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i Copyright 2020 Journal of Big History A publication of the International Big History Association Authors who publish with this journal Authors are able to enter into separate, The views and opinions expressed in agree to the following terms: additional contractual arrangements the Journal of Big History (JBH) are not for the non-exclusive distribution of necessarily those of the International the journal's published version of the Big History Association (IBHA) Board Authors retain copyright and grant the work (e.g., post it to an institutional or the Editorial Board. The IBHA journal right of first publication with repository or publish it in a book), Board and JBH Editorial Board are not the work simultaneously licensed un- with an acknowledgement of its initial liable for content of any articles. JBH der a Creative Commons Attribution publication in this journal. reserves the right to accept, reject, or License that allows others to share the edit any material submitted for publi- work with an acknowledgement of the cation. (JBH) work's authorship and initial publica- Authors are permitted and encouraged tion in this journal. to post their work online (e.g., in insti- ISSN 2475-3610 tutional repositories or on their web- site) prior to and during the submis- sion process, as it can lead to produc- tive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access). ii From the Editor elcome to our fourth years since the birth of Robert thropocene” in the novel Oryx and year. It may well Grossteste, who many consider the fa- Crake (2003) by Margaret Atwood. We prove to be a mo- ther of the scientific method. It is also, I are happy to be able to publish as well a mentous one, as it will have you know, the 400th anniver- Portuguese translation of this article hasW been in the past. 2020 will mark the sary of the end of the Wanli period (1573 that Dr. Massuno has prepared for us. 75th anniversary of the end of WWII, the -1620) of the Ming dynasty, the 1000th Marilyn Ahearn, Sustainability, Environ- 100th anniversary of the ratification of anniversary of the death of the Persian ment and the Arts in Education (SEAE) the Treaty of Versailles, the 100th anni- poet Abū al-Qāsim Firdawsī, 1250 years Research Cluster, Southern Cross Uni- versary of the Nineteenth Amendment, since the death of Tang dynasty poet Du versity, Australia, offers this edition’s the 250th anniversary of the Boston Mas- Fu, and 2750 years since Piye succeeded research on the pedagogy of big history. sacre, 400 years since the Mayflower his father, Kashta, as ruler of the Nubian Her article is based upon a workshop sailed, 500 years since Magellan and his kingdom of Napata. that Dr. Hearn presented at the 2018 crew crossed from the Atlantic into the This edition of the Journal of Big History International Big History Association Pacific, and the 2500th anniversary of the cuts across time, distance, size and dis- (IBHA) conference at Villanova. Her Battle of Thermopylae. This reminds us cipline in a manner befitting our mis- focus is the impact of a 17-week big his- that it is important to think about the sion. Daniel Barreiros, Bioethics and tory program on 8-9 year old students past at various temporal scales—but it Applied Ethics Center, Universidade and their teacher. From the Environ- holds other lessons as well. Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), and mental Science Division of the Argonne It reminds us, for one, that we are una- Daniel Vainfas, PhD Student at the In- National Laboratory (University of Chi- ble to mark anniversaries of events that stitute of Economics (UFRJ), examine cago, Lemont, Illinois), David J. LePoire, occurred prior to the invention of writ- temporal scales as they apply to the his- in work supported by the U.S. Depart- ing. So what’s missing from this list is as tory and theory of warfare. Specifically, ment of Energy, shows us how size significant as what’s included. It re- they use the science of ethology to scales ranging from the atomic nucleus minds us, too, that lists are culturally- reevaluate the idea that war is a contin- to the universe can be estimated with constructed, and that from a big history uation of politics by other means and only a few fundamental physics con- perspective, much has been left out, the belief in a universal “warrior cul- stants. It is stunning to learn that nine both on a geographic scale, and also ture.” It is an excellent example of how of the fundamental distances that we concerning subject-matter, which research can be undertaken in big histo- discuss in big history relate to one an- henceforth shall be known as the “scale ry, in this case, to completely overturn other by the same factor of 150,000. Our of interdisciplinarity.” Thus it behooves models of warfare that have