DOCSLIB.ORG

Isaac Newton, Daniel Defoe and the Dynamics of Financial Bubbles SCIENCE SOURCE SCIENCE Traveler1116

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Isaac Newton, Daniel Defoe and the Dynamics of Financial Bubbles SCIENCE SOURCE SCIENCE Traveler1116 Isaac Newton, Daniel Defoe and the Dynamics of Financial Bubbles SCIENCE SOURCE SCIENCE traveler1116 By Andrew Odlyzko historical context. The public was less edu- groups having wildly divergent percep- cated than today, and there was far less of tions of what reported events mean. This A famous anecdote tells of Sir Isaac both finance theory and of general infor- is often blamed on the overabundance of Newton realizing large gains in the early mation about business and the economy. information. However, similar phenom- stages of the South Sea Bubble, but then On the eve of the South Sea Bubble, ena can be found three centuries ago, in losing all that and more by buying back in Britain was beginning to enjoy the fruits an era of information scarcity. This can be at the top. On the other hand, the fact that of the peace that came after the long and observed in politics, as well as in reactions the author of Robinson Crusoe was also debilitating War of the Spanish Succes- to the South Sea Bubble. associated with that episode of extreme sion. It was widely ranked with Holland as Like today, information systems were investor exuberance is little known. And a world leader in technological and com- being revolutionized. The press was that is a pity, since Daniel Defoe’s words, mercial development. International trade undergoing rapid development, following as well as Newton’s actions, are very illu- was booming, but not without contro- the removal of some of the shackles of gov- minating about an important aspect of versy. Weavers were rioting against the ernment censorship two decades earlier. bubbles that deserves much more atten- imports of inexpensive Indian textiles, London was full of a variety of publica- tion. This is the social network element, and one of Defoe’s many jobs was writ- tions, as entrepreneurial publishers strove involving information dissemination ing a newspaper set up by the weavers to to find profitable niches, often by catering among investors. What did they know, push their case for protection. Politics to political parties, or the government, how did they know it, how accurate was was extremely partisan, with widespread that paid them secret subsidies. Yet the what they thought they knew and how suspicions and accusations of treason. commercial newsletter sector, distributing did they interact with each other? Some were well-founded, as there had large numbers of hand-duplicated cop- The South Sea Bubble of 1720 had all been a major Jacobite invasion in 1715, and ies, continued to thrive and served as an the essential ingredients that make invest- a smaller uprising in 1719, both aiming to essential feed for the press, especially for ing today challenging: political turmoil, restore the Stuart dynasty. the provincial press that was in its infancy, rapid globalization, business innovation, Today the traditional press is in decline, with just a handful of papers. new communication technologies with an and social networks and related upstarts abundance of “fake news” and novel finan- are beginning to dominate. We are forced cial products that befuddled investors. to grapple with the issues of “echo cham- Those securities might seem simple to us, bers” and “filter bubbles,” which produce Portraits of Sir Isaac Newton (left) and Daniel Defoe but this has to be considered in proper the “post-truth” phenomenon of different (right), both investors in the South Sea Company. 18 FINANCIAL HISTORY | Winter 2018 | www.MoAF.org We can monitor the torrents of infor- South Sea Stock Prices in 1720 mation that flow through traditional news 000 media, as well as some modern systems , such as Facebook and Twitter. But we 1 have limited ability to understand those flows, and we have only a vague sense of what goes over some other media, such as encrypted chat sessions. We face 800 similar hurdles when studying the South Sea Bubble. We do have large collections of printed material from that period, as well as a few personal letters and the like. However, all available accounts argue that 600 a key role in the transmission and collec- tive processing of information at that time was played by coffee houses. That is where Price (£) people gathered to read the papers, gossip 400 Newton buys for Hall and analyze what they had heard. We have very little knowledge about how this oper- Newton buys ated. Thus, just like today, we have to make do with fragmentary information on how Newton sells investment decisions were made. 200 Thomas Guy sells Having to deal with shadowy fragments of reality does not mean we cannot obtain enlightening insights from comparisons of the events of three centuries ago with Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct today. One feature that appears to char- 0 acterize bubbles is greatly increased gull- 246810 ibility among investors, as well as policy makers. As I write this article in early 2018, Month we observe initial coin offerings (ICOs), in which investors rush to throw their money after the crash through diplomatic pres - been studied intensively. What we can do at promoters who rarely offer business sure on Austria. But there is far more that is to exploit those works from a financial plans, much less plausible ones. The simi- can be learned, in particular about the history point of view. larity to the South Sea Bubble story of a activities of individual investors, the infor- Here we briefly discuss some of the his- company “for carrying on an undertaking mation that was available, how it was used torical