american academy of arts & sciences spring 2005 Bulletin vol. lviii, no. 3 Page 1 Academy Begins Yearlong Celebration of 225th Anniversary
Page 8 The Predicament of American Health Care Harvey Fineberg
Page 20 Biodiversity and our Common Future Peter Raven
inside:
Academy Receives $3 Million Grant, Page 6 Russian Religious Mystics and French Rationalists, Page 12 A Bach Cult in Late-Eighteenth-Century Berlin, Page 26 Project Update, Page 39 Calendar of Events
Saturday, Friday, October 8, 2005 December 2, 2005 Stated Meeting and National Induction Stated Meeting–Cambridge Ceremony–Cambridge Speaker: Robert Levin, Harvard University Location: Sanders Theatre, Contents Harvard University Location: House of the Academy
Academy News 1 Wednesday, November 9, 2005 Fall meetings in New York and California to be announced. Record-Breaking Support Stated Meeting–Cambridge for the Academy 6 Speaker: David McCullough Location: To be announced For information and reservations, contact the Visiting Scholars and Events Of½ce (phone: 617-576-5032; email: University Af½liates 7 [email protected]). Saturday, November 19, 2005 Stated Meeting Reports Stated Meeting–Chicago The Predicament of American Health Care Speakers: To be announced Harvey Fineberg 8 Location: Art Institute of Chicago Russian Religious Mystics and French Rationalists: Mathematics, 1900–1930 Loren Graham and Jean-Michel Kantor 12
Biodiversity and Our Common Future Peter Raven 20
A Bach Cult in Late-Eighteenth-Century Berlin: Sara Levy’s Musical Salon Christoph Wolff 26
James Bowdoin and the Patriot Philosophers 32
Around the Country 34
Nominating Committee Report 38
Project Update 39
Noteworthy 42
From the Archives 44 Academy News Academy Begins Yearlong Celebration of 225th Anniversary
“Cherishing Knowledge, Shap- edged sister organizations estab- ing the Future” sets the theme for lished in the founding period, and the Academy’s 225th anniversary spoke of the Academy’s work in lectures and publications. Meet- science, social policy, and the arts ings will be held throughout the and humanities. country to mark this special oc- casion, with a focus on the prin- Several speakers recalled the ciples underlying the founding evolution of the Academy’s work of the nation and the Academy– over the past three centuries. Neal how they have been transformed Lane (Rice University) called at- throughout history and how they tention to the Academy’s ongoing are interpreted today. concern with both pure research and the practical applications of To inaugurate these events, Vice science–from an expedition to President and Chair of the Acad- observe an eclipse of the sun in emy Trust Louis W. Cabot wel- the midst of the War for Indepen- comed several hundred guests dence to one of the ½rst Darwin- to a special program on April 21, ian debates in America in the 2005, celebrating the Academy’s mid-eighteenth century and the historic mission and its accom- establishment of the ½eld of arms James Carroll (Boston, Massachusetts) and Linda Greenhouse (The New plishments over three centuries. control in the twentieth century. York Times) The evening began with Fellows Robert C. Post (Yale Law School) ies on corporate and nonpro½t Quartet, Sergeant Dan Clark of James Carroll and Linda Green- traced the changing meaning of accountability. Executive Of½cer the Massachusetts State Police, house reading an August 1776 ex- social welfare in the Academy Leslie Berlowitz considered hu- and the Lincoln Minutemen Fife change of letters between John from improving crop production manistic study within the Acad- and Drum Corps. and Abigail Adams that foreshad- in 1780 to a conference on the so- emy, beginning with a focus on As Peter Nicholas, Chairman of owed the creation of the Acad- cial impact of science and tech- the language of the new nation Boston Scienti½c Corporation and emy. Members of the Council nology held two months before and extending to the creation of Co-Chair of the Academy Trust, and Trust read from the Massa- Pearl Harbor, a series of path- important institutions in the hu- observed in his remarks at the chusetts Constitution and from breaking studies on race and pov- manities, particularly the Na- celebration, “what is particular- the Academy’s Charter, acknowl- erty in the 1960s, and current stud- tional Humanities Center, and ly exciting about the Academy a study of the challenges facing is its ability to adapt its historic the humanities in contemporary mission to ensure that we remain America. a vital resource for contemporary Highlights of the evening includ- society. The Academy’s success ed congratulatory remarks by is due to its capacity to use its Mary Maples Dunn, Co-Execu- traditions imaginatively, while tive Of½cer of the American Phil- always promoting constructive osophical Society in Philadelphia; change.” video tributes from Senator Ed- ward M. Kennedy, Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer, U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman, and Chief Justice Mar- garet H. Marshall of the Massa- chusetts Supreme Judicial Court; and musical performances by members of the Lydian String Neal Lane (Rice University) Peter Nicholas (Boston Scientific Corporation)
Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 1 225th Celebration
Order of Speakers
Readings from the Letters of John and Abigail Adams James Carroll Linda Greenhouse
Welcome and A Remembrance by John Adams Louis W. Cabot
A Tribute to the Academy The Honorable Margaret H. Marshall
Chapter 5, Section 2 from the Massachusetts Constitution Cheryl Finley Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall of the Massachusetts Supreme The Charter of the American Academy Judicial Court John S. Reed
A Tribute to Sister Organizations Louis W. Cabot
Acknowledgment from the American Philosophical Society Mary Maples Dunn
A Tribute to the Academy The Honorable Samuel W. Bodman
The Academy’s Work: Science and Global Security Neal Lane U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel A Tribute to the Academy W. Bodman The Honorable Stephen G. Breyer
The Academy’s Work: Social Policy and American Institutions Robert C. Post
The Academy’s Work: The Humanities and Culture Leslie C. Berlowitz
A Tribute to the Academy The Honorable Edward M. Kennedy
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Allegro movement from the Divertimento in E Flat, K. 563 Senator Edward M. Kennedy Members of the Lydian String Quartet Introduced by Jerrold Meinwald
An Appreciation Leslie C. Berlowitz
Proclamation from the White House Jesse H. Choper
The Academy’s Future Peter Nicholas
“America the Beautiful” Sergeant Dan Clark Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer 2 Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 Patricia Meyer Spacks
At a dinner honoring members of the Council and the Trust, President Patricia Meyer Spacks (University of Virginia) toasted the legacy and the promise of the Academy:
As President of the Academy, I want to celebrate the ac- complishments of my forty-one predecessors. Beginning with merchant and astronomer James Bowdoin, they laid Members of the Lydian String Quartet: Daniel Stepner (violin), Joshua the foundation for an institution that has advanced change Gordon (violoncello), and Mary Ruth Ray (viola) while remaining faithful to a 225-year-old mission celebrat- ing the life of the mind in service to society. They never lost sight of the distinctive characteristics that de½ne the Academy. We remain interdisciplinary, independent, re- flective, pragmatic, and always aimed at promoting the common good.
Lest you think that presidents alone set the Academy’s course, let me assure you otherwise. My fellow of½cers, members of the Council and the Trust, the leaders of our research programs, and all those who work with us to ad- vance our goals are critical to our success. Thinkers and doers, working under no academic or political pressure and with no collective preconceptions, join forces to de- velop fresh approaches to dif½cult problems. Just as we cherish knowledge, we cherish all of you who value the Academy’s past and inspire its future. John S. Reed (Citigroup, retired)
Louis W. Cabot (Cabot-Wellington, LLC), Cheryl Finley (Visiting Scholar, Jerrold Meinwald (Cornell University) and Robert G. Stone, Jr. (Kirby American Academy), Carolyn S. Shoemaker (Lowell Observatory) Corporation)
Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 3 225th Celebration
Leslie Berlowitz (American Academy) and William T. Golden (New York, New York)
Robert C. Post (Yale University) and Michael E. Gellert (Windcrest Partners)
Members of the Lincoln Minutemen Fife and Drum Corps Charles M. Haar (Harvard Law School) and Allan Robinson (Harvard University)
4 Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 John Holdren (Harvard University) and Hugh Huxley (Brandeis University). Holdren spoke on “The Energy/ Banners of some of the sister organizations established in the founding period Well-Being Nexus: Economy, Security, Environment” at of the Academy. a dinner following the program.
Sergeant Dan Clark of the Massachusetts State Police Carl H. Pforzheimer III (Carl H. Pforzheimer and Co.) and Father J. Bryan Hehir (Harvard University)
Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 5 Record-Breaking Support for the Academy
William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Awards Academy $3 Million Grant A $3 million capacity-building grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation will signi½cantly strengthen the Academy’s research program, expand outreach, and build a more secure ½nancial base. Plans call for increasing the number of projects with public policy implications, involving more Fellows and Visiting Scholars in this work, and broadening Academy activities across the country. In acknowledging the award, Executive Of½cer Leslie Berlowitz noted, “This new grant will advance all aspects of our work, as we enhance our role as an independent, intellectual center for addressing pressing issues of our time. The Academy is extremely grateful to the President of the Hewlett Foundation, Paul Brest, and to the members of its board of trustees for recognizing the need and providing the critical support to realize the Academy’s ambitious goals.” President Patricia Meyer Spacks added, “The Hewlett award represents a strong vote of con½dence in the important work of the Academy. It will increase our ability to draw on the Academy’s unique assets–a distinguished member- ship, unparalleled convening power, and institutional independence–to sustain and strengthen a 225-year tradition of advancing scholarship and serving society.”
Expanded Support Annual Giving at New Level for Academy Research Over the past year, the Academy reached two important milestones in its fund-raising efforts. Gifts and grants to The Academy is the bene½ciary of important new funds support projects and programs totaled over $5 million, and to support both its research program and the work of the the Annual Fund surpassed the $1 million mark for the ½fth Visiting Scholars. These gifts will help the Academy to ini- consecutive year, exceeding $1.25 million for the ½rst time. tiate new projects on topics such as the governance of the Internet, corporate and nonpro½t responsibility, higher “Every gift is important to us,” and Cynthia Reed, and E. John education, and challenges to American science. Several of emphasized Vice President and Rosenwald, Jr. the grants will support the Visiting Scholars Program, now Chair of the Trust Louis W. The Academy is indebted to the completing its third year. Cabot. “The Academy relies on co-chairs of the Development Annual Fund gifts to underwrite Committee, Louis W. Cabot and Lead gifts have been received from: research projects and a growing Robert A. Alberty, and to the schedule of programs across the Committee’s members–Jesse H. The Annenberg Foundation country. We extend our deep ap- Choper, Michael E. Gellert, Wil- The Cabot Family Charitable Trust preciation to all of the Fellows, liam T. Golden, Charles M. Haar, The Virginia Wellington Cabot Foundation friends, and foundations who and Jack W. Peltason–for the The Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation have helped us to exceed our goal dedication and hard work that The Charles and Suzanne Haar Fund again this year.” has helped to make this year’s The Esther Haar Scholar Exchange Program Setting the pace in individual Annual Fund such a success. The National Endowment for the Humanities. giving with leadership gifts were A full list of all contributors to Leonore Annenberg, Stephen the 2004–2005 Annual Fund D. Bechtel, Jr., Louis W. Cabot, will appear in the Academy’s Lewis B. Cullman, William T. Annual Report, to be issued in Golden, Walter B. Hewlett, fall 2005. Martin Lipton, Peter Nicholas, Carl H. Pforzheimer III, John
6 Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 2004–2005 Visiting Scholars’ Emory Joins University Af½liates Appointments for the Coming Year Emory University is the 42nd institution to become a member of the Academy’s consortium of University Af½liates–a group he Visiting Scholars Program Hsuan Hsu: Assistant Professor T of colleges and universities from across the country that provide was created to expand the Acad- of English, Yale University. support and guidance for Academy research, including the Vis- emy’s research by supporting the Research: Scales of Identi½cation: iting Scholars Program and inter-university projects. The Acad- work of the next generation of Geography, Affect, and Nineteenth- emy is deeply grateful to President James W. Wagner of Emory scholars and investing in their Century U.S. Literature and to the leaders of all the Af½liates for their con½dence in the professional development. Free Academy’s efforts to support interdisciplinary research and to of regular teaching and adminis- Christopher Klemek: Assistant expand opportunities for postdoctoral scholars and junior faculty. trative responsibilities, postdoc- Professor of History, Florida In- toral scholars and junior faculty ternational University. University Af½liates combine their independent re- Research: Urbanism and Transi- search with participation in con- Boston University–Aram V. Chobanian, Interim President tion: Modernist Planning and the ferences, Stated Meetings, and Brandeis University–Jehuda Reinharz, President Crisis of Urban Liberalism in Europe Brown University–Ruth J. Simmons, President informal gatherings. and North America, 1945–1975 Columbia University–Lee Bollinger, President Over the past three years, re- Cornell University–Jeffrey Sean Lehman, President sponse to the program has been Matthew Lindsay: Associate at Dartmouth College–James Wright, President overwhelmingly enthusiastic. the Boston law ½rm, Foley Hoag. Duke University–Richard H. Brodhead, President Emory University–James W. Wagner, President Participants welcome the oppor- Research: In Defense of “Racial George Washington University–Stephen J. Trachtenberg, President tunity to engage with Fellows in Balancing”: Accounting for Inequal- Harvard University–Lawrence H. Summers, President a “vital, stimulating atmosphere ity in the Post-Civil-Rights Era Indiana University–Adam W. Herbert, President that spins off new insights, ideas, Johns Hopkins University–William R. Brody, President and projects, even as it encour- Robert McDougall: Assistant Massachusetts Institute of Technology–Susan Hock½eld, President ages basic study, writing, and Professor of History, University Michigan State University–Lou Anna Kimsey Simon, President research.” of Western Ontario. New York University–John Sexton, President Research: Northwestern University–Henry Bienen, President Eight Visiting Scholars completed The People’s Phone: Rewriting the History of the Gilded Ohio State University–Karen Holbrook, President their yearlong residency in Cam- Pennsylvania State University–Graham Spanier, President Age and the Progressive Era bridge in May. Their new univer- Princeton University–Shirley Tilghman, President sity and professional positions Rice University–David W. Leebron, President Asif Sidiqqi: Assistant Professor and the topics of their research Smith College–Carol T. Christ, President of History, Fordham University. at the Academy follow: Stanford University–John L. Hennessy, President Research: Science and Repression Tufts University–Lawrence S. Bacow, President Christopher Capozzola: in the Twentieth Century: Revisiting University of California, Berkeley–Robert J. Birgeneau, Chancellor Assistant Professor of History, Soviet Science University of California, Davis–Larry N. Vanderhoef, Chancellor Massachusetts Institute of University of California, Irvine–Ralph J. Cicerone, Chancellor Technology. Lisa Szefel: Lecturer in History University of California, Los Angeles–Albert Carnesale, Chancellor University of Chicago–Don Michael Randel, President Research: Uncle Sam Wants You: and Literature, Harvard Univer- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign–Richard Herman, Citizenship and Obligation in World sity. Interim Chancellor War I America Research: The American Poetic University of Iowa–David J. Skorton, President Community: 1890–1920 University of Maryland–C.D. Mote, Jr., President Cheryl Finley: Postdoctoral University of Michigan–Mary Sue Coleman, President Scholar, Ford Foundation; Assis- University of Minnesota–Robert Bruininks, President tant Professor in the History of University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill–James Moeser, Chancellor Art Department, Cornell Univer- University of Notre Dame–Rev. Edward A. Malloy, President sity (on leave). University of Pennsylvania–Amy Gutmann, President University of Pittsburgh–Mark A. Nordenberg, Chancellor Research: Committed to Memory: University of Southern California–Steven B. Sample, President The Slave Ship Icon in the Black University of Texas, Austin–Larry R. Faulkner, President Atlantic Imagination University of Virginia–John T. Casteen, III, President University of Wisconsin, Madison–John D. Wiley, Chancellor Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University– Charles W. Steger, President
Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 7 © Randy Faris/Corbis. The Predicament of American Health Care Harvey Fineberg
This presentation was given at the 1883rd Stated Meeting, held at the Seattle Art Museum on October 30, 2004.
