Category: History

In ‘Dry Storeroom No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum,’ author/paleontologist Richard Fortey takes readers into the inner sanctum of one of the world’s most remarkable collections of natural-history specimens, tended to by a dedicated corps of eccentric scientists who investigate its mysteries.

‘Dry Storeroom No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum’

by Richard Fortey

Knopf, 352 pp., $27.50

Millions of visitors pour through the doors of London’s Natural History Museum every year, and for good reason. The museum houses one of the most complete and remarkable collections of natural history in the world, collected (or donated) by generations of intrepid, pith-helmeted British explorers throughout the world.

But few will have the opportunity to go behind the exhibit halls, to the cramped and dusty offices, filled with quirky scientists passionately devoting their lives to the study of our natural history. In “Dry Storeroom No. 1” Richard Fortey, an expert in trilobites (small extinct anthropoids with an extensive fossil record) who devoted his career to the museum, takes us on a fascinating tour through this unseen world of scientists with a focus on the most arcane details of the natural world.

At the London museum, only a tiny fraction of the actual collections are on display. While casual visitors may be forgiven for mistaking the visible display cases for the entire museum, in fact the “real” museum is locked away behind the door, where millions of specimens are methodically described, named, cataloged and preserved.

There are five working departments: paleontology, mineralogy, zoology, botany and entomology. In each, teams of devoted scientists collect, analyze, describe and preserve specimen examples, cataloging the stunning diversity of life on Earth, the vast bulk of which has not even been identified, much less named.

Fortey points out, for example, that no less than one fifth of all species on Earth are beetles, yet only a half million species of beetles have been identified and named so far, leaving a staggering volume of life yet uncataloged, described or even named. (As J.B.S. Haldane famously remarked, whatever else one might say about God, he or she surely appears to have “an inordinate fondness for beetles.”) The museum’s insect collection alone has grown from 2.2 million specimens in 1912 to 80 million today.

But as obscure as the thankless task of cataloging the variations of vole teeth, beetles or fungus gnats might seem, the fruits of that research are far from purely academic. Fortey notes that when Florida’s lucrative orange crop was threatened by an infestation of white flies from Trinidad, entomologists were able to identify a parasitic wasp with a special appetite for this specific white fly. The wasp was bred in vast numbers by the University of Florida, and the knowledge of this obscure branch of the insect world protected a critical resource from destruction.

Similarly, a parasitic encyrtid wasp from Paraguay was used to destroy a mealy bug that threatened the cassava crop, a critical carbohydrate staple crop in much of the Third World. As Fortey dryly notes, “there is an inherent value in having people who ‘know their stuff.’ ” Knowledge of the Paraguay wasp undoubtedly saved thousands from starvation.

The museum is, without doubt, a cathedral to Charles Darwin and his enormous contributions to the understanding of evolution and the natural world. Fortey dismisses as absurd the suggestion that evolution is a mere “theory” subject to a creationist critique: “So overwhelming is the evidence for evolution by descent that one could say that it is as secure as the fact that the Earth goes around the sun and not the other way.” But rather than waste the time or energy to debate the point, Fortey instead focuses his attention on the fossil record, which speaks for itself.

Fortey brings to life not only the science but the quirky scientists, their midnight trysts (who knew?) and personal quirks. Peter Whitehead, the museum’s specialist in clupeoid fish (including herring and anchovies), not only published the encyclopedic 600-page “Clupeoid Fishes of the World” but was infamous for his affairs with younger female staff members. He commuted to the museum every day from Oxford and “always claimed to be able to fix up a date with any attractive waitress by the time he reached Paddington Station.”



Curiously, Whitehead discovered a lost Mozart manuscript while searching for a 16th-century work on Brazilian herring. As Fortey notes, “it is surprising where the pursuit of herrings can lead.” Whitehead left the museum in the early 1990s and vanished in Mexico; when his wife tried to search his office for incriminating evidence of his affairs, she found herself locked out by the museum staff.

