The Historian - from DU History

Contents 3

Editors Welcome

4

Lesbian Life in Weimar Republic Berlin by Anile Tmava

7

An Alternative Ulster: Punk and The Troubles by Jules O’Toole

12

The Caged Sultans by Kate Glen

17

The Untold Story of How a War in South America Led to One of the Most Infamous Clashes Between Labour and Capital in U.S. History

by Seamus O’Neill

22

The Future of History? by Gabriel Deasy

26

Historical Horoscopes

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Editors Terence Donovan

Meghan Flood

Welcome to the Hilary Term edition of the historian!

My name is Terence Donovan, Librarian of the 89th session and part of the two-person team including our amazingly talented Public Relations Officer Meghan Flood have been working towards this latest edition since the end of last year!

Hi! My name is Meghan and I’m PRO for the 89th session of DU History. This year, our little team has put together not one but two issues of the historian! Both myself and Terence have been preparing this issue since last term, and we’re excited for you to see it!

Firstly, I would like to pay tribute to all our contributors who have produced some brilliant work ranging from The Future of History as we know it to ‘Lesbian Life in Weimar Germany.’ Alongside our eclectic collection of articles, we have a stunning visual art theme throughout the publication from our much-beloved PRO Meghan. As a result, I believe this will go down as one of the most wide-ranging and compelling editions in recent memory!

All of our contributors have put together fascinating pieces addressing a massive range of historical issues and topics. The range of topics our members explore will always amaze me, and I’m sure both myself and Terence are eager to see what you come up with next, even if we aren’t the ones editing. As with our last issue, I’ve pulled from Art Nouveau elements for our cover art, exploring fresh beginnings and beauty, something we’re all very much in need of.

From submitting articles to our publication, attending our famous pub quizzes, and even attending our guest lectures, DU History I believe has something for every student in Trinity with a passion for the past.

This might be your first time hearing about us here at DU History, but keep an eye out for us and stay involved! We have some exciting plans this year, and there’s truly something for everyone.

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Lesbian Life in Weimar Republic Berlin Anile Tmava B erlin has been at the heart of

gay culture since the beginning of the 20th century. Already around the turn of the decades, Berlin had two quarters where gay life was established and flourished openly.

The first LGBT rights organization, the “ScientificHumanitarian Committee”, was founded in 1897 in Berlin.

Magnus Hirschfeld, a doctor and sexologist, collaborated with other members of the committee

Magnus Hirschfeld 4

to lobby for the abolishment of §175 of the German Criminal Code, the paragraph penalizing sexual acts between men.

Hirschfeld also opened the privately funded “Institute for Sexology” in Berlin hoping to establish academic research and inclusive education on sexual behaviour. However, the institute was most in demand for consultations on all matters relating to sexual distress.

Lesbian women were mostly involved in local women’s rights movements to attain the right to work and vote. Only a few women loving women became active in Berlin’s LGBT movement.

In 1910 and 1914, after persistent effort, two women, Helene Lange and Gertrud Bäumer, were elected to the executive body of the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee.

In 1919, the first popular German novel portraying lesbian love and

which she herself performed in humorous shows. It is assumed that Lotte Hahm owned a Transvestite certificate. That was a note issued by the German police in collaboration with Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexology which identified a person as a transvestite such that the person was entitled to dress in clothes “corresponding to their (gender) identity”.

Helene Lange

containing a sex scene that was unique in its usage of explicit images was published. Also, the first film to openly deal with homosexuality, “Different from the Others”, celebrated its premiere in Berlin.

In the 1920s, Berlin was rich in bars and clubs directed at lesbian women. In 1924, “The Girlfriend: The Ideal Friendship Journal”, the world’s first lesbian journal, was founded. It was engrained in the lesbian subculture and the starting point for lesbian activism independent of women’s and gay rights movements in Germany.

Lotte Hahm was one of the central figures of lesbian life in Berlin during the Weimar Republic. As a contributor to lesbian magazines, she advertised outlandish events in her bars, for

Besides her involvement in the lesbian and transvestite subculture, Lotte Hahm leveraged her social reach in Berlin to advance her activism.

