Booknotes  

A vintage joke book — I recently uncovered a book written in support of Franklin Roosevelt's first campaign for reelection. It's called, unsurprisingly, "I'm for Roosevelt" (Reynal & Hitchcock, 1936). The author opens by demurely stating his reasons for becoming interested enough in politics to write such a book. He says that he has a large family and is concerned with politics because he is concerned with the future well-being of his children. He wishes to be clear on one point: "I have no political ambitions for myself or for my children."

People to whom I have read that sentence express surprise when they learn the author's name. In fact, they start rolling on the floor, the moment they hear it.

The book was written by Joseph P. Kennedy. — Stephen Cox

Outgrowing War — We have just begun a new century with the world's sole superpower engaging in a war of choice, not necessity. It followed a century characterized by two world wars, a protracted Cold War and innumerable local military conflicts. This raises a very good question: is war, with all the attendant destruction, displacement, and economic damage that accompanies it, inevitable in a world populated by human beings?

There's bad news and a hint of hope in Steven A. LeBlanc's "Constant Battles: The Myth of the Peaceful, Noble Savage" (St. Martin's Press, 2003, 256 pages). LeBlanc, an archaeologist at Harvard who has been on digs all over the world, contends that "The common notion of humankind's blissful past, populated with noble savages living in a pristine and peaceful world, is held by those who do not understand our past and who have failed to see the course of human history for what it is."

Rather, LeBlanc says, "wherever I have dug, regardless of time period or place, I have discovered evidence of warfare." China's wall, the Acropolis in Athens, and American southwestern pueblos are all defensive fortifications made desirable by the pervasive threat of organized conflict. Most of the earliest discoveries of proto-human skeletons show evidence of death by weapons. Societies anthropologists have wanted to view as peaceful and in harmony with nature, as in Samoa, have histories, as teased out through archaeological evidence, of warfare that saw 25 percent of adult males killed in battle.

Do human beings have a "war gene"? Not necessarily. LeBlanc, taking us through the earliest humanoids, the early foragers, primitive agricultural societies, more complex civilizations, and the development of the nation-state, argues that the pattern of war has been tied to ecology and resources. As human beings were successful at exploiting their immediate environments, populations grew beyond the carrying capacity of their community, whether village, town, city, region, or nation. So they went in search of more territory, which was often populated by another community, often also looking for more land.

Warfare ensued, often enough involving the slaughter of all the men, women, and children of the losing side. As societies became more complex and sophisticated, so did warfare, with warmaking becoming a specialized profession, culminating in the global-scale battles of the 20th century.

Does this mean, then, that we are doomed to constant warfare? Not necessarily. The Vikings were once the scourge of Europe, but modern Scandinavians are almost ridiculously war-averse. The Hopi are peaceful now though archaeologists have found evidence of brutal warfare in the 1300s. LeBlanc believes that while humans have been selected for aggressiveness, there is no "war gene."

If wars are the result of overexploitation of environments and depletion of resources, some trends offer hope. "The Industrial Revolution dramatically slowed [population] growth rates and increased the world's carrying capacity. . . . Six thousand years ago a Neolithic farmer was lucky to achieve yields of eight bushels of wheat per acre. In Kansas today, farmers get almost eighty bushels per acre."

Unfortunately, "[j]ust as it is often claimed that the generals fight the last war, the politicians in the twentieth century fought wars for old, no longer relevant, reasons." It will take a while longer for mankind to learn that increasing usable resources, through technology and trade, is more efficient than conquest. Maybe this won't happen, of course, but LeBlanc offers plausible reasons to hope. — Alan W. Bock

From Fallingwater to Fountainhead — Frank Lloyd Wright's is a captivating American story. Possibly the best American architect ever, maybe even the greatest ever to practice the craft, he was revered, feted, scorned, and ignored during his long career. Born in 1867, he was dismissed as washed up by 1930. And then in 1934 he got the commission that would forever make his reputation: build a home in the woods for Pittsburgh department store magnate E. J. Kaufmann.

That's the story that art historian Franklin Toker tells in "Fallingwater Rising: Frank Lloyd Wright, E. J. Kaufmann, and America's Most Extraordinary House" (Knopf, 2003, 462 pages). It's not just an architecture book; it's full of fascinating detail on Wright's career, Kaufmann's family and business background, the hype and buzz that made Fallingwater famous, and the house's later years in the hands of Edgar Kaufmann Jr. Toker explores "the hype that sold [Fallingwater]," especially the enthusiasm of Time-Life-Fortune publisher Henry Luce.

Liberty readers may be most interested in Toker's extensive discussion of Ayn Rand's role in making Fallingwater famous. Toker is no fan of Rand. He refers to her "purple prose" and "fanatical" anti-communism. (Presumably he thinks opposition to communism should be moderate and judicious.) But he does write, "Magnified by a movie that reached many times more people than the book, "The Fountainhead" constituted the single most powerful force for the acceptance of modern architecture in this country." Drawing on Rand's published letters and journals, Toker argues that Rand was facing writer's block on "The Fountainhead" until Fallingwater burst on the scene, giving her an architect and a building to fictionalize. One of his specialties is psychological speculation, and he argues that even the name Fountainhead echoes Fallingwater "in the identical twelve-letter length, the identical initial F, and a parallel aqueous image."

"Fallingwater Rising" is a fascinating study of architecture, business, publicity, the desire for fame, and the creation of a modern icon. It's a handsome book, with full-color pictures of Fallingwater, its creators, and its competitors. — David Boaz

© Copyright 2008, Liberty Foundation

Send editorial comments to letters@libertyunbound.com.
All letters to the editor are assumed to be for publication unless otherwise indicated.

Send web site comments to webmaster@libertyunbound.com.