March 1851 it recorded ‘Best Golden Syrup a puncheon 11.10.4’ and another puncheon of golden syrup bought for £8.6.2 in the following October. In January 1856 the Press bought 5 cwt of glue, and ordered another 5 cwt in August of the same year. As late as 1885 there was still a roller making room on the Bible Side with fixtures and fittings worth an estimated £498. This room was sought out by apprentices in search of a treat, of sorts:

‘My duties as an errand-boy took me to all parts of the Bible Side buildings but very rarely to the Learned Side, which was still a thing apart and rather sparsely inhabited. My journeys to the machine-room with proofs led to my discovery of the roller-making room, where it was possible by making a polite request to receive a piece of the trimmings of a new roller. This was made chiefly, I believe, of treacle and glue, and was considered quite good enough to eat when other sweetmeats failed.’

Simon Eliot is Professor of the History of the Book in the Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London. He is general editor of The History of Oxford University Press, and editor of its Volume II 1780-1896.

With access to extensive archives, The History of Oxford University Press s the first complete scholarly history of the Press, detailing its organization, publications, trade, and international development. Read previous blog posts about the history of Oxford University Press.

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Image credit: Derived from an illustration on page 43 of Oscar H. Harpel’s Harpel’s Typograph. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

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Do economists ever get it right?

By George Economides and Thomas Moutos

According to popular belief, economists rarely manage to predict correctly the consequences of important policy actions. Nevertheless, the case of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) is one of those instances which economists did get it right.

Indeed, as far back as 1977, the MacDougall Report to the European Commission concluded that because the European Economic Community budget was very small, “… in present circumstances monetary union is impracticable.” Moreover, many economists on both sides of the Atlantic were cautioning against the planned single currency in the absence of a significant fiscal redistribution facility and/or the ability to run countercyclical fiscal policy.

Nevertheless, the political bandwagon prevailed, and the Delors Report threw caution to the wind and assumed that EMU could proceed without significant increases in the size of the EU budget, which was hovering around 1% of GDP (the 1977 Report was deeming it as necessary that the federal budget be as large as 10% of GDP). The only “concession” to economists’ concerns was the Maastricht Treaty rules imposing limits on government debts and deficits — as encapsulated in the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP).

However, the precedence given to moral-hazard considerations (and the defective way they were applied) over countercyclical fiscal policy — due to the fear that profligate governments would be too keen to run large budget deficits in recessions but very reluctant to run offsetting budget surpluses in booms — proved detrimental. Since the main focus of the SGP was on deficit limits, the resulting reduction (due to the euro) in real interest rates and concomitant boom experienced by some of the ‘periphery’ countries of the Eurozone made it very easy for governments to run (or to claim that they do) budget deficits below the 3% (of GDP) limit. Yet, this semblance of fiscal prudence — when in fact governments should be running budget surpluses — undermined their ability to conduct appropriately expansionary fiscal policy, when the boom ended, without running excessively large budget deficits.

To a large extent the semblance of fiscal prudence was aided by the very large current account deficits which some of the periphery countries were allowed to run during the Euro’s first decade. Although this appears to run counter to the well-known “twin deficits hypothesis” (i.e. that a larger budget deficit leads to a larger current account deficit), the experience of the periphery countries suggests that it is possible the direction of causality to be from a larger current account deficit to a smaller budget deficit.

For the periphery countries, EMU participation facilitated international borrowing at lower interest rates, allowing for a huge deterioration in the current account while the budget deficit improved. The reason is that imports, which become possible through international borrowing, need not fully displace spending on domestically produced goods (they may even increase it!). Moreover, they can create a revenue boon for the government. For example, car imports generate immediate tax revenue (VAT, registration taxes, etc.). They also allow for increases in domestic value added (e.g. services related to sales, advertising, and repairs of automobiles), thus allowing for second-round increases in income tax revenue. In the same vein, foreign loans (intermediated through the domestic banking sector) allowed for housing booms and created unsustainable increases in tax revenue.

