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“Th Uni Sta omlth Orginal Wir. 14-947 Pia, the Sot Union nde Una State A ner Hoy ‘Sat of Consent A Cia prt of Pir Amaro "Nasional Seay Ply “The Lng Peace Ign ntthe Hisry ofthe Co ar ‘had Ste te Ed of the Cad Wr Iplestions, Resmi, Potions We Nine Kou: Rtg Cold Wa isn THE LANDSCAPE OF HIS. How Historians Map the Past JOHN LEWIS GADDIS oxrorp ‘Sha Rok Bc Aks Cape inn Chen ‘hh © ee el Cas Fe bls ed Une Pr Ine 2002 et ed no Od Urry Poe 04 ‘ai hadban oem New ek Rew oe dates ian fC Urey Fe Asian oe. No oh pin a ‘Sony nmery meee techn fig tg or ih Cage Cada en Gait ert ‘tng tna own mip pt Jb ee Ca Ty iy thay ey eo de a cmt y Mak Mary T ip i Wk State a For Kini The Love of foam Lif of Line ‘he information avaiable a ny given ine about particule land scape, geographical or hist: Bu, most npot,his metphoe ‘wold allow ust pt closer othe way historians know when they i For veication in catogrphy takes pace by fing represent ions to reality You have the physical landscape, but you would wane tory to replicate You have, i our mind, seasons for ep senting the landscape: you want Find your maytag i witha having to rely on your own immediate senses; hence you draw on the enenzed experience of ehes. And yu have the map sll, which rests rm iting cpeter whats actualy dere wth whi the user ‘ofthe map needs to know aout whats thee. Te ft becomes more pecse the more the landscape i ewes tated. The fist maps af ney discovered tetris are wal cule sletches of «coastline, with ot f bank spaces and perhaps ew ‘sca monsters or dagoas cecupying them, As explaration pers, the ‘naps features became mare specific andthe bess tend to dsp. In time, there he multiple maps of the sme etry peared for ferent purposes, whether wo show rads, towns, vers mounts, ‘esources, topography gol: population, weather, o even the vol ‘ume of afie—and hence she probably of taf jams-—alng the routes marked auton eter maps: Cartographic verication thereon, entirely relative: it depeads ‘pom how well the mapmaker achieve i tween the landscape ‘hat’ being mapped athe eiremens af oe fr wham the map ‘sting made. Aad yet, despite ths indeterminay, hu ef ro pon ‘modernist who woud deny th existence of landscapes, thai ‘sful to represent them. woul be most unwise fr sal to eo lide, simply because we cannot specify the length ofthe British ‘ousting, that it tit there and hat they can sil secondly ‘rough So to ¢ woud be pret for histonians to dee fom the fact that we hate no able has Fr measuring ine and spe, ‘tha they cart now anything about eat pened within ther Chapter Three STRUCTURE AND Process Hisrontcat tawnscares irven fom cutgiaphic landscapes, weer noe inpatant respect: they ate physically inaccessible to 1 Anyone mapping even the most remote rons othe earth su Face can sto a least phaograph the train in questi Histon «an do that."No Egyptologst as ever seen Ramses.” Mare Block Points out in The Historians Graf. "No expert om the Napleae ‘Wars ever ead the sound ofthe enna ot Autti” Hato “cn the predicament ofa police magistrate who strives t econ ‘tout crime he hs not seen of psc who, cone to hs ed ith he spp, hears the results his experinents ony tug the ‘epoes of his iboratary technician" Asa consequence, the Nran “neve anives unt afer the experiment hasbeen cocladed. Bat under asrble circumstance, the experiment aes behind etn ‘esdhes which he cans wth his own eyes" {ime and space provide the fel in whic history happens, then, sect and process provide the macho. ori is ram tes ‘hat sive into the posent—the“cetan resides" of which Bech, erote—that we reconstruct processes inaccessible ous beaut they "ook place in the past °A historical fact is an inference fam the 6 {THE LANDSCAPE OF HISTORY tele,” the soilopst John Goldthorpe has observed These may ‘nefude-bones and excrement ol anid Wes, reat ideas and works of art or documents that get deposited in archives but in each case proceses produced them. We can know these only from the structures they lave behind ‘A good way to vsualie this sto consider the humble roaeut. Geologists lve them because they expse tts, Fol, and uncomfr: ities in strata, structures frm which one ean derive