She invented solidarity schemes among visitors of her establishments and employed women in need, liberating some lesbian women from poverty. In 1926, Lotte Hahm founded the lesbian club called “Lady’s Club Violetta” (“Damenklub Violetta” where “Dame” was a well-known cypher for lesbian women), envisioning an open point of contact for political activism and a network connecting lesbian women and potentially transvestites.

With the rise of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party and Nazism in the Weimar Republic, the gay subculture in Berlin was interrupted 5

suddenly. Already in 1932, before the elections and Enabling Act facilitating Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, members of the paramilitary SA rioted in clubs and bars in Berlin’s gay quarters, including Lotte Hahm’s establishments. Under the National Socialist dictatorship, queer magazines and life were prohibited. The “Institute for Sexology” was regularly targeted during the series of book burnings conducted by the Nazis in the 1930s.

Lotte Hahm renamed the “Lady’s Club Violetta”/ “Sports Club Sun” and continued to organize secret soirées for lesbians and transvestites during the first few years. But in the continuously

Berlin Bar Eldorado 6

rising anti-homosexual and -transvestite climate of the 1930s and 1940s, she had to suspend her engagement until after World War II. Even though Berlin today more than ever is considered a hub and pilgrimage sight for alternative lifestyles, the range of lesbian bars and clubs as well as magazines and societies during the Weimar Republic has not been reached since. Many modern clubs have roots in popular Weimar Republic venues and continue the tradition that was disrupted by the Nazi dictatorship and its homophobic relics in the German law that survived for several decades after 1945.

An Alternative Ulster: Punk and The Troubles Jules O’Toole J oe Strummer once said, ‘If

both north and south of the border, performing chart hits punk was hard, Ulster was harder. for mixed audiences. The group If punk was chaos, Ulster was were met in the early hours of warzone. Punk was the perfect July 31st by a Loyalist paramilitary soundtrack to the ravaged cities.’ unit, posing as security forces The loud, angry and aggressive performing a routine security sound of the punk movement, check. The intentions of the unit reaching a peak in 1977, coincided were unclear until a bomb they with the loud aggression of The were planting, allegedly intended Troubles, creating a unique, cross- to detonate in Dublin in Miami’s sectional punk scene in Northern bus, exploded prematurely, Ireland that captured a political killing two paramilitary members sentiment, a sense of protest, instantly. The following panic and the raw energy of young resulted in 3 members of Miami people simply fed up of their being shot and killed. The results of the Miami Massacre on music in surroundings.

Northern Ireland were instant and widespread. From the 1st of July, The violence of the Troubles newspapers reported a variety of suppressed music throughout acts cancelling Northern Irish gigs Ireland but arguably through for fear of repeat attacks, with this inspired it even more. With the Irish Musicians Federation little focus on Irish music, one issuing statements to the same tragic event was the catalyst effect. No longer was Ireland that backhandedly sparked a a safe place for musicians to revelation in Irish music. On July tour. It was instead stigmatised 31st, 1975, The Miami Showband as a problem destination for were travelling to Dublin from international popular acts, a a gig in the Castle Ballroom, Co. stigma that some argue lasted Down. The Miami were popular 7

Ulster Fanzines

until the mid-80s. The Miami massacre highlighted the fact that even music, previously enjoyed by communities on either side of the conflict together, could never be immune to sectarian violence.

This Miami Massacre perhaps sparked the punk movement in Northern Ireland - with fewer international acts and showbands, music was given space to thrive, uninfluenced by large scale American and British acts. The absence of live gigs resulted in young people focusing their attention on smaller, home-grown groups and pub gigs. A gap for punk was inevitable; with raw energy and a DIY approach that made it more accessible - you don’t need to be able to read music to play punk. If you can 88

even play an instrument, you’re doing better than The Sex Pistols ever did. Punk had an attitude of rebelling against authority and social norms, anger, and a form of escapism - perfectly coinciding with the apex of The Troubles.