Fortey compares the scientists to the object of their study – noting his own increasing resemblance of a tribolite as he gained weight, or how fellow scientist Gordon Corbett (a small-mammal expert) had a hesitant manner and nervous way of speaking, resembling small voles, who pause momentarily, whiskers twitching. The author balances academic rigor with entertaining detail – with an ample measure of dry British wit – along with a capable working history of the stewardship of the British museum system.

The London Natural History Museum, like every other modern institution, has undergone significant changes in the modern era. No longer a bastion of civil servants with an untouchable budget, a more modern administration has changed the culture of the museum to be more consumer friendly; but its rich legacy remains an endowment and critical resource in understanding the world around us.

‘Death in the Pot: The Impact of Food Poisoning on History’

by Morton Satin

Prometheus Books, 262 pp., $24

Food provides far more than nourishment. It defines culture, builds empires, feeds armies and, with equal potency, can destroy all that it built. Poisoned or spoiled food has profoundly influenced the course of human history. From the Peloponnesian War (likely lost by Athens at least in part as a result of contaminated or spoiled cereal stocks) to the death of Beethoven (lead poisoning), food poisoning has changed history in significant and memorable ways.

In “Death In The Pot,” Morton Satin, a molecular biologist and technical director at the Salt Institute, provides an interesting and quirky survey of the baneful impact of adulterated food supplies on history. Illnesses from contaminated foods through the middle ages were typically attributed to heavenly retribution for Earthly misconduct or blasphemy. In fact, however, the more likely cause was poorly maintained food supplies.

Hallucinogenic symptoms of moldy grain in early American colonies were considered by Puritan settlers to be signs of witchcraft. Even today, E. coli outbreaks make the most innocent-looking hamburger seem like a lurking menace, and once seemingly healthy seafood can in fact be loaded with food dye or threatening levels of mercury. It’s a sad day when the “fish on Friday” rule requires a blood test for toxicity.

Satin’s effort could have provided a springboard for a thoughtful survey of food safety throughout history, or perhaps proposals to avoid threats to the food supply, topics with urgent relevance to our own times. Unfortunately, though, Satin’s work fails to live up to its promise. It is poorly written, often stitching together short essays on discreet topics with abrupt transitions. But more fundamentally, much of the research seems incomplete or inconclusive.

Of course, forensic analysis hundreds, or thousands, of years after the fact must necessarily depend on a certain degree of speculation. But even with respect to more recent events (E. coli outbreaks, or intentional food contamination in the 1970s), Satin seems content to rely on information that is readily available rather than engage in any sort of serious analysis. As food for thought, “Death In The Pot” is meager gruel.

“Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World”

Anthony Doerr

Scribner, 224 pp., $24)

Anthony Doerr is a lucky man. Returning from the Boise hospital where Shauna, his wife, had just given birth to twin boys, he opens the mail to find that he has won a prestigious award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters providing him with an apartment in Rome for a year, a studio in which to write anything he wishes, and a living stipend to help pay for it all.

Most people would consider dealing with newborn twins to be more than enough of a challenge for a year. Moving to a foreign country, even one as warm, familiar and welcoming to young families as Italy, would be a daunting challenge all by itself. To move to a foreign country with infant twins would strike most as nearly suicidal.

But Doerr and his young family do exactly that, and “Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World” (Scribner, 224 pp., $24) is his memoir of his year abroad, wandering through Rome’s vibrant streets and learning doorpost-by-doorpost Italian language, history and culture. Doerr, a Boise author who has received numerous awards for his writing, including the O. Henry Prize (twice) and the Outstanding Book of 2003 Award from the American Library Foundation, is the author of “The Shell Collector” and “About Grace.”