nuggets that have been uncovered of great advantage, but nobody to know and, in most cases, how it was not used. recently, primarily about Daniel Defoe, what it is” is striking. (It has to be said that The newspapers and pamphlets from Isaac Newton and Thomas Guy. Defoe has while the 1720 story appears embellished that period have already been mined by not attracted much attention in financial from its apocryphal origins, it does not previous investigators, but not completely. history. But his economics, that in Rob- exaggerate too greatly the promotional And there are sources that have barely inson Crusoe as well as his other profuse atmosphere of that time.) What this sug- been scratched. Those include complete writings, has already been studied. He was gests is that we might perhaps be able to records of trading in many of the main an extraordinarily prolific and versatile develop a measure of public gullibility that securities on the London market. They also writer. His works are especially valuable might serve as a warning sign of bubbles, include a substantial body of modern pub- because he had a very modern mindset, in just as high levels of debt do. lications about the history of the British terms of how he viewed and described the While there is already extensive litera- press and the history of English literature. world. This led historian G.M. Trevelyan to ture on the South Sea Bubble, much more Many of the famous literary figures entitle the chapter on the early 18th century can be learned about that episode. The from that period, such as Daniel Defoe, in one of his books as “Defoe’s England,” in standard accounts tell us about the brib- Jonathan Swift, Richard Steele and Alex- recognition of this writer’s value in creating ery and fraud committed by the South Sea ander Pope, were involved in the South Sea and describing that era. Unlike most of his Company, its manipulation of the market, Bubble, either as investors or as propagan- literary contemporaries, Defoe was keenly the price record and many other colorful dists. Since they were literary figures, they interested in commerce and finance, based aspects of this multisided affair. wrote extensively, unlike people in finance, on personal experience in those areas. In particular, they include the British who typically left few traces. Further, since Defoe appears to have played a role, government’s successful efforts to suppress they are now famous, their writings have possibly a very important one, in the some of the extremely embarrassing facts www.MoAF.org | Winter 2018 | FINANCIAL HISTORY 19 creation of the South Sea Company, also strong attacks on the South Sea proj- which was at the center of the bubble. ect in other papers that are sometimes Contrary to popular reputation, this ven- claimed to be by Defoe. The attributions ture at its start in 1711 was a very innova- there are less certain, but not impos- tive financial experiment that turned out sible, as he was known to employ his to be extremely successful. Essentially, it talents simultaneously on several sides of converted a large volume of British gov- an issue. With more research, we might ernment short-term debt into long-term obtain more clarity on the positions that bonds. It continued prospering through Defoe took on the South Sea project. the 1710s, and it was only the Bubble Half a dozen years after the collapse of of 1720, portrayed in the price chart, the bubble, in his book The Complete Eng- that gave it the notorious reputation it lish Tradesman, he placed the blame for the still carries. During the earlier halcyon debacle on investors in general: “Avarice days of the 1710s, the South Sea Com- is the ruin of many people besides trades- pany attracted many solid investors, men; and I might give the late South-sea such as Newton and Guy. In addition, calamity for an example, in which the investors in the South Sea Company longest heads were most over-reached, who did nothing during the bubble not so much by the wit or cunning of emerged from that episode with signif- those they had to deal with, as by the secret icant profits, as there was a substantial promptings of their own avarice.” Ponzi element to this scheme.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • War of Words: Daniel Defoe and the 1707 Union Anne M
    War of Words: Daniel Defoe and the 1707 Union Anne M. McKim Thus, on both Sides, the case stood between the nations, a Pen and Ink War made a daily Noise in either Kingdom, and this served to Exasperate the People in such a manner, one against another, that never have two Nations Run upon one another in such a manner, and come off without Blows.1 The Union of Scotland and England on 1 May 1707 was – and for some still is – undoubtedly contentious. Polemic and political pamphleteering flourished at the time, reflecting and fanning the debate, while the newssheets and jour- nals of the day provided lively opinion pieces and a good deal of propaganda. Recent commentators have recognised the importance of public discourse and public opinion regarding the Union on the way to the treaty. Leith Davis goes as far as to say that the ‘new British nation was constructed from the dialogue that took place regarding its potential existence’.2 While the treaty articles were still being debated by the last Scottish parlia- ment, Daniel Defoe, who had gone to Scotland specifically to promote the Union, began compiling his monumental History of the Union of Great Britain in Edinburgh.3 He expected to see it published before the end of 1707 although, for reasons that are still not entirely clear, it was not published until late 1709 or early 1710.4 As David Hayton notes, ‘a great deal of it must already have 1 Daniel Defoe, The History of the Union of Great Britain, D. W.