Belfast was put firmly on the punk picture by the arrival of The Clash, October 20th 1977.

Fearing the chaos of a large gathering of young punks, the gig was cancelled at the last minute

by Belfast City Hall. In response, young punks created a roadblock, stopping any movement on Bedford Street, throwing stones at the windows of the Ulster Hall. The RUC were called to put an end to ‘The Riot of Bedford’.

Fans as young as 15 were pushed, shoved, and beaten by the police.

(The riot was later immortalised

by RUDI, in the song ‘Cops’, and its infamous ‘SS RUC’ chorus) The Clash, ‘working-class heroes’ of the UK, rounded off the night in the Europa Hotel, the most expensive establishment in Belfast, while fans made their way back to their realities. The Clash posed with the army and police up the Falls Road and at security checkpoints, utterly fascinated by the world they had walked into. These images were posted in music magazines and fanzines, with headlines screaming: “THE CLASH UNITE PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC YOUTH WITH PUNK ROCK DESPITE CANCELLED GIGS AND REPRESSION”. These Belfast punks were living their everyday lives in The Clash’s edgy photo opportunity. Catholic and Protestant young people in Northern Ireland were living in aggression, sick of authority, unable to escape. The Clash concert acted as a catalyst for the punk scene. Alliances were made, friendships were created, and most importantly, bands were formed.

The Undertones were undoubtedly the most successful band of Northern Ireland’s punk, with lyrics that discussed universal teenage perils: romance, Subbuteo, pimples and Mars bars. The Undertones only once

discussed political issues in their lyrics, which may be the root of their success abroad.

Following many rejected demos, Terri Hooley, ‘the Malcolm McLaren’ of NI Punk, owner of Good Vibrations shop and independent record label, offered The Undertones the chance to record an EP. On the 16th of June ’78, the Teenage Kicks EP was recorded. What happened next is often disputed, but however it happened, BBC DJ John Peel received a copy of the EP. On September 9th, Peel played all four tracks on his evening show, playing Teenage Kicks twice in a row, cementing its place as a pop legend- “Isn’t that the most wonderful record you’ve ever heard?” The Undertones were the most commercially successful of all the NI punk bands, with their unique power-pop style forming the inspiration for many others.

Grafitti during the Troubles 9

Based around a 4 chord pattern and an infectious riff, Teenage Kicks continues to influence what dominates today’s charts.

Teenage Kicks is universal, and relatable, away from the violence on the ground The Undertones were surrounded with. Although they received criticism for not discussing the violence that surrounded them, the group disagreed with glorifying the Troubles for the sake of their music- focusing on ‘songs about chocolate and girls’ Teenage Kicks will forever go down in history as punk’s catchiest 4 chord song, and its timeless, relatable subject matter may be the reason for its great commercial success. Until his death, John Peel maintained that Teenage Kicks was his favourite song ever written, even

Headline Belfast 10 10

having an acoustic version played at this funeral.

Stiff Little Fingers, started as a heavy rock schoolboy band, with a set mainly consisting of covers

by Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple.

But as punk began to spread through Northern Ireland in 1977, a change in style was imminent.

The band renamed themselves Stiff Little Fingers, (SLF) after the Vibrators song, and began to build up their set with punk covers. The real turning point for the band was when they were spotted by two English journalists, in November 1977.

They were impressed by their raw energy and encouraged the band to write about their own experiences in Northern Ireland.

This involvement of journalists

and the group’s sudden departure from rock towards punk has led to criticism that the group were not as authentic as other bands, taking advantage of the surrounding political climate and glamorising it for commercial gain. SLF’s most successful song, ‘Alternative Ulster’, rocketed to the top of the alternative charts and is one of the most instantly recognisable Northern Irish punk songs. With their music setting out “to confront the negative energy of political injustice with...rock music’’, SLF belonged to the “social realist” wing of punk. In ‘Alternative Ulster’, we see the harsh life of the Troubles mimicked in both the lyrics and music, creating the perfect track to epitomise the anger felt by Ulster’s youth.