The upshot of the above is that cynical governments may “achieve” a seemingly strict adherence to the SGP limits on budget deficits (they may even run budget surpluses as Spain and Ireland did), for some years, by running current account deficits; however, once foreign capital dries out the lack of fiscal space for countercyclical fiscal policy becomes evident. With the benefit of hindsight we know that the SGP provided the wrong signals about the exercise of countercyclical fiscal policy. It also failed to provide a replacement for the lack of market discipline. The moral is that the warnings of economists about the ability of the SGP to provide a framework for “monetary and fiscal stability” should have been heeded.

George Economides and Thomas Moutos, Guest Editors of the CESifo Economic Studies Special Issue on ‘EMU: The Way Forward’, are Professors of Economics in the Department of International and European Economic Studies, Athens University of Economics and Business, and CESifo Research Fellows.

CESifo Economic Studies publishes provocative, high-quality papers in economics, with a particular focus on policy issues. Papers by leading academics are written for a wide and global audience, including those in government, business, and academia. The journal combines theory and empirical research in a style accessible to economists across all specialisations.

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Image credit: Close-up of a two euro coin. By antos777, via iStockphoto.

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Beer, a perennial potion

Perhaps the first photograph of men drinking beer, circa 1844 in Scotland

What do you really know about beer, the third most popular drink in the world (after water and tea)? We all know whether we like it or not, and which brand is our favorite brew, but do you know all there is to know about the drink? Try your luck with our quiz below from facts and figures pulled from The Oxford Companion to Beer!

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On 4 December 2013, starting at 9:00 a.m. EST, Oxford University Press USA is giving away seven copies of The Oxford Companion to Beer to residents of the United States, 21 years of age and older. The contest ends on 5 December 2013 at 11:59pm EST. Visit the link for entry details.

Garrett Oliver is the Editor-in-chief of the Oxford Companion to Beer, Brewmaster of the Brooklyn Brewery and author of The Brewmaster’s Table: Discovering the Pleasures of Real Beer with Real Food. He has won many awards for his beers, is a frequent judge for international beer competitions, and has made numerous radio and television appearances as a spokesperson for craft brewing. read our previous Oxford Companion to Beer blog posts.

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Image credit: Edinburgh Ale by Hill & Adamson c. 1844 via Wikimedia Commons.

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From the infancy of etymology

By Anatoly Liberman

Someone who today seeks reliable information on the origin of English words will, naturally, consult some recent dictionary. However, not too rarely this information is insufficient and even wrong (rejected opinions may be presented there as reliable). To make matters worse, most entries are too short and dogmatic, so that the user gets no idea of the complexity of the problem. An inquisitive student of etymology will also be puzzled to find contradictory answers in different “thick” dictionaries or disappointed to be dismissed with the answer: “Origin unknown.” (How is that? Aren’t etymologists paid to “know” the answers? Don’t worry: etymologists are not paid for anything these days.) Old dictionaries are, of course, even less reliable, for the basic facts with which we work had not been discovered, but to those of us who enjoy tracing researchers’ way to the truth, or even half-truths, as much as learning an evasive thing called truth, early works on word origins are a source of great enjoyment. Also, as I have often noted, among fanciful hypotheses and wild conjectures one sometimes finds an ingenious thought and even a clue to a better solution than the ones recognized at present.

Thousands of words occurring in dialects have never been discussed, partly because few etymologists have enough time to deal with such obscure stuff, partly because they have nothing to say about it. But the authors of regional dictionaries care for nothing else. They want to preserve the disappearing vocabulary of their regions, and there have always been publishers, probably also motivated by local patriotism, who risked bringing out such unprofitable books. One of such books was The Dialect of Craven, in the West-Riding of the County of York, with a Copious Glossary… by a Native of Craven. (London: Printed for Wm. Crofts… and Robinson and Hernaman, Leeds, 1828.) This is the second edition and the only one I have read from cover to cover. As we can see, the author preferred to remain anonymous, but his name (William Carr) is known.

Craven, Yorkshire: A place to crave for.