been all but final essay has been written by IBHA us to recall that 2020 also marks the canonized. Another Brazilian scholar, Board Member Barry Wood, University 100th anniversary of the publication of Tatiana de Freitas Massuno, Postdoctor- of Houston, who brings geology, biolo- The Outline of History by H. G. Wells al Fellow, Philosophy Department, Pon- gy, and paleontology to bear on the four and The Age of Innocence by Edith tifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de -billion-year story of the making of India. Wharton, 200 years since Hans Chris- Janeiro (PUC- Rio), deploys literature to tian Ørsted discovered electromag- have at questions of genetic engineer- netism, 400 years since Francis Bacon ing, transhumanism, ecological aware- published Novum Organum, and 800 ness, and what she calls the “good An- David R. Blanks Journal of Big History Editorial Review Board PUBLISHED BY David Christian Barry Rodrigue International Big History Association Lowell Gustafson Javier Collado Ruano Editor: David R. Blanks Seohyung Kim Sun Yue Associate Editor: V. E. Pritchett Andrey Korotayev Nobuo Palette Tsujimura Associate Editor: Lowell Gustafson Lucy Laffitte Constance van Hall Designer: Lucy B. Laffitte J. Daniel May Barry Wood iii IV:1 Journal of Big History A r t i c l e s Daniel Barreiros & Daniel Vainfas 4 Clausewitz, Keegan, and the Big History of Warfare Tatiana de Freitas Massuno 13 The Wish To Stop Time: Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake Tatiana de Freitas Massuno 21 O Desejo de Parar o Tempo: Oryx e Crake de Margaret Atwood Marilyn Ahearn 29 Little Learners, Big History, Bigger Future: How Big History Widened the Worldviews of 8-9-year-olds David J. LePoire 44 Size Relationships of Big History Objects: From the Universe to the Atomic Nucleus Barry Wood 49 A Four-Billion-Year Story: The Making of India Book Reviews Andrés Arias Rodríguez 67 A New Era for Our Fellow Creatures featuring Fellow Creatures: Our Obligations to the Other Animals M. O. Lozano-Justice 69 The Past, Present, and Future of Progress Featuring 21 Lessons for the 21st Century and Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress William Katerberg 73 Big History and the New Story featuring Thomas Berry: A Biography J. Daniel May 76 In the Midst of the California Wildfires featuring The Big Ones: How Natural Disasters Have Shaped Us (and What We Can Do About Them) iv Clausewitz, Keegan, and the Big History of Warfare Daniel Barreiros Federal University of Rio de Janeiro Daniel Ribera Vainfas Federal University of Rio de Janeiro Correspondence | [email protected]; [email protected] Citation | Barreiros, Daniel, and Daniel Ribera Vainfas. 2019. “Clausewitz, Keegan, and the Big History of Warfare.” Journal of Big History, IV (1): 4-12. http://dx.doi.org/10.22339/jbh.v4i1.4130. DOI | http://dx.doi.org/10.22339/jbh.v4i1.4130 Abstract As a social phenomenon, is war subordinate to politics, as Carl von Clausewitz argued in the early nineteenth century, or, instead, is it the product of an instinctive ‘warrior culture’, common to all peoples and times and beyond politics, as John Keegan suggested in the late twentieth? Should we emphasize ‘essential historical elements in the search for a tem- poral continuum in warfare? In this article, we stress the relevance of the ‘perennity of war’ thesis, and the impropriety of a dichotomy between political rationality vs. instinct. The results of the clash between these two strands of thought about the origins of warfare face limitations due to the absence of a temporal ‘play of scales’, so that short-term approaches emerge as incompatible with macro-historical views. We suggest that a deep understanding of the phenomenon of warfare must consider the interaction and the feedback between processes at different time scales. Introduction and Mao Zedong among others. On fails, Clausewitz says, a state is able to War became the cornerstone of mili- employ organized violence as a tech- If war (in general) is the “father tary strategic thinking in the twenti- nique, as social engineering, a means of all things” as said by Heraclitus, the eth century and is still praised as one to obtain desired ends. From the view- Wars of the French Revolution were of the most important works on the point of the strategist, war is just like the parents of the modern theory of subject. Of all topics addressed by chess, and that is the way it should be coalitional violence. Carl von Clause- Clausewitz, the idea that warfare is a if it is to be conducted in a “civilized” witz, the man behind the most notori- rational endeavor caught the atten- and “rational” manner (different from ous incursion of the Enlightenment in tion of many critics, especially after the “savages” overwhelmed by the lack the rational explanation of war, served the carnage of two world wars.