In something as deep-rooted in our social consciousness as the Troubles, it can often be hard to find any form of unbiased, objective material; yet arguably SLF achieved this. History is simultaneously confronted and avoided, no names or incidents are mentioned.

Away from the sectarian attitude of ‘us’ and ‘them’, ‘Alternative Ulster’ pulls everyone together in a fight against the injustices and terrors of the society they

surround themselves with. In a city always on the edge, the arts have no place to thrive, and youth have no place to express their views. ‘Alternative Ulster’ calls for us all to question what we’ve surrounded ourselves with, to share our opinions on and think critically. ‘Is this the kind of place you wanna live, is this where you wanna be? What we need, Is an Alternative Ulster.’ Even in a peaceful society, ‘Alternative Ulster’ carries the message to be active, and protest, to stand up, and “Alter your native land”.

The punk scene of Northern Ireland is unique in its ability to highlight and discuss political issues confronting young people, while simultaneously providing a total escape from ordinary life.

From punk fashion to gigs in The Pound, the Northern Irish scene allowed individuals to carve out an identity and circle independent of political alliances, independent of religion. The attitudes of punk, of questioning social norms, rebelling against authority, with a DIY approach were perhaps most suited to the Troubles. As best put by 2013 film Good Vibrations, ‘New York has the haircuts, London has the trousers, but Belfast has the reason’.

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The Caged Sultans Kate Glen T he Ottoman dynasty, the line

of the House of Osman, was the cornerstone of the Ottoman Empire. Without the dynasty, the Empire could not continue.

It spanned thirty-six sultans and over six centuries, from the beginning of Osman I’s reign in 1280 to the end of Mehmed VI’s in 1922. This meant that the Ottomans took succession to the throne and the continuation of the dynasty very seriously.

The Ottomans did not have a fixed law of succession, since according to their Turkish beliefs imposing a method of succession was contrary to the will of God. Unlike European nations which followed primogeniture, after the death of the ruling sultan the throne belonged to whichever prince was able to secure it. While the prince tended to be a son of the sultan, a brother of the sultan was also eligible. However, a surviving brother of a sultan was not terribly common, as you will see shortly.

12

Sultans in the early Ottoman Empire had their children with concubines in the Imperial Harem.

When a prince reached the age of maturity, around fifteen or sixteen by most accounts, he was sent along with his mother to a governorship in one of the surrounding provinces to learn how to rule. Upon the death of a sultan , word was delivered to the princes who raced back

Suleyman the Magnificent

to the capital (Edirne originally, then later Constantinople) to secure the throne. For this reason, governorships closer to the capital were highly prized as princes there would hear news of the sultan’s death first. If a prince arrived in the city early and managed to secure the throne and the support of key political factions then he was better able to defend it.

Further, it was imperative that a new sultan was named quickly because the sultan’s slave army, the janissaries, were technically under the control of nobody during the interregnum and would freely destroy and pillage in the meantime. This was the case when Suleyman the Magnificent died while on a military campaign in Hungary. His body was embalmed in secret and his grand vizier pretended he was merely feeling under the weather while word was sent to his son Selim II on the other side of Anatolia to join the army on the campaign. This ensured there would be no interruption to the leadership of the campaign.

Hurrem Sultan

sultans often killed their brothers to prevent them from staking a claim. This practice was codified into law by Mehmed II for the sake of the “welfare of the state”.

Sometimes, certain princes were favoured to become the next sultan, yet they still had to survive the competition first. To ensure they secured the throne first, the death of the sultan would be hidden by the public for weeks while a secret message was sent to the favoured prince telling him to return to the capital. This was often the case with regards to the sons of a Haseki sultan, (sultan’s wife), a role introduced by the formidable Roxelana (Hurrem), wife of Suleyman the Magnificent, who deserves an essay in her In the competition for the own right. For instance, when throne, it was common practice Selim II died the Haseki sultan, his for brothers to kill each other.