Carr was a learned man and knew all the relevant compendia: the dictionaries by Minsheu, Skinner, Junius, Horne Tooke, Jamieson, Nares, and Thompson, and especially Todd’s edition of Samuel Johnson. Once he says proudly that Todd honored him by accepting his suggestions. In the mean and jealous world of scholarship, references have always been hard currency. Below I will quote several of Carr’s explanations, for our readers to get an idea of the state of the art approximately two hundred years ago. (The capitalization and punctuation are his.)

“BALDERDASH. Trifling or obscene language. I cannot assent to the etymon of this word given by Dr. Johnson. A[nglo]-S[axon] bald and dash; that of Dr. Jamieson appears much more probable from the Isl. [= Icelandic] balldur, the prating of fools. A bilder [sic] is an instrument in common use in Craven. It is a mallet with a long handle, used by the peasants to break clods of earth. Hence balderdash may with propriety be called dirt spread by the bilder, alias bilder-dasher. Mr. Todd, in his second edition of Johnson, derives it from Welsh balddardhy, talkative.”

The origin of balderdash has never been discovered: see my post of 15 February 2012. Skeat looked favorably on the Scandinavian connection, but Murray did not. I know a good deal about the plant bilder ~ bilders but have no material on bilder “mallet.” Carr’s etymology is unlikely. Yet it is not worse than many others.

BARREN. Alas, barren is not related to bare. Moreover, it is not related to any attested word. English took it over from Anglo-French (Modern French bréhaigne), as Todd already knew. Conjectures on this enigmatic adjective abound. Perhaps bar-, a prefix with a pejorative meaning, existed once. Or barren might be a pre-Romance word, but the Breton correspondence is a loan from French.

“With humble submission to such great authorities [Johnson, Todd, and Tooke], may I be allowed to conjecture, that the old French word brahaigne, so nearly corresponding with our own word barren, may have originally been derived from the Saxon or Teutonic and that both the French and the aboriginal Britons may have retained an imperfect knowledge of the language imposed upon them by the Saxon conquerors.—Thus the Saxon word unberende [“sterile”] may have lost its prefix or first syllable by aphæresis….”

Though not an ideal solution, it is not a bit worse than many others in circulation. Almost all dictionaries say: “Origin unknown/origine inconnue.” (Aphaeresis: the loss of one or more sounds at the beginning of a word.)

GOSSAMER. Carr refers to “the great Dr. Johnson,” “the learned Mr. Todd,” “Mr. Archdeacon Nares,” and others, none of whom could come up with a good etymology.

“This is a very convincing proof of the great advantages derived from a collection of local words, towards the elucidation of language, and the improvement of lexicology. The true etymon of this word, which has not been extracted by the united lucubrations of so many learned and ingenious men, is obvious to many illiterate peasants in Craven.—This down or rather exhalation is well known by the name of summer-goose, or summer-gauze, hence ‘gauze o’th’summer’, gauzamer alias Gossamer.”

We needn’t glorify the antiquity of rural speech or the wisdom of illiterate peasants, but in this case Carr may have been right: gossamer seems to mean what he suspected. Murray agreed with the proposed derivation without enthusiasm, for gossamer resembles many similar names in other languages that have nothing to do with geese but mean the same (the spider’s fine threads). The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology: “…the allusion is obscure, and is not cleared up by the synonym[ous] Continental forms.” Skeat: “The provincial name (in Craven) is summer-goose. Named from the time of year when it is most seen, viz. during St. Martin’s summer (nearly November); geese were eaten on November 11 formerly.” Since, according to legend, geese betrayed St. Martin when he was hiding in a goose pen, it is only fair that they should be eaten in the holy man’s honor.

LIKE. Many learned men, as Carr would put it, discussed the ubiquitous like (“I can, like, come tomorrow,” and the like), but their “lucubrations” failed “to extract” a convincing result: some people despise this usage, while others defend and even extol its subtle modality. Carr glosses like as “probably” and calls it a mere expletive (expletive means “redundant,” not what we all understand when somebody’s speech is reproduced with the “expletive deleted”; also, Carr must have stressed this adjective on the second syllable, as most British speakers still do). He quoted Burns: “I am nae a poet in a sense/ But just a rhymer, like, by chance,” along with a few other authors. To him like “probably” was a feature of dialectal (he said: dialectical) speech. Now it is the stumbling Standard.

