This book review was written by Eugene Kernes
“Jolo’s experience as a capital city
illustrates a number of important lessons for students of history. The first is that cultural continuity is a
more powerful historical force than politics.
Nations, empires, and their leaders come and go with the passage of
time, but elements of culture such as religion, language, and artistic
tradition are what truly endure.” – Derek Dwight Anderson, Chapter 1: Jolo,
Page 11
“Quetzaltenango’s history demonstrates the importance of
three trends. The first is the power of
localism, an affection or preference or loyalty for one’s own region over that
of a larger entity. This pattern might
involve an allegiance to a city over a state or to a state over a nation.” – Derek
Dwight Anderson, Chapter 2: Quetzaltenango, Page 25
“Rabaul and German New Guinea remind us of two valuable
lessons. The first is that historical
periods are not experienced the same way by everyone. Even individuals, neighborhoods, tribes, or
nations in close proximity do not necessarily share in the same historical
phenomena. Rather, a person’s history
and a place’s history is singular.” – Derek Dwight Anderson, Chapter 4: Rabaul,
Page 60
Excerpts with permissions from the author
Is This An Overview?
Details and sequences of events provide the contents of what
happened, but the meaning of history comes from what can be learned from the
contents. Meaning is derived from
understanding how to apply the lessons of history to one’s own
experiences. Lessons that come from a
diverse set of history about the sovereignty of capitals.
Lessons that include how cultures endure the passage of time
better than political power. While
cultures share intergenerational knowledge with the community, the continuity
of institutions depends on fostering an intergenerational loyalty of the
people. People prefer and are more loyal
to the more local communities than the larger entities. Should any political power want political
legitimacy, want the support of the people, those in power will need to provide
the people with more than just infrastructural conveniences.
Caveats?
This is a short book that contains a diverse set of regional
histories. The details provided are
meant to introduce the reader to the locations, and provide context about
them. To understand any specific region would
require more research.
The historic examples and the lessons have a
contradiction. One lesson is that
experiences of history are singular, that individuals and neighboring regions
can have different experiences within the same era. This should make each lesson local and
limited. But the lessons themselves
apply more broadly, as others shared variations of the experiences. The examples give context to lessons derived from
a larger sample set of histories.