Doerr’s writing is warm, colorful and flowing, and his day-by-day memoir brings the essence of Rome alive. Those incredible tomatoes, buttery yet simple sauces, freshly baked focaccia bread, and the smell of roasting pork waft through the pages of this book. To anyone who has spent time in Italy with young children, it only takes a few chapters to bring back to life every smiling little old Italian woman insisting in pinching cheeks and pronouncing “belissima!” To those who have never visited, the book is an introduction to the enrapturing power of Italian food, people and culture.

Of course, travel memoirs cram most bookstore shelves, stacked in drifts as the summer months approach. “A Year in Provence” has spawned a virtual industry of my-year-abroad travelogues. It doesn’t take long to tire of the entire self-serving genre.

But this thin volume skirts the pitfalls that plague so many similar volumes. Doerr’s writing, for one, is rich, vivid and almost worth the effort regardless of the topic. Unlike others who spend weeks, or even months, visiting Italy and return sprinkling their language with Italian, and imagining themselves part Italian, Doerr has no such pretensions. “I know nothing. I lived in Rome four seasons. I never made it through the gates between myself and the Italians. I cannot claim to have become, in even the smallest manner, Roman.” Yet he perceptively describes the cultural differences, at once familiar, fascinating and yet unknowable for most Americans, and the astonishingly transformative power of living abroad and outside of the blaring 24/7 media whirlwind that dominates modern American life.

Doerr, like most new parents, is overwrought about the burdens of new parenthood, and it’s difficult to avoid rolling one’s eyes at his overly dramatic accounts of colic, sleepless nights and crying babies. Similarly, he exaggerates the challenges of navigating an Italian grocery store or communicating everyday needs without speaking Italian. Yes, it can be a challenge, but Rome is hardly a small town, Italian food and culture are hardly unknown to Americans, and English is, like a slow-moving plague, common throughout most of Italy and certainly throughout Rome.

But the sheer warmth and obvious sincerity of Doerr’s writing is enough to overcome these minor obstacles. This book, like a long trip through a warm Italian night, is richly rewarding and well worth the effort.

‘Too Close to the Sun: The Audacious Life and Times of Denys Finch Hatton’

by Sara Wheeler

Random House, 292 pp., $27.95

Denys Finch Hatton lived life on his own terms. Tall and handsome, with a devilishly crooked smile, he was famously irresistible to women and equally unable to commit to any of them. Born into money and the English aristocracy, he refused to conform and instead fled England for the then-largely untracked British East Africa (now Kenya).

His exploits in the African bush would likely have long ago faded into obscurity but for his good fortune to have had affairs with two much more interesting women who, as it turns out, were great writers and chose to immortalize him in “Out of Africa” (Karen Blixen, under the pen name Isak Dinesen) and “West with the Night” (Beryl Markham).

In “Too Close to the Sun,” British author Sara Wheeler laboriously details Finch Hatton’s life and times. He attended Eaton and Oxford, but without enthusiasm (except for golf) and left behind a decidedly mediocre academic record. Rather than conform to the demands of his position or the expectations of British society, he fled instead to British East Africa. He invested in various farming enterprises and devoted most of his time to exploring the Kenyan jungle, ultimately serving as a jungle guide for a variety of wealthy clients.

Finch Hatton secured his place in history through his relationships with Blixen and Markham. Blixen, divorced from an unfaithful spouse, struggled to establish a coffee plantation in the Kenyan bush, “at the foot of the Ngong Hills” as she famously described it in “Out of Africa.” Although Finch Hatton lived with her, he simultaneously had a romantic relationship with Markham, a much younger woman who had been raised on the African plains by her father. Curiously, both women produced critically acclaimed autobiographies featuring, in part, their liaisons with Finch Hatton.

Blixen’s coffee plantation finally failed in 1931, forcing her to leave her cherished Africa. Shortly before Blixen’s tormented departure, Finch Hatton died in a fiery small plane crash in the African bush. Blixen returned to her native Denmark brokenhearted and poured her heart into her writing, producing not only “Out of Africa” but a variety of short stories, including “Babette’s Feast.” She was twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

It is difficult to imagine anyone working up the enthusiasm to devote a full-length biography to Finch Hatton had he not already been featured in two outstanding autobiographies, not to mention a Hollywood movie. But, of course, writing a biography with that sort of competition would be difficult for even the best of writers.