    [Show full text]
  • Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe @300 Grant Glass Over 300 Years
    Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe @300 Grant Glass Over 300 years ago, Daniel Defoe immortalized the story of Robinson Crusoe with the publication of The Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe—creating long tradition of stories about being marooned in an inhospitable place understood as the Robinsonade genre. While the intimate details of Crusoe’s story might be unfamiliar, many of its adaptations like The Martian or Cast Away still persist. Those are just a few, if you look closely enough, there are religious, survivalist, social gospel, colonizationist and anti-colonial, martially masculine, feminist Robinsonades, in overlapping circles emanating out from this central text. The best estimates place these variants in the hundreds. Yet the original novel provides the reader with a gauntlet of historical baggage ranging from colonialism and slavery to climate change and industrialization—forcing us to confront not only our past, but how we represent it in the present. What, then, is Crusoe’s legacy at 300, and what do its retellings tell us about how we think of our past and our future? When you start to notice the Robinsonade, it appears everywhere, and you start to realize you cannot put the horse back in the stable when it comes to Crusoe. Long before the days of Ta-Nehisi Coates and Lena Dunham, Crusoe became an international phenomenon on the star power of its writer, Daniel Defoe, who much like a prolific Tweeter, “seemed to have strong opinions about everything, and wrote about almost everything in his world and his time,”1 with topics ranging from economics, politics and history to space travel.2 While Defoe wrote over 500 books, pamphlets, addresses and letters in his lifetime, Crusoe became his most well-known and well-read work.3 Crusoe was a major hit right from its first printing, it was so well received that Defoe quickly produced a sequel within only a few months after publication of the first.
    [Show full text]
  • Robinson Crusoe
    READING GROUP GUIDE ROBINSON CRUSOE BY DANIEL DEFOE Restless Classics presents the Three-Hundredth Anniversary Edition of Robinson Crusoe, the classic Caribbean adventure story and foundatio- nal English novel, with new illustrations by Eko and an introduction by Jamaica Kincaid that recontextualizes the book for our globalized, post- colonial era. Three centuries after Daniel Defoe published Robinson Crusoe, this gripping tale of a castaway who spends thirty years on a remote tropical island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers before being ultimately rescued, remains a classic of the adventure genre and is widely considered the first great English novel. But the book also has much to teach us, in retrospect, about entrenched attitudes of coloni- zers toward the colonized that still resound today. As celebrated Caribbean writer Jamaica Kincaid writes in her bold new introduction, “The vivid, vibrant, subtle, important role of the tale of Robinson Crusoe, with his triumph of individual resilience and ingenuity wrapped up in his European, which is to say white, identity, has played in the long, unin- BUY FROM RESTLESS terrupted literature of European conquest of the rest of the world must not be dismissed or Paperback List Price: $19.99 ignored or silenced.” ISBN: 9781632061195 Publication: 8/27/19 Daniel Defoe (c. 1660 - 1731) was an English writer, journalist, and spy, who gained 5.5” x 8.25” • 384 pages enduring fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest Fiction: Classics/ World Litera- ture / Caribbean/ Adventure/ practitioners of the novel and helped popularize the genre in Britain.