Harvey Fineberg is President of the Institute of its age-speci½c mortality since the 1950s. As What things stand out as something you’d Medicine. He has been a Fellow of the American a cause of death, stroke similarly decreased say is a problem with our health care today? Academy since 1994. by more than 50 percent in that period of The lack of health insurance for all Ameri- time. If you think about the broad sweep of cans, the high cost of services that are some- progress and the outcomes of health in the times of poor quality, disparities in care, and he predicament of American health care T United States over the twentieth century, it lack of emphasis on preventive medicine are today is a concern for virtually every citizen is historically unprecedented, dramatic, and key components of the predicament of health in this country. When we think about Amer- stunning. Never before in human history had care in America today. ican health care, as a matter of perspective, it anything like that improvement in popula- may be useful to remember where we’ve come In 2003, there were 46.5 million Americans tion health been achieved. from. At the beginning of the twentieth cen- without health insurance, and the number is tury, life expectancy at birth in the United Thinking about our current health-care sys- increasing. This ½gure, keep in mind, is not States was only about forty-eight years. Infant tem, how many of you would say that you a reflection of the number of people who in mortality (deaths among newborns before are very satis½ed or somewhat satis½ed with the course of a year may go without health the age of one) was greater than one hundred the health-care system of the United States? insurance; it reflects the number who lack per one thousand live births. From 1900 to It looks like about 20 percent. How many health insurance for the entire year. If we take the year 2000, life expectancy increased by would say that you’re somewhat unsatis½ed into account the number of people who at more than 50 percent (greater than seventy- or very unsatis½ed with the health-care sys- any one time do not have health insurance ½ve years), and infant mortality in the United tem of the United States? That looks like because of changing jobs, or graduating from States declined by an order of magnitude, to about 80 percent. Now, particularly for those school, and so on, that number would about less than ten. Heart disease, which is the ma- of you who are unsatis½ed, what is it about double. jor killer, has actually diminished by half in our health system that makes you unsatis½ed? 8 Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 People today are rightly concerned about the sional ethics and individual choice. From the rising cost of health care and of prescription vantage point of cost, approximately one Health care today in the drugs. Right now in the United States we’re quarter of the total Medicare expenditures United States is very costly, spending more than a trillion and a half dol- are in the last year of life. lars a year for health care. We in the United Interestingly, malpractice probably does and relative to what many States spend more money on health care than not play a big part in increasing health-care costs, the poorest half of the world spends for ev- other countries seem to be although it is a signi½cant burden on doctors erything. Right now, about one in every seven and contributes to declining professional dollars in the economy goes to health care, buying for their expendi- morale and loss of practitioners, particularly and it seems like there’s no end in sight. So in selected geographic and specialty areas. we have a big problem with cost. tures, we seem to be buying Malpractice deserves notice as a problem, But why is cost a problem? Why do we care but not as a cost driver. less for ours. about the cost of health care relative to what Compared to other economically developed people spend for travel or binoculars? So do most of the time. It is the doctor who de- countries, the United States spends much what if we spend a trillion and a half dollars a cides on the treatment and orders the tests. more on health care. For example, compared year on keeping well. Recently, we had a very It is the insurer who pays. It is you the patient to Germany and Switzerland, we spend 50 interesting debate about the cost of health who gets whatever degree of satisfaction percent more per capita in dollar equivalent care at the annual meeting of the Institute of from the experience. But you have less than purchasing power. We spend twice as much Medicine. One argument put forward was full control over the basic decisions that pro- per capita as Sweden and more than twice as that cost per se is not a problem; another was duced those results. much per capita as the United Kingdom. The question then is what are these expenditures Health care today in the United States is very The lack of health insur- buying us? What’s our life expectancy com- costly, and relative to what many other coun- pared to other countries in the world? An- tries seem to be buying for their expenditures, ance for all Americans, the swer: not in the top ten. What’s our infant we seem to be buying less for ours. On aver- mortality compared to other countries in the age, we don’t have the quality of care and the high cost of services that are world? Answer: not in the top twenty. What outcomes that we should. At its best, U.S. sometimes of poor quality, are we doing in terms of quality of care as health care compares favorably with any in judged by people getting the care? In this au- the world, but on average, we have some disparities in care, and lack dience, about 80 percent of the people said serious de½ciencies. they’re somewhat dissatis½ed or very dissat- Five years ago, the Institute of Medicine pub- is½ed with our health-care system. In a num- of emphasis on preventive lished its landmark report on errors in health ber of other countries, including Canada and care: To Err Is Human. The report estimated medicine are key compo- parts of western Europe, there’s a lot of dis- that every year in the United States tens of satisfaction, but it’s not as high as in the Unit- thousands of people die in hospitals because nents of the predicament ed States. Interestingly, if you ask people the of medical errors. Other studies examining question a little bit differently, if you ask are the problem also found shortcomings in qual- of health care in America you satis½ed with your personal physician, a ity. For example, in 2003, a report published much higher proportion of Americans will today. in the New England Journal of Medicine, by Beth say, yes. McGlynn and her colleagues at the rand that cost is a real and growing problem. What Part of the cost driver is that what we expend Corporation, looked at the care received by is it about the expenditures that is causing so when we go to buy health care is often not thousands of people in thirty different com- much concern? Part of the problem of cost our own dollars. Those of us with insurance munities around the country. They consid- is affordability. But you could argue that dis- that offers ½rst dollar coverage are spending ered a number of speci½c medical conditions tribution of cost is mainly an exchange prob- the money of everyone who is part of our in- where there are speci½c guidelines about how lem, a task of moving resources to where surance group. The health-care market is far patients should be treated. These include they are needed. One concern about costs is from an economically functional market with testing for diabetes, measurement and con- that consumers don’t really have a choice. If informed consumers, competition, and free trol of high blood pressure, and treatment of you have a serious illness, you go to the hos- choice. In a market that works, the person people with heart attacks, among others. The pital, whether you like it or not, or else you who makes the decision to buy, the person general conclusion across the board was if may die. Collectively we are demanding care who receives the product and experiences the you are a patient in the United States today that is technologically more sophisticated good or the bad, and the person who pays for with one of these conditions and you go to and that from the provider’s point of view is that product is the same person. You decide, your doctor in one of these communities, on increasingly complex and costly to provide. for example, that you’re going to go to the average, you have about a ½fty-½fty chance market and buy some grapes; you pick out of getting the care that is indicated for your One concern is the expectation and pressure the bunch, you pay with your money, and you condition. Overall, 46 percent of the people to keep people alive at all costs. The problem eat them. By contrast, in health care, it is of- in that study did not receive the recommend- of the end stage of disease, its cost and human ten the professional who decides what you ed standard of care. burden, raises profound questions of profes-
Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 9 In some cases, failure to meet the standards We also need to place more emphasis on The mix of uninsured patients, high cost, of care can mean the difference between life training across the professions because the quality that’s less than our patients deserve, and death. For example, it is well established treatment of people with chronic diseases disparities in care, and underinvestment in that most persons who have myocardial in- often requires a team. Caregivers must be prevention represents the ingredients of the farctions should be treated with a kind of able to respond to the needs of patients with American dilemma in health care. Looking agent called a beta-blocker, which slows the chronic illnesses–100 million plus people in at the three at the top–insurance, cost, and nerve impulses and reduces the work burden the United States, with the number increas- quality–you cannot solve one without solv- on the heart. Clinical studies have demon- ing as the population ages. ing them all. We need a comprehensive ap- strated repeatedly that this is a life-saving in- proach that looks at all three together. There On a positive note, there is a very encourag- tervention. The McGlynn study found that is an ambivalence in this country about wheth- ing degree of experimentation now going on er health is a social good or a market good, in medical education, particularly in terms of and from that philosophical difference fol- improving the clinical elements of training. The United States has a lows many other distinctions. We need lead- The dif½culties here are in part the changes ership with a political will and skill to bridge in the nature of practice, as patients on aver- triple problem: we are those philosophies, to ½nd common ground age spend much less time in the hospital than for solutions. From the Right we need accept- spending a lot of money, they ever did before. Hospital-based training, ance that the idea of universal coverage is then, is not the suf½cient model that it pre- necessary and required as a society. From our quality is substandard, viously was for clinical education. And there the Left, we need a recognition that there are is a lot of room for improvement. As part of and we have 46.5 million individual responsibility and income-related what we call the “quality chasm series” in the burdens of care that will affect decisions Institute of Medicine, we are working on a people without health about utilization. whole array of related elements of quality insurance. improvement, and education is a big part of The health predicament in America will not it. A year ago we brought together leaders be resolved quickly or easily. However, unless from different professional schools (pharma- we commit as a nation to making progress beta-blockers were prescribed for fewer than cy, nursing, social service, and medicine) for on its several dimensions, we will never work 60 percent of people recovering from a heart a summit meeting on education for quality. our way out of the predicament. attack. I have a theory about why beta-block- ers are underprescribed: they are simply too Many other countries face shortfalls in qual- cheap; they cost pennies per dose, and no- ity of care, as measured against the kinds © 2005 by Harvey Fineberg. body has a reason to promote them. If they of standards that I have been discussing. In were the “purple pill,” I can assure you that Australia, for example, a study that repli- we would be demanding beta-blockers. But cated an assessment in U.S. hospitals found it is up to the doctor to prescribe them, and similar levels of error and similar problems. physicians are not doing it often enough. The United Kingdom is also dealing with the The situation is similar for diabetes: people challenge of reducing errors and improving have about a ½fty-½fty chance of receiving quality. Its National Health Service has made basic tests indicated for the care of persons a commitment to put an automated record with diabetes. system into every general practitioner’s of- ½ce within the next two years. General prac- The United States has a triple problem: we titioners will be linked to a database system are spending a lot of money, our quality is for their patients and their prescriptions, substandard, and we have 46.5 million peo- with automatic checks of the side effects and ple without health insurance. That number the incompatibilities of different medica- of uninsured has a cost impact on the health- tions that a patient is taking. In the United care system because those people do not stay States, incorrect medication is still the most completely out of the system. They delay care, frequent source of error, though individual but when they get seriously ill, the cost of hospitals and care groups have model sys- caring for them is higher than if they had re- tems in place. ceived preventive or earlier therapeutic care. Some countries are working more aggressive- Another dimension of the quality problem ly than we are at the present time in acknowl- is to improve training at every level in the edging the problems of health-care quality medical profession. We are not doing a good and taking steps to solve the problems. The job in suf½ciently educating for quality, which current administration has championed auto- has a number of dimensions beyond the mating health-care records. The questions mastery of a current body of knowledge. It are what is the best mechanism and what requires educating people who have a life- resources are needed to accomplish this. time capacity for learning.
10 Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 Western Meeting–Seattle
Patricia Gill, Gordon N. Gill, co-chair of the Western Center (University of California, San Diego), and John R. Hogness, former Vice President of the Western Center (University of Washington), who was honored for his service to the Academy and for his long and distinguished career in medicine and higher education.
Harvey Fineberg speaking on American health care.
Academy President Patricia Meyer Spacks (University of Virginia) and William H. Gates, Sr. (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation)
Daniel J. Evans and Robert H. Waterston (both, University of Washington)
Gerald J. Wasserburg (California Institute of Technology), Edward A. Feigenbaum (Stanford University), and Eugene Wong (University of California, Berkeley)
Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 11 the twentieth century; Sergei Novikov; Vladimir Arnol’d; Lev Pontriagin; Pavel Aleksandrov; and Mstislav Keldysh, one- time president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and the theoretician of the Soviet space program. ∞ At the top of the genealogical tree are Egorov ℜ and Luzin. Who were these men? Where did they come from? What motivated them? How did they differ from other leading math- ematicians, especially the French who were † at the time considered pioneers in the same ½elds? My colleague from Paris, Jean-Michel Kantor, and I have been investigating these questions, and we have come to a conclusion that surprises us and runs counter to our own secular predispositions: at the heart of the ☯ birth of the Moscow School of Mathematics was a mystical religious impulse. This mysti- ∑ cal doctrine was de½ned by the established Russian Orthodox Church as a heresy and hence condemned. Yet the heresy, known as Name Worshipping (imiaslavie), never died and it even has a small life in Russia today; ⇔ ∏ indeed, it has gained some strength in recent years. Several outstanding mathematicians are involved with it at present, but their inter- est in it remains hidden, as it always has been.
During the last two years, I have been in Mos- Russian Religious Mystics and French cow a number of times, and I have visited with Russian scholars who are familiar with Rationalists: Mathematics, 1900–1930 the Name Worshipping movement. One of them was a mathematician–a rather well Loren Graham and Jean-Michel Kantor known one whom I prefer not to name in order to preserve his privacy. I knew that he This presentation was given at the 1884th Stated Meeting, held at the House of the Academy was philosophically and religiously interest- on November 10, 2004. ed in Name Worshipping, and so I asked if it would be possible to witness Name Worship- Loren Graham is Professor of the History of most influential movements in twentieth- pers practicing their faith. His answer was Science in the Program in Science, Technology, century mathematics. In particular, the study no: “Name Worshipping is an intimate prac- and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of of functions and the descriptive theory of tice that is best done alone.” I asked if there Technology. He has been a Fellow of the Ameri- sets (the application to real numbers of set was any place where Name Worshippers can Academy since 1981. theory), initiated by Dmitrii Egorov, Nikolai particularly liked to worship. He replied that Luzin, and their students in the ½rst decades Name Worshipping cannot be done openly in Jean-Michel Kantor is a mathematician at the of the twentieth century, has had a world- established churches or cathedrals because Institut Mathématiques de Jussieu, Université wide impact. the of½cial church disapproves of the prac- Paris. tice. He added, however, that there was one If you go today to the mathematics depart- place particularly sacred to Name Worship- ment of Moscow University, where this pers: the basement of the Church of Saint movement began, you might see on a bulletin Loren Graham Tatiana the Martyr in Moscow. I knew where board, as I have seen, a genealogical chart this church was. Before the Russian Revolu- depicting the founders of this impressive tion it was the of½cial church of Moscow Uni- f someone were to ask me what I think was mathematical movement and their succeed- I versity, and now that the Soviet Union has the greatest intellectual contribution that ing generations of students. Mathematicians disappeared, it has become so again. For many Russians made in the twentieth century, I or those familiar with the world of mathe- years the mathematics department of the would answer, without much hesitation, matics would recognize the names of some university was located next to it. During the mathematics and ½elds closely connected of the most influential mathematicians of Soviet years it was converted into a sort of with it, such as theoretical physics. The Mos- the last century: for example, Andrei Kolmo- student club, and one time in the early 1960s cow School of Mathematics was one of the gorov, perhaps the greatest probabilist of I went to a dance there with my young wife, 12 Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 ally be arrested by the Communist authori- MOSCOW MATHEMATICAL SCHOOL ties, accused of mixing mathematics and religion. They subsequently died in prison. EGOROV (Parenthetically I would observe that it is one LUZIN of the cruel ironies of history that the Com- Vitushkin Veniaminov munists’ charge that Florenskii and Egorov L.V. Keldysh mixed mathematics and religion was correct; Suslin BARI KHINCHIN Shnirel’man although contrary to the assumption of the Fedorov Glivenko Gel’fond Kozlov Ul’yanov Kaz’min Communists, the mixture was amazingly Gnedenko Shidlovskii Nikishin Nemytskii Skorokhod Fel’dman fruitful to the ½eld of mathematics.) Luzin Evgrafov narrowly escaped imprisonment, even though P. S. NOVIKOV he was put on “trial” for ideological devia- Adyan A.A. Lyapunov Yablonskii tions and severely reprimanded. Florenskii MEN’SHOV Makanin Ershov Lupanov is credited with developing a new ideology Buslenko Kudryavtsev of mathematics and religion that played a Tolstov Stechkin Chelidze Brudno E½mov Zhizhiashvili role in the pioneering mathematics work of Talalyan Garkava Egorov, Luzin, and their students. Volkov Dolzhenko M. V. LAVRENT’EV LYUSTERNIK Kuptsov Florenskii was one year older than Luzin and Skvortsov M.V. Keldysh Bitsadze Markushevich Mergelyan Shabat Tumarkin Sobolev entered Moscow University in 1900; Luzin Gonchar Zarich Davydov Vishik followed him in 1901. Both studied with Ego- Khavinson rov, who was a young professor of mathemat-