processes extending back millon and even ilins of years. They ae Jo McPhee has ptt, Windows ino the wold as i asin eer tines.” Roadcuts woulda exist, hough, were it na for decisions made, so recently as o remain within che geologic present, to construct the canals alway, and highways that required them Fr geologists then the distinction between structure and process corresponds to The Siding Hi rae, 148, ese Mn (cours the Maryland Gell Sure, hat by Pal Breding stavcTuRE ano paocess # the one between the present wher structures exist and the pos hee processes produced tem. Dees ale fr historians? Thats the ‘question I want to expr here, and the bes place to star is withthe old debate over whether history, or a selene, 1 “When 1 was very young” E. H. Carr commented in his 196 Trevelyan lectures at Cambridge,“ was suitably impressed t earn that appearances notthstanding, the whales not» fh. Nowadays ‘hese questions of classification move me les; and doesnot woe ‘me unduly when Iam asured that history ene a science" If you were to deconstruct hat statement, you coud ghe it several possible ‘meanings. One i that histori indeed seience The second is that, ean. The thie is that Carrhae abi of weeping ay arbig ts rathe in che way that Oxford and Cambridge ellepe waiters, at igh abl, sweep away crumba Tm inclined to think, though—and Cass own lectures sugest ‘his—that the question cant be damised quite oes Fo scence ‘has one quality that prveges i above all echer modes of nguty e has shown itvelf mote capable than ty ofthe ether at elcting agree ‘ment on the validity of results ares culture, niferent languages, and amon highly dissimilar observers. The structure ofthe DNA, ‘molecule looks mach the same a researches inSwiterand, Sings- ore, and Sei Lanka. Alrraft wings bea stress similarly whether the lines that rely on them operate as subidized sate monopolies ot Adventrous entrepreneurial enterprises, Astronomers of Chitin, Muslin, and Budahis persuasions have litle dificult cesching ¢ ‘consensus on what auss eclipses, or how gles move There are ofcourse other ways to etl sues like these. You ‘ould, for example, probe che eal of smal, ad tea lees, con sult horoscope, sec divine guidance, or make ingles nan Ine. Fy ‘THE LANDSCAPE oF mstonY et chatroom, Yd cerany get resus, but you'd ma ge ery many er people to agree onthe accuracy ofthe ests. The advange of science, John Ziman hss pointed ot, that provides “a consensus of ain opin ve the widest oss el” To be sre, we con espect the methods of slence to work wih ‘qual precision, ort command comparably broad asent, when it comes to the study of human las. The reason is obvious: con Sciousness—pethaps shoud sy wlless—cam ener the ins of avs that govern the behavior of molecules, oa Rows, or celsl jects. People, the polities! seiemist Stanley Hoffiann once reminded his cllegues, ae not peso pistons. I seen reason, however, why tis ilu shoud validate Ziman’ standard 8 one Istvan ought ot each a consensus af tinal opinion over the widest possible ild—even f they ever actualy thers, ‘ou dont Have wo read very fan Carr to doves that, espe is pronouncerent on whales and fishes, he thought so ton So dil Me Bloch, They both saw scence a 4 model Tor historians, but not Because they though historians wete becoming or ought to becone, roe scientific. Iwas eather because hey a cients becoming ‘mor hioria. Wah the ieteenth-entary achievements of Chale Lbelln geology and Chases Darwin in bil, Crt ote “Iseence vas concerned no longer with something static and timeless, but with 1 proces of change and developmen.” Blah aged sina, foes Ing an wenteth-centar developments The kinetic her of se, ister mechan, andthe quam ‘theory have pony ered that cance af tence which, oly ester, was unanimously accepted... Far cet thy have ‘ie subsite the testy forthe rly measurable, ‘he coin ofthe eee of measurement. Hence We are much better repre oath scholarly icp may ctr othe dg of science without insting pon Euan demonstrations or mutable lave of eptiton,.. We no ner feeble to impose upon every subject keg nm nellectual aterm, boomed fom natural science, ince even the th pate his ese obey pale iy sscovering that what exists the pesent