A review of PBS’s “The Circus” (American Experience)

PBS did a four-hour television history of the circus (and they weren’t clowning around) …

In 2017, Hollywood released a movie that reminded people of a much earlier form of entertainment than its own movies. The movie was “The Greatest Showman,” starring Hugh Jackman as P. T. Barnum – the owner of a circus. The circus was popular in many areas of the Western world, but it seems to have been founded in England, and reached its greatest heights in the fledgling United States. The word comes from the Latin “circus,” associated with the Roman circus – a somewhat barbaric predecessor. The Roman circus saw vicious chariot races that could be violent and brutal, dramatized in movies like “Ben-Hur.” The American circus saw some risks of its own, although it seems safe to say that it was far less hazardous than its Roman counterpart. Entire towns could be shut down on the days when the circus pulled into town, because people wanted to spend their hard-earned money to attend it. People would even take their children, although they were often concerned that their children would “run away to the circus” – a metaphor for getting involved with seedy and unsavory company, and sometimes a literal statement.

A review of PBS’s “Citizen Hearst” (American Experience)

An anecdote about the movie “Citizen Kane” (made by Orson Welles in 1941)

In 1941, Orson Welles released a film called “Citizen Kane,” which has since become a classic. But at the time, William Randolph Hearst tried to suppress the film, by financially threatening those theatres that were showing it. Thus, the film “Citizen Kane” didn’t do that well at the time that it first came out. After watching it, I can see why William Randolph Hearst didn’t like the film. It gave a thinly-disguised (but nonetheless detectable) portrayal of a character loosely based on Hearst himself – a portrayal which was somewhat unflattering. There are significant differences between the movie life of Charles Foster Kane, and the real life of Hearst himself. Other parts of the movie are eerily similar to the real thing. But to go into either the similarities or the differences between the two (let alone both of these things) would be beyond the scope of this blog post. Here, I will instead review PBS’s four-hour biography of the real William Randolph Hearst. It is simply entitled “Citizen Hearst,” an obvious reference to the famous Orson Welles film.

A review of PBS’s “Joseph Pulitzer: Voice of the People”

The “Pulitzer Prize” was named after the great newspaper editor Joseph Pulitzer …

In 1917, six years after the death of Joseph Pulitzer, the “Pulitzer Prize” was established. It came from provisions in his will, as the result of his prior endowments to Columbia University. Many have heard of the “Pulitzer Prize,” but few have heard of Pulitzer himself. Yet he helped to make our world into a media-saturated and media-obsessed place, and the world isn’t necessarily the worse for this overabundance of information.

A review of Sun Tzu's “The Art of War”

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

– Sun Tzu's “The Art of War,” Chapter 3

When I was in business school, one of my professors mentioned a 2500-year-old book from Ancient China. As you may have guessed, the book was Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War.” He said that it was sometimes assigned reading for Master’s of Business Administration programs in the West, and was even more important in the East (in places like China and Japan). Not many books from 2500 years ago are considered that practical. Sun Tzu was probably a contemporary of Confucius – not to mention Lao Tzu, the founder of Taoism (not to be confused with Sun Tzu). Sun Tzu probably wrote about five centuries before Jesus Christ – earlier than Socrates and Plato. His treatise was primarily focused on military strategy, but it also has applications to some business strategy, as I will show in this post.

Sun Tzu, which translates as “Master Sun”

This book is a fairly quick read, which I got through in about two weeks

But first, I should start by saying that I read this book in November 2010. As I wrote at the time, I “read an hour or two a day for about two weeks. It's actually not a very long read. With translator's notes and introduction included, the version I had was 172 pages with small pages and large text, and a lot of that was commentaries from people in Chinese history.” (Source: Status update of 20 November 2010) This book is divided into 13 chapters. Obviously, the version that I read was in English translation, since I don’t know any Ancient Chinese (or even Modern Chinese). Thus, I cannot rate whether Thomas Cleary’s translation was accurate, or whether it accurately communicates Master Sun’s ideas (“Sun Tzu” means “Master Sun”). But I can testify that the content of the translation was practical and useful, and that these ideas are still relevant today.

