Communications

A communication will be considered only if it relates to an article or review published in this journal; publication is solely at the editor's discretion. The AHA disclaims responsibility for statements, either of fact or opinion, made by the writers. Letters may not exceed seven hundred words for reviews and one thousand words for articles. They should be submitted in duplicate, typed double-spaced with wide margins, and headed "To the Editor."

ARTICLES

To the Editor:
I feel obliged to respond to Nelly Hanna's review of my book, A Tale of Two Factions: Myth, Memory, and Identity in Ottoman Egypt and Yemen, in the AHR 109 (June 2004): 1015. I consider Hanna a friend and a valuable colleague whose scholarship has made an important contribution to the study of Egypt under the Ottoman Empire, but she belongs to an older generation of scholars of Ottoman Egypt with whom I have agreed to disagree on the most productive approach to the history of Ottoman Egypt. I consider Hanna's endeavors somewhat less positivist and more creative than those of other members of this generation, and I applaud her engagement with global themes such as international commerce. At the same time, it has to be said that she does not engage seriously with scholarship on the other provinces of the Ottoman Empire or on the Ottoman center, and this lies at the heart of her differences with me on questions of approach and interpretation.
While Hanna recognizes the postmodern, text-oriented approach of my book, she fails to mention two key contributions the book makes: a plausible explanation for the origins of the Faqari and Qasimi factions, and an examination of Ottoman Egypt's symbiotic links to Yemen, hitherto unexplored. More troubling is her skirting of the key point that the factions constituted a bilateral factional scheme that differed fundamentally from the multiple factions of the Mamluk sultanate. She asserts, furthermore, that the book does not offer "an explanation of the political polarization of the Fiqari [sic] and Qasimi factions." In fact, as the book points out, the factions were not politically polarized; rather, the main concern of their leaders seems to have been acquiring as large a share of positions and revenues as possible. Moreover, her assertions that "the book does not explore what exactly was at stake" and that "society and social dynamics are in fact absent from the book" are inaccurate; I stress that the factions emerged during a period (the early seventeenth century) of widespread demographic flux and provided an acculturative mechanism, as well as a source of group solidarity, for members of disparate ethnic and regional groups. While I examined "the mechanisms of [the factions'] demise" in more detail in my first book, I reinforce and expand on this examination in the current book, pointing out how the Qasimis divided internally while the Faqaris were subordinated to the Qazdaëlë household, which arose from within their midst. I further make the point that factional origin myths began to crystallize just as the factions were nearing desuetude, circa 1730.
In her final paragraph, Hanna claims that "neither the Mamluk nor the Ottoman interpretation of the history of Egypt can go very far in answering these questions [noted above] because neither goes beyond elite history." I am convinced that the historiography of Ottoman Egypt cannot be reduced to an either-or choice between "Mamluk" and "Ottoman" interpretations, in the sense of an integrative Ottoman provincial approach versus the ahistorical and, frankly, untenable view that Egypt's Ottoman-era political culture somehow represents a continuation or revival of the institutions of the Mamluk sultanate. Furthermore, my book points out that while the tales of the factions may have been dominated by elite leaders, the factions themselves incorporated many members of decidedly modest substance, including humble soldiers and tribespeople. This was part of what differentiated these two factions from the factions of the Mamluk sultanate.
Moreover, contra Hanna's assertion, I am indeed aware of the work of the young Egyptian scholars whom she mentions. They are engaged in what she has termed "history from the ground up," based on primary research in Egyptian archives. The problem I have with these efforts is that they ignore the context of the Ottoman Empire in which four centuries of Egypt's history unfolded. Indeed, clues to the connections that some of the figures illuminated by these archives enjoyed to other Ottoman provinces and to the Ottoman central authority are often missed by scholars whose focus is limited by the boundaries of the Egyptian nation-state. It is all very well to build a house "from the ground up," but if one pays no attention to the neighborhood in which one is building, one may well find that the house is out of place and that the neighbors can't understand what it's doing there. Where the historiography of Ottoman Egypt is concerned, an Arabic proverb proves instructive: "Check out the neighbors before you check out the house."
Jane Hathaway Ohio State University