hs not alas done 30 inthe pas, that objets and eqgansms eva through inc astead of ‘emaining the same fr al ime, scents hed hegun to deine ‘aes rom process they had, a shot, nought history int cence ‘Asaconsequence ofthis shift from a static to an erlutionry view, cs te historian has some excuse for feling hinsell ‘ore a home in the world of sence today than he could hve done rude yas ag." (Cnr wrote those words Fur decades ap, Do thy till me sense ‘ody? think they do, provided you speciy the hind of cence you have mind, 0 ‘The hey to consensus, In scence, reproducibility: cbserations ‘made under equivalent conditions, matter who makes them, ae "pected to pode closely comesponding ess. Mathematicians tecaeulite so blons of decimal laces with absslteconilence ‘hats yale wl ean what has been fr thus of years Physics and chemistry are ony slightly les reliable, for slthough Investigators ca always be suze of what happening subatomic levels hey do tend opt snr resus whe they perfor arty ‘apesinens under sma eundtions, an they pel alvays wal, eration, wihin these dpe, aks place by repeating stun processes. Time and space are compresed and manipulated history ‘elf infect eran. ln tht sense, stots the hrc eta ‘an reer aproinate he scentifc method. at otal ences wok this wy. In ids ie strony ogy, Paleontology: evolaonary bil, phenomenal ft within oratories, and the time requied 1 see results can exceed the hie Spans of those who seek them" These disciplines instead depend pon tava epementspractianers rerun in thei mind-o per: haps now in hei compte simulations what thet et tes, er ‘wfuges, an eleton mroscopes cuit manage, They then lok for cvdence suggesting which af these mental exercies comes closest to phining ther physical absrains. Repay mean bling consensus that sch earespondences seem pase. The only way these sien can rerun history to inane it bu they must do iin the ints flog. They east atte the inex sbet pi tes, wizards, orentattresteil visitor and sill expect to persuade ‘heir peer that thelindings are val Hw, apart fr such thaught experiments, could geologists hat aon have ben ad dawn hr ‘only nevertheless ofien wind up ted or even vical? Or Fr ran ine that intudes itself nt inesone? Or for seashells that show up "howsunds of fet above and undeds of mes avy fr the nett ow ese could boli male sense of organs with mo app nt Functo: the whale’ vestigial legs, for example, o he pond’ ‘thumb, the human tailbone?” Why human genes ler oie from those of fess, wos, Mies, monkeys, nd mic" How fr shat mates, can astophysltsexplaia the orig ofthe universe? nea ofthese stances, ructres have survived that only past poceses ‘an explain the geal uli and collie driven ype tenis, forexampl,o the elation of specs that rests fn natural le. tion, the sida ation elt over fom the Bi Bang, Laboratory experiments would hdfc to et such esplans tions: Darwin's equ timescale extending over hundeed of mil Tons of years. Atved Wegener vislized an entire earth on which continents could come together and drift apart. Alben Einstein's napned experiments exceeded the sie not just of his aboratay bat his glo All of hese cient revolutionaries coupled magia staveruns ano process a on with logit derive past processes fom present structures. Nor ere they in any way exceptional nth, for the same thing hopes vey day in natal istry museum belore estas of small children, Whats the reconstruction of dinosaur and other ancient creatures fom fossils afer al, i nota fting of toginad Sesh to survving bones, ot esto impressions of them? An the usar, mos ofthe tine at est, stably imped Its hete thatthe methods of histerians end scentists—at least. ‘hose sents fr whom reprodudlty cannot take pice nthe ly ‘xatny—ughly coincide. For historians to stat with surviving strctures, whether they be archives, fics, o even memes. They then deuce the process that praduced them. Like guys ‘nd palontlopsts, they mast allow for the fat that mon sources From the pst dn survive and that mot daily events dt wen en ‘rate suviable recordin the ist place, Like bnopsts and sto yscits, they must deal with ambiguous or even conraictery ‘rence, And like all scientists who workouts of ltoratares ‘ovas mst ws