    [Show full text]
  • Chen2019.Pdf (1.576Mb)
    This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. Daniel Defoe’s Moral and Political Thought in Its Religious Context Chienyuen Chen PhD Thesis The University of Edinburgh 2019 2 Abstract This thesis aims to provide a comprehensive picture of the religious ideas of the famous English journalist and novelist Daniel Defoe. Today, Defoe is best remembered as a novelist, but most of his works are non-fictional works including a sizable number of didactic or supernatural writings. Even though there is a rising scholarly interest in Defoe’s thoughts on subjects such as politics or Puritanism, there is hardly a single monograph devoted to Defoe’s religious ideas. This thesis aims to fill the gap by examining Defoe’s works throughout his career. It demonstrates that Defoe’s Presbyterian upbringing was influential in his emphasis on the ideas of good work, practical godliness, and the development of good habits.
    [Show full text]
  • Robinson Crusoe DANIEL DEFOE
    Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-14083-6 - Selections: From Classic and Modern English Literature Clare West Excerpt More information 1 DANIEL DEFOE Daniel Defoe was born in London, the son of a butcher. As a salesman of tights and stockings, he travelled widely in Europe. Travel was one of his great 1660 – 1731 interests throughout his life. He was also actively interested in politics. He wrote articles and poems attacking people’s prejudices, and so angered Queen Anne that he was sent to prison from 1702-4. He was rescued from prison by a Conservative politician, who employed him as a secret agent, sending him round the country to gather information about people’s political opinions. He was again sent to prison when he wrote articles criticizing King George I, but when he was set free he continued his writing. During his life Defoe wrote over five hundred articles and books, but he is best known for the works he produced in his later years, and especially for Robinson Crusoe, one of the most familiar stories in English literature. This is considered by many to be the first English novel, and is based on the true story of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish sailor. When it was published it was an immediate success. It was translated into many languages, and influenced many later writers and thinkers. Defoe’s influence on the development of the English novel was enormous. He wrote plainly and clearly, with realistic descriptions of people, places and action. His writing shows a reporter’s love of detail as well as a writer’s powerful imagination.
    [Show full text]
  • The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe Title
    The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe Title: The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Author: Daniel Defoe CHAPTER I—START IN LIFE I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull. He got a good estate by merchandise, and leaving off his trade, lived afterwards at York, from whence he had married my mother, whose relations were named Robinson, a very good family in that country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer; but, by the usual corruption of words in England, we are now called—nay we call ourselves and write our name—Crusoe; and so my companions always called me. I had two elder brothers, one of whom was lieutenant-colonel to an English regiment of foot in Flanders, formerly commanded by the famous Colonel Lockhart, and was killed at the battle near Dunkirk against the Spaniards. What became of my second brother I never knew, any more than my father or mother knew what became of me. Being the third son of the family and not bred to any trade, my head began to be filled very early with rambling thoughts. My father, who was very ancient, had given me a competent share of learning, as far as house-education and a country free school generally go, and designed me for the law; but I would be satisfied with nothing but going to sea; and my inclination to this led me so strongly against the will, nay, the commands of my father, and against all the entreaties and persuasions of my mother and other friends, that there seemed to be something fatal in that propensity of nature, tending directly to the life of misery which was to befall me.
    [Show full text]
  • “Castaways in the Very Heart of the City” ] ————————————————— Island and Metropolis in J.M
    “Castaways in the Very Heart of the City” ] ————————————————— Island and Metropolis in J.M. Coetzee’s Foe MARION FRIES–DIECKMANN Topography and the narrative HE MOST STRIKING DIFFERENCE between Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719) and its postmodern retelling Foe (1986) by T J.M. Coetzee is the female first-person narrator and protagonist Susan Barton, who is marooned on the island. There she meets Cruso – who obviously had suffered the same fate as her years before – and his servant Friday. In contrast to their literary predecessor, Coetzee’s Cruso is a rather inert atheist, and Coetzee’s Friday an obedient but uncommitted servant. The fourth important character in Coetzee’s novel is the writer Daniel Foe, whom Susan Barton turns to, after her rescue from the island, as soon as she is back in London. She wants him to write her story of the island. Yet there are a number of obstacles she is faced with, and thus the ‘writability’ of her story becomes the central topic of the novel. The key to her story is Friday, whom she takes back with her after Cruso’s death on the island. He does not – or cannot – speak, owing to an alleged mutilation of the tongue. Thus, he repre- sents a “hole in the narrative”1 throughout the novel. As a result, Susan’s story remains untold and unwritten. The reader gains the impression that Susan’s story is the Urtext of Robinson Crusoe,2 as Susan and Foe discuss precisely those modifications which would bring Susan’s story and Defoe’s novel in line.