“WALL-EEN, white or grey eyes. Belgian [that is, Dutch] walcken, to blanch [that is, walken “to full, work felt,” rather than “blanch”]. The etymology of this word is not satisfactory either in Skinner, Johnson, or Nares. Skinner supposes that they resemble the eyes of a whale…. I think it is more likely to be derived from the Welsh gwawl, light; hence gwawl-een, light eyes.”

Many teeth and great “een” but no wall

Carr reminded his readers of Shakespeare’s wall-eyed wrath and continued: “It frequently happens that when a person is in an extreme passion, a large portion of the white of the eye is visible. This confirms the propriety and force of the above expression.” Shakespeare’s contemporaries, with their theory of humors, used to pair colors and emotions (compare Iago’s green-eyed jealousy), so that perhaps white-eyed wrath has no connection with the physical appearance of a man in white heat, but Carr’s explanation is clever, and so is his rejection of wall-eyed as a variant of whale-eyed. He could not have guessed that wall- in wall-eyed is a folk etymological alteration of Old Norse valg- “film over the eye.”

People who garble foreign words to make them understandable are not bothered by the fact that walleyes have no wall over their eyes or that walnuts do not grow on walls. My goal was to celebrate the achievement of a dedicated student of local speech, whose attention to detail, knowledge of the sources, and common sense make his book written so long ago still worthy of our attention. I wish our books would retain their value by 2214.

Anatoly Liberman is the author of Word Origins And How We Know Them as well as An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology: An Introduction. His column on word origins, The Oxford Etymologist, appears on the OUPblog each Wednesday. Send your etymology question to him care of blog@oup.com; he’ll do his best to avoid responding with “origin unknown.” Subscribe to Anatoly Liberman’s weekly etymology posts via email or RSS.

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Image credits: (1) Bridge over catchwater. One of the several access bridges over the Thornton Moor Reservoir catchwater that runs through this square. Photo by Steven Craven, 21 October 2007. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license via geograph.org.uk. (2) pike with an open mouth on an isolated white background. © Curaga via iStockphoto.

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Seven facts of Syria’s displacement crisis

Syria is Oxford University Press’s Place of the Year, and to call attention to the crisis of the displacement of its people by the civil war, Khalid Koser discusses seven facts about the issue, and how it is changing the country as a whole.

By Khalid Koser

Conflicts and crises regularly force people to flee their homes; and the plight of the displaced is often overlooked. In the case of Syria, however, displacement is not simply an unfortunate side-effect. Its massive volume threatens to render the country unsustainable for generations; its ramifications are destabilizing the region and also reaching into Europe; and finding solutions for the displaced has become an integral component of achieving lasting peace in Syria. Understanding and raising awareness of the scale and complexity of Syria’s displacement crisis is the first step towards resolving it.

1. About 2.2 million Syrians have fled their country, making Syria the second largest origin country for refugees in the world after Afghanistan. Almost 1,000 days into the crisis the refugees continue to flee: between November 15 and 22 alone about 18,000 Syrians fled to Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.

2. Besides Lebanon, most Syrian refugees are currently in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and Turkey. It is worth remembering that Egypt only recently underwent a revolution; that Iraq remains a chronically unstable state; and that Jordan already hosted almost two million Palestinian refugees before the arrival of the Syrians.

3. An issue of particular concern is the welfare of Syrian refugee children. It is estimated that there may be as many as one million children among the Syrian refugees. In Jordan and Lebanon there are 70,000 refugee families without fathers, and 3,700 children separated from both parents. In Jordan half of all school-aged Syrian children are not in school; and the same is true for 200,000 Syrian children in Lebanon.

4. An increasing number of Syrians are also making their way by sea and land to Europe. About 50,000 Syrians have applied for asylum in the European Union during the last two years; mainly in traditional countries of destination like Germany and Sweden, but also in countries unaccustomed to dealing with asylum seekers like Bulgaria. On 11 October 2013, over 200 Syrians drowned when their boat capsized off the coast of Malta.