agi and imagination to oxercone the resting i lis, her wm equate af thought experiment fom wl. ‘sin this sense, think, hat R-G. Calling wis catct when ‘he insisted onthe inseparably ofthe pst from the hstrans ye athe presen i where the thought experiments tke place > This inte oe the al pe can. Tach dish ses thn igh ob ple oh copy ei iso doe acer bt the ie Son there be ae bcp tending orale Thi le hector i pene tbr oe than nd dct titolo tak co then mala lon hal hte ir ng ‘Wits happening here ht redial nd npc pe ‘omens are occuring within the same sytem, Te behavior ofthe des nour trafic tie-up is ute pedal, Most of them wl se dom when they see the pie a Te ambiance all of Tew whit hee rakes when they seaie that the cas ahead ofthe ane iting theirs, and absolutely all f the American who happen tube Aig tha day wil gag a the sell of Marmite. Whats unpre dicable 6 the aggregate behavior ofall these divers the macro fc that comes fo thee micro vesponscs. Far these mic responses wil tl have taken place in the same way. The deve atenivenese wil vat according to which of ‘hem a rough ight, or areal om th cell phones, Bat even i "enone ms paying te closest ates, reactions woul il elect ferences nthe von a the flexes ofeach der which tra woul depend upon the speed with which the necessary elect chenical impulses had crossed he reuie ln yap and soa. Muli these by the numberof dives in ur aticjam, nd oe got something approaching an infinite ruber af itedepond ntiaiabls, no on of which s any more the case ofthe pale than ace any fhe eters. ‘The met-kevel phenomena within our system are, forthe mast rt inear in character, in tha there's predictable elitionp ‘between input and output, between stimolan and vexponae Indeed witout sch inery andthe generalizations thes pase for ‘are that divers tend to thelr bres ken they se ed is shead—the takof imple nation would oerwhelo us we'd hve ‘account fr cach f the relat rah igh, cell phones, ellen, and neve imps. Wei be fr worse olf than we wre ins pues hae with Napoleons undersee We get rund this by pacing rica gneraiaion: we assume things that woul eerie bag ts down, Without such a procedure wel ave no hope of rpesent. Inge post, because the aleratve wus be to eplcate the pst, a ‘os posi 3 the macr-level bahar of system as whole—the Myo Exunns: ‘on the day of our tet am —iswon-linee. Relationships do exe ‘tween input and out, between stil ad response, bu there eo maay ofthese vals an they ate alls interdependent tat. 8 so many we cant possibly cleulate their elfct head of time. As the ply ‘wight Tom Stoppard has explained the mathesnatcs, youre feeding ‘he solution hack into the equation and sling it over an over asin. Te fappens in any stem which ast own umbes--meals ep demic, anal averages, coton pres, natural phenomenon ‘vel. Spooky” For this reason, generalized purticelarization the pplication of sme general theory of tli ja to this partculat nei key toll as much abou what we ell want oho, whichis how much enger we ging to have asin? Poincaré great insight was to show that linear and non-ineae ‘elationships could coe thatthe same systetn canbe simple and ‘comple atthe sme time. Adams aw the connection histor and thew up his hands, fing to understand how such a monstrosity ‘oul ever be eharacteied i the seo ters with which he mas Fai. What Adams did't foresee was that Poincaré’ wok would int the way toward anew kind of scence: one that distinguishes Twuween the predictable and the non pedicle that does depend ‘on reducing comple o simply, that knowledges indeed relishes the interdependency of vais science, n shat, tha’ eh ike histo m. ‘Thee i none sense, nating new about chaos and complet iby ‘hese tems you mean acknowledging indeterminacy. Fr jst s the social siences were attempting to prove their legitimacy by ving rd the predictability that had characeried phys since the days ‘of suse Newionthe methods Adams had hoped to apply to story—the physics themseles wete moving may from that ‘snproach, Wiliam H. McNeil has deseribed the process “Ihe old (tis othe Newtanan wrt machine, ith sassy bay of pein nd reciting the motions fan, mov, panne td even comets unexpectedly dissolved ino an ewlvng eal ad oceasionsly