Wheeler’s writing, unfortunately, has all the romance, thrill and excitement of a high-school chemistry textbook. Worse, the book is littered with elliptical historical references, long chapters on Finch Hatton’s genealogy, and random footnotes to insignificant historical controversies over events in his life.

This nearly impenetrable thicket of prose might be worth it if either the subject was worth the effort or the writing even remotely approached the lyricism of either of Finch Hatton’s lovers’ autobiographies. The book, unfortunately, fails on both accounts.

‘Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion and the Battle for America’s Soul’

by Edward Humes

Ecco, 380 pp., $25.95

In Dover, Pa., shortly after the 2004 election, the school board adopted a policy, over the vehement objections of its science teachers, requiring that students be told that evolution is “just a theory” and that alternative scientific explanations exist, including “intelligent design,” a thinly veiled version of creationism. Predictably, the decision was enormously controversial and led to the filing of a lawsuit seeking to invalidate the policy. Far from being dismayed by the litigation, the school board welcomed it and, with volunteer lawyers from a fundamentalist Christian law firm, saw it as an opportunity to validate the teaching of creationism.

Fortunately for the teaching of science, and the separation of church and state, it didn’t turn out that way.

In “Monkey Girl,” Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edward Humes tells the riveting story of how a sleepy Pennsylvania town became the focus for the biggest fight over the teaching of evolution in the public schools since the Scopes Monkey Trial itself. Humes does a terrific job of evenhandedly laying out the history of creationism in America and the 150-year history of intense hostility from Biblical literalists to Darwin’s theory of evolution, virtually the entire field of modern biology, and even the scientific method itself. (Many Christians, of course, find no such inconsistency between Christianity and evolution).

Dover’s embrace of “intelligent design” was encouraged by the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based group that pugnaciously defends the teaching of creationism. The institute crafted an ingenious political “wedge strategy” by boldly asserting that a legitimate controversy exists over evolution, then demanding that schools “teach the controversy” by presenting “both sides” of the debate. What could be wrong with that? Of course, there is no legitimate scientific debate over the basic premise of evolution – it is the very foundation of modern biology, paleontology, and genetics and is amply supported by more than 150 years of scientific research. But the call for including “both sides” was alluring for school board members utterly unfamiliar with either biology or “intelligent design.”

The trial lasted six weeks and was an utter rout of the school board and its ill-conceived policy. Although the board denied their obvious religious motivation, or even using the word “creationism,” the record dramatically undercut them. School board member Bill Buckingham, for example, during board deliberations responded to objections about injecting religion into the classroom by declaring: “Two thousand years ago, someone died on a cross. Can’t someone take a stand now?” Later he commented that “This country was founded on Christianity, and our students should be taught as such.” Though he denied making the statements during the trial, other board members and reporters all confirmed his comments.

By the trial’s end it was clear that “intelligent design” had no foundation in science. Even one of the board’s experts was forced to admit that “intelligent design” could be considered “science” only if one redefined science to include astrology, magic and other supernatural beliefs.

The judge – a Republican appointed by President George W. Bush – was unconvinced by the board’s effort to defend the policy. In fact, he was outraged by the charade, rejecting the board’s policy as unconstitutional and finding that two of the board members had lied under oath. He called the board’s effort “breathtaking inanity.”

Nor were the board members any more successful with the public: The entire pro-“intelligent design” school board was voted out of office.

Humes carefully steps through both the science at the core of the debate and the legal machinations, without getting lost in the detail on either front. His writing is vivid, memorable and engaging, and a welcome breath of common sense in an area dominated by zealots and table pounding.