KOLMOGOROV Glivenko ics. Luzin at that time was not the religious believer that he later became. By his own ad- Millionshchikov Gonchar Gnedenko Nikol’skii Uryson Mikhalevich Monin Amanov mission he was a “materialist,” like many Gel’fand Uspenskii Korneichuk other young Russian intellectuals, and he Shilov Borovkov Potapov P. S. ALEKSANDROV Kostyuchenko Zolotarev Pontryagin Kurosh knew very little about philosophy or politics. Palamodov Sinai Raikov Meshalkin Postnikov E.F. Mishchenko Andrunakievich From 1905 to 1908 Luzin underwent a psy- Kirillov Rozanov S.P. Novikov Gamkrelize Golovin Minlos Tikhomirov Fomin chological crisis so severe that several times Maslov A.S. Mishchenko Boltyanskii Skornyakov Lomov Rokhlin Shirshov he contemplated suicide. One precipitating Prokhorov Rozov Latyshev event in Russia was the unsuccessful revolu- Arnol’d Shmel’kin Varchenko Ol’shanskii tion of 1905, a moment that sobered many left-wing members of the intelligentsia who Tikhonov Mal’tsev had talked romantically of their hopes for a Ershov Il’in Samarskii Guseinov revolution without comprehending the blood Kargapolov Alimov Govorun Akhmedov Taimanov Ponomarev Kostomarov Babaev and violence that revolutions often bring. Shocked by the suffering, a number of intel- lectuals, in both the natural and social sci- Patricia. We did not know at the time that we and Göttingen and talked with, among oth- ences, began to rethink their positions. were dancing in what had once been a church, ers, the mathematicians Henri Lebesgue, nor did we have any idea that this place would Henri Poincaré, Jacques Hadamard, and Kurt Luzin possessed a tender, somewhat naive become important to my research. Hensel. Luzin ½rst went to western Europe personality, and he was not prepared for the in 1905, later visited France and Germany a pain he saw around him during and immedi- I asked the Moscow mathematician how I number of times, and had frequent contacts ately after the revolutionary events. In an ef- would know when I had reached the spot sa- with mathematicians there. fort to relieve his spiritual crisis, his teacher cred to Name Worshippers. He told me that Egorov sent him abroad in December 1905, I would know when I got there. I went there In the ½rst years of the twentieth century, but the trip did not solve Luzin’s spiritual and this past July and wandered around, search- Luzin studied mathematics in Moscow Uni- intellectual problems. Not only did Luzin’s ing the whitewashed walls of the basement. versity under Egorov and as a fellow student materialist worldview collapse, but his faith Then I found a peculiar corner, and I knew with Pavel Florenskii (1882–1937), who were in science and mathematics did as well. He immediately I was in the right place. On the influential in forming the ideas of the Mos- was totally without a purpose in life. In de- walls were two photographs of the two men cow School. In their mature and profession- spair on May 1, 1906, he wrote Florenskii who were instrumental in establishing Name ally active years, all three men–Florenskii, from Paris: Worshipping among mathematicians, name- Egorov, and Luzin–were deeply religious. ly, Dmitrii Egorov and Pavel Florenskii. Florenskii, disappointing his teachers, aban- You found me a mere child at the Univer- doned mathematics for religious studies and sity, knowing nothing. I don’t know how Dmitrii Egorov (1869–1931) and Nikolai Lu- became a priest. Egorov and Luzin went on it happened, but I cannot be satis½ed any zin (1883–1950) founded the Moscow School to become outstanding mathematicians who more with the analytic functions and Tay- of Mathematics. They had close connections helped create an explosion of mathematical lor series. . . . To see the misery of people, with French and German mathematicians. research in Moscow in the 1920s and early to see the torment of life . . . this is an un- Egorov spent the year of 1902 in Paris, Berlin, bearable sight. . . . I cannot live by science 1930s. Florenskii and Egorov would eventu- Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 13 alone. . . . I have nothing, no worldview, was, according to him, the unfortunate apo- In the years just before the Russian Revolu- and no education. I am absolutely igno- gee in faith in deterministic continuity; in- tion of 1917, the world of Russian Orthodoxy, rant of the philological sciences, history, deed, he wrote that in the nineteenth century the state religion, was shaken by a theologi- philosophy. “the cementing idea of continuity brought cal struggle that further influenced Floren- In a long correspondence and in numerous everything together in one gigantic mono- skii, Luzin, and Egorov and their ideas about meetings at Sergeev Posad, Zagorsk, a mon- lith.” The mathematical approach that cre- the relationship between mathematics and astery town outside Moscow, Florenskii, al- ated this monolith was in½nitesimal analysis religion. A polemic developed between two ready a devout believer, supplied Luzin with and differential calculus. This method be- groups of religious believers: the Worship- a new worldview. It combined both religion came all-powerful because differential cal- pers of the Name, or Nominalists (Imiaslav- and mathematics and, as we will see, gave culus was at the heart of the physical sciences tsy), and the Anti-Nominalists (Imiabortsy). the desperate Luzin reason to believe that he through Newtonian mechanics. One of the The dispute was rooted in an ancient ques- could renew his mathematical research while results of its seeming omnipotence was that tion about how humans can worship an un- at the same time serving moral and religious mathematicians concentrated only on con- knowable deity. If God is in principle beyond purposes. tinuous functions, since “continuous func- the comprehension of mortals (and holy tions are differentiable” and therefore sus- scripture contains many such assertions), ceptible to analysis by the calculus. how, in complete ignorance of his nature, can human beings worship him? What does one If someone were to ask me Florenskii believed that, as a result, mathe- worship? The most common response given maticians and philosophers tended to ignore to this dilemma throughout religious histo- what I think was the great- those problems that could not be analyzed ry was the resort to symbols: icons, names, by calculus, namely, the discontinuous phe- est intellectual contribution rituals, music, relics, scents, tastes, art, archi- nomena. Seeing continuous functions in tecture, literature. Symbolism is the term mathematics as “deterministic,” Florenskii that Russians made in the given to a perceptible object or activity that believed the expansion of the philosophy of represents to the mind the semblance of determinism throughout psychology, sociol- twentieth century, I would something that is not shown but realized by ogy, and religion was the destructive result association with it. answer, without much hes- of a temporary emphasis in mathematics. Thus he held nineteenth-century mathemat- Mathematical objects cannot be shown so itation, mathematics. ics responsible for the erosion of earlier be- both religion and mathematics make heavy– liefs in freedom of will, religious autonomy, but different–use of symbols. Mathematics Many of the ideas Luzin found stimulating and redemption. uses such symbols as: and reassuring were presented in an essay Florenskii thought that the ½eld that was Florenskii wrote in 1903, when he was only “guilty” of the glaring overestimation of con- ∫∑∞ ℜ ⇔ ∏ twenty-one years old and still a mathematics tinuity–mathematics–was destined to lead student at Moscow University. In this essay, thinkers out of the blind alley that it had cre- entitled “The Idea of Discontinuity as an El- ated. In the 1880s the German mathematician Religion uses a great variety of symbols, such ement of World View,” Florenskii displayed Georg Cantor, the founder of set theory, had as the Star of David and the cross, as well as a characteristic that was very common among analyzed “continuum” as merely a set among icons, prayers, chants, and hymns. members of the Russian intelligentsia of his possible other sets and had therefore deprived time: the belief that all intellectual life forms the concept of its metaphysical, dogmatic a connected whole and that therefore ideas power. Now the road was open, maintained in mathematics and philosophy could be ex- Florenskii, to restore discontinuity and in- ☯ tended to the social and moral realms, and determinism to their rightful place in one’s vice versa. worldview. He saw the power of discontinu- But some questions naturally arise: What Florenskii thought that much of the nine- ity in recent developments in many ½elds reality, if any, lies behind the symbol? What teenth century had been a disaster from the outside mathematics, such as the theory of does a religious icon or a mathematical sym- standpoint of philosophy, religion, and eth- mutations in biology (delivering, according bol really represent? Does the symbol ac- ics and that the particular type of mathemat- to Florenskii, biology from the “heartless” quire any sort of autonomy? ics that reigned during that century was one continuity of Darwinism), new ideas about of the important causes of this misfortune. molecular physics, and concepts of “sublim- The issue of religious symbols took on an The governing mathematical principle of the inal consciousness” and “creativity” in psy- unusual sharpness in Russia in the years nineteenth century, which Florenskii saw as chology. Surveying these developments, 1908–1930, the same years in which the Mos- responsible for ethical decline, was determin- Florenskii called for “the dawn of a new dis- cow School of Mathematics was created. istic “continuity”: the belief that all phenom- continuous worldview” and challenged his Priests and mathematicians were involved ena pass from one state to another smoothly. mathematician colleagues, such as Luzin and in both the religious and the mathematical In substitution of this “false” principle of Egorov, to foster this new approach, one discussions. In 1907 a monk of the Orthodox continuity, Florenskii proposed its opposite, that would combine mathematics, religion, Church, Ilarion, who had earlier spent years discontinuity, which he saw as morally and and philosophy. in a Russian monastery in Mount Athos in religiously superior. The nineteenth century Greece, published a book, In the Mountains of the Caucasus, that seized on an existing 14 Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 treatment and obtained promises of further skii, religious and mathematical symbols Contrary to the Marxists investigation and reconsideration. could attain full autonomy. who connected science and With the advent of World War I, the issue re- Florenskii saw that the Name Worshippers ceded into the background, but until the end had raised the issue of “naming” to a new mathematics to the mate- of the tsarist regime, the adherents of the prominence. To name something was to give rial world, Florenskii was “heresy” were forbidden to return to Mount birth to a new entity. God said in Genesis, Athos or to reside in major cities like Saint “Let there be Light, and there was Light.” He convinced that mathemat- Petersburg and Moscow. The most fervent of named it ½rst, and then He created it. Names them retreated to monasteries, where they are words. In the Gospel according to Saint ics was a product of the continued to practice their variant of the faith. John, the statement occurs, “In the beginning After the Bolshevik Revolution in October was the Word, and the Word was with God, free creativity of human and November of 1917, the Name Worship- and the Word was God.” Florenskii believed pers, now living all over rural Russia, were that mathematicians who created new enti- beings and that it had a more successful than most other religious ties like sets by naming them came as close believers in continuing their practices out of as humans are permitted to approaching the religious signi½cance. view of Soviet political authorities, who were divine. trying to suppress religion. After all, the Name tradition in Orthodox liturgy, especially the Contrary to the Marxists who connected sci- Worshippers had already been de½ned as chanting of the Jesus Prayer (Iisusova molitva), ence and mathematics to the material world, heretics and excluded from the established and raised it to a new prominence. In the Je- Florenskii was convinced that mathematics churches. But in secret they continued their sus Prayer, the religious believer chants the was a product of the free creativity of human faith, and as a result they were not compro- names of Christ and God over and over again, beings and that it had a religious signi½cance. mised by association with the Bolsheviks, as hundreds of times, until his whole body some of the established church leaders soon reaches a state of religious ecstasy in which became. The dissidents claimed to be repre- even the beating of his heart, in addition to sentatives of the unde½led “true faith,” in- When a mathematician his breathing cycle, is supposedly in tune with creasing their popularity with some religious the chanted words “Christ” and “God.” (A created a set by naming it, opponents of the new Communist regime. state vividly described by J. D. Salinger in Franny and Zooey.) According to Ilarion, the In the 1920s the German writer and journal- he was giving birth to a worshipper achieves a state of unity with God ist Rene Fulop-Muller spent much time in new mathematical being. through the rhythmic pronouncing of his Russia and in his remarkable book The Mind name. This demonstrates, said Ilarion, that and Face of Bolshevism, he wrote that Name The naming of sets was a the name of God is holy in itself, that the Worshipping was “a movement to which a name of God is God (Imia Bozhie est’ sam Bog). great part of the intelligentsia as well as a con- mathematical act, just as siderable part of the peasantry belong. The At ½rst this book was well received by many best men of Russia lead this school, which Russians interested in religious thought. Ila- the naming of God was a proclaims the magic power of the divine rion’s views became very popular among the name.” religious one, according to hundreds of Russian monks in Mount Athos, who gradually spread the views elsewhere. After the Bolshevik Revolution, Florenskii the Name Worshippers. But the highest of½cials in Russian Ortho- lived in Sergeev Posad, Zagorsk, and he was doxy, in Saint Petersburg and Moscow, soon close religiously and intellectually to the The famous sentence of Georg Cantor, “The began to consider the book not just as a de- Name Worshipper dissidents. He commu- essence of mathematics lies precisely in its scription of the reality of prayer but as a the- nicated their ideas to Luzin and Egorov, his freedom,” clearly had a strong appeal to Flo- ological assertion. For many of them, the mathematician colleagues, and he translated renskii. In mathematics, more than in the adherents of Ilarion’s beliefs were heretics, these religious concepts into mathematical threatening Soviet world he was facing, men even pagan pantheists, because they alleged- parlance. In the early 1920s, there was a Name like Florenskii could exercise their free will ly confused the symbols of God with God Worshipper Circle ( ) imeslavcheskii kruzhok and create beings (sets) by just naming them. himself. On May 18, 1913, the Holy Synod in in Moscow where the ideas of the religious For example, de½ning the set of numbers such Saint Petersburg condemned the Name Wor- dissidents and the concepts of mathematics that their squares are less than 2, and naming shippers; soon thereafter the Russian Navy, were brought together. Florenskii and the it “A,” and analogously the set of numbers with the approval of Tsar Nikolai II, sent sev- philosopher A. F. Losev attended meetings such that their squares are larger than 2, and eral ships (the Donets and the Kherson) to of the circle, which included ½fteen or six- naming it “B,” immediately brought into ex- Mount Athos to bring the rebellious monks teen philosophers, mathematicians, and re- istence the real number √⎯2 (essentially the forcibly to heel. Over six hundred unrepen- ligious thinkers. Sometimes the circle met Cauchy construction). tant monks were flushed out of the monastic at Egorov’s apartment and Florenskii gave cells with ½re hoses, arrested, and brought papers at the meetings. At these meetings, The development of set theory was to Floren- under guard to Odessa. In later detentions, Florenskii maintained that “the point where skii a brilliant example of how renaming and the number grew to approximately one thou- divine and human energy meet is ‘the sym- reclassifying can lead to mathematical break- sand. The dissidents strongly protested their bol,’ which is greater than itself.” To Floren- throughs. A “set” was simply a renaming of
Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 15 that which he conceived. In the Jewish mys- ervation about the Russian approach (see, The answer for Florenskii tical tradition of the Kabbala (Book of Cre- for example, Lebesgue’s description of Lu- and later for Egorov and ation, Zohar), there is a belief in creation zin’s “philosophical” mind in the preface of through emanation, and the name of God is his 1930s book). Also important is the tradi- Luzin was that the act of considered holy. tion of the Cartesian method as described by René Descartes: If you have a problem, just The connection between the religious dissi- naming in itself gave the cut it into parts as long as you can and you’ll dents in Russia and the new trends in Moscow solve the problem. object existence. Thus nam- mathematics went beyond the suggestions and implications so far discussed. There was A second strong influence is Auguste Comte’s ing became the key to both a direct linguistic connection. The Moscow positivism. Science cannot reach the primal mathematicians Luzin and Egorov were in causes (les causes premières) but can, after lib- religion and mathematics. close communication with French mathe- erating itself from all metaphysical influence maticians with similar concerns. Lebesgue and any theological tendency, reach a perfect entities according to an arbitrary mental sys- introduced in 1905 the concept of “effective form of discourse. Comte’s philosophy builds tem, not a recognition of the types of real ma- sets,” and he spoke of “naming a set” (nom- a wall between the metaphysical and the sci- terial objects. When a mathematician created mer un ensemble); such a set was then often enti½c order of things. Once science enters a set by naming it, he was giving birth to a called a “named set” (ensemble nommé). The the “positive stage,” its goal is no longer a new mathematical being. The naming of sets Russian equivalent was imennoe mnozhestvo. metaphysical quest for truth nor a rational was a mathematical act, just as the naming Thus the root word imia (name) occurred in theory purporting to represent reality. Science of God was a religious one, according to the the Russian language in both the mathemat- is composed of laws, not theories. Laws are Name Worshippers. A new form of mathe- ical terms for the new types of sets and the correlations of observable facts that we need matics was coming, said Florenskii, and it religious trend of imiaslavie (Name Worship- in order to predict. Mathematics, through would rescue mankind from the materialis- ping). Indeed, much of Luzin’s work on set the theory of functions (an old French tradi- tic, deterministic modes of analysis so com- theory involved the study of effective sets tion going back to Joseph-Louis Lagrange and mon in the nineteenth century. Indeed, set (named sets). To Florenskii this meant that Charles Fourier), is suitable for the analysis theory and new insights on continuous and both religion and mathematics were moving of natural phenomena via the laws of physics discontinuous phenomena became hallmarks in the same direction. expressed since Isaac Newton by differential of the Moscow School of Mathematics. equations. Leading mathematicians everywhere at this Jean-Michel Kantor A third, more subtle, factor is Blaise Pascal’s time were wrestling with the problem of what esprit de géométrie. I remind you that geome- is allowed in mathematics and what is to be try for Pascal is much broader than what we he French mathematicians were not ready considered a good de½nition of a mathemat- T imagine today as geometry. The universal, for the new mathematics that occurred with ical object. As the French mathematician Le- unique, human truth comes from geometry the birth of set theory. They were rather skep- besgue wrote to his colleague Emile Borel in through la lumière naturelle, a very religious tical of this “German metaphysics” founded 1905, “Is it possible to prove the existence of approach in Pascal, but also very deeply in- by Georg Cantor. If we want to give an over- a mathematical object without de½ning it?” volved in philosophy, without being ever able view of French reaction at this time, in order To Florenskii the question was the analogue to reach the deepest of things. Geometry’s to compare their attitude with that of the of, “Is it possible to prove the existence of real content allows one to distinguish be- Russians, we need to comprehend a very dif- God without de½ning him?” The answer for tween nominal and real de½nitions (la dé½n- ferent cultural context. The French cultural Florenskii and later for Egorov and Luzin was ition de noms et la dé½nition de choses). that the act of naming in itself gave the object milieu is strongly marked (through central- existence. Thus naming became the key to ized education, for example) by at least three Georg Cantor (1845–1918) created set theory both religion and mathematics. The Name different influences. around 1870. It started with a revolutionary de½nition of in½nities, the ½rst new step since Worshippers gave existence to God by nam- First, there is the old cultural tradition of Car- Aristotle (384–322 b.c.) distinguished be- ing him and worshipping him, and mathe- tesianism: . (to Le primat de la raison Penser tween potential and actual in½nities in his maticians gave existence to sets by naming think), this is the main activity in science. Physics, denying that the actual in½nite exists them and working with them. The Russian The main activity of thought is (rea- la raison and allowing only the potential in½nite. Can- mathematicians asked, for example, “How son). One can think about mathematics ( pen- tor gave it a name; he called it the ½rst in½nite can we know that there are numbers greater ); it is not purely formal ser les mathématiques “aleph-zero,” the denumerable, the number than in½nity–trans½nite numbers–if in½ni- logic, as Bertrand Russell would say later. If I so to say of all integral numbers: 0, 1, 2.... ty is de½ned as the largest possible number? can think about a mathematical notion, then Galileo had already noticed that there are just We know because we can name them–we it exists; conversely, if I cannot think of it, it as many integers as there are even integers: call them ‘aleph numbers’–and we work surely does not exist. with them.” that is, there are just as many 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, as This is a very important concept for Lebes- there are 2, 4, 6, 8. Cantor turned this appar- The idea that naming is an act of creation goes gue and Borel, who could not think of non- ent contradiction into a de½nition of what is back very far in religious and mythological denumerable in½nities and so denied their an “in½nite” set. He de½ned many more in- thought. The claim has been made that the existence (after a short period of juvenile en- ½nite numbers. It is interesting to notice at Egyptian god Ptah created with his tongue thusiasm by Borel). It accounts for their res- this point that the creation of these alephs was very close in Cantor’s mind to the crea- 16 Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 tion of irrational numbers starting from ra- one out from one-third intervals at each step. tional numbers, which allows a precise math- It is equal to its set of accumulation points, The issues mixed philoso- ematical de½nition of what we call today the not isolated points; it does not contain any phy, linguistics, psychology, continuum–the continuum of space or of interval; and it has “the power of the con- lines. Applying his new theory to the contin- tinuum” (number of elements). and mathematics and the uum–the real line, the set of all real num- On September 26, 1904, Ernst Zermelo (1871– bers–was the next revolutionary step. Was results were too much to 