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September 2003 · Historically Speaking49 LETTERS To the Editors: Niall Ferguson's essay (April 2003 Historically Speaking ) grafts the globalization ofcurrent times onto that of the British Empire and finds a non-contextual resemblance between the International Monetary Fund's prescriptions and late 19th- and early 20thcentury British economic policy. Yet Ferguson skillfully avoids the fact that too often Britain acted as a protectionist nation vis-à-vis its colonies. John A. Hobson wrote in Imperialism: A Study (1902): "Imperialism repudiates Free Trade, and rests upon an economic basis ofProtection." Moreover, Britain's trade with its colonies as a proportion of its trade with other countries in the latter half of the 19th century either remained stagnant or declined, which clearly contradicts Ferguson's "unequivocal" claim that the "policy offree trade was beneficial ... to her colonies." With regard to the issue of"unprecedented" overseas investment, Ferguson neglects to mention that shares in the "immense" Indian railways came with a 5% sovereign-guaranteed return. British capital investment in India was small, and excluding the guaranteed investments in railways and public debt, negligible . Ferguson cannot explain why imperial Britain's IMF-style policies did not lead to economic growth, while similar policies have doubled India's growth rate in the past decade. Perhaps the "autarky" after independence should be reevaluated, and not just dismissed as "wrong conclusions" arrived at by the nationalists. Left to their own devices, countries like India could have gone theJapanese route. Despite its handicaps —many ofthem direct consequences ofimperialism —India has made great strides in areas like nuclear and space technology, and this after only fifty years ofindependence. Anup Mukherjee Jabalpur, India To the Editors: In theJune 2003 issue oíHistorically Speaking Stephen G. Brush ("Why Did [or Didn't] It Happen?") asks why the Scientific Revolution happened in Europe in the 17th century but does not provide an answer. An explanation, ifnot a simple determinant, recalls factors and conditions already well known to historians, and my argument here is that their coincidence was essential for the birth and maturation ofthe Scientific Revolution . The emergence ofhumanism in the 16th century, deriving mainly from the recovery, or new translations, of the ancient classics, revived an awareness of the Greek inquiry into nature and, especially, the Greek search for natural laws. In the same century, the long tension between spiritual and temporal power was finally tipped in favor ofthe latter. Examples: the selfpromotion of Henry VIII to be supreme head of the Church ofEngland; the Concordat ofBologna (1516) that gave Francis I the authority to nominate French bishops; and the principle ofcujus regio ejus religio as proclaimed in the Religious Peace ofAugsburg, neither a religious nor a theological principle, but a political one. Secular power was achieving control only ofreligious authority, not ofreligion itself. Yet those actions provoked fears that the precedent might eventually encourage secular authority to tinker with the articles offaith. And the eventual logical response was to advocate the separation ofchurch and state, at the very least to insist on the toleration ofdissent. The movement to deny religious authority the enforcement ofbeliefpertained equally to a refusal to allow religious authority to censor new scientific ideas. In his essay Brush refers in particular to Copernicus , Kepler, and Galileo, all remembered as astronomers. Copernicus, as well, had studied canon law and earned his living as a cathedral canon. Yet he never took orders. During his study for a medical degree in Italy, he heard discussions of Pythagorean astronomical ideas, convincing him ofa heliocentrism that remained to be demonstrated. Kepler trained for the Lutheran ministry, in the course of which he received a good classical education. Later employed as a mathematician-astrologer, he ended up not in the ministry but in astronomy. Galileo was meant to be a physician, but failed to complete his medical degree. But he did attend the lectures ofthe physician-botanist Andrea Cesalpino, who sought to demonstrate the natural order in the plant world. Whatever their differences , these scholars represented the new emphasis on the study of nature rather than the supernatural, and they were undermining the authority ofmedieval Aristotelianism . Such individuals were generally laymen, another manifestation ofthe secularization evident in the 16th century. Members of the clergy...

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