‘Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power’

by Niall Ferguson

Basic Books, $35

At its height, the British Empire governed nearly a quarter of the world’s population and dominated every ocean on Earth, all from a relatively tiny set of rain-swept islands off the coast of Europe. The British, so goes conventional thinking, settled – and then lost – its American colonies, ruled India, established a prison population in Australia, mapped the depths of Africa and played a key role in perpetuating slavery. The British Empire disintegrated after World War II, unable to muster the will or cash to fund the enterprise, and is now commonly viewed as an anti-democratic exploiter of Third World colonies, one that left ruin in its wake.

In “Empire,” British upstart historian Niall Ferguson begs to differ. Ferguson argues that the British Empire in fact offered incalculable benefits to the world and to its colonies. Ferguson, a Research Fellow at Oxford and a New York University professor, makes no apologies for challenging the politically correct view of the British Empire.

At the outset, Ferguson acknowledges the British Empire’s sins but argues that it in fact exported a great deal that was worthwhile. Democratic principles, the free flow of capital, labor and technology, and stable governments all followed British colonialization. Ferguson argues that British interference with local customs was sometimes warranted, even if imposed from without. Widow burning in India, he writes, should have been outlawed, even if it was a long-settled part of local practice.

In 350 pages, richly illustrated with tables, graphs and maps, Ferguson provides a whirlwind historical tour of the . From English slave traders to South African revolts, from David Livingston’s bushwhacking in Africa to the ungrateful American colonies, he provides a fascinating short course on colonial history complete with pith helmets, red coats and stiff upper lips.

The British imposed a system of government on its colonies that protected private property, imposed a functioning legal system, and provided stable and honest government, allowing the countries to develop within a framework that scarcely would have been possible without direct British intervention. Countries that were once British colonies had a significantly better chance of achieving enduring democratization after independence than those ruled by other countries or left to their own fate.

Ferguson argues that the evidence simply overwhelms any contention that the British Empire impoverished its colonies. In fact, he argues, although many former colonies remain desperately poor, the real disparity has only emerged since they achieved independence from Britain. And the list of the world’s stable democracies reads like a virtual catalog of former British colonies: the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and India, just to name a few.

Ferguson’s writing is engaging, thought-provoking and – at times – frankly outrageous. His condensed history is a challenge to the United States, reminiscent of one issued more than 100 years ago by Rudyard Kipling on the occasion of the Philippine-American war, a demand to the U.S. to shoulder its imperial responsibilities (in rather famously inappropriate language): “Take up the White Man’s Burden, And reap his old reward; The blame of those ye better, the hate of those ye guard… “

Like it or not, he argues, the United States stands alone in the world as a superpower. The United States today is vastly wealthier relative to the rest of the world than Britain ever was; the U.S. economy is larger than that of the next four nations (Japan, Germany, France and Britain) combined. American power already makes it an empire whether it wants the role or not. The American problem, he argues, is its own reluctance to export its people, capital and culture throughout the world to those “backward regions” where, he argues, it is desperately needed and, if ignored, will breed the greatest threats to global security.

Although carefully argued in scholarly prose, Ferguson’s point could hardly be more inflammatory in a world embittered by American unilateral action in Iraq. Most of the European Union, a large segment of the American population and virtually all of the Arab world are rather unlikely to conclude that the world needs more aggressive American intervention rather than less.

And Ferguson fails to address a key point in the debate over America’s foreign policy: whether American power is best exercised through the international institutions that the United States itself created and nurtured through the postwar era or through unilateral military action.

That’s the real argument that today has engaged editorial pages from Paris to Washington, is likely to define the coming election and will shape the coming era as it unfolds. Unfortunately Ferguson, in his rush to draw lessons for the Americans in how to run the world like the British once did, overlooks that debate altogether.

‘La Catastrophe: The Eruption of Mount Pele, the Worst Volcanic Disaster of the 20th Century’

by Alwyn Scarth

Oxford University Press, $22

One hundred years ago, on May 8, 1902, Mount Pel