1953) wrote to Hilbert, telling him that he had this allowed? How the continuum could be developed a proof that in any set there is a made out of points, like matter from atoms, handle. How would one way to put all elements in a good order ( was an issue at the time. Beweis, dass jede Menge wohlgeordnet worden kann): that separate and use the German mathematician Paul Du Bois- is, an order with essentially the same prop- Reymond (1831–1889) had already rejected a erties as the order of positive integers. In the Cartesian method? part of the new set theory. He accepted “ac- proof, he used a fact that would later be called tual in½nite” but rejected the philosophy of the Axiom of Choice: for any family of non- miration. But Lebesgue looked for quarrels the continuum (points on the line or points empty sets, there exists a way to associate one concerning intellectual priorities, and their of our space) as presented by Cantor. For Can- particular element to each of these sets. Of friendship ended with a remarkable sad let- tor the continuum was a reduction of contin- course, one may ask what is meant by “asso- ter of farewell from Lebesgue: “I kept too uous quantities to discrete entities; for Du ciate” and “particular element.” After Zer- much hidden friendship for you not to be sad melo’s declaration, the ½ght began! about my current state of mind.” Both Baire and Lebesgue have left their names in the do- For Cantor the continuum The debate was especially strong in France, main called analysis; both had a strong ob- where most of the important young mathe- session with rigor inherited from the school was a reduction of contin- maticians exchanged strong-worded letters. of Cauchy. The ½ve letters that Baire, Borel, Lebesgue, uous quantities to discrete and Hadamard exchanged in 1905 describe Lebesgue, Baire, and Borel did not antici- the point of view of the most active young pate the events of 1900 and 1904 in Paris and entities; for Du Bois-Rey- mathematics leaders with respect to the new then in Germany. The French mathematician mond the continuum had a set theory. Jacques Hadamard (1865–1963) accepted the new axiom, while Lebesgue, Baire, and mystical nature outside of The men who faced the new mathematics Borel essentially opposed the consequences were very different in character as well as in of the axiom. Borel later published articles mathematical knowledge. social personalities. Henri Poincaré (1854– and books about set theory and applications, 1912) was the master of French mathematics, trying to explain ½fty years of varying opin- the last universal mathematician, and a phi- ions concerning set theory. Bois-Reymond the continuum had a mysti- losopher of mathematics. René Baire (1874– cal nature outside of mathematical knowl- 1932) came from a very poor family in the re- The axiom discussion centered on what could edge. This direction of thought would be gion of Beauvais. He had a strict, serious life. be done in mathematics, how mathematical developed further by Herman Weyl (1885– He taught in colleges for most of his career beings could be de½ned in order to be accept- 1955) and Jan Brouwer (1881–1966), leading and suffered from psychosomatic diseases, ed in the process of mathematics, and what to an important current in mathematical with his life ending very sadly. Emile Borel’s was a good de½nition. Among the motiva- thought called intuitionism. (1871–1956) life is a typical success story of tions for this attitude, I mention the Cartesian the French intellectual elite of the Third Re- principle of separating the problems, the dis- A natural question to ask was, is there another public. He was a brilliant, successful mathe- ciplines, and the absolute truth of mathemat- in½nite between aleph-zero and the power of matician, a journalist, and an active partici- ics. As Borel put it: “We are serious people; the continuum? This is the famous Contin- pant in the Parisian scene. At the same time, this at least is not philosophy; a disagreement uum Hypothesis, stated as the ½rst problem Borel had strong country roots: his father can only be due to a misunderstanding.” But in the famous list of problems given by David was a protestant priest in the southwest what is allowed in mathematics? Here are a Hilbert (1862–1943) at the Paris Internation- (Rouergue). few sentences from Lebesgue about the Ax- al Congress of Mathematicians in 1900 un- iom of Choice: “If you have to choose in a der the title “Problème de M. Cantor relatif à la For Borel, numbers had a reality almost like set, you talk about objects as if they were in a puissance du continu.” flesh. He required that mathematics provide bag, and you know nothing about them. You Cartesian evidence that was as close to the Since 1878, the main purpose of Cantor’s just know they have a certain property, which sensual as to the rational. This is why he later research had been to prove the Continuum other elements in the bag don’t have. So you abandoned mathematics when he realized Hypothesis, which led (through important cannot de½ne any order about the elements.” that set theory was taking a path too abstract results in analysis) to the birth of descriptive for him. This is the French approach to ontological set theory. His strategy was to invent and issues. As Lebesgue put it, “What we say has construct more and more complicated sub- Henri Lebesgue (1875–1941) was a passion- only some meaning if precise laws are given, sets of the continuum. For example, he in- ate, pure spirit; more precisely, he was an if we apply our reasonings to precise data.” vented the “Cantor ternary set,” which he aristocrat of geometry. Lebesgue and Borel de½ned in an endnote to Grundlagen in 1883: had a long friendship based on mutual ad- It is the limit of the sets obtained by taking Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 17 a big “E” and with very different tonality in from the continuum of the plane, given by We come close to meta- Luzin’s manuscripts, but not with the same fractal pictures of the plane. The notations mathematics, and you meet connotations. themselves lead naturally to considering non- denumerable cardinals. The class of analytic Incidentally, Luzin’s manuscripts, copied sets is rich and complicated. They satisfy the the two opposite schools. by R. Cooke in 1979 and not yet completely Continuum Hypothesis–that is, every un- analyzed, reveal dramatic efforts including These schools ½ght together, countable analytic set is equinumerous with psychological approaches to mathematical the set of all real numbers. like the scholastics in the issues. I quote: “Everything seems to be a day- dream, playing with symbols, which, how- Of course, our example is not the only one Middle Ages, and discuss ever, yield great things.” French mathemati- of close connections between mathematical cians limited the direct search into the gouffre and philosophical thoughts. Interesting con- what meaning to give to du continu, the black hole of the continuum. clusions may be obtained by studying old Other constructions, more down-to-earth, and new examples, as in Pascal’s “geometry the word ‘existence’ in with numbers de½ned by decimal expansions, of chance.” were proposed by Borel. For example, he was In another approach, Baruch Spinoza gives a mathematics. interested in a concrete de½nition of normal very important role to in½nity in his philos- numbers in connection with probability and The discussion about the Axiom of Choice ophy “ .” And ½nally, one of measure theory. But the French mathemati- more geometrico was lively for yet another reason. If the Axi- the principal mathematicians of the recent cians still used set theory for the classi½cation om was accepted, many consequences would period, Alexander Grothendieck, has provided of functions, as in a remarkable text of Lebes- follow from it, even in the familiar realm of penetrating analyses of the role of naming in gue’s in 1905, where he de½ned a new class of geometry (such as the Hausdorff paradox, the process of discovery. Remembering thirty function called “analytically representable.” which led, in 1924, to a surprising fact in ge- years later his approach to a new geometry ometry called the Banach-Tarski paradox). The new ½eld of mathematics that resulted in 1958 with the notion of “topoi,” he writes, from ½rst the trials of the French school and “This vision was so obvious that I had not As a result of this discussion, French mathe- then Luzin’s work, which would be called thought to give it a name, although it has al- maticians limited themselves, for example, descriptive set theory, can be assigned a pre- ways been my passion to name things that to the ½rst in½nite (aleph-zero). Borel, in a cise birth day: the day Mikhail Suslin (1894– occur to me just as a ½rst mean to apprehend typical Cartesian attitude, would not accept 1919), a young student, rushed to see his the- them.” big in½nities if he could not imagine them or sis-advisor, Luzin, to show him the mistake think of them. Lebesgue called a set “nommé,” In the recent period, mathematics has devel- he had found in a ten-year-old seminal arti- and then later “ensemble effectif,” where there oped new ½elds, with new symbols like the cle of Lebesgue’s. This famous mistake has would be no construction using the existence diagrams of arrows in categorical theories, been the subject of much discussion. It is nei- of a Zermelo correspondence. thereby stimulating new intuitions that go ther subtle nor trivial and can be seen from well beyond what was known before. But The issues mixed philosophy, linguistics, psy- different points of view. In particular, there there is still a mystery in the in½nity and the chology, and mathematics and the results has been some phenomenologist analysis of continuum, as described beautifully by Gott- were too much to handle. How would one this mistake (by J. Toussaint-Desanti). This fried Wilhelm Leibniz: “There are surely two separate and use the Cartesian method? Take, error has been corrected with dif½culty. Here labyrinths for the human mind: one is con- for example, Richard’s paradox, which ap- is another way of stating the radical novelty cerned with the making of continuum, the peared in 1905. Richard was a young, provin- of Luzin and Suslin’s approach. But of course other with the nature of freedom, and they cial math teacher in Dijon who wrote an ar- we don’t pretend to go along with a religious are born both from the same in½nity.” ticle in which he described, in a simple way, explanation just as we do not believe in a a number given by a seemingly paradoxical phenomenological deconstruction. de½nition: For example, call N the smallest In order to see what could be saved from number that could not be described with less © 2005 by Loren Graham and Jean-Michel Lebesgue’s study, Suslin and later Luzin in- Kantor, respectively. than thirty words in English. Now I just de- troduced a scheme, called Suslin’s scheme, ½ned a number that has been de½ned by the which can be represented symbolically by an sentence above. The de½nition de½nes it, in½nite tree. It’s basically a graph. Starting although it cannot be de½ned! with zero, you have an in½nite number of This mixing of ½elds was frightening to the numbers: 0, 1, 2, and so on. It symbolizes the French. For example, in 1919, reporting on right way to “come close” to in½nity, to ap- Lebesgue’s work, Paul Appell (Borel’s father- proximate in½nities with a ½nite construction in-law and a very powerful mathematician) of sets: a geometrical look at the old distinc- wrote, “We come close to metamathematics, tion between potential and actual in½nity and you meet the two opposite schools. These made by Aristotle. schools ½ght together, like the scholastics in An idea of the richness of the analytic sub- the Middle Ages, and discuss what meaning sets of the continuum, discovered by Luzin to give to the word ‘existence’ in mathemat- and his school, can be seen in a drawing made ics.” Now the same word can be found with
18 Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 Jean-Michel Kantor and Loren Graham, who spoke on Russian Religious Mystics and French Rationalists.
Allan Robinson (Harvard University) and Ronald Probstein (MIT)
Everett Mendelsohn (Harvard University) and Renate Mayntz (Max-Planck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung)
Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 19 why don’t you turn your garden and all your money over to Washington University. We can really manage it very well for you.” Shaw, who was eighty then, said, “At my age, I need time to think over serious proposals like this.”
And he thought it over and consulted his bo- tanical advisors. They advised him it would be better to remain independent, like the oth- er major botanical institutions of the world. What he did later, however, was a stroke of genius. It was a great bene½t for both insti- tutions when, in 1885, Shaw endowed the School of Botany at Washington University and put in his will that the Professor of Bot- any at Washington University should either be the ½rst or second in command at the Gar- den. In 1889, Shaw passed away at the age of eighty-nine, after running the Garden per- sonally for thirty years. William Trelease, who was a graduate of Cornell University and who had come to Washington University in 1885, was selected ½rst director of the Garden after Shaw’s death.
The ½rst doctoral graduate from Washington University in any ½eld and fourteen of the ½rst twenty graduates with master’s or doc- toral degrees were products of the Washing- ton University-Missouri Botanical Garden joint program. Subsequently, similar liaisons were established with the University of Mis- souri at St. Louis and St. Louis University, so that in residence at the Garden at any one time are thirty-½ve to forty graduate students from those institutions.
Many museums and other institutions like the Garden are seeking ways to project them- selves onto the graduate stage and to be deep- ly involved with graduate students. But the © Charles Krebs/Corbis. formula that Shaw devised, along with of½- cials of Washington University in the 1880s, appears to be the most durable and best that Biodiversity and Our Common Future I know about. And it certainly has served both institutions well, as hundreds of gradu- Peter Raven ates have been products of the joint program over the years. This presentation was given at the 1885th Stated Meeting, held at the Missouri Botanical Garden on November 13, 2004. We have permanent staff in eight foreign countries and eight other states. And since Peter Raven is Director of the Missouri Botanical Origin of Species was published–it is the old- I’ve been here for thirty-three years, our way Garden and George Engelmann Professor of Bot- est surviving botanical garden in the United of operating has always been to encourage any at Washington University in St. Louis. He has States and it is still going strong. people to be in the best places to do their been a Fellow of the American Academy since 1977. work. And that’s why we have staff members In 1880, Chancellor William Greenleaf Elli- living in Madagascar, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, ot of Washington University, the founder of Argentina, Vietnam, China, Britain, and Before I begin my presentation on biodiver- Washington University and later its chan- France. sity, I would like to say a brief word about the cellor, went to Henry Shaw–the English Missouri Botanical Garden. Established in merchant who came to St. Louis in 1819 and Why are we so anxious to develop scienti½c 1859–the same year that Charles Darwin’s founded this garden–and said, “Mr. Shaw, expertise throughout the world, to learn
20 Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 about plants and, more especially, to empow- three or four million people were scattered er people around the globe to be able to deal We know, intuitively, that throughout Eurasia, North and South Amer- with that knowledge for their own bene½t? our lives are supported by ica, and Australia and Africa. With the inven- We know, intuitively, that our lives are sup- tion of crop agriculture, the human popula- ported by the wonderful biodiversity of the wonderful biodiversity tion began to increase rapidly. plants, animals, and microorganisms that In the complex societal systems that emerged, exists on our planet. But we sometimes for- of plants, animals, and most of what we think of as civilization today get–particularly when we live in cities–just began to develop. Thus, for example, our ½rst how very important that biodiversity is for microorganisms that exists written language comes from about 5,500 our happiness and for our lives. At the Gar- years ago in Sumeria–between Baghdad and den, we try to get people out of the country on our planet. But we some- Fallujah: two place names that we wish we or to our nature reserve, which is four square weren’t quite so familiar with. Written lan- miles on the edge of the Ozarks, thirty-½ve times forget just how very guages began to develop as people became miles away, to remind people of our interde- important that biodiversity specialists in many different professions: pendence–interdependence that I’ll illus- scribes, philosophers, religious and civic lead- trate as we go along. is for our happiness and for ers, and many others. In the 2-million-year Unfortunately, much of the world is not liv- our lives. history of people on Earth and the 10,500- ing sustainably, although it’s hard to remem- year history of agriculture, this all took place ber that when one lives in a place like the over a very short time. Look at the kinds of zoning that we like in United States or Europe where we take over- the United States. For example, from 1945 By the time of Christ, there were several hun- consumption for granted. One out of two through 1973, we paved over an area the size dred million people in the world; and be- people–that’s 50 percent of the world’s pop- of the state of Ohio, as people fled to distant tween Medieval and Renaissance times, about ulation–lives on less than $2 a day. One in suburbs and got cars to get out there. The half a billion. When the Reverend Thomas eight people is, literally, starving, in terms of next time you hear people screaming about Malthus was saying that human population the United Nation’s recommended minimum an intolerable two-cent increase in the gas growth was bound to overcome our ability to caloric intake. And one out of two people is tax that is bringing this country to its knees, feed ourselves in the 1790s, there were about malnourished in respect to at least one criti- remember that before the war in Iraq ever 800 million people in the world. By compar- cal dietary element as calculated by the World started, America had been spending, on the ison, there are now 1.3 billion in China and Health Organization. average, $30 to $60 billion a year around the 1.1 billion people in India. We reached a bil- It’s the condition of the human race and its Persian Gulf to help stabilize the political lion people early in the nineteenth century, numbers that is the major problem concern- situation there and protect our supply of oil. 2 billion people in 1930, 2.5 billion people in ing biological diversity. If you live in a coun- It becomes a kind of a vicious circle–people 1950. And since then, in the ensuing ½fty- try like the United States, it is easy to say that living farther and farther away, depending four years, the population has gone from 2.5 population is the major problem. But if you more on automobiles, using up more and billion people–which already was an un- think about it a little more deeply, you could more land and resources. precedented level that would have been un- rapidly come to understand that consump- imaginable earlier–to the 6.3 billion people Jack Benny used to say that Los Angeles would tion and the kinds of technology that we use who are living today. wake up to the coughing of the birds. David are also very important in setting the stage Letterman, I think, came up with a better one Since 1950, we’ve lost about 20 percent of the for the world of the future. when he said; “Autumn is my favorite time world’s topsoil–much of it in developing For example, people in rural Brazil or rural of the year in Los Angeles. It’s when the birds countries, where its loss could least be afford- Indonesia live at about one-fortieth of the change colors and fall out of the trees.” ed. We’ve lost about 20 percent of the agri- consumption level of people in the United cultural land in the world, partly due to urban Human impact really began in earnest with States. If you consider that we’ve added 135 sprawl, partly to deserti½cation, partly to the development of crop agriculture. In the million people to the population of the Unit- overfertilization. So we’re presently feeding Fertile Crescent, at the eastern end of the ed States since the end of World War II, then 6.3 billion people on 80 percent of the land Mediterranean, people were living in small you realize that the impact of the extra people that we had available to feed 2.5 billion peo- villages before they developed crop agricul- in the United States on the world–in terms ple in 1950. We cut about a third of the forests ture. But with the growth of agriculture and of levels of consumption, levels of pollution, without replacing them. We increased car- the ability to get supplies of food that would uses of inappropriate technologies that may bon dioxide, the main factor in global warm- let local populations outlast dif½cult seasons, themselves be destructive–is about equal to ing, in the atmosphere by about six times. those villages began to grow into towns, and the impact on the world of all the entire pop- Over the last ½fty years, we have lost about eventually into even larger entities. ulation of developing countries–4.2 billion 6 to 8 percent of the ozone layer, which in- people. It is not justi½able to say that popu- This growth began only about 10,500 years creases the incidence of malignant skin can- lation is the only factor. It’s our lifestyle and ago, around 425 generations, which is not very cer by about 20 percent. our way of dealing with the world that is tru- long. At that time, the entire human popula- Much agriculture now depends on drawing ly signi½cant. There are various ways of grad- tion of the world amounted to something up artesian water. In the north China plain, ually showing the impact that people have like three or four million people–about the which feeds about 40 percent of the 1.3 bil- on the environment. population of Greater St. Louis. And those
Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 21 lion people of China, the water table is drop- use our present population and our present ping 1.5 meters a year. And over much of In- standards of living, our affluence and our We’ll very soon be elimi- dia, which has 1.1 billion people, the water technology, to bring everybody up to the stan- nating tens of thousands table is dropping by about a meter a year. dards of Europe and the United States, we Since energy is subsidized in India, it’s theo- would use about 120 percent of what we grow of species per year. The retically cheaper to drill more from below and produce per year–up from 70 percent as than it is to deal with surface water. So much recently as 1970. That’s de½nitely a frighten- vast majority of them will of the surface water is polluted, it is simpler ing relationship, because it indicates that we to keep drilling more wells than to clean it up. would need another two copies of the planet be unknown at the time Earth to enable all of the people who are liv- With the total population growth not expect- ing today to enjoy the same level of prosperi- that they’re lost. We won’t ed to level off for ½fty years or more, when ty that we do now in industrialized countries. an extra two billion or more people will have It means that the productive systems of the even have known that they been added, and with half of the world living world–the potentially sustainable systems of in a state of poverty and/or malnutrition, it’s existed. the world–are being progressively degraded pretty obvious that it’s going to be very dif- by the way we’re using them at the present ½cult to live up to any happy dreams in the dif½cult to estimate how many species are time. This projection strongly suggests that future. becoming extinct. We can, however, estimate not only do we need to reach a level popula- extinction rates by reference to well-known tion, but we need to ½nd levels of affluence groups of organisms, especially those that We must adjust our con- and consumption that can be sustained in have hard body parts and are well document- the long run, and we also need to develop ed in the fossil record–about one per mil- sumption, our technology, technologies that are not as damaging as the lion per year over the past sixty-½ve million and our population levels ones that we use at present, and to keep im- years–since the great extinction at the end proving them into the future. of the Cretaceous period. in order to attain a sustain- When I was on the faculty at Stanford in the Then we come to a written record that we able world in the future. 1960s, we calculated that if you used the en- can compare directly with that of about four tire gross economic product of the world, you hundred years ago. Over the last four hundred could export twelve people to the nearest Experts estimate that we use about 55 percent years, about one hundred species per year planet that was likely to be habitable each of the renewable supplies of fresh water, most have become extinct. Now we’re up to sever- year. That calculation indicates clearly that of it for agriculture at rates that are subsidized. al thousands per year, and with the rate of we must depend on our existing resources in What do we do to increase our supplies of habitat destruction and the other forces that our efforts to develop sustainability, and we water, when a very large portion of people in I have discussed, we’ll very soon be eliminat- must adjust our consumption, our technolo- the world have no access to dependable sup- ing tens of thousands of species per year. The gy, and our population levels in order to at- plies of fresh water to begin with, and there vast majority of them will be unknown at the tain a sustainable world in the future. are no obvious options now? This will be an time that they’re lost. We won’t even have increasingly serious problem in the future. In the middle of our runaway consumption– known that they existed. which is well beyond the levels that the world The obvious question laid out by the Brundt- We are currently spending tens of billions of can sustain–we have the problem of biodi- land Report, the report of the World Commis- dollars trying to determine if there was one versity. Over 80 percent of the organisms sion on the Environment and Development, species on Mars, two to three billion years in the world–not counting bacteria–are is: Can all nations achieve the standards of ago, which might be preserved in the rocks completely unknown, lacking even scienti½c prosperity now in developed countries, using to demonstrate that life once existed there. names. If you breed a tropical rain forest, available technologies? Now place yourself on Mars, coming to Earth nineteen of the twenty kinds of organisms to ½nd this great diversity of organisms that In 1947, when Gandhi was visiting England, a that you’ll be bringing up will never have we’ve been treating with a cavalier kind of reporter said, “Mr. Gandhi, now that India is been seen by a scientist, will be completely disdain, low funding, and disinterest. going to become independent, will it achieve unknown, and will have no name. Even if it a standard of living like that of the United does have a name, what that name is likely Habitat destruction is a major force in driving Kingdom?” And Gandhi said, “When I look at to tell you is: There’s a dead one in the bot- organisms extinct. It is estimated that the the map, about half of it is colored red, which tom of a bottle on a shelf in The Natural His- Amazon Forest will be about 5 percent of its means it’s the British Empire. The wealth of tory Museum in London that somebody got present size by the middle of this century. the British Empire comes from these coun- somewhere in the Central Amazon in 1860. Couple this fact with our well-established re- tries all over the world. And it’s not obvious lationships between members of species and The number of species of organisms for which to me how India–a much larger country in size of habitat. Habitat destruction is the only we have a reasonable amount of information population, with no empire–can achieve force taken into account in estimating that is more like ½fty thousand or one hundred those standards of living.” two-thirds of all the species on Earth will be thousand, and that’s it. For all the others, even extinct by the end of this century if present So how many planets do we need to have all knowing what they are won’t lead to any use- trends continue. But then, there are many nations achieve the same level of prosperity ful information. Without a reliable census of other factors. What about gathering plants now in developed countries? If we were to the species of organisms on Earth, it is very in the wild? Ginseng, for example, is hound- 22 Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 ed throughout its range in North America animals all over the world and they literally Where are we heading? If you think that hu- and it is not alone. Most people in the world eat up biodiversity wherever they are intro- man ingenuity is going to get us out of this, depend on wild plants as their source of med- duced. well, it’s not. Human ingenuity is extremely icine and are basically harvesting them very important in ½nding better ways to move into Next we come to climate change. The Inter- rapidly. the future, but I think that we are sapping the national Panel on Climate Change (ipcc), productive capacity and the diversity of the The importance of bush meat–hunting for now in its fourth cycle of climate modeling, world extremely rapidly, yet slowly enough animals in natural forests–is increasing year has made it very clear that climate is chang- that a single lifetime doesn’t give us a very after year in Africa and throughout the trop- ing rapidly, in some places more rapidly than clear focus on it. Think about what the place ics. When an oil company goes to Africa or in others. Human-produced gasses are the where you grew up looks like now, and you South America to drill, it doesn’t say, “Here’s major component in climate change. For ex- some food.” It says “Here are some guns. Go ample, all alpine and sub-alpine habitats in out and get what you need to feed yourself.” the United States will be lost by the end of By our pell-mell rush to- Another very important factor: all along the this century. In the Alps, not only are the gla- coast of Africa, European ½shing boats are ciers receding rapidly, but famous climbs, ward success, development, sucking the ½sheries dry so that in places like like the north face of the Eiger, can no longer Ghana, which really depend on ½sh, there be undertaken: the north face never freezes and consumption, we are aren’t any ½sh. The ½sh are all being brought and you can’t climb up the rotten rocks. destroying the world at a back to Europe as luxury foods. As a result, So there are three major causes for extinction people in Africa are turning more and more –alien invasive species, climate change, and rate that is unworthy of us to bush meat, leading rapidly to the extinc- hunting and gathering–that aren’t even taken tion of many species. into account when we say that two-thirds of in terms of the bene½ts we the species may be lost over the course of this have. There are three major century. This is an extraordinarily serious development for human beings because we causes for extinction–alien depend entirely on biodiversity, and speci½- will have a pretty good snapshot of what rap- cally on plants, as our source of food. More- id change means. It is leading to better ways invasive species, climate over, 70 percent of the people of the world to ½ght diseases, travel, talk on the telephone, change, and hunting and depend directly on plants as their source of and, heaven help us, communicate on the medicine, and at least 25 percent of the pre- Internet, but it’s not making the world more gathering–that aren’t even scription drugs written in the United States beautiful or interesting or diverse or philo- also have a “suborder” base. With the hunger sophically better, more musical or more cul- taken into account when for nutraceuticals in Japan, Europe, and the tured or more poetic or anything else. United States, plants that people are using as By our pell-mell rush toward success, devel- their source of medicine are being scrounged we say that two-thirds of opment, and consumption, we are destroying right out of existence. For example, curare, the world at a rate that is unworthy of us in the species may be lost over used for muscle relaxation in thoracic surgery, terms of the bene½ts we have. But what we do is based on knowledge gained from groups now is going to affect the ½nal product when the course of this century. of Indians hunting in the Amazon who use it we do achieve some kind of stability. We’re as a muscle relaxant as well. not engaged in a pell-mell rush toward extinc- Then there’s the matter of introduced species It’s also important to remind ourselves that tion; we’re engaged in a pell-mell rush toward such as the zebra mussel in the United States. we live in the very early days of a revolution a less interesting, duller world. What are the Alien invasive species of plants and animals in biology–the double helix: ½fty-one years individual parts going to look like? What’s are the likely cause of extinction of at least a ago, the ½rst transfer of a gene from one un- Chicago, St. Louis, Boston, or Bolivia going third of the endangered plants and animals related kind of organism to another; thirty- to look like? What is going to be the sum to- in this country. They are moving around the one years ago, widespread use of genetically tal of the activities of a lot of people doing a world at a frightening pace; in Hawaii, for altered products in medicine and then, ½fteen lot of different things to affect the outcome? example, they are the cause of extinction or to twenty years ago, in crops; in the last ½ve likely extinction of every endangered plant Preserving and keeping national parks and years, knowledge about genomics and the and animal. It’s estimated that in the United other kinds of similar reserves is a very im- comparison of gene families across different States we lose about $140 billion a year to portant strategy for conservation, but it can kinds of organisms. Here is the biology and alien invasive species. be badly impacted by climate change. The the technology that we expect to be able to coexistence with organisms that we can tol- In comparison to the $155 billion spent on the use to make the world sustainable. Can you erate in modi½ed lands is going to have a entire criminal justice system in the United think of anything more stupid than driving great deal to do with how many organisms States, $140 billion looks pretty big. It’s also two-thirds of these kind of organisms into survive. Alien invasive species must be con- about a third of our military budget, giving extinction, 80 percent of them completely trolled. We need to save plants and other or- you an idea, even in nonbiological terms, of unknown before we even get our hands on ganisms in cultivation or, when we can, try how important the problem of invasive spe- them to see how they might be useful? to keep tissue culture slides in order to try to cies is. Yet people continue to drag plants and
Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 23 keep them for the future. We must do a great make many, many choices here that will be deal of education and communication with We need to deal seriously signi½cant, including promoting interna- one another about the importance of biodi- with air pollution, especially tionalism, learning more and spreading that versity. Otherwise, none of this effort will be knowledge, and especially voting, being en- supported by anyone. the air pollution that affects gaged in the political process. What about automobiles? Choices about places to live? Increasing scienti½c capabilities around the climate change. We need What are we going to do about it, individual- world, by any means possible, is one of the ly? To say that none of this makes any differ- most important things that scholars can do to ½nd alternative sources ence is simply to postpone the obvious out- to secure the future not only for the United comes. It all makes a huge difference. What States, but for the entire world. We’ve got to of energy and energy con- about sustainable use of seafood? What about reach a higher level of morality and realize composting? Catching rainwater? Green that people around the world don’t have the servation. Ultimately, sus- architecture–building with things that can opportunities that we do. The alienation of be recovered later and building with materi- women and children throughout the world is tainability begins with every als that have low cost to the environment? unforgivable, unmistakable, and a true char- Building energy effectively? Recycling? En- acteristic of world civilization. There is no one of us. vironmental literacy? In every university that way that women and children can contribute ting yourself in the same position that you I have anything to do with, I say that environ- their unique talents to a sustainable world did in the early 1970s, when you wisely de- mental literacy for undergraduates is a pre- until they’re encouraged to be part of their cided that small, ef½cient Japanese cars had requisite to living intelligently in a modern societies, achieving similar levels of educa- no place in the American economy. Thank world. So far, only the University of Georgia tion with men, sharing the same privileges, you, America.” has an environmental requirement for every bene½ts, and work as men. single undergraduate. Should we be optimists We need to ½nd alternative sources of energy We need to deal seriously with air pollution, or pessimists? Does the tree get cut down or and energy conservation. In constant dollars, especially the air pollution that affects cli- are we about to learn something about it? the U.S. Department of Energy now spends mate change. In 1991, Stephen Schmidheiny, a 15 percent of what it did in 1979 for energy As Gandhi said, the world provides enough to Swiss industrialist who developed the World conservation and alternative energy and in satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s Business Council for Sustainable Develop- 1979, we thought there was a problem. Shell greed. Let’s be more thoughtful. Let’s try to ment in the years prior to the Rio summit, and British Petroleum, the two major Euro- remember how much we enjoy evenings of wrote in a brilliant opinion piece in the New pean oil companies, spent 15 percent of their companionship like this and the ½ner things York Times: “There is no greater gift that pretax income in these areas. American oil that we’ve achieved and realize that without American industry can give to European and companies–virtually none. Which would attending to the sustainable base of all of this, Japanese industry than going on pretending you rather invest in? the biodiversity of our world cannot and will that global warming does not exist. By doing not be preserved for our grandchildren and so, you are giving us time to invent and pat- Ultimately, sustainability begins with every their grandchildren. ent all the things that you will want to buy one of us. As I pointed out, in the United desperately from us later, when you come to States, we consume thirty to ½fty times what your senses. And basically, once again, put- the poorer people of the world do and we can © 2005 by Peter Raven.
Robert M. Wald (University of Chicago) and John Katzenellenbogen Gerald Early (Washington University in St. Louis), Leslie Berlowitz (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) (American Academy), and Patricia Meyer Spacks (University of Virginia)
24 Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 Midwest Meeting–St. Louis
Peter Raven speaking on biodiversity Missouri Botanical Garden
Priscilla McDonnell, John McDonnell (McDonnell Douglas Corporation), and David Forney (MIT) Martin Dworkin (University of Minnesota), Vice President of the Midwest Center, presided at the meeting.
Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 25 A Bach Cult in Late-Eighteenth- Century Berlin: Sara Levy’s Musical Salon Christoph Wolff
This presentation was given at the 1886th Stated Meeting, held at the House of the Academy on December 15, 2004. It was followed by a musical performance by Academy Fellow Malcolm Bilson (Cornell University), Christopher Krueger (University of Massachusetts at Amherst), Academy Fellow Robert Levin (Harvard University), and Daniel Stepner (Lydian String Quar- tet). The program consisted of works by Johann Sebastian, Wilhelm Friedemann, and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach from the collection of Sara Levy, individually introduced by Christoph Wolff. Sara Levy, drawing by Anton Graff, 1786
Christoph Wolff is Adams University Professor at ½rst season as music director of the Leipzig Harvard University. He has been a Fellow of the The phenomenon of histor- Gewandhaus, established so-called “Histor- American Academy since 1982. icism, which ½rst arose in ische Concerte” speci½cally featuring com- positions of the past. Works by J. S. Bach eighteenth-century England, played an essential role in this respect. In his ½rst such program, Mendelssohn performed, A Problem of Musical had a growing impact on for instance, the solo part in Bach’s keyboard Historiography Concerto in d Minor, bwv 1052. The work, the public taste. It contri- unknown at the time, received great praise The rediscovery of Johann Sebastian Bach from the general public but especially from in the Romantic period long after the com- buted signi½cantly to an the music critic Robert Schumann. Nobody, poser’s death belongs among the most wide- however, including Mendelssohn himself, spread misconceptions in the historiography increasing interest in music knew that this same concerto had actually of music. The following quote is symptom- been played in public almost thirty years ear- atic: “Bach and his works have met a strange of the past. lier, before Mendelssohn was even born, by fate at the hands of posterity. They were fair- a certain Sara Levy at a concert of the Berlin ly well recognized in their day; practically were regarded as a continuing challenge, a Sing-Akademie. forgotten by the generations following his; source of inspiration, and a yardstick for mea- rediscovered and revived; and ½nally accord- suring quality. Madame Levy, who stands at the center of ed an eminence far beyond the recognition My remarks today will focus on a third and my talk, was none other than Mendelssohn’s 1 they had originally achieved.” largely unexplored aspect: the role played by great-aunt, the younger sister of his maternal grandmother. Young Mendelssohn is gener- Scholarship of recent decades has found it a small circle of early bourgeois Bach devo- ally credited with bringing about one of the necessary to turn away from a Bach image tees in an atmosphere of emerging musical most seminal events in musical historicism, that resembles the metaphorical paradigm of historicism. The phenomenon of historicism, the aforementioned 1829 performance of “Death and Resurrection”–the characteris- which ½rst arose in eighteenth-century En- Bach’s St. Matthew Passion by the Sing-Akad- tic heading of the pertinent chapter in Albert gland, had a growing impact on the public emie in Berlin. He certainly deserves credit Schweitzer’s of 1908, arguably the taste. It contributed signi½cantly to an increas- J. S. Bach as the inspired musical leader of this most most influential Bach book of all time. To- ing interest in music of the past and eventu- influential performance attended by Fried- day we differentiate between two complemen- ally led to an ostensibly irreversible paradigm rich Wilhelm IV and the royal family, the tary factors. First, the beginning of a broadly shift. Up to the period of Haydn, Mozart, and Prussian nobility, and notably the intellectu- based public reception of Bach’s music in the Beethoven, it was contemporary music that al elite of the capital, headed by the theolo- early nineteenth century, for which Mendels- overwhelmingly dominated the scene. Today gian Schleiermacher, the philosopher Hegel, sohn’s 1829 performance of the it is the music of the past that, in terms of St. Matthew and the historian Droysen. However, the represents a decisive landmark. Sec- classical performance statistics, practically Passion true origins of that particular event must be ond, the uninterrupted reception of a more marginalizes new music. sought in the remarkable musical traditions private kind, primarily con½ned to profession- Musical historicism advanced in Germany of Mendelssohn’s extended family–a tradi- al musical circles where Bach’s compositions and on the European continent during the tion underemphasized, underresearched, or early decades of the nineteenth century. A neglected if not suppressed by earlier histor- 1 The Bach Reader: A Life of Johann Sebastian programmatic milestone was set in 1835 by ical German scholarship for reasons of an Bach in Letters and Documents, ed. Hans T. David Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, who, in his apparent anti-Semitic bias. and Arthur Mendel, rev. ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1966), 358.