The edition of Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” that I read in 2010

A review of Ken Burns’ “Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio” (PBS)

Sometimes these three men were friends … At other times, they were cutthroat business rivals

The filmmaker Ken Burns became famous when “The Civil War” came out in 1990. At the time I write this, “The Civil War” is still the most popular program ever shown on PBS. But few today know about another program that he later made, which came out in 1992. The film that I refer to is, of course, the film “Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio.” Although the subject is a bit obscure, it’s actually much more interesting than one might assume from this fact. It’s a biography of three different men (all very interesting), who helped to create the industry of radio. They were pioneers in the invention of a new information and entertainment medium. Some of them were even friends and colleagues with each other in earlier years, but some of them were cutthroat business rivals and bitter enemies later on. This film is thus a bit like doing twin biographies of Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee, as Ken Burns does in “The Civil War.” But with one exception, no one died in this market competition between these three businessmen; although that doesn’t make it any less dramatic. (The person who did die, incidentally, was one of these three men – I shall not say which one – when he jumped out of a New York City window to fall 13 stories to his death. This suicide was brought on by his being beaten at the game of business, and thus driven to some amount of poverty and ruin.)

A review of PBS's “Edison: The Father of Invention” (American Experience)

“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”

– Thomas Alva Edison

The great “geek” questions: “Edison or Tesla?”

I have heard that one of the big “geek” questions is “Edison or Tesla?” I suppose that science geeks and engineering geeks are the ones most likely to ask this question, but business geeks like me (and history geeks like me) do as well, since they were both massive figures in the history of business. Edison founded a company called “Edison General Electric,” which later merged with the “Thomson-Houston Electric Company” to form “General Electric.” The latter company is still around today in its merged form. There are also a number of other companies that bear his name today, such as “Southern California Edison” – part of a larger company called “Edison International.” General Electric alone would be a major business legacy for any man, since it is one of the biggest companies in the country today. (In 2018, it was the 18th-largest firm in the United States by gross revenue.) But Edison was first and foremost a great inventor, and that is how he is best remembered today.

A review of PBS's “Walt Disney” movie

“We're not trying to entertain the critics … I'll take my chances with the public.”

– Walter Elias Disney

It's not often that you see art and commerce combined into one person. For whatever reason, most artists are lousy businessmen, and never really get the hang of the game of business. But Walter Elias Disney was an exception to this rule. He was a brilliant artist and a brilliant businessman. And by “art,” I don't just mean the visual arts, although Walt Disney had some helpful experience in hand-drawn animations that would be useful to him later on. All of movie-making is an art, it would seem, and Walt Disney excelled at this art. Although he started out drawing some of the animations himself, he quickly realized that there were others around him who were much better at this than he was, and he made sure to hire them. But his real talent was for producing, and he made one movie after another from very early on in his adulthood.

A review of PBS's “Silicon Valley” (American Experience)

This documentary focuses on a historical company called “Fairchild Semiconductor” …

I was expecting this movie to be about Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, and the desktop computing revolution of the 1980’s. But I was wrong. This movie focuses on a historical company called “Fairchild Semiconductor International.” It was founded in 1957 as a division of “Fairchild Camera and Instrument,” a company based on the East Coast. But Fairchild Semiconductor was based in San Jose, California; in the area that would later become “Silicon Valley.” This area was actually an entrepreneurial haven, long before it acquired the name of “Silicon Valley.” Fairchild Semiconductor was a pioneer in the development of transistors and integrated circuits. Thus, it was also something of a pioneer in the computers industry, back in the day when NASA and the military accounted for more than half of the computers market. It was a true trailblazer, but it is virtually unknown today. This film gives it a thorough treatment, and thus takes a good look at the budding computers industry of this time.

A review of Ken Burns’ “Baseball” (PBS)

“♪ Katie Casey was baseball mad,
Had the fever and had it bad.
Just to root for the home town crew,
Ev'ry sou
Katie blew. ♪

♪ On a Saturday her young beau
Called to see if she'd like to go
To see a show, but Miss Kate said 'No,
I'll tell you what you can do:' ♪ ”

– The unknown first verse of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” (1908)

When Ken Burns' “The Civil War” came out in 1990, it was the most popular program in PBS history; and it still holds that record today. This program received significant critical acclaim, and it certainly deserved this acclaim. But when Ken Burns was asked what he was going to do next, he was met with raised eyebrows when he said “baseball.” For many people, baseball seems like something less than a “serious” historical topic; and probably seemed like a waste of Ken Burns' talent to boot. But to me, this is no “anticlimax” – this is a legitimate historical topic in its own right. You can learn a lot about the history of America by studying the history of its baseball, I think – at least, for the periods after baseball was invented. I will return to this theme multiple times in this post, as I give some related anecdotes from baseball history. Suffice it to say for now that it gives some great insights into this country; and that if you really want to understand America, you would do well to study this game in detail.