    [Show full text]
  • Daniel Defoe: the Family Instructor
    Daniel Defoe: The Family Instructor Diana Jean Brooke Goldsmiths, University of London Dept of English and Comparative Literature PhD Submission 1 I hereby declare that this thesis is my own work and effort and that it has not been submitted anywhere for any award. Where other sources of information have been used, they have been acknowledged. Diana Jean Brooke Date: 20th January 2016 2 Acknowledgements I should like to thank the following: Joanna Gondris, my MA tutor, for her faith in my ability to go on to work towards a PhD; David Nokes, my first Supervisor, whose unexpected death led to my move to Goldsmiths. To all at Kings, for smoothing my way to Goldsmiths. At Kings, Clare Brant who helped me to try to re-focus, and Elizabeth Eger, who saw me on the path to Defoe before I left, and Clemens Sedmak who listened when I tried to change tack. Also to Catherine Wallace, at The Institute of Education, for technical advice and help. To Michael Simpson, Tim Parnell and Charlotte Scott at Goldsmiths. Mostly my thanks go to Alan Downie for endless support and advice, for his patience and skill, especially his insistence that I should ―enjoy‖ studying; but above all, thanks to Paul for his enduring encouragement. 3 Abstract The focus of this thesis is The Family Instructor by Daniel Defoe. There are two books: Volume I, first published in 1715, and Volume II, published in 1718. In both cases I have used the Pickering and Chatto edition, published in 2006 and edited by P.N.
    [Show full text]
  • Academic Curriculum Vitae Dr. Sharon-Ruth Alker Current Position
    1 Academic Curriculum Vitae Dr. Sharon-Ruth Alker Current Position 2018 to date Mary A. Denny Professor of English and General Studies 2017 to date Professor of English and General Studies 2017 to date Chair of the English Department, Whitman College 2010 to 2017 Associate Professor of English and General Studies Whitman College 2004 to 2010 Assistant Professor of English and General Studies Whitman College, Walla Walla, WA. Education *University of Toronto – 2003-2004 Postdoctoral Fellowship * University of British Columbia - 1998 to 2003 - PhD. English, awarded 2003 Gendering the Nation: Anglo-Scottish relations in British Letters 1707-1830 * Simon Fraser University - 1998 MA English * Simon Fraser University - 1996 BA English and Humanities Awards 2018 Whitman Abshire Grant to work with student Nick Maahs on a James Hogg website 2017 Whitman Perry Grant to work with student Esther Ra on James Hogg’s Uncollected Works and an edition of John Galt’s Sir Andrew Wylie of that Ilk 2017 Whitman Abshire Grant to work with student Esther Ra on James Hogg’s Manuscripts 2016 Co-organized a conference that received a SSHRC Connection Grant to organize 2 the Second World Congress of Scottish Literatures. Conference was in June 2017. 2015 Whitman Perry Grant to work with student Nicole Hodgkinson on chapters of the military siege monograph. 2013 Whitman Abshire Grant to work with student Sabrina Wise on a monograph on the military siege in Restoration and early eighteenth-century literature. 2011 Thomas D. Howells Award for Distinguished Teaching in Humanities and Arts. 2011 Whitman Perry Grant to work with student Brianna Gormly at the British Library on a scholarly paper on Daniel Defoe and the Church of Scotland.