chaotic unierse™ There acurred, a shor ‘methodologkal passing af ships inthe night Poincare’ equations hore Adams, what would he have male sf Eins or Het? Fri conceptians tne and spre ane themsches tela, i the abseraton of phenomens lf dona Phenomena, then was dificult se hw histarans anon ce Could achieve censiny: what you 38m; and therelne wher you hop, depended in the mast literal posible scene om whe so od. Physics offered Ie bass for thinking you could tango the fare, ease tere was no way be sine tha od ene rangle the past, ‘Nor could even continuity be an for pated. The od sient ‘view had een that change was ada or "unripe nd hence a kindof system in sell” Avate that hay bad been lot shrpt shifts and catastrophic events, Adams had himself douluat ‘hs proposition, but hadnt pursed the matter” During the tents «th century. tho the “han” sciences came ta dob ion were ‘hereaaton that elections can jump instantanecin fom ane so ‘rd the atomic nucleus wo another, oF what Thomas Kul a "aught us aout scenic revolutions snd the “padi sh thea ‘accompany them o the wrk of Stephen Jay Gould an Neg Edie on punctuated equilib” i the eeltion of species «most damately—the dings of Lis Ace an thes sbooe ‘sted impacts and spies anton, ‘What came out ofall his was the elation nau in phys tao in chemist poly, zk, pleontolagy an xen eston omy that Poincaré had been right some things ate redicable wed ex nines: some are not; regularities coesst with apparent randomnes; both simplicity and complenity characterize the world in which we Ive [Even before chaos and complenty theory begun to emerge inthe tos then eal scientific pepe, in which oe could assume ‘he absolute nature of une ar pace, objets in observation, pe table rates of change —and therefore distinctions between depend et and independent varibles— was about a utdate nthe atral Sciences asthe Prolate model of the universe hal been in New tons day" Chaos and complet theory extended these insights in tvee ‘ways by clanying the circumstances in which the peditable becomes unpredictable; by showing that paltens can stil ext whe ‘here appear tobe none; acl by demonstrating tht these pate can ‘merge spontaneous, without anyone having put them there “Together these Findings enhance ou understanding of thedifeence ‘btween near and pon liner elonships—haw adel stems can ‘became dsordedy athe ther way trun. These are osu things foc historians ta know about, since they have co grapple with soc questions all the ume. ut chaos and complenty fer somthing elke thas leas as portant for historians. The provide ways of sully presenting relationships between predictable and non predictable phenomene that in precampute days could only have been expressed in fbi ingly ificule mathematics. They therfore give ws new Kind of i ‘emmy, and hence 4 new set of terms fr representing historical Processes." Let me be very cleat these re metaphors. They arent those processes themes. But when yo remeber that Adams too 7 eying on metophoes 1 epresent historical processes hence his tse af the Vega andthe Dymo to symbolic the shift fom are. tows 10 a secular consiousness—then the connections become inguing So wha might Hem Adams have done with chaos complesiy, aa computer? There follow se speculative suggestions, which HI AOS AND comeLextty » "to use in tmnt clarify my large point abut how historians deal vith terdepesenvaable ™ Seth enn ot cdo, the ws the te rl td veo ome ae tresnpter Heb nce parm cece ‘hotonline ee Ising ited hate ge wee wath agen scion yh eifacne aro ta wetting Si a wesc be mnrd en tht foes son tac sey tte erg ses oe ga tones incr ne “Ce mapas ha cpr a etsy toes, some waldsahne hae Sse Caran Mas Anny ante ab th wa woul have loner Da gen Fn ‘ah ns hrs ant nh tr isch anon alc sme en apeanlgoctan of the problem, ~ ete heh donno sch a ew onsen? ‘yh Chapt sy hee eat ae empires? How ist shat che droping of single gran of sand can ‘ase a sand pl tealps, when mins have preceded it without producing such an effect" Loens' computer model provides an answer sich questions, which shat in compler systems you ean never ort out etial vanubles in advance, You cin only attempt to specify them in retrospect, ad hath enough