Nelly Hanna replies:
Jane Hathaway's letter has raised a number of objections in reaction to my review of her book A Tale of Two Factions. I will take this opportunity to respond to the issues she raises, which deserve a broader discussion, hoping that doing so can engage other historians. At the forefront of Hathaway's concerns is the relationship between the Ottoman center and its province. Contrary to her statement, I fully agree on the importance of the Ottoman and the regional context for the study of Egypt. Our difference lies with the way this should be approached. My review suggested that the author deals with it from above, whereas my preference is for history from below. But I do realize that the issue is a problematic one, without a single right answer. In recent decades, historians of empires have been less inclined to write political narratives from the center and have tried various methods to incorporate into their frameworks very large territories with diverse cultures, languages, and histories. I am all for exploring appropriate methodologies but remain wary of history written from the center showing a dynamic core and passive peripheries. The challenge remains to identify the economic, social, or cultural trends relevant for such a study.
Again, we both agree that the history of Ottoman Egypt cannot be studied as being essentially either Mamluk or Ottoman. Hathaway has, in a number of studies, successfully argued against Peter Holt's suggestion that the Mamluk households of the eighteenth century were a revival of the households of the Mamluk sultanate. This may be so. I nevertheless stress that the link between the Mamluk sultanate and Ottoman Egypt is still largely unexplored. The Ottoman conquest of Arab lands is considered by some historians as a rupture with the past. A new generation of historians is now challenging that concept. T. J. Fitzgerald's study of a multi-generational family in Aleppo and Amina al-Bindari's study of Cairo street protests in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries should help us to understand better the early decades following this conquest. These scholars, as well as the other young scholars in Cairo I referred to in my review who are exploring society through the use of archives, cannot be dismissed as positivist historians. Moreover, Hathaway's statement on "scholars whose focus is limited by the boundaries of the Egyptian nation-state" suggests that they are writing nationalist history from a nineteenth-century perspective. In fact, they are not. They are doing social history, in part as a reaction to elite history. The archives in question reflect the boundaries of the administrative division of Ottoman Egypt, and they are available in voluminous quantities in Cairo. Scholars who study history through such primary sources often follow the geographical boundaries of their sources, whether in Egypt, France, or the United States. It is not the only approach, but it is certainly a valid one.
Another controversial issue that the letter raises is the relationship between myth and reality. Hathaway has made innovative use of an important eighteenth-century myth, showing how it was used by political leaders to further their aims. My review did not miss the fact that myths "were incorporated by men of decidedly modest substance." My concern was, rather, with the way that such myths, and consequently the legitimacy they confer on those who dominate them, pass from political leadership to ordinary people. Here matters become decidedly more complicated. If these concepts are part of a social context rather than having a life of their own, one would like to know if they were imposed on a submissive society that did not understand their implications, or if people knew where their interests lay; if tribesmen, craftsmen, and peasants, representing quite diverse concerns, all reacted in the same way, or if some of them challenged or refuted the myth that gave rulers legitimacy; if, in other words, we are talking of a one-way traffic from ruling groups to the rest of society or of a process of negotiation albeit between unequal parties.
It is to Hathaway's credit to have raised this and other important issues and tackled some of their complexities with erudition. I, like many historians who appreciate her contribution to the field, look forward to reading more of her work in the near future.
Nelly Hanna American University, Cairo

To the Editor:
Nobel Laureate George Stigler argued that "people demand much higher standards of evidence for unpopular or unexpected findings than for comfortably familiar findings" (Memoirs of an Unregulated Economist [Chicago 2003], 201). James E. Broussard's review of Hamilton Unbound (AHR 109 [June 2004]: 899–900) would be a prime example did it not also misinterpret my book from cover to cover. Hamilton Unbound is not a biography of Alexander Hamilton but rather a Hamiltonian view of early U.S. history. I wrote the book because historical interpretations of the era tend to be Jeffersonian or Adamsesque. In addition, I believe that economic and financial interpretations are just as important to our understanding of America's past as are those rooted in leftist or cultural perspectives.
Chapter 1 argues that the colonists rebelled in part because British control of monetary policy and interest rates capriciously deprived them of their property and liberty. After colonists' net worth became negative, their property was subject to confiscation and their bodies to imprisonment. Broussard correctly notes that I do not cite a letter that lays out the entire argument. That should not be surprising. Historians have long ceased being mere scribes. They see the past imperfectly, but colonists' views of reality were also obscured. Verbal communications, body language, and so forth, not to mention the vast bulk of letters, are lost to me. But I have the advantage of hindsight, not to mention access to a much wider range of sources than any colonist did. So I can know that the wave of bankruptcies that occurred during the 1760s recession helped spur an economically rational Lockean rebellion in 1775–1776 even if no contemporary explicitly wrote as much.
Chapter 2 explains why, self-interest aside, those involved in the more advanced sectors of the market economy were more likely to support the U.S. Constitution and the stronger state constitutions. Hitherto, historians have ignored the fact that the framers of the state and national constitutions also formed the nation's first business corporations and that both types of documents were extremely similar in form and function. Mitigating the principal-agent problem in mercantile and other business ventures in the colonial era underpinned the creation of both. The notion that business experience, and not just political theory or rank self-interest, was crucial to U.S. state-making is new and deserves additional research.
Chapter 3 summarizes a decade of detailed research into the importance of finance to early U.S. economic growth and American political stability. (See my Wealth of Nations Rediscovered: Integration and Expansion in American Financial Markets, 1780–1850 [New York, 2002] and Origins of Commercial Banking in America, 1750–1800 [New York, 2001].) As a general rule, historians of early America know little about finance, so the chapter concentrates on the financial aspects of the happy, three-pronged autocatalytic process that I describe.
In Chapter 4, I argue that the Manhattan Bank made a contribution to Jefferson and Burr's victory in 1800 at a crucial margin, namely, by swinging Manhattan artisans in the spring state election. Rather than engage the argument, Broussard reiterates the standard Jeffersonian view of the election, the importance of which I do not dispute.
Chapter 5 assumes that duels were fought for a variety of rational reasons. From the perspective of financial theory, dueling could signal creditworthiness in underdeveloped economies. Indeed, dueling disappeared from an area soon after fully articulated, modern credit markets arose. Again, no smoking gun letter (forgive the pun) "proves" this point, but my Hamiltonian interpretation nicely explains why dueling disappeared and does so without reference to cultural terms lacking empirical content.
Broussard's criticism of Chapter 6 is also unfounded. Far from being a "deliberate" decision by men, as Broussard insinuates, women's shift toward passive investment was the result of a complex socioeconomic process. The point of the chapter, like the chapter on dueling, is that it is possible to explain "cultural" changes without resort to amorphous terms like honor or Victorianism. Textual deconstruction is a powerful tool, but it need not be wielded to the exclusion of other views.
Stigler had it right: unpopular findings come under close scrutiny. But a valuable review challenges rather than dismisses, and all reviews should adequately characterize a book's arguments.
Robert E. Wright New York University