    [Show full text]
  • Daniel Defoe and the Written Constitution Bernadette Meyler Cornell Law School, [email protected]
    Cornell University Law School Scholarship@Cornell Law: A Digital Repository Cornell Law Faculty Publications Faculty Scholarship 11-2008 Daniel Defoe and the Written Constitution Bernadette Meyler Cornell Law School, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/facpub Part of the Constitutional Law Commons, and the Legal History, Theory and Process Commons Recommended Citation Meyler, Bernadette, "Daniel Defoe and the Written Constitution" (2008). Cornell Law Faculty Publications. Paper 18. http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/facpub/18 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Scholarship@Cornell Law: A Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Cornell Law Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Cornell Law: A Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. DANIEL DEFOE AND THE WRITTEN CONSTITUTION Bernadette Meylert INTRODUCTION ..................................................... 73 I. DEFOE AS MYrH-MAKER, COGNATE, AND PRECEDENT ...... 79 II. FROM THE PROMISE TO THE TEXT ........................... 85 A. A Serious Inquiry .................................... 86 B. Party-Tyranny........................................ 90 C. The Case of ProtestantDissenters ....................... 99 III. THE WRITTEN CONSTITUTION IN MINIATURE .............. 106 A. Crusoe, Writing, and Contract ...................... 106 B. Pyrates, the Polity, and Constitutional Review ......
    [Show full text]
  • Father-Born: Mediating the Classics in J. M. Coetzee's
    Father-Born: Mediating the Classics in J. M. Coetzee’s Foe RADHIKA JONES So we arrive at a certain paradox. The classic defines itself by surviving. Therefore the interrogation of the classic, no matter how hostile, is part of the history of the classic, inevitable and even to be welcomed. For as long as the classic needs to be protected from attack, it can never prove itself classic. One might even venture further along this road to say that the function of criticism is defined by the classic: criticism is that which is duty-bound to interrogate the classic. Thus the fear that the classic will not survive the decentering acts of criticism may be turned on its head: rather than being the foe of the classic, criticism, and indeed criticism of the most skeptical kind, may be what the classic uses to define itself and ensure its survival. Criticism may in that sense be one of the instruments of the cunning of history. —J. M. Coetzee, “What Is a Classic?” (16) I J. M. COETZEE’S fourth novel, Foe (1986), is a rewriting of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, with the notable addition of two central characters: a female narrator, Susan Barton, and a male author, Mr. Foe, who is planning to fashion Susan’s castaway tale into a novel. Their disagreement over how this tale will ultimately take shape is the central conflict of Coetzee’s novel. If Robinson Crusoe is a protonovel about individual survival in a remote and uncivilized world, then Foe is a novel about the challenge of Digital Defoe 1, no.
    [Show full text]
  • The Many Faces of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe: Examining the Crusoe Myth in Film and on Television
    THE MANY FACES OF DANIEL DEFOE'S ROBINSON CRUSOE: EXAMINING THE CRUSOE MYTH IN FILM AND ON TELEVISION A Dissertation presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School at the University of Missouri-Columbia In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy by SOPHIA NIKOLEISHVILI Dr. Haskell Hinnant, Dissertation Supervisor DECEMBER 2007 The undersigned, appointed by the dean of the Graduate School, have examined the dissertation entitled THE MANY FACES OF DANIEL DEFOE’S ROBINSON CRUSOE: EXAMINING THE CRUSOE MYTH IN FILM AND ON TELEVISION presented by Sophia Nikoleishvili, a candidate for the degree of doctor of philosophy, and hereby certify that, in their opinion, it is worthy of acceptance. Professor Haskell Hinnant Professor George Justice Professor Devoney Looser Professor Catherine Parke Professor Patricia Crown ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the help of my adviser, Dr. Haskell Hinnant, to whom I would like to express the deepest gratitude. His continual guidance and persistent help have been greatly appreciated. I would also like to thank the members of my committee, Dr. Catherine Parke, Dr. George Justice, Dr. Devoney Looser, and Dr. Patricia Crown for their direction, support, and patience, and for their confidence in me. Their recommendations and suggestions have been invaluable. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...................................................................................................ii INTRODUCTION...................................................................................................................1
    [Show full text]