Even after accession to the throne wife Nurbanu, hid his body in an icebox and sent a secret message 13

Hurrem Sultan Mirror

summoning her son Murad III. A similar situation arose upon Murad III’s death.

the city at the time. The fratricide of genuine full-grown rivals was allowed, but the murder of children was frowned upon.

Murad III’s death was a significant Upon his accession to the throne, turning point in the history of Mehmed’s son, Ahmed I refused the Ottoman succession. Though to murder his mentally disabled fratricide was common, his son younger brother Mustafa. Instead, Mehmed III took it to dazzling he moved him into a guarded extremes. Upon the death of his quarter of the palace’s harem. father, he ordered his brothers Upon Ahmed’s death, his son was murdered. The murders of only thirteen, and Mustafa was all nineteen of his brothers, chosen to reign because of his ranging in ages from adulthood age. He was soon deposed and to just children. The citizens of returned to his harem quarters Constantinople watched on as until his death. the sons’ coffins joined their father’s at Selim II’s funeral. Even The Ottomans realised that now, seeing the number and instead of fratricide, keeping varying sizes of coffins in Selim princes guarded was preferable II’s mausoleum is shocking, and it to murdering them en masse. was no less so to the citizens of Mustafa thus became the first 14

prisoner of the Kafes system.

Kafes means “cage” and refers to the quarters in the harem where princes were imprisoned for life.

Princes tended to leave the Kafes either through ascension to the throne, or death. Princes were moved to the Kafes after their early years in the harem with their mothers after which most of them were kept in near-isolation in the Kafes. Their education ended after leaving the harem, and they were not allowed to have children. The environment resulted in multiple sultans who spent years in the Kafes having psychological disorders from men who had spent their whole lives with the threat of execution hanging over their heads. When soldiers arrived to bring Suleyman II from the kafes to the throne in 1687, after forty

years of imprisonment, he broke down in tears thinking they had come to kill him. He begged them to allow him to say his prayers before his death. After Suleyman II, succession was decided by the rule of seniority, where the oldest descendent of the throne (whether brother or son) ascended upon the death of a sultan.

The Kafes system, designed to ensure the continuity of the House of Osman, completely revolutionised power dynamics in the Empire. It gave viziers far more power and control over the sultan than they had previously exercised. It was only about a generation later that the Ottoman Empire began to wane in strength and was first considered “the sick man of Europe”.

Check out “Many Moons Ago” the DU History Podcast for more historical content made by students for students!

We have new episodes coming out every few weeks with topics from Witchcraft Belief in Ireland to The Monumentalisation of Roger Casement.

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We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

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The Untold Story of How a War in South America Led to One of the Most Infamous Clashes Between Labour and Capital in U.S. History Seamus O’Neill I n the predawn darkness, two

barges crowded with over 300 well-armed private detectives approach the wharf beneath the towering blast furnaces overlooking the swirling Monongahela River. Carnegie Steel’s colossal plant is quiet, but the riverbank is in furious uproar, crowded with over 5,000 men, women, and children shouting curses in five languages at the Pinkerton mercenaries as they approach. In the chaos, the crack of gunfire rings out from somewhere. The detectives, many hired out of Pittsburgh’s boarding houses just days before, start to panic. Some duck, but their experienced captains bark orders, and the men level their Winchester rifles at the crowd.

A barrage of gunfire explodes.

Workers in bloodied cotton shirts fall before the plant’s steel edifice. Detectives on the barges collapse, shot through the neck, the chest, the arms.

Cries of terror and fury ricochet off the wooded ridge on the far riverbank, and the militant workers fall back into the plant.

Thus began the Battle of Homestead, one of the most infamous and violent clashes between organized labour and private industry in American history.

Homestead had long been the site of militant labour activism.

The Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (AA) had 17 17

unionized a significant portion of the plant’s workers as early as 1881. However, in 1889 a ‘successful’ and quite militant strike had left workers with lower wages, and in spring 1892, after negotiations over wages deteriorated, industrial titan Andrew Carnegie authorized his notoriously uncompromising manager of operations Henry Frick to “break the union.” The workers were locked-out, precipitating the strike and the violent confrontations that would follow.

the industry’s success and the strike lay in advantageous but technically challenging naval contracts.

In the wake of the American Civil War, the U.S. Navy downsized its wooden and rudimentary ironclad fleet in the 1860s and 1870s to save money. At the same time, however, the French, British, Russians, and especially the Germans were locked in an ever-more intense arms race, and by the 1870s, Latin American But why demand higher wages nations with rapidly growing in 1892? Profitability can make economies — namely Brazil, companies more willing to raise Argentina, and Chile — had taken wages, and despite volatility in the notice. In order to display their expanding American economy, newfound economic clout, they steel manufacturing was booming. purchased British-built warships.

One of the central reasons for U.S. business interests in Latin

Homestead Strike 18

America — especially in the lucrative guano mines of Peru and Bolivia, crucial for manufacturing high-nitrogen fertilizer — were also growing swiftly. When longstanding territorial disputes provoked the War of the Pacific between Peru, Bolivia, and Chile in 1879, the better-armed Chileans eventually crushed their opponents. The U.S. government, seeing business interests threatened and accustomed to its traditional role as regional powerbroker, attempted to arbitrate a status-quo resolution to the war in 1880-81. The Chileans, who had effectively won already, refused, and it quickly became clear that the U.S. did not have the naval strength to back up its position.

Carnegie Steel

After 1885, funds were appropriated and by 1890 the first U.S. steel-hulled warships — one step up even from the Chilean ironclads — were under construction in Philadelphia.

The late-19th Century was also the era of economic One historian claimed that protectionism. Although this “foreign impudence” led to American steel manufacturers a fantastical war scare where and especially shipbuilders Americans — or at least those were inferior to their British and with foreign business interests German counterparts, Congress — were gripped by fears that sought to use naval contracts the Chileans would bombard and high tariffs on foreign steel San Francisco, or their British to bolster the domestic industry. investors would convince the One of the main beneficiaries Royal Navy to embargo New of both the tariffs and the naval York. Hysteria or no, the Chilean contracts was Carnegie Steel, incident and the ongoing an oligopolistic manufacturer European arms race convinced a with enormous political majority of U.S. congressmen that influence in both the Republican the Navy needed reconstruction. and Democratic Parties. The

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Homestead Strike

stereotype of the Gilded Age as an era when corporate mastery of government permitted appalling working conditions for labourers was in some ways quite accurate in this case.

When Carnegie Steel’s Homestead plant, one of the largest in the country, was awarded the contract to produce new armour plating for the latest and largest U.S. battleship, the USS New York, it did not actually possess the expertise to do so.

Midway through construction, the Navy, reacting to the latest German technological advances, changed the plans for the ship — not an uncommon occurrence — to include nickelsteel alloy plating. This type of 20

steel was particularly difficult to manufacture, and in order to meet unforgiving deadlines for this and other steel orders, the Carnegie plant had already introduced 12-hour shifts and 24hour production.

Workers at Homestead faced low wages and long hours manning the scorching blast furnaces when they were tasked with manufacturing a new kind of metal-plate alloy of unprecedented thickness under pressing timetables.

The union, which had not brokered wage rates for this new type of steel alloy, pushed to renegotiate their contract with Carnegie to include higher wages

at precisely the time when the time-pressed company was least willing to cooperate. When wage negotiations between the union and Carnegie’s deputy Henry Frick broke down at the end of June 1892, he ordered the workers locked out of the plant. The well-established union picketed the factory and effectively took over the entire town with the sympathy of most residents. The workers stormed the factory, and the Company’s attempt to retake it with Pinkerton detectives led to bloodshed. On July 6th, the workers forced the company’s mercenaries to surrender, but a few weeks later the Pennsylvania State Militia arrived to restore order. A sympathetic anarchist’s attempt to assassinate Frick only landed both Frick and the assassin

in the hospital and ended public sympathy for the strike. Eastern European strike-breakers were brought in to reopen the factory; eventually, the strike collapsed, and the union with it. As many as fifteen people lay dead — including seven workers.