James Broussard replies:
I sympathize with Robert Wright's objections to my review of his book; no author likes to put great effort into his work and have it grotesquely misinterpreted by a reviewer. However, I plead not guilty and still believe the review was a fair assessment of the book.
James Broussard Lebanon Valley College

To the Editor:
In his review of my book, Hitler Attacks Pearl Harbor: Why the U.S. Declared War on Germany (AHR 109 [February 2004]), James Schneider confesses his astonishment that Adolf Hitler's declaration of war on the United States was virtually meaningless to Americans at the time. Schneider apparently still wants to believe the long-vaunted but erroneous thesis that Hitler's declaration was somehow important or decisive to Americans, and I am the first historian ever to challenge that thesis. But perhaps Schneider should also be astonished that no historian has written a book that explains exactly what Hitler's declaration of war did mean to Americans in 1941. That is truly an astonishing void in the historiography, until one investigates the primary sources and discovers that the declaration of war meant next to nothing to Americans at that time. My book, by contrast, examines what really was historically significant in 1941 and throughout the war.
Schneider also cannot bring himself to believe that Americans actually accepted Hitler's denial/retraction of his declaration of war. But my book provides a sample of contemporary opinion on that issue, as on the declaration itself. If Americans assumed that Hitler was lying about the denial/retraction, why would anyone have thought differently about the declaration the day before? That logical question, and my evidence, are what Schneider avoids.
Can Schneider provide any evidence to support his own assumptions and to deny the thesis of my book? Why has no one written on this before now? Can he or any historian give an explanation with detailed evidence about why the U.S. chose to declare war on Germany? Schneider alludes to German aggression, but neither he nor any other historian has specified any German aggression that would have changed the U.S. policy of before December 11, 1941, to that adopted afterward. Why the enormous change on that specific date?
Schneider concludes that he does not like my logic, presumably because he does not like my evidence. Can he provide any actual evidence to the contrary? If not, then one must question his logic.
Richard F. Hill Palm Beach Community College

James C. Schneider replies:
Richard F. Hill misstates the source of my astonishment. It was not his claim about the meaninglessness of the German declaration of war. Rather, I was surprised by the lack of support for his claim (on p. 2 of his book) that Berlin denied having declared war on the U.S. and that "this denial was acknowledged by the U.S. public and accepted as a virtual retraction ..." As for his other points, readers should consult Hitler Attacks Pearl Harbor and judge accordingly. I will say that the American declaration of war passed by Congress refers directly and explicitly to the German declaration of war, and to nothing else. The same is true of Roosevelt's message to Congress asking for a declaration of war. Obviously the declarations must be put in context, and Hill and I seem to differ on what the proper context is and on the influence and significance of the American perceptions of German involvement with the Pearl Harbor attack. On another matter, my reviewed linked the "back door to war" concept to Harry Elmer Barnes, whereas it is of course most directly associated with Charles Callan Tansill.
James C. Schneider University of Texas, San Antonio

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