5. A recent report in the Lancet has also raised the spectre that Europe — as well as countries that neighbor Syria — may be affected by the polio outbreak in Syria, if refugees carrying the virus arrive in countries with low vaccination coverage. This would jeopardize a global campaign that has virtually eradicated the disease.

6. In addition to those who have fled Syria, it is estimated that as many as 6.5 million Syrians have been displaced inside their country. Internally displaced persons are often especially vulnerable. They are still in the conflict zone. They cannot easily be accessed by the international community. There is no UN agency with a mandate to protect or assist them.

7. To add to the complexity, Syria also hosts refugees. There are about 500,000 Palestinian refugees in Syria. Estimates of the number of Iraqi refugees there vary from 60,000 to 470,000. Incidences of murder and kidnapping of refugees in Syria have been reported, and many face intimidation and the threat of violence. Especially for urban refugees living in Damascus, it has become harder to find or keep a job, pay rising rents, or cope with the increasing prices of basic necessities. Some Iraqis are now returning home as they consider life in Iraq to be less risky than in Syria. About 50,000 Palestinians have also fled Syria.

In total, about one in three Syrians has left their homes during the last three years. An immediate priority is humanitarian assistance, especially as winter approaches; but even with significant international will, delivering assistance will be difficult especially to people displaced inside the Syrian conflict. In the medium-term, Syrian refugees will place enormous pressure on resources — and patience — in neighboring countries, and these countries need to be supported in their efforts to receive and sustain refugee populations. In the longer term, of course what is required is a resolution to the Syrian conflict. But history demonstrates that even after conflict, it may be years before the displaced to go home.

Khalid Koser is Deputy Director and Academic Dean at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy and Non-Resident Senior Fellow to the Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement. He is the author of International Migration: A Very Short Introduction.

The Oxford Atlas Place of the Year 2013 is Syria. The Oxford Atlas Place of the Year is a location — from street corners to planets — around the globe (and beyond) which has attracted a great deal of interest during the year to date and judged to reflect the important discoveries, conflicts, challenges, and successes of that particular year. Learn more about Place of the Year on the OUPblog.

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Image Credit: Azaz, Syria during the Syrian civil war. Displacement after aerial bombardment, 3 September 2012. Voice of America News: Scott Bobb reports from Azaz, Syria. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons. 

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The movies and biblical epics of Cecil B. DeMille

By William D. Romanowski

The 4th of December marks the 90th anniversary of the premiere of Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1923). A silent film, this was the first in a trilogy by the famed director that established the conventions for Bible-themed movies: religion, sex, violence, and cinematic spectacle (and not necessarily in that order).

A devout Episcopalian and Bible literalist, DeMille was also a consummate Hollywood showman with a keen sense of audience desires. His bedroom melodramas, like Old Wives for New (1918) and Don’t Change Your Husband (1919), were scandalous and enormously profitable, voyeuristic in style, while still cautionary in theme. DeMille made the best of Hollywood’s principle of “compensating moral values,” which the studios took as liberty to “present six reels of ticket-selling sinfulness if,” as film historian Author Knight put it, “in the seventh reel, all the sinners came to a bad end.” In The Ten Commandments, DeMille shows Moses receiving the Ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai while the Israelites go off in a drunken orgiastic feast around the Golden Calf below.

Hoping for even bigger box-office returns DeMille announced plans in 1926 to make an epic film on the life Christ—or maybe Judas Iscariot. It wasn’t entirely clear who the central figure would be, but the original scenario was classic DeMille: a religious extravaganza on the life of Christ interlaced with a steamy love affair between Mary Magdalene and Judas Iscariot. “It is not possible to produce a great and successful film dealing with historic characters and not have a love-interest,” he explained to a church adviser during script preparation for The King of Kings.

To boost commercial prospects and fend off religious criticism, DeMille utilized high-profile Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish advisers in the production, including Father Daniel A. Lord, who would later write the rationale for the 1930 Production Code. The Protestant adviser, Rev. George Reid Andrews, actually worked on the scenario with DeMille’s writers and afterwards helped promote The King of Kings among Protestant constituencies. By Andrews’ account the shooting script differed “radically” from DeMille’s original treatment with the final result a synthesis of the director’s “fine dramatic sense” and “the constructive criticism” from the religious advisers.