odo. ‘The word “comply” here as nothing to do with the sizeof the system in question. The Mois comple sytem because So many ‘arabes interact within. Soto9, a8 ayone wh lives there quickly icons, isthe weather over Oxford, But the mation «space «rat beyond earth ori is reltivel simple as a esl, ease to ‘timate val ies on Mrs than in Lan, and you ight s well lugyer umbrella round Oar whatever the oecast has sa” Systems with small numbers af variables therefore lend sem selves to modeling Systems wih many variables dan the ony way ou ean expan ther behaviorist imalate them, whch means to ‘sac hei istry. Natural sees have certainly aticed thi, and ‘ot just wth respect tothe weather, They know how dificult to specify at what point sand wil le, or what the shape of a sofa wil be, or when an eanhquke wll accu Gould has gone 3 fara torewte the hist of fein these terms, hllenging the old idea of the survival of thefts by suggesting instead that contingency — ‘which onanism lacked ito hospitable evohuionary niches payed the decisive ole Rerunning the tape, were that possible, would po duce diferent results; only historia investigation, therefore, can account fr what actualy happened “The appropriate methods focus ‘on mative” he insists, “ot experiment as wu conceived! ‘Tiss what social sient meas when hey we the ker "path deperdeney’:a smal eset athe begining ofa proces makes big ference at the end of. The economists Pal Davi and Brian Artur, or example, have shown that technologies evlve les om ‘atonal choices mad an the basis af perfect nfrnation than from ‘istrical accidents: which ovations caught on st. Tele most famous lata the tpeweter keyboard, whose no inescapable ‘avenTY configurations hardly the optimal acangement lor ech a eve.” The palit sciaist Robert Panam: coon ae ehy cen {sin alan regions today have governments tht wrk while ethos ‘bi ound the best explanation tobe historia. which ety ne, ha tong ce consciousness iv or mote ents au" tra “anstutvsm, “behavioral “stares” a theyre com Ingo be used in plticalsiene, economies, and sell elect ‘he importance of path dependency: they provide a theoreti hrs Foc taling istry seriously” Bat insights like these ase serous dfcies for frcatng, ‘because Gol sues, rerunning the tape in such compen tems wouk! never police the sams citcome: Any tlie on ses ‘nism to simplify the pas in onder to anticipate the fare beers ‘woworabl in these stations, and we'e back to the ol fashioned Nitric narative. So what dos term like sesie dependence on ‘nd condos eal tl us? Onl | thin, that we shal ava ew appreciation of narrative a a more sophisticated research oa ‘han mot soci cents — indeed than mst histaians have yor red. v Facets, ve skeady mentioned Lewis Richardson amons question Hor longithe contin of Bean?" The ener of cous, sth ‘cpends on the unis with which you cleat l: measurement in tees of mics, kilometers, meters, fet, inches, and centimeters woud all produce diferent result, andthe same prem wal oe, Suably extend down othe eves of molecules and tons = ‘The eat ale mathematician Benoit Manele hos then this roti one tp further, howe, o show tt thee anther a ot !mesuement you can pf onthe Bish easline that wil he Ex Luss: ary slo outa singe ensver: thas odo wth he dee fin how crinkled it is. When you apply the principles of fractal ont Mans laa npn merges: thi of se silat across sae The degree othnes, of complexity o simplicity i fen the same whether yu obiring from # mitoucpie ora macroscopic per spective, a ane heteen you pla caulower apart int salle and slr pices, the shapes remain smile. Samething hike this also happens when yo oom in on blood wesc electrical discharges, cracks in pavemen onl even the shapes of muna on ner and stant hava The deine atten you sen an apne fom tity thousand Feet up resemble the tee branches yo might sce Irn thy eet below ther. Patems ten to remain the same, in such ystems, regalse the scale t which one lols ot them, Tim Stoppard ninetcenth-centry hein Thana crohns in Arai, are “a method whereby all the fons of nature mas gv up tele numerical secrets and daw themeles song ‘numbers alone" Hannah, one af he twentieth centuy charactors the play. the picks pan spe ke. HANNA: Soyou couldnt ake a pictueof this eat by tera Inga whats? VALENTINE: Oh yes, ou could do that... Uy bnew the goto and fed it ack ay tea thousand tines, cach ine there'd hea dot somewhere on the sree, You'd never no where to expect the next do. But pally you'd stata sr this shape, because every dat wl be inside the shape oth leaf wouldst he ale, would bea mathemati bet But ye. The unpredictable and the predetermined nfl logther to make everthing the way > And what ae the mpeations fo ston? Wel, stat with singe seovence fom EH. Car “It doesnot fallow tat becasue » moun ‘ain appeses to take on different shapes fom difleret angle of vison, it has objectively either no shape at allo a ininty of shapes.” Carr sel this insight to attack relativism: he anumne that ther no abject in soy and that any stra intorcte tion is as valid as anyone eles. What it sugpests tome, though, ‘hat without having word fr wha he was describing. Car nstne ‘rely deste she concep fatal geometry and ss connec ‘on to hstry. Nae wa he unique in this ‘Weve aeady cen Macaulay, Ads, and MeNei in their geat istariszooming in and ot between macroscopic and micrseoie Detectives: what links these together i a hind of selEsinaniy ‘ros scale." Michel Fouaul bul sn ent earer demonstrating ‘hat pens of authority remain mach the same whether the level ex ninns: ry {WE LANDSeAPE OF MsTORY of discourse fais, cles, nstsins, sates, tons, or utres Studies of ditatorships show behavior tthe tp spanning sina behavior down through end, le, and ven neigh nti tional rent a ese de of VET RIESE, for example, without seeing Hitler nt Smits extending ise ‘hroaphout the levels of Nao Gran society nto thems unde aspocts of everyday fe But fsctals could also provide a metaphor, {hink, for movement Inthe other duecon for behavior that emerges pontine at the toto, an geadly aks is way tothe top. The reaction aginst suthortrianisi ducing the second half of the twentieth centry would eetanly guy as wold computer ery, helene," and eran fherwiseieeplcable developments in popular cutie for ‘arnple how it happened tha vis stl sighted ela, o that a Beatle wound up 5 ight. wu Selfongization. ‘This phenomenon as sven both “hand” cients an social scientists a god deal of trouble ver the yeas. Physicists Tune lng rege as universally applicable the Second Law of Ther rmodynamies, which states tht everything inthe aniverse tends tua ent, o eat death but his pencil sms hard to re ‘oncile wi the tendency of certain ie forms, a8 they eva, to become more complex." Soci scientists, confronting appaenly anarchic phenomene like markets othe international state sytem, have encountered sila diffculties in explaining how cooperation can evo wath sch structures." But the chaos theorists have shown, in the physica world, shat surprising patterns of requ can ext within what appear tobe hom stems, The chssc example the Guest Red Spot on Jupiter, hich hs retained is shape and size far as lang as we been able o HOS AND ComPLExITY 5 see that pines surface, despite ts otherwise rulen atosphere, Cenain nine uations, when plated on computer screens ro she strange atsactars,” whieh conte unpredictable pacers within predictable stacures™ Sadents of empleny, uring com ter modling, have sho tht ongnized behave can eye spn ‘aneousy in simulations in which nts ae allowed to interact wth fae another according 1 only few bas ies.” AlLof hiss ed to a going interest in comple apt sys ‘ems How i that flocks of bi a schools of fish low when tum atthe sme time? What acaunts fr sock mat Bom ead baste Why do at empies rad aise, xe teiinfance an ‘hen suddenly and unenpecteydsitegrate? How, fr thot mots ‘oul the Cold War ave evolved int Lang, esc" Historians, of course, have long onceme themselves with the Aoteractive behavior of masses, stitutions, ol indvisk Teh ional socal scence, wit emphasis on seeking out independent ‘aries, his genus few tol with which to undestanl such sl ‘onships. Bu the natural etences are producing interesting nights rom which bd historians an soil cents might beef. Ti tcl ae worth mentioning, ‘One of these bis to do with «remarkably simple pate that Uunderiescompesty across a wide range af phenomena the bi ya power