26 Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 Early Bach Veneration in the Itzig and Mendelssohn Families
Johann Friedrich Reichardt, last Kapellmei- ster in the service of Prussia’s Friedrich II (“the Great”), refers in his autobiography of 1813 to “a veritable Sebastian and Emanuel Bach cult” transpiring in the early 1770s at the house of Felix Mendelssohn’s great-grand- father, Daniel Itzig of Berlin, banker of the king and the most privileged and highest- ranking Jew in all of Prussia. Bach esteem, in- Madame Levy’s music col- lection was quite compre- hensive, consisting almost exclusively of instrumental music by all major compos- ers active in the second half of the eighteenth century. deed adoration, in professional music circles of the later eighteenth century was nothing special; one need only remember Beethoven’s growing up with Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. Yet, neither Haydn, Mozart, nor Beethoven pursued anything like a Bach cult. Hence, Top row, left to right: Daniel Itzig, anonymous painting, c. 1770; Moses Mendelssohn, painting by this particular characterization of reverence Johann Christoph Frisch, c. 1780. Bottom row, left to right: Abraham Mendelssohn Bartholdy, drawing and cultivation in the Itzig family is a most by Wilhelm Hensel, 1834; Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, watercolor by James Warren Childe, 1829. unusual phenomenon. Moreover, it indicates a surprising continuity of interest in the mu- Bella Itzig, incidentally, became Felix Men- Abraham Mendelssohn’s future wife, Lea sic of J. S. Bach after his death in 1750, not delssohn’s maternal grandmother. She shared Salomon, joined the same organization. He traceable elsewhere in private homes. the same keyboard instructor with Felix’s probably knew her from earlier family con- paternal grandfather, Moses Mendelssohn, nections, for she was the daughter of Bella Daniel Itzig, born in 1723 in Berlin, began his who also took lessons in music theory from Itzig, now married to the Berlin banker Jacob banking career as the principal supplier of the Kirnberger. Mendelssohn, a faithfully prac- Salomon. An accomplished pianist, Lea is Prussian mint to the court and the army and ticing Jew, successful businessman, eminent known to have played the Well-Tempered Cla- was instrumental in assisting the king in fund- philosopher of the German Enlightenment, vier regularly. ing the Seven-Years War against Maria The- along with Daniel Itzig and David Friedländer The newly-wed Mendelssohns moved to resa’s Austria (1756–1763). While it is con- (Itzig’s son in-law), “devoted himself to the Hamburg in 1804, the year in which C. P. E. ceivable that Itzig heard J. S. Bach on the oc- emancipation, both civil and intellectual, of Bach’s daughter Anna Carolina, last custodi- casion of the latter’s visit to the Prussian court Europe’s ghettoized Jewish community.”2 an of the Bach family estate, died. When the in 1747, he certainly would have known Bach’s Abraham Mendelssohn, his second son, re- estate came up for auction in 1805, the Men- second son, Carl Philipp Emanuel, a promi- ceived no particular musical training, but delssohns quickly decided to buy the bulk of nent member of the king’s capelle through he joined in 1793 the newly established Sing- the music in order to donate it to the Sing- 1768. Be that as it may, Itzig had great inter- Akademie, a bourgeois choral society mod- Akademie in Berlin, now under the direction est in music, found the best possible music eled after the Academy of Ancient Music in of Carl Friedrich Zelter with whom they had instructors for his children, and paid them London and founded in 1791 by Carl Fasch, developed a warm relationship. Mendels- well. For his two oldest daughters, Hanna and C. P. E. Bach’s assistant and later successor as sohn’s acquisition of the Bach estate, which Bella, he hired Johann Philipp Kirnberger, harpsichordist to the Prussian court. In 1796, one of J. S. Bach’s most prominent students included not only the complete works of and the one who codi½ed Bach’s teachings in C. P. E. Bach but also a signi½cant portion of 2 Steven P. Meyer, “Moses Mendelssohn and the surviving works of J. S. Bach, represented a two-volume treatise on strict musical com- the Bach Tradition,” Fidelio Magazine 8 (2) a genuine rescue operation with respect to position, published in 1772. (1999): 27.
Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 27 the latter’s music. Its importance for the sur- Daniel Itzig, was seriously opposed to what vival of J. S. Bach’s music, contained in more Within Levy’s music was happening to the younger generation. We than a hundred unique autograph scores, library, the works of J. S. don’t know the details of the internal family must not be underestimated and it is safe to disputes, but seen in this context, the Christ- say that, without Abraham Mendelssohn’s Bach and his four sons– mas present to her grandson Felix in the year efforts, the losses of Bach’s music would be of his baptism seems a particularly remark- signi½cantly greater than what we have to Wilhelm Friedemann, Carl able gesture, perhaps a sign of reconciliation: deplore already. a work of undeniably Christian art handed Philipp Emanuel, Johann down by a faithful Jewess, with Bach’s music The acquisition of the Bach estate for the standing above doctrinal and confessional Berlin Sing-Akademie forms the immediate Christoph Friedrich, and traditions. She came to tolerate, if not accept, salient background for the later performance the notion expressed by Abraham Mendels- of the under the baton of St. Matthew Passion Johann Christian–repre- sohn that true Christianity “contains nothing nineteen-year-old Felix Mendelssohn. This that can lead you away from what is good.”4 background, however, is even more directly sent a signi½cant section and concretely connected with the Mendels- sohn family. Shortly after Abraham Mendels- of a scope and character Sara Levy’s Salon and Music sohn had donated the Bach manuscript scores without parallel elsewhere. Collection of unpublished works to the Sing-Akademie in 1811, Carl Friedrich Zelter began to perform another ½ve years to persuade his teacher Bella’s younger sister Sara held similar, prob- excerpts from the Passions, Masses, and can- Zelter to agree to a complete performance. ably even stronger, views about conversion. tatas of J. S. Bach based on the materials saved When she died at age ninety-four, childless, by Mendelssohn. Meanwhile, Abraham Men- Christmas 1823 was special, for it followed the she left her considerable fortune to charity delssohn’s family relocated to Berlin. At age year in which Abraham and Lea Mendels- by establishing a foundation for a Jewish or- ten, Felix joined the Sing-Akademie and, more sohn converted to Protestant Christianity and phanage in Berlin. Otherwise, like the rest of the Itzigs, Mendelssohns, Salomons, Ephra- ims, Friedländers, and others in her extended Itzig Mendelssohn family, she ½t perfectly into the environment of intellectual, cultural, and to some extent Daniel Itzig, 1722–1799 Moses Mendelssohn, 1729–1786 political liberalism in a period quite unique ∞ Miriam Wulff, 1727–1788 ∞ Fromet Guggenheim, 1737–1812 in German history: the quarter century from → 15 children, among them: → 6 children, among them: 1780 to 1806, when Napoleon conquered Prus- sia. This was also a period in which a group Sara, 1761–1854 Bella, 1749–1824 of wealthy Jewish women in Berlin “achieved ∞ ∞ Samuel Levy Jacob Salomon social glory by entertaining the cream of gen- → → no children 4 children, tile society.”5 The literary and philosophical among them: salons of Rahel Varnhagen, Henriette Herz, Lea, 1777–1842 ∞ Abraham M. (Bartholdy), 1776–1835 Rebecca Friedländer, and Dorothea Schlegel → 4 children, among them: were among the most prominent and best known, and the success of these Jewish salon- Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, 1809–1847 ières “was based on de½ance of the tradition- al boundaries separating noble from com- moner, gentile from Jew, man from woman. importantly, was put under Zelter’s private added “Bartholdy” to their name in order to The public happiness achieved in these sa- tutelage. He could have had no better teacher be distinguished from the Jewish Mendels- lons was a real-life enactment of the ideal of who, among other things, exposed him to sohns. The baptism took place in Frankfurt Bildung, encompassing education, re½nement, Bach’s vocal works, including the St. Matthew because Abraham wanted to avoid a public and the development of character.”6 Passion–but almost exclusively in the form of rift with his in-laws, especially since Bella excerpts. Zelter did not consider the large- Salomon had disowned her son Jacob upon scale work performable, for musical-techni- his conversion.3 Intermarriage and conver- cal reasons as much as for its “wretched texts,” sion had become a major trend among Jews 4 For Abraham Mendelssohn’s views on con- referring to the baroque-style poetry. But in Prussia because it opened up new social, version see Wulf Konold, Felix Mendelssohn young Felix eagerly wanted to see and study commercial, political, and educational op- Bartholdy und seine Zeit (Laaber: Laaber-Verlag, the whole piece. Finally, grandmother Bella portunities. Bella Salomon, like her father 1984), 69–80. Salomon ful½lled his wish, had a profession- 5 Deborah Hertz, Jewish High Society in Old al copy made from the manuscript of the un- 3 Jacob Salomon, who, after his conversion, Regime Berlin (New Haven and London: Yale published work in the collection of the Sing- adopted the name “Bartholdy,” provided the University Press, 1988), 3. Akademie, and gave it to Felix for Christmas model for Abraham and Lea Mendelssohn’s in 1823. He was fourteen then and it took him name change. 6 Ibid., 3–4.
28 Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 she became more engaged in the public con- certs of the Sing-Akademie where she regu- larly appeared as a soloist with the orchestra, performing concertos by Bach and his sons but also by other composers. Sometime after 1815, however, in her mid-½fties, she stopped performing in public (grand-nephew Felix most likely never heard her play).
An undated early photograph from around 1850 depicts Sara Levy in her old age; she survived her grand-nephew by almost seven years. The silverpoint and the photograph in juxtaposition show very dramatically the con- trast of two different centuries, not just as reflected in the different age, changed face, body, clothing, and habit of one and the same woman, but also reflected in the technique of portraiture: drawing versus photography. More than that, the new industrial age left Sara Levy, photograph, c. 1850 no room for the salon culture of the late eigh- Sara Itzig, after her marriage in 1783 to the teenth and early nineteenth centuries. Sara banker Samuel Levy, established a weekly sa- Levy observed and experienced this ½rst hand. lon with a strong focus on music at her state- After giving up public performance Sara Levy ly home in old Berlin’s poshest neighborhood. donated the bulk of her very large music col- For about ten years, from 1774 to 1784, she had lection to the library of the Berlin Sing-Akad- W. F. Bach, Trio Sonata in B-flat Major, title page studied with Friedemann Bach, J. S. Bach’s emie. Her substantial gift, never inventoried oldest, and became a keyboard virtuoso in her and evaluated in the past, was not accessible to Berlin, the materials can now be examined own right. The silverpoint portrait by Anton for more than half a century after the end of and the extent of the Levy collection assessed. Graff of 1786 (see page 26) shows a very at- World War II. The Red Army had con½scated Only now it becomes clear how prominently tractive young woman at age twenty-½ve, the musical archive of the Sing-Akademie to- this extraordinary woman ½gures in the ear- who regularly performed at the weekly after- gether with numerous other trophy materials. ly reception of the music of the Bach family. noon gatherings in her house but also else- Fortunately, since the archive of the Sing- Madame Levy’s music collection was quite where. After the death of her husband in 1806, Akademie was recently repatriated from Kiev comprehensive, consisting almost exclusive- ly of instrumental music by all major com- posers active in the second half of the eigh- teenth century. The repertoire extended from solo keyboard works and chamber music of different kinds to concertos and symphonies –the music room in her house could easily accommodate an orchestra of eighteenth- century proportions. She owned many key- board instruments of various kinds and was particularly fond of the fortepianos by Fried- rich Silbermann of Strasbourg.
Within Levy’s music library, the works of J. S. Bach and his four sons–Wilhelm Friede- mann, Carl Philipp Emanuel, Johann Chris- toph Friedrich, and Johann Christian–re- present a signi½cant section of a scope and character without parallel elsewhere. More- over, her collection formed a library for prac- tical use, that is, the collection contained not only scores but also performing parts. The title wrapper for a set of parts usually pro- vides an incipit of the work for easy identi½- cation and usually shows Sara Levy’s The names on the list of subscribers to C. P. E. Bach, Six Concertos for Harpsichord (Hamburg, 1772) characteristic round ownership stamp. includes Mademoiselle Itzig. Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 29 Sara Levy’s literary-musical salon, which included the Humboldt brothers and other members of Berlin’s intellectual elite.
Their discussions are not recorded, of course, but their listening to the music of two differ- ent generations of Bachs, the father and his sons, would have invited them to compare stylistic dialects of the past with the best of what was new in the contemporary scene of music–like the works of Mozart, who per- formed in Berlin in the spring of 1789. This experience undoubtedly would have given them a clear sense of a historical dimension in music together with a sense of urgency in preserving the musical past for the future. That was eventually realized when in 1809 Wilhelm von Humboldt expanded the Prus- sian Academy of Arts by adding a music divi- sion. Its ½rst head was Carl Friedrich Zelter, director of the Berlin Sing-Akademie, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s principal teacher, and the one who consciously started an ar- chive of music that eventually came to incor- porate Sara Levy’s collection.
C. P. E. Bach, Quartet in G Major, Wq 95; autograph manuscript
Sara Levy not only arranged musical perfor- ing source of the work forms part of her col- © 2005 by Christoph Wolff. mances, both with and without her partici- lection. This score also shows the unstable pation, but she also occasionally commis- and trembly hand of the seventy-four-year- Sara Levy, drawing by Anton Graff, 1786; sioned new works and became a major patron old composer who suffered from gout and Daniel Itzig, anonymous painting, c. 1770; for the two elder Bach brothers. Her teacher wrote with considerable dif½culty. All three Moses Mendelssohn, painting by Johann W. F. Bach wrote a song for her wedding in pieces are headed “Quartet fürs Clavier, Flöte u. Christoph Frisch, c. 1780; Abraham Men- 1783–probably his last composition, for he Bratsche” (quartet for clavier, flute, and vio- delssohn Bartholdy, drawing by Wilhelm died a year later. Sara Levy had supported him la) and the layout of the score indicates Bach’s Hensel, 1834; Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, ½nancially for the last ten years of his life; he de½nition of quartet: rather than referring to watercolor by James Warren Childe, 1829 in turn provided her with music. It was prob- four different instruments he stresses four in- Photo credit: Mendelssohn-Archiv, Staatsbib- ably only after Friedemann’s death that she dependent contrapuntal lines of music, one liothek zu Berlin–Preussischer Kulturbesitz established direct contact with his younger each for flute, viola, fortepiano right hand, Sara Levy, photograph, c. 1850 brother Emanuel (who had left Berlin for and fortepiano left hand. Haydn or Mozart Photo credit: Bach-Archiv Leipzig Hamburg when she was only seven) and main- would have called it a piano trio, but their tained relations with him and, after his death standard scoring would be for violin, cello, W. F. Bach, Trio Sonata in B-flat Major, title in 1788, with his widow. Her collection al- and piano. page ready contained 16 keyboard concertos by Photo credit: Sing-Akademie zu Berlin The unusual and innovative approach that C. P. E. Bach when she commissioned him C. P. E. Bach takes here in the last year of his C. P. E. Bach, Quartet in G Major, Wq 95; to write another concerto, this time for harp- life focuses on a well-adjusted distribution autograph manuscript sichord, fortepiano, and orchestra, which of the four instrumental voices and the clear Photo credit: Sing-Akademie zu Berlin turned out to be C. P. E. Bach’s last compo- distinctions between them. The integration sition. Levy’s collection contains the auto- of a woodwind and a string instrument adds graph score of this most special piece that different colors to the homogeneous keyboard deliberately juxtaposes two different types, parts. Moreover, using a viola instead of a vi- or if you will generations, of keyboard solo olin puts emphasis on the middle ground of instruments: the traditional harpsichord and the score, that is, on the center of the sound the modern fortepiano. spectrum. The result constitutes an evenly Just prior to this commission she apparently balanced instrumental discourse that permits ordered from C. P. E. Bach a set of three quar- the composer to engage in a lively, intense, tets, also with an unusual combination of in- and witty musical dialogue–in all likelihood struments: fortepiano, flute, and viola. Again, a ½tting interlude to the verbal conversations the autograph score of 1788 and sole surviv- invariably conducted among the guests of
30 Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 Christoph Wolff speaking on A Bach Cult in Late-Eighteenth-Century Berlin.
Robert Levin (Harvard University), Christopher Krueger (University of Massachusetts at Amherst), Daniel Stepner (Lydian String Quartet), and Malcolm Bilson, seated (Cornell University) performed works by Johann Sebastian, Wilhelm Friedemann, and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.
Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 31 James Bowdoin and the Patriot Philosophers
The American Academy and the trade but “an amateur Newton- Dibner Institute for the History ian scientist” by avocation, Bow- of Science and Technology cele- doin, like many of his compatri- brated the publication of a new ots, justi½ed his interest in sci- book entitled James Bowdoin and ence on both religious and utili- the Patriot Philosophers. Written tarian grounds–a combination by the late Frank E. Manuel, an that, as the Manuels point out, Academy Fellow, and his wife, “made it twice blessed.” Fritzie P. Manuel, the study re- As an example, Holton called at- lates in rich detail the founding tention to a scienti½c paper, pub- of the Academy and the life of its lished by Bowdoin in the ½rst ½rst president, James Bowdoin. volume of the Academy’s Mem- In his opening remarks, Louis oirs, reporting on an observation Gerald Holton (Harvard University) W. Cabot, Vice President of the “tending to prove by phenome- same time that Bowdoin became Turning to Bowdoin’s role as gov- Academy and Chair of the Acad- na and scripture” that a hollow Governor of Massachusetts, Lap- ernor of Massachusetts, Robert S. emy Trust, noted that “the book shell surrounding the sun’s plan- lace explained the mystery of the Cohen, Professor of Philosophy has been in the minds and hands etary system was necessary to peculiar motions of Jupiter and and Physics Emeritus at Boston of the Manuels for many years; preserve the universe from col- Saturn. In Smith’s words, “from University, considered the con- it is ½tting that it comes to us in lapsing. As Holton described (see that day forward, observation be- flicting issues surrounding the published form on the eve of the accompanying excerpt), the role came secondary to calculation suppression of Shays’ Rebellion. Academy’s 225th year.” of religion in understanding the throughout planetary astrono- As Cohen explained, the class universe was to concern scien- my.” Shortly after Bowdoin pub- struggle and the threat of civil Gerald Holton, Mallinckrodt Re- tists, from Newton to Einstein, search Professor of Physics and lished his paper on the danger of war, demonstrated in what Bow- for centuries to come and still the universe collapsing inward, doin called a “rebellion from be- Research Professor of the History concerns them. of Science at Harvard University, Laplace described the ½rst proof low,” are evident in society to- presented the keynote address. Following Holton’s presentation, of the stability of the system not day. Bowdoin himself admitted He observed that, with this pub- George Smith, Acting Director collapsing outward. “What struck that the grievances of rural work- lication, the Manuels have not of the Dibner Institute and Pro- me about reading the Manuels’ ing class farmers against the rich only “resurrected a fascinating fessor of Philosophy at Tufts Uni- book,” Smith declared, “was the merchants were justi½ed, but as patriot/philosopher but they have versity, reflected on the meaning sharp difference between the Cohen emphasized, for this “gen- provided deep insight into the of the word “Newtonian” in the meaning of the word ‘Newtonian’ erous, humanistic man, the prior- lives, the politics, the thoughts, years from 1780 to 1790–the de- in the city of Boston in 1780 and ity of preventing civil war domi- and sometimes the mischief of cade when the “last serious loose its meaning in the city of Paris nated the ethical problems of the mid-eighteenth-century Boston end of the Principia was ½nally re- that same year.” exploited and aggrieved people.” intellectuals.” A merchant by solved.” He observed that at the Continued on page 33
George Smith (Dibner Institute and Tufts University), Silvan Schweber (Brandeis University), Fritzie Manuel, and Robert S. Cohen (Boston University)
32 Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 James Bowdoin continued from page 32
Reflecting on the impact of the Excerpt from Gerald Holton’s Presentation Manuels as scholars and friends, After Bowdoin’s Inaugural Ora- God’s hand is continually need- to Newton and Bowdoin, it seems Silvan Schweber, Professor Emer- tion as the Academy’s president ed to put again into order the to be tearing itself apart instead itus of Physics and the History on 8 November 1780, he began to planets’ paths after a passing of shrinking under mutual grav- of Ideas at Brandeis University, submit a slew of scienti½c papers, comet had diverted them. ity. So now some sort of cosmo- compared Frank Manuel’s class- which were collected and pub- logical ½x has to be reinserted in- But of course the grand homoge- lished also in the ½rst volume to the equation. Neither Bow- room with “cooking” in a jazz neous sphere Bowdoin imagined of the Academy’s Memoirs. Near doin’s quasi-religious specula- session: “There would be ani- would do nothing to help, since the start of the volume are three tions nor those of the God-½lled mated exchanges between Frank as Physics 101 teaches, in its mid- “physical papers” of his, the third Spinoza are of any help. and the students at the end of dle there would be no gravitation- being the most interesting, “the which it was clear that somehow al attraction to help prevent the As the great Alexandre Koyré sum- climax of his scienti½c achieve- things had fallen into place for collapse, because all parts of such marized the matter at the end of ment,” with the remarkable title, a sphere cancel out in their gravi- his book, From the Closed World to them, a new world had been seen, “Observation tending to prove, tational effect. Perhaps John Win- the In½nite Universe: “The mighty, a new understanding had been by Phaenomena and Scripture, throp’s lectures had not included energetic God of Newton who obtained, and an eagerness to the Existence of the Orb, which that awkward fact. actually ‘ran’ the universe accord- probe more deeply had been im- surrounds the whole visible ma- ing to His free will and decision, parted.” Schweber went on to terial System [of the heavens]; And yet, this problem of a possi- became, in quick succession, a note that “Fritzie made possible and which may be necessary to ble collapse of the universe had conservative power, an intelligen- preserve from the Ruin to which, to be solved some way or other. all that Frank accomplished. The tia supra-mundana, a ‘Dieu fainé- without such a Counterbalance, When Einstein in 1917 came to research was carried out jointly; ant. . . . The in½nite Universe of it seems liable, by that universal include “cosmological consider- she made sure that the narrative the New Cosmology, in½nite in Principle of Matter, Gravitation.” ation” when expanding his Gen- was cohesive, and that all the Duration as well as in Extension, What Bowdoin does here is to eral Relativity theory, he found arguments were consistent and in which eternal matter in ac- propose that a huge hollow sphere to his dismay that his equations cordance with eternal and nec- convincing. She could do so be- of an unde½ned substance encases did “not allow the hypothesis of essary laws moves endlessly and cause she is an impressive schol- the Sun’s planetary system, as a spatially closed-ness [a con- aimlessly in external space, in- ar in her own right and ½ercely well as other such spheres for the stancy] of the world,” but permit- herited all the ontological attri- independent in her views.” outlying parts of the visible uni- ted expansions or contractions butes of Divinity. Yet only those– verse, and so prevent its collapse. of the universe. That seemed to all the others the departed God Responding to the remarks of her him dangerous, not least because Why? It is an attempt to deal with took away with Him.” colleagues, Fritzie Manuel said Einstein had long read and re- an old fear: that the universe will that the couple’s walks through vered Baruch Spinoza’s Ethics, So, as scientists, we are now on not be a stable unity forever and Boston streets with such names which in Proposition 20 says “It our own, for better or worse. ever, as is God, its Creator, Him- as Hancock, Otis, and Bowdoin follows that God is immutable self, but that by the mutual grav- (and) all his attributes are immu- inspired the book. When Frank itational attraction of the planets table.” At any rate, Einstein, to retired, they had the time to pur- and stars they will somehow con- assure an immutable universe, sue an interest far removed from geal into one shameful lump. This put into his equation famously a their earlier work. Curiosity led must not happen. As Frank Man- fudge factor, “an unknown uni- them to the area’s rich library uel wrote in his book The Religion versal constant,” called the cos- of Newton, God is one of order, resources on the colonial period mological constant, which would not of confusion. Newton him- and the happy discovery of the keep the universe stable. James self had also been deeply con- diverse characters and personal- Bowdoin would have approved. cerned with the possible collapse ities that inspired the early years But in 1929, Hubble discovered of the solar system by its own of the Academy and the country. that the universe is not immuta- gravitation. He said to David ble but expanding, and so the Gregory, “a continual miracle is James Bowdoin and the Patriot Phi- cosmological constant fell into needed to prevent the sun and losophers is published by the Amer- disrepair. But again, just a few the ½xed stars from rushing to- ican Philosophical Society Press. years ago, it was discovered that gether through gravity;” and The Academy and the Dibner In- this expansion is not steady but elsewhere Newton wrote that stitute expressed their gratitude is accelerating. Ironically, contra to Mary McDonald, Editor of the aps, who worked with the Man- uels to produce what is an impor- tant contribution to the history of this nation’s founding.
Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 33 Around the Country
Over the past several months, campus receptions were held in the Midwest and in California as part of the Academy’s expanding outreach activities. President Patricia Meyer Spacks, Vice President Louis W. Cabot, and Executive Of½cer Leslie Berlowitz participated in many of these events, which provide expanded opportunities for Fellows to meet each other and present their research. Stanford University
At a meeting at Stanford Uni- versity on November 23, 2004, Kathleen M. Sullivan, Stanley Morrison Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, spoke on the topic “Do we have an emer- gency Constitution?” (The full text of Sullivan’s remarks will appear in a forthcoming Acad- emy publication.) Stanford Pres- ident John Hennessy presided over the campus reception that attracted Fellows and guests from throughout the Palo Alto area. Kathleen Sullivan (Stanford Law School) and Louis John Hennessy (Stanford University) W. Cabot (Cabot-Wellington, LLC) University of California, Berkeley
On November 22, 2004, Vice President of the Western Center and Academy Councilor Jesse H. Choper and Academy Councilor Randy W. Schekman co-hosted a gathering at the University of California, Berkeley to welcome Berkeley’s new Chancellor, Rob- ert Birgeneau, who spoke to the group about the challenges and opportunities in higher education.
Robert J. Birgeneau (UC Berkeley)
Jesse H. Choper and David Collier (both, UC Berkeley) Randy W. Schekman and Charles B. Harris (both, UC Berkeley) 34 Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 California Institute of Technology
Caltech President David Balti- more welcomed Fellows and guests to a campus reception on February 15, 2005, where Colin Camerer, Rea A. and Lela G. Ax- line Professor of Business Eco- nomics, spoke about the rapidly emerging ½eld of neuroeconom- ics. Camerer conducts laboratory experimental research in games, decisions, and markets. David Baltimore and Colin Camerer (both, California Institute of Technology)
University of California, Los Angeles
Following greetings from Chan- cellor Albert Carnesale, Profes- sor of Astronomy Andrea M. Ghez and Richard C. Maxwell Professor of Law and Professor of Policy Studies Joel F. Handler discussed their research at an informal meeting of Fellows on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles on Febru- ary 16, 2005. Ghez explores star formation and has established the existence of a supermassive black hole at the center of the Galaxy; Handler studies welfare Andrea M. Ghez (UCLA) law and policy and has examined current policy issues relating to poverty and high-risk adolescents. Albert Carnesale and Joel F. Handler (both, UCLA)
University of Michigan
At a campus gathering for Fellows search Institute, presented a talk on November 11, 2004, Huda on “Stress and Equanimity in Akil, Gardner C. Quarton Dis- Turbulent Times.” Akil’s research tinguished Professor of Neuro- centers on the neurobiology of science and Psychiatry and Co- behavior, especially the molecu- Director and Senior Research lar mechanisms underlying re- Scientist of the University of sponsiveness to stress and pain. Michigan Mental Health Re-
Huda Akil Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 35 Around the Country
University of California, San Francisco
Dean of the School of Medicine and Vice Chancellor for Medical Affairs David A. Kessler hosted a reception for Fellows on Feb- ruary 17, 2005, at the University of California, San Francisco. Re- flecting on his induction as a new member of the Academy, Profes- sor of Medicine Jay A. Levy spoke of the Academy’s work in science over the past three centuries, urg- ing the group to propose new ideas for Academy projects in the biological and medical sciences.
David A. Kessler (UCSF) Jay A. Levy (UCSF)
Northwestern University
Dedre Gentner, Director of the Cognitive Science Program and Professor of Psychology and Edu- cation, and Paul F. Berliner, Pro- fessor of Musicology, spoke at a reception for Fellows at North- western University on March 29, 2005. In a talk entitled “Why We’re So Smart,” Gentner dis- cussed her research on the nature and function of analogical reason- ing and on the interplay between language and thought. Berliner considered the fate of the mbria players during Zimbabwe’s strug- gle for independence in his talk Henry S. Bienen, Ursula Oppens, and Loren F. Ghiglione (all, Northwestern University) “The Heart that Remembers: A Dedre Gentner (Northwestern Tale of Musicians in a Time of University) War.” Northwestern President Henry S. Bienen presided at the meeting.
Paul F. Berliner (Northwestern University)
36 Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 New York City
On December 1, 2004, the Acad- emy hosted “A Conversation on Russia and Its Neighbors,” a pan- el discussion on the issues raised by the project on International Security in the Post-Soviet Space. The meeting was moderated by Elihu Rose, an Academy Fellow and professor of military histo- ry at New York University. The speakers included Robert Leg- vold, Professor of Political Sci- ence at Columbia University, Dmitri Trenin, Deputy Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, and Lieutenant General William Lieutenant General William Odom (U.S. Army, Ret.), Robert Legvold (Columbia University), Odom (U.S. Army, Ret.), former Dmitri Trenin (Carnegie Moscow Center), and Elihu Rose (Rose Associates, Inc.) director of the National Security Administration and Senior Fel- low at the Hudson Institute. New York City
Are institutions of higher educa- sylvania Senior Vice President tion the new catalysts for major Omar Blaik–described their trends in urban design? On Feb- experiences with major construc- ruary 28, 2005, a Stated Meeting tion projects. The group dis- of the Academy explored the role cussed ways in which universi- of universities as urban planners. ties are collaborating with their Moderated by architect and writ- communities to transform and er Robert Campbell, a panel of expand their campuses. E. John speakers– including Columbia Rosenwald, Jr. (Bear Stearns University President Lee Boll- Companies), who has been in- inger, architect James Polshek volved with numerous building (Polshek Partnership Architects projects at educational and cul- John Brademas (NYU) and Conrad Kenneth llp), and University of Penn- tural institutions, presided. Harper (Simpson Thacher & Bartlett)
Left to right: Omar Blaik (University of Pennsylvania), James Polshek (Polshek Partnership Architects, LLP), Lee Bollinger (Columbia University), Robert Campbell (Cambridge, Massachusetts), and E. John Rosenwald, Jr. (Bear Stearns Companies) Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 37 Project Update International Security in the Post-Soviet Space
When Robert Legvold (Colum- the interactions between them. bia University) ½rst proposed that Bound together by oil pipelines the Academy sponsor a project and energy grids, by interdepen- on security in the countries of dent markets and defense indus- the former Soviet Union in early tries, and by porous borders, the 2000, he believed that the major strategic interests of states in this powers were overlooking the region frequently overlap and importance of this region and its conflict. role in world affairs. Since then, During the project’s ½rst year, Leg- with Legvold’s guidance, the vold and an international group Academy has produced a series of scholars met to produce a col- of four volumes that provide in- lection of essays that considered sight into patterns in the post- how each of the major powers Soviet space that have received approached security challenges too little scholarly attention. in Central Asia. The ½nal draft of “Because the woes of this part of Thinking Strategically: The Major Robert Legvold (Columbia University) the world have not yet produced Powers, Kazakhstan, and the Central major dramas or large explo- Asian Nexus was submitted on tunities and risks is now extreme- dependence has strongly influ- sions,” Legvold wrote in 2000, September 1, 2001. Ten days later, ly precarious.” enced the security policies of both “the tendency is to assume that perceptions of the region had countries. While Belarus looks From the strategic interactions events will remain under con- wholly changed. to strengthen its ties to the Rus- of major powers in Central Asia, trol.” Since then, events in the sian military to encourage the September 11 altered the promi- Legvold turned his focus to the region have dramatically con- defense production that keeps nence of Central Asia in interna- question of how economic insta- ½rmed its strategic importance to its economy afloat, Ukraine has tional security discussions, and bility in Russia affects the coun- the United States and the world. sought to create an independent in many ways bore out Legvold’s tries of the post-Soviet region. defense capacity and to become According to Legvold, “each of initial call for scholarly analysis Ukraine and Belarus, both vul- an autonomous player in the in- the challenges featured in these of the international security im- nerable to changes in the Russian ternational arms market. books...from the economics of plications of instability in the economy but each with a unique national security to the primal countries of the post-Soviet space. security outlook, were the cen- Since the late 1990s, Ukraine threats to statehood itself, under- Global events transformed the tral subjects of the second volume has expressed interest in joining scores how bound together these volume from a discussion of the in the series, Swords and Suste- nato, which Russia continues states remain, and how impera- need for strategic thinking in a nance: The Economics of Security to view with anxiety. The nato- tive it is for the United States region whose importance had in Belarus and Ukraine. Ukraine relationship has steadi- and other major powers to adopt yet to be recognized to a timely ly deepened, with NATO invit- With co-editor Celeste Wallan- policy frameworks transcending analysis of the issues that rapid- ing an “intensi½ed dialogue” on der, of the Center for Strategic single states and single issues.” ly developing security strategies Ukraine’s goal of joining the and International Studies, Leg- should address. organization. The project’s focus has been the vold assembled experts from overarching economic and secu- The volume succeeded in direct- Ukraine, Great Britain, and the The move for independence from rity concerns that tied the disin- ing attention to the need for ac- United States to consider Russian Russia within Ukraine has been tegrating space of the former So- tive international involvement economic reform and its impact highly visible in recent months. viet Union together. Most studies and coordinated planning to pro- on the defense trends of Ukraine In November 2004, the peaceful of the post-Soviet region tend to mote stability in the region. and Belarus. protests of the “Orange Revolu- focus on isolated issues, such as tion” came to a head as the state- As Oslo-based Russian military Contributor Hrihoriy Perepelitsa Caspian Sea oil and gas, “loose sponsored media proclaimed the expert Pavel Baev stated in a re- of the National Institute for Stra- nukes,” or the election crisis in Moscow-backed candidate to be cent review, the book conveys the tegic Studies of Ukraine focused Ukraine. Although the former the victor, while Ukrainians and overall picture of “Kazakhstan on the dominance of the defense Soviet republics are in many ways foreign monitors claimed mas- becoming the center of the in- sector in Ukraine and Belarus and drifting apart, the security out- sive fraud. The hotly contested creasingly interconnected Inner look for the region depends on the dependence of these countries Asia, where the balance of oppor- on the Russian economy. This Continued on page 40
Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 38 International Security The contributors to the volume ful overthrow, called the “Rose continued from page 39 began with the simple fact that Revolution,” indicated Georgia’s Russia inherited only a fragment promising steps toward becom- race focused primarily on the pur- of the Soviet military–a large ing a more democratic nation. suit of Western-style reforms and fragment, but a fragment none- It also underscores a basic fact: the development of close ties theless. Since the collapse of the Georgia, like many countries in with Europe. Soviet Union, Russian leaders the region, continues to struggle have failed to reshape this mili- with the development of viable As contributors to Swords and tary into a force that meets their political and economic systems Sustenance emphasize, and as the involvement of Russia, nato, needs or to develop a defense in the aftermath of the dissolu- the E.U. and U.S. demonstrates, posture that realistically assess- tion of the Soviet Union. In ad- complex economic and security es their new global position. dition to building state capacity, Georgia must also negotiate sep- choices are not for Ukraine and includes a The Russian Military aratist movements within its Belarus to face alone. The book mix of insiders and expert “out- borders, its relationship with its underscores one lesson for policy- siders” from Alexei Arbatov, for- immediate neighbors, and Rus- makers in particular. Despite the mer Duma member, and Vitaly sia’s moves to disrupt power bal- “large and unresolved challenge” Shlykov, advisor to one of Russia’s ances in the region. The new gov- of creating economic and nation- largest engineering and weapons- ernment under President Mik- al security in these countries, the production companies, to jour- heil Saakashvili faces complex authors see “a moment of oppor- nalist Aleksandr Golts and re- security problems. tunity, if leadership in all three search fellow Roy Allison of Ox- quarters–Russia, the West, and ford’s Centre for International Bruno Coppieters of Vrije Univer- the two countries themselves– Studies. Each tackled a key fea- siteit Brussel joined Legvold in will seize it.” A complex situation ture of Russia’s military and se- co-editing the volume Statehood is not the same as a hopeless sit- curity policy, shedding light on and Security: Georgia after the Rose uation, and the volume points the complex issues that have sty- Revolution (forthcoming, 2005). these actors toward policies that mied reform. They include the Reviewing events in Georgia with could lead to a more secure fu- role of the defense sector in the the contributors, it became clear ture for all. Russian economy; discontent to Legvold and Coppieters that Although the security issues at among both of½cers and recruits security in Georgia must begin play in the many small, recently in the military; a continued focus with the development of a sound on facing global opponents, such state structure. Only then can independent nations of the post- nato Soviet region are engaging and as , instead of addressing a national security policy be de- complex in and of themselves, an the concerns of such regions as ½ned. Chechnya; and the use of the So- extensive study of security in the The essays in viet nuclear arsenal as a security Statehood and Secu- post-Soviet region cannot ignore reveal the breadth of threats crutch. All contributors argued rity the central role that Russia con- that Georgia faces. The Rose Rev- for the necessity of swift reform. tinues to play. The Russian mili- olution may have pointed Geor- tary has not maintained the im- The signi½cance of the Russian gia in the direction of a more sta- mense reach and influence that military to security in the post- ble government, but a history of the Soviet military once held, but Soviet region may be apparent, corruption in the state and mili- it still plays a signi½cant role in but the important role of military tary, warring national identities, directing defense concerns in Eur- dynamics in the smaller countries and the agitations of breakaway asia, while Russia’s nuclear capa- and subregions is often far less Abkhazia and South Ossetia con- bilities remain globally relevant. recognized. The ½nal study in the stitute signi½cant roadblocks. The third volume published by project focuses on military dy- Outside of Georgia, troubled re- the project, The Russian Military: namics and security challenges lations with Russia and the insta- Power and Policy, edited by Steven in the Georgia and Caucasus bility of other countries in the E. Miller (Harvard University) region. South Caucasus create regional and Dmitri Trenin (Carnegie turmoil. On an international Georgia is an apt choice. In No- Moscow Center), enlisted both scale, oil and gas pipelines and vember 2003, protests over the Russian and non-Russian experts the war on terrorism make the manipulation of legislative elec- to consider the Russian approach region politically important to tions led to the ousting of the sit- to defense and the condition of the United States and other coun- the Russian military. ting president. The largely peace- Continued on page 41
39 Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 U.S. Space Program Assessed Academy’s UBASE Project Featured in IMF Quarterly On March 4, 2005, the Ameri- State Department rules; a pro- can Academy sponsored a work- jected shortfall in the American An article by Fellows Joel E. ondary education and empha- shop on the interaction of mili- science and engineering work- Cohen (Rockefeller and Colum- size the need to focus on the tary, civil, and scienti½c interests force; unrealistic plans fornasa’s bia Universities) and David E. quality of education that is pro- in space. Experts from the United future space missions that neg- Bloom (Harvard University) is vided. They also provide an esti- States, Canada, Britain, France, lect the important role of science; the lead feature in the upcom- mate of the cost and the ability Germany, and China considered and faltering international coop- ing issue of the International of the world to ½nance this work, the ways in which military plans eration on existing and planned Monetary Fund’s magazine, Fi- as well as a summary of obsta- for space impinge on, or are ad- space missions. As Lane and . Cohen cles–political, cultural, infor- nance and Development vanced by, commercial and sci- Abbey write, “U.S. space policy and Bloom are co-directors of mational, and organizational– enti½c activity. Participants iden- presents a paradoxical picture of the Academy’s Project on Uni- that stand in the way of achiev- versal Basic and Secondary Ed- ing universal coverage. ti½ed the civilian space operations high ambition and diminishing ucation (ubase). The issue, that might be undermined by in- commitment.” Their study offers The ubase project has shown which has a special focus on ed- creased military usage of space recommendations for redirecting that providing education to all ucation, appears in June 2005. and discussed the development policy to ensure the future suc- children is not overwhelmingly of appropriate legal principles to cess of the U.S. space program. The article, entitled “Cultivat- costly, though the necessary tools protect both civilian uses of space ing Minds,” draws heavily on may not yet be in hand. Crude Lane and Abbey’s work will ap- research completed as part of estimates of the cost of achiev- and international security. ubase pear as part of a series of papers the project and sets the ing universal primary and sec- Neal Lane and George Abbey emerging from the Academy’s framework for the issue. Cohen ondary education fall between (both of Rice University) pre- Reconsidering the Rules of Space and Bloom present a summary $34 and $69 billion additional of progress on achieving univer- per year. As Cohen and Bloom sented their forthcoming paper, project. The Academy recently sal education to date. They ex- write, “This is a huge amount “United States Space Policy: published “The Physics of Space amine rationales for continuing of money, but certainly not be- Challenges and Opportunities.” Security,” a reference manual that to work toward the goal of uni- yond the ability of the world to The paper describes the ways in presents technical facts for a gen- versal access to primary and sec- fund.” which national security provi- eral audience about space oper- sions governing the production ations. Also forthcoming are of satellites and satellite tech- papers that offer international nology have curtailed the growth perspectives on U.S. space plans. of the U.S. commercial space in- The project is directed by John dustry and limited possibilities Steinbruner (University of Mary- for international cooperation. International Security land) of the Academy’s Commit- continued from page 40 Lane and Abbey describe four tee on International Security barriers to a healthy U.S. space Studies and supported by a grant tries of the West. Statehood and Speaking of the post-Soviet re- program. These barriers include: from the Carnegie Corporation Security demonstrates that Geor- gion in December 2004, Legvold the strict regulation of satellite of New York. gia’s problems need to be taken said, “The area itself–given its exports as munitions under the seriously by the great powers. location, given its resources, giv- en developments within that part Eurasia has not exploded since of the world–is going to have the beginning of the project on enormous signi½cance for what International Security in the Post- happens in international politics Soviet Space, but the signs of now and into the future.” Robert discontent are visible. Georgia’s Legvold’s work at the Academy Rose Revolution and Ukraine’s brings attention to this region at Orange Revolution may be exam- a critical point in time. ples of more democratic process- es emerging in the area. Other The project on International Se- events, such as the Beslan school curity in the Post-Soviet Space siege of September 2004, which was funded by a grant from the occurred in the Russian internal Carnegie Corporation. Each of republic of North Ossetia, and the volumes produced by the the ongoing election struggles in project is available in both English Kyrgyzstan, are less encouraging. and Russian editions. Theresa Hitchens (Center for Defense Information), Neal Lane (Rice Uni- versity), Joanne Gabrynowicz (University of Mississippi), George Abbey (Rice University)
Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 40 Noteworthy
Select Prizes and Awards Stephen Elledge (Harvard Medi- for Progress Toward Research rector of the Center for Advanced cal School) received the 2005 Gen- or Discoveries about Spiritual Study in the Behavioral Sciences, etics Society of America Medal. Realities. effective September 2005. National Medals of Science, 2003 David Hackett Fischer (Brandeis Stanford E. Woosley (University Keith Yamamoto (University of Behavioral and Social Sciences University) won a 2005 Pulitzer of California, Santa Cruz) has California, San Francisco) has R. Duncan Luce (University of Prize for his book Washington’s been awarded the Bruno Rossi been appointed chair of the Sci- California, Irvine) Crossing (Oxford University Prize by the High Energy Astro- enti½c Advisory Board of Sirna Press). physics Division of the American Therapeutics. Biological Sciences Astronomical Society. J. Michael Bishop (University James E. Gunn (Princeton Univer- of California, San Francisco) sity), P. James E. Pebbles (Prince- Select Publications ton University), and Martin J. New Appointments Solomon H. Snyder (Johns Rees (University of Cambridge) Hopkins University School of have been awarded the Crafoord Peter C. Agre (Johns Hopkins Fiction Medicine) Prize in Astronomy. University) will join Duke Uni- versity Medical Center in July Seamus Heaney (Dublin, Ireland). Charles Yanofsky (Stanford Brian K. Hall (Dalhousie Univer- The Burial at Thebes: A Version University) 2005 as Vice Chancellor for Sci- sity) and Linda Hutcheon (Uni- ence and Technology. of Sophocles’ “Antigone.” Farrar, Engineering versity of Toronto) are among Straus & Giroux, November 2004 the recipients of the 2005 Killam A. Paul Alivisatos (University of John M. Prausnitz (University James Lehrer (NewsHour with of California, Berkeley) Prizes, awarded by the Canada California, Berkeley) has been Council for the Arts. named associate laboratory direc- Jim Lehrer). The Franklin Affair. Mathematics tor for physical sciences at the Random House, May 2005 Peter D. Lax (New York Univer- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab- Carl R. de Boor (University of Reynolds Price (Duke Univer- Wisconsin, Madison) sity) has been awarded the Abel oratory. Prize in Mathematics. sity). The Good Priest’s Son. Scrib- Physical Sciences Frederick Alt (Children’s Hospi- ner, June 2005 G. Brent Dalrymple (Oregon Laurie Olin (Olin Partnership), tal, Boston) has been named sci- James Stewart Polshek (Polshek enti½c director of the cbr Insti- State University) llp Non½ction Partnership Architects ), tute for Biomedical Research. Riccardo Giacconi (Associated Cindy Sherman (New York, New Robert Alter (University of Cali- Universities, Inc. and Johns York), and Rosanna Warren (Bos- Alan Altshuler (Harvard Univer- fornia, Berkeley). Imagined Cities: Hopkins University) ton University) have been elect- sity) has been appointed dean of ed to the American Academy of the Harvard Graduate School of Urban Experience and the Legend of Arts and Letters. Design. the Novel. Yale University Press, National Medals of Technology, May 2005 Judith L. Rapoport (National In- Ben S. Bernanke (Princeton Uni- 2003 oyce Appleby stitute of Mental Health) has been versity) has been designated by J (University of Cal- Jan D. Achenbach (Northwestern awarded the 2005 Edward M. President Bush to be chairman ifornia, Los Angeles). A Restless University) Scolnick Prize in Neuroscience of the White House Council of Past: History and the American Pub- by the McGovern Institute for Economic Advisers. lic. Rowman & Little½eld Publish- Robert M. Metcalfe (Polaris Brain Research at mit. ers, January 2005 Venture Partners) Ronald E. Cape (San Francisco, Margaret Atwood Manfred R. Schroeder (Univer- California) has been elected to (Toronto, Can- sity of Goettingen, Germany) was the board of directors of Neuro- ada). Writing With Intent: Essays, isca Reviews, Personal Prose: 1983– Lewis C. Cantley (Harvard Medi- awarded the 2004 Medal of biological Technologies, Inc. the International Speech Com- 2005. Carroll & Graf, April 2005 cal School) is the recipient of the James DePreist (Tokyo Metro- munication Association and the Edward Ayers eighth annual Pezcoller Found- politan Symphony Orchestra) (University of Vir- ation-American Association for 2004 Technology Prize of the ginia). What Caused the Civil War: Rhein Foundation. has been appointed Permanent Cancer Research International Conductor of the Tokyo Metro- Reflections on the South and South- Award for Cancer Research. Eduard Sekler (Harvard Univer- politan Symphony Orchestra. ern History. W. W. Norton, June sity) has been awarded the Aus- 2005 Gordon Davidson (Center The- Zach W. Hall (University of ater Group) received the Nation- trian Decoration for Science and Bernard Bailyn (Harvard Univer- Art. Southern California) has been al Corporate Theatre Fund Lead- appointed interim president of sity). Atlantic History: Concept and ership Award. Geoffrey R. Stone (University of the California Institute for Re- Contours. Harvard University Press, March 2005 Sidney Drell (Stanford Univer- Chicago) received the Robert F. generative Medicine. Kennedy Book Award for Perilous Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. sity), Mildred S. Dresselhaus Robert B. Shapiro (Pricewater- (Harvard (Massachusetts Institute of Tech- Times: Free Speech in Wartime from Business School). Shaping the In- the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War houseCoopers) has been appoint- nology), and Mark di Suvero ed as an independent director of dustrial Century: The Remarkable (Spacetime C.C.) are among the on Terrorism, given by the Robert Story of the Evolution of the Modern F. Kennedy Memorial. the Board of Directors of Dyadic recipients of the Heinz Awards International, Inc. Chemical and Pharmaceutical In- in honor of the late U.S. Senator Charles H. Townes (University dustries. Harvard University Press, John Heinz, given by the Heinz of California, Berkeley) has been Claude M. Steele (Stanford Uni- April 2005 Family Foundation. awarded the 2005 Templeton Prize versity) has been appointed di-
41 Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 Denis Donoghue (New York Uni- Haunts of St. Germain. National versity). The American Classics: Geographic Directions, May 2005 A Personal Essay. Yale University Press, April 2005 Nathan Key½tz (Harvard Univer- sity) and Hal Caswell (Woods Louis Dupre (Yale University). Hole Oceanographic Institution). The Enlightenment and the Intellec- Applied Mathematical Demography, tual Foundations of Modern Cul- third edition. Springer-Verlag, ture. Yale University Press, June January 2005 2004 Jaroslav Jan Pelikan (Yale Uni- Harry G. Frankfurt (Princeton versity). Whose Bible Is It? A His- University). On Bullshit. Princeton tory of the Scriptures Through the University Press, January 2005 Ages. Viking, March 2005 Richard Nelson Frye (Harvard George Rochberg (University of University). Greater Iran: A 20th- Pennsylvania). The Aesthetics of Century Odyssey. Mazda Publish- Survival: A Composer’s View of ers, February 2005; Ibn Fadlan’s Twentieth-Century Music, revised Journey to Russia: A Tenth-Century and expanded edition. University Traveler from Baghdad to the Volga of Michigan Press, January 2005 River. Markus Wiener Publishers, April 2005 Exhibitions Carlos Fuentes (University of Cambridge, UK). An A to Z of a John Baldessari (University of Life. Random House, February California, Los Angeles): A Dif- 2005 ferent Kind of Order (Works 1962– 1984), Museum Moderner Kunst Owen Gingerich (Harvard Uni- Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Austria, versity). The Book Nobody Read: through July 3, 2005. Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus. Penguin, February Bruce Nauman (Galisteo, New 2005 Mexico): Printed Work in Swiss Public Collections, Cabinet des Francine du Plessix Gray (New estampes, Geneva, June 8– York, New York). Them: A Mem- August 28, 2005. oir of Parents. Penguin Press, May 2005 Ed Ruscha (Los Angeles, Califor- nia): Cotton Puffs, Q-tips®, Smoke Linda Greenhouse (New York and Mirrors: The Drawings of Ed Times). Becoming Justice Blackmun: Ruscha, National Gallery of Art, Harry Blackmun’s Supreme Court through May 30, 2005. Journey. Times Books, May 2005 Bill Viola (Bill Viola Studio): Russell Hardin (New York Uni- Surrender (2001), “Getting Emo- versity), Margaret Levi (Univer- tional,” The Institute of Contem- sity of Washington), and Karen porary Art, Boston, May 18–Sep- Cook (Stanford University). Co- tember 5, 2005; The Greeting operation Without Trust? Russell (1995), “Marking Time/Moving Sage Foundation, July 2005 Images,” Miami Art Museum, Florida, May 13–September 11, Charles M. Harr (Harvard Law 2005. School). Mastering Boston Harbor: Courts, Dolphins, and Imperiled Wa- ters. Harvard University Press, March 2005 We invite all Fellows and Gerald Holton (Harvard Univer- Foreign Honorary Members sity). Victory and Vexation in Sci- to send notices about their ence: Einstein, Bohr, Henderson, recent and forthcoming pub- and Others. Harvard University lications, scienti½c ½ndings, Press, May 2005 exhibitions and performances, Diane Johnson (San Francisco, and honors and prizes to California). Into a Paris Quarter: [email protected]. Reine Margot’s Chapel and Other
Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 42 cêçã=íÜÉ=^êÅÜáîÉë
The ½rst president of the American Academy, James Bowdoin, was a businessman and a scientist who went on to become governor of Massachusetts. He and the other founders of the Academy were deeply concerned with the role of the arts and sciences in building a new nation. In his inaugural address, Bowdoin voiced the expectations of the fledging society and imagined what a historian living a hundred years after 1780 might say about its founders:
“Rapt into future times,” and anticipating the history of our coun- try, methinks I read in the admired pages of some American Livy, or Thucydides, to the following effect. . . . It was not to be expected, that our ancestors, involved as they were in a civil war, could give any attention to literature and the sciences: but superior to their distresses, and animated by their general princi- ples, which liberty and independency inspire, they instituted the ex- cellent society, called The American Academy of Arts and Sciences...... [T]hey proceeded on fact and observation, and did not admit of any reasonings or deductions, but such as clearly resulted from them. This has been the uniform practice of the society: whose members, from time to time, having been chosen from men of every country, from every class and profession, without any other distinction than was dictated by the dignity of their characters, by their morality, good sense, and professional abilities, we ½nd in the printed transactions of this society, the best compositions on every subject, within the line of their department. We ½nd in those transactions new facts, new observations and discoveries; or old ones placed in a new light, and new deductions made from them.
They have particularly attended to such subjects as respect the growth, population, and improvement of their country: in which they have so happily succeeded, that we now see agriculture, manufactures, navi- gation and commerce, in a high degree of cultivation; and all of them making swift advances in improvement, as population increases. In short, they have, agreeably to the declared end of the institution, “cul- tivated every art and science, which might tend to advance the inter- est and honour of their country, the dignity and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.”
Reprinted from the Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1783, volume 1.
43 Bulletin of the American Academy Spring 2005 Norton’s Woods, 136 Irving Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 telephone 617-576-5000, fax 617-576-5050, email [email protected], website www.amacad.org academy officers
Patricia Meyer Spacks, President Leslie Cohen Berlowitz, Executive Of½cer Louis W. Cabot, Vice President Emilio Bizzi, Secretary Jerrold Meinwald, Deputy Secretary John S. Reed, Treasurer Steven Marcus, Editor Geoffrey Stone, Vice President, Midwest Center Jesse H. Choper, Vice President, Western Center publications advisory board
Jesse H. Choper, Denis Donoghue, Jerome Kagan, Steven Marcus, Jerrold Meinwald, Patricia Meyer Spacks editorial staff
Alexandra Oleson, Editor Phyllis S. Bendell, Director of Publications Janet Foxman, Assistant Editor Debra Stern, Layout & Design Initial design by Joe Moore of Moore + Associates Bulletin Spring 2005 Issued as Volume lviii, Number 3 © 2005 by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences
The Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (issn 0002–712x) is published quarterly by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Periodicals rate postage paid at Boston ma, and additional mailing of½ces. Postmaster: Send address changes to Bulletin, American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 136 Irving Street, Cambridge ma 02138.
The views expressed in the Bulletin are those held by each contribu- tor and are not necessarily those of the Of½cers and Fellows of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. photo credits
Steve Rosenthal inside front cover Gail Oskin pages 1, 3–5 Kathryn Sauber page 11 Martha Stewart pages 19, 31–32, 41
Robert George pages 24–25 Steve Castillo page 34, top two
Jim Block page 34, bottom three
Robert J. Paz page 35, top
Todd Cheney page 35, middle two
Joshua Borstein page 35, bottom
Chris T. Anderson page 36, top two
Andrew Campbell page 36, bottom three
Wendy Barrows pages 37, 39