After a sensational Broadway premiere on Good Friday, 1927, Variety lauded The King of Kings as “the greatest picture ever produced” and predicted it would become the top-grossing movie of all time. Jewish leaders were less enthusiastic however, and advised DeMille to change references to Jews that might foster anti-Semitism. The religious consultants failed to prevent controversy and criticism, and with a lagging box office dampened future prospects for collaborating on Bible-themed movies.

Scene from Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments, Photographs of the filming of Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments, PC-RM-Curtis, courtesy, California Historical Society, PC-RM-Curtis_416. Fair use via Wikimedia Commons.

DeMille returned to high society dramas like The Godless Girl (1929) and Madam Satan (1930), before making The Sign of the Cross (1932), a love story set against the backdrop of Roman Emperor Nero sentencing Christians to their death in the coliseum. This time DeMille ignored religious guidance. The film featured a wild Roman orgy replete with a provocative “lesbian dance,” and contained scenes so violent that women reportedly fainted during the New York premiere, according to film historian Gregory Black. Variety warned that the film contained some of the “boldest censor-bait ever attempted” and was sure this Biblical spectacle would “make the church element dizzy trying to figure which way to turn.” Indeed, a prominent bishop cited The Sign of the Cross as evidence of the need for Catholic action to eliminate the “vile and nauseating” movies produced by Hollywood studios.

The course of movie regulation is intertwined to some extent with DeMille’s Bible-based trilogy. The Ten Commandments sparked expectations among religious leaders for extensive cooperation with Hollywood in producing entertainment that would promote the message and work of the church. Instead, The King of Kings was at the center of a confluence of events that resulted in a breach in Protestant-Hollywood relations and set the stage for the 1930 Production Code. The studio alliance with Catholics occurred as a direct result of a failure of confidence in the film industry’s Protestant leadership, and disagreement among Protestants over goals and priorities. The Sign of the Cross controversy was among the factors that led to the formation of the Catholic Legion of Decency; its purpose was to put consumer pressure on the studios in order to shore up their adherence to the Production Code. This action would eventually lead to the empowerment of Catholics in a prior censorship of movies that lasted until the 1960s, the decade that marks the end of the biblical spectacles.

Controversies surrounding Bible-themed movies still erupt periodically in what seem like arbitrary and unprecedented crises that get sensationalized by the film industry and religious groups alike. In retrospect, the trend includes a number of key movies that serve as flashpoints in American film history by signaling shifts in the persistent role of religious groups as both moral arbiter and market force in their engagement with the Hollywood.

William Romanowski is Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at Calvin College. His books include Eyes Wide Open: Looking for God in Popular Culture (a 2002 ECPA Gold Medallion Award Winner), Pop Culture Wars: Religion and the Role of Entertainment in America Life, and Reforming Hollywood: How American Protestants Fought for Freedom at the Movies.

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The gold standard and the world economy [infographic]

By Richard S. Grossman

Britain operated under the gold standard for nearly 100 years before World War I forced Britain — and many other countries — to abandon it. During that century, Britain was the world’s military, financial, and industrial superpower. When Britain decided to return to gold in 1925, in hopes of reestablishing its pre-war dominance, it set of a rush among other countries to follow its example. But the interwar gold standard was doomed from the start: exchange rates were misaligned, gold holdings were inadequate and poorly distributed, and countries were powerless to use monetary policy to improve economic performance. When the Great Depression emerged in 1929-30, the gold standard played a crucial role in transmitting the shock internationally, amplifying its effects, and making it harder for policy makers to find a way out. The following infographic illustrates one way in which the gold standard had a disastrous effect on the British economy.

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Richard S. Grossman is Professor of Economics at Wesleyan University and a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University. He is the author of WRONG: Nine Economic Policy Disasters and What We Can Learn from Them and Unsettled Account: The Evolution of Banking in the Industrialized World since 1800. Read his previous blog posts about economics.

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