The impact of Homestead — and the South American conflict which contributed to it — was profound. By 1900, only one unionized steel plant in the entire country remained; steel unions had been set back a generation.

And by 1900, the U.S. had used its new battleships to rout Spain and seize Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, ensuring that no nation would seriously challenge U.S. interests in Latin America again until the Cold War.

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21

The Future of History?

Gabriel Deasy S igmund Freud declared that

species. The advances of science have thus far only served to further contextualize and enrich this pursuit in self-knowledge.

humanity has been dealt three insults since the early modern period. First, Copernicus theorized that the earth revolves around the sun, not vice versa. We are not the centre of the universe.

Nearly three centuries later, in 1859, Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species. We are not the special children of a divine creator. Then, enter Freud and psychoanalysis. Our thoughts and actions are not governed principally by rationality but are instead determined by a vast ocean of unconscious instincts and impulses beyond our control.

Yet Freud could not foresee the fourth great insult to humankind’s collective solipsism: Artificial Intelligence. We are not the peak of intelligence. In fact, as projects like AlphaGo have readily demonstrated, we are nowhere near the peak. Intelligence can be decoupled from consciousness.

To date, the discipline of History has emerged for the most part unscathed by these humiliations.

Indeed, it has been improved.

Our increased awareness of the relative ephemerality and fragility of human civilization underscores the importance of studying the past. Fundamentally, History is a pursuit in self-knowledge — as a community, as a nation, as a

Although the toolkit of the historian has expanded since the days of Herodotus, history writing can be distilled into two essential components: data and imagination. Historians gather and interrogate the available raw data of the past and, using their capacity for imagination, attempt to fill in the gaps. This gap-filling process is known as interpolation. In short, history

22

But how does this latest insult to humankind bear any relation to the discipline of History?

the historian of Ancient Babylon.

Thus, the role demanded of the historian’s imagination, though important, is far less integral.

Interpolation is considerably easier.

Sigmund Freud

writing is akin to digestion: data is the food which historians digest into comprehendible narratives, or fuel.

The quantity and quality of data available to historians is inversely proportional to the time that has elapsed between the historical event and its study.

Generally, the more time that has passed, the less data the historian has to work with. This is of course in part due to the development of the discipline itself. But it is also a result of revolutions in communications technology. With each revolution in communications technology — think the printing press, the telegraph, the internet — the data-sets available to future historians expand. The historian of the Second World War has a far greater quantity of data than

Yet at a certain point this trend will become unmanageable. For as a result of these revolutions in communications technology, historical change occurs at an exponentially faster rate than it did in the past. Compare declaring a war by herald to declaring a war

by Twitter. And thus, the amount of data generated is considerably greater today than it was in even the very recent past. This presents a very practical problem to future historians: they will be overwhelmed by data. The only solution to this problem will be to delegate aspects of the history writing process to AI. One of the principal problems faced by historians of Ancient Babylon is the relative scarcity of data; for historians of 2020, for instance, one of the principal problems will be a superabundance of data.

Of course, this will bring many advantages. Problems of translation will be more quickly and more easily overcome, while anyone who has used digitized archives will testify to the 23

invaluable time-saving potential of increased automation.

Meanwhile, historians and researchers have already begun to exploit these advances. The Canadian psychologist Steven Pinker, in his book the ‘Better Angels of Our Nature (2011)’, relied extensively on computerised archives and historical Big Data to argue that human societies have, from a long durée perspective, become markedly less violent. In a similar application of modern data methods to History, the Russian-American ecologistcum historian Peter Turchin, founder of the sub-field of Cliodynamics, has proposed the ‘mathemisation’ of History using AI and Big Data. Turchin believes the toolkit of modern historians to be outdated, lending themselves to everincreasing specialisation at the expense of the bigger historical picture. Somewhat ironically, given his assertion than modern historians are stuck in the nineteenth century, by applying AI technologies to collect data en masse and analyse macrohistorical trends, Turchin in turn hopes to revive the old nineteenth-century pursuit of the ‘laws of history.’