reationshipe The le hte shat the eure of ‘rensis inversely ropetonl tthe intensity That suns petty strat, unt you ptt in terms of earchquikes. There we, ane ut, several ded fthese in Calera each ay. The vas jy, however. te impecepuble, ling within cateyory tee or below on the wellknown Hichter sae, in which the numbers go up by one ae the intensity goes up by ten. Category four a ve eathyakes which you can feel but which do lite a aa damge, are Frnt Jes frequent, and is even more fortunate sat the ely damaging otquakes te theres fal The pater sulin cone that can be expresed rather double the ene lessen Ey nuins: %6 THE LANDSCAPE OF mISTORY ‘he ewthquake, and it becomes roxghly four tmes as are ‘Wha’ interesting abou hiss hat the same power aw rl ship seems to apply asf were fatal sro surpiing wide range of phenomena erring rom species annilations and forest, fires wo stock maker cases ana wa exeualies. There i, apparently, ‘common suucture underhing teas a sulin vay f psi, ological, and human phenomena that Adare might well have regarded bad he known abaut is hits genetiton ” something ater ‘What eannects these phenomens is tht they al than atte of equim: the new word fer this ise, which Sioply means tha system contains within both senskive depend ence on nil condions and sel slaty acon scale. The possi ley therefore ess fran abrupt transon fan one phase to ante, andthe likelihood ofthat happening is inversely proportional othe nage ofthe event when it accure ‘Can we detect erteality in history? OF course we can in eto spect: that's what we'e doing when we trace the rte and fl of ‘empires, the beginnings and the endings of wars, che diffusion of eas and echoes, the oes of plage al anes, perhaps ‘ven the emergence and disappearance of eat” men and women ‘whose qualifications for “greatness depend upon ther capscy 10 influence others Whether we can forest realty ner mat. ter however depending on what we understand the word "ores ng" w this conte, tome, IFit means anticipating relationships between intensity an fe queney—the workings of the power li —then we probably can do thi, na very crude way: the greater the intensity the lsser the fe quency, bya fctor we should be eapable of calculating, But i i ‘means ania whe particular situation ing 1 ech on t our findings ae subject to evs, jst as they would be in any ster eld of hua ngiry Within that qualification we evaluat or findings by asking how lol onr representation fi the eles we sok texan Ualsetsoed this concept of iting” in an eater chap, invoking analogies oat ‘grap, paleontology, and-—at a more mundane level —talring ongied that in noe ofthese lds woud we wish perfect represen lation of teality for one-to-one earrespondence between the Wo ‘ould produce, respectively, the one-to-one map that Jorge Lai Borges found so useless, a voracousvelociaptr tht only Steven Splelierg could love, adn the ase ofthe tao, naked bad to the case that the purposes of presentation vary: a work map ont help you ind your wayawund tow, jus a the dinosaur model you might build Zor a university musexin wouldnt he right for 3 ‘indergarten classroom, leave any Further tiring metaphors 0 you imagination: my point, quite sip that there ate boundriee ‘tween representation ai ely, nd that it’s bays pod ide wo respect them - “The marae the Po Of Fepestaion ta oat Koln 6.” What naratives do, Ve aleay suggested te amulatey ‘ansptedin the past. Theye reconstructions, ssemiied win te ‘ual laboratories af ur mind, af the processes that prdced ae “Vow could his have happened?” We then proceed wo ny toomnver the question in such a way as to achive the closest possible he {etnen epreintation andrea Achieving that owe, reat several prcedtes Fs wefence or parimenynconsapences, bl nt oss. by is Lean that he anes we ety mt converge spice |e consequenc, Yo return tour Pe arbor examples weld ute logical show how Japa’ iltarism, oil dapendeny ant technological prowess combined with the exposed posinn of he United Stats in the Pic, ts increasingly tough economic oa ‘ons, and fae of iplomacy to bring bon the tack, h wl ‘ute logical to conclude tha the attack itself then determine the

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