Whether or not there are 24

Steven Pinker

discoverable laws of history is unknown. Yet Turchin’s work raises important questions about the future of History as an academic discipline.As we delegate more and more aspects of historical research to AI, to what extent will the History of tomorrow resemble the History of today? By corollary, will the History of the future most aptly be described as a science or as one of the humanities?

Moreover, what if, as Supreme Leader Mark Zuckerberg so desires, the Metaverse becomes the dominant arena of human activity, not the real world?

Would History have to follow humans into the digital realm?

Indeed, if History is principally carried out by AI and is principally focused on non-human entities (say, in the Metaverse), to what

extent will it even be valid to talk of History?

Or what if AI reaches the point of singularity, or selfintelligence. With humans no longer centre stage, what is the point of a discipline predicated on notions of human agency and contingency?

More to the point, what if, as the Israeli historian Yuval Harari argues, homo sapiens — through the twin processes of continuous automation and genetic engineering — cease to exist over the next two hundred years? If humans cease to exist — whether through Climate Change-related obliteration, or a nuclear holocaust (both of which are certainly plausible), or through engineered evolution,

will that not render History — our species’ pursuit of self-knowledge — redundant?

Answers to these questions are beyond this simple undergraduate. Perhaps they are not even the correct questions.

Such is the pace of change in the modern world, it is not improbable that this article will appear egregiously out-of-date in the near future. Nonetheless, it seems plain that our species is on the brink, or even in the midst, of profound and unprecedented changes. It would be naive to think that History will be unaffected. Historians will not predict the future — and rightly so. But it might be time to start exploring our own prospects of survival in the future.

Trinity Long Room 25

Historical Horoscopes Aries

Taurus

Gemini

Cancer

Leo

Virgo

Aries, you don’t always have to be go go go! Take some time to reflect and relax. It’s okay to not always be going at full speed.

You may be the sign of duality, but that doesn’t mean you have to literally double up on your work!

Refocus your energy.

Leo, you might be feeling a little let down at the the moment, but don’t let this completely absorb you.

Stay strong and stay calm, you’re above this.

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You’re feeling etra in control and on top of things. Take this time to establish your own boundaries and rules.

You might feel like you’ve been in a bit of a rut Cancer, but this is the fresh start you’ve needed!

Embrace it!

You’re taking on an unrealistic amount of work and you need to focus on what you’re already doing.

Stop picking up new tasks for a little! Breathe!

Historical Horoscopes Libra

Scorpio

Sagittarius

Capricorn

Aquarius

Pisces

Lucky Libra, you’re in a situation boarding on blissful.

Those around you are aiding this new calm, so don’t get distracted by what-ifs.

This might seem like the opportunity of a life time Sagittarius, but don’t dive in blindly. Read through the situation carefully first.

There’s people reaching out. Make sure to spend time with those closet to you. Find fulfilment in quality time and open up a little!

It’s time to see things from a new perspective Scorpio.

Take this a learning moment and make the most out of it.

Capricorns hard work is starting to pay off. You’re exactly where you need to be right now, so carry on, and enjoy the peace.

Look at you all down to earth. You’re taking things in your stride and it’s working out well. Just remember to enjoy the little things too.

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DU History 89th Session Auditor: Máire Hussey Secretary: Shane Macken Treasurer: Michelle Mee Public Relations Officer: Meghan Flood Social Secretary: Aisling Lynch Librarian: Terence Donovan Fourth Year Rep: Aisling Rooney Third Year Rep: Jack Fallon Second Year Rep: Oisin Slattery Second Year Rep: Isabel Canalejo First Year Rep: Dora Berkes First Year Rep: Hosanna Boutler Social Media Officer: Seamus O’Neill OCM: Owen Eglinton

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