National League Baltimore Orioles, 1896

Christy Mathewson, known as “The Christian Gentleman”

A review of “The Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance” (PBS Empires)

“To the Magnificent Lorenzo Di Piero De' Medici:

Those who strive to obtain the good graces of a prince are accustomed to come before him with such things as they hold most precious, or in which they see him take most delight; whence one often sees horses, arms, cloth of gold, precious stones, and similar ornaments presented to princes, worthy of their greatness. Desiring therefore to present myself to your Magnificence with some testimony of my devotion towards you, I have not found among my possessions anything which I hold more dear than, or value so much as, the knowledge of the actions of great men, acquired by long experience in contemporary affairs, and a continual study of antiquity; which, having reflected upon it with great and prolonged diligence, I now send, digested into a little volume, to your Magnificence.”

– Dedication of Niccolò Machiavelli's “The Prince” (1532)

When people today think of the “Italian Renaissance,” they usually think of accomplishments in the arts and sciences – or sometimes, philosophy. They would not often think of power politics, or the squabbling among the Italian city-states of the time. But this era was marked by ferocious power politics in Italy, which created great turmoil on the Italian peninsula. Niccolò Machiavelli's “The Prince” was the product of this time, and so was its disturbing view of ethics and politics. There was much to fear for Italians of this time.

The rise of the Medici family owed much to the economic strength that they gained from banking

During this time, one family in particular rose to prominence in Italy – and more specifically, in Florence. In its heyday, this family produced kings, queens, and even three popes. That family was, of course, the Medici; but it did not start out as a royal family. Rather, it made its name through banking; and amassing wealth by means of the private sector. The rise of the Medici family owed much to the economic strength that they gained in this way. They actually started out their ascendancy as a family of Italian merchant-bankers, and continued to be such even during their political rule. They were among the earliest bankers in Europe, and were great pioneers in the banking industry. Their depositors stored their money in the “Medici Bank,” and the Medici then loaned out this money to people who needed it. The interest from these loans actually brought great wealth to the Medici family, and allowed them to pay some small interest to their depositors as well. It helped to create the family fortune, which brought them to political prominence in Italy. Money was often the greatest weapon in the Medici arsenal, and was a great driver of the politics of the Renaissance (as it was for every other era of human history).

Cosimo de Medici, the Italian banker who became the first of the Medici dynasty

A review of PBS's “Henry Ford” movie

"A lot of guys have had a lot of fun joking about Henry Ford because he admitted one time that he didn't know history. He don't know it, but history will know him. He has made more history than his critics ever read."

- Will Rogers, comedian

An interesting anecdote about Henry Ford

During the lifetime of Henry Ford, a newspaper once called him an "ignorant anarchist" (or words to that effect), which would have been a fairly serious charge at that time. Henry Ford not only disputed this with considerable umbrage, but he sued the newspaper for libel and defamation, and managed to actually win the suit. When he was put on the stand during this trial, the opposition set out to prove his ignorance by asking him questions about his knowledge of history. Paraphrasing the conversation they had, the opposition asked: "Do you know anything about the Revolution?", and he said yes. "Do you know when it was?" "Yes," he said, "it was in 1812." The opposition seized on his error, and said: "Don't you know that there wasn't any revolution in 1812? Had you forgotten that this country was born in a revolution in 1776?" "Yes, I suppose I'd forgotten that." He was grilled with high school questions like this for several days, and his lack of formal education showed; but he won the libel suit anyway. The jury basically said that he might be ignorant, but he was no anarchist. More to the point, he actually became more of a folk hero after the trial than before, seeming more like a common man, and gaining the admiration of millions.

Henry Ford

There are many ways to be intelligent

Henry Ford may not have known anything about history, and I obviously would not agree with him when he said that "History is more or less bunk" - I am, after all, a history blogger, who has written about history extensively; and I am very invested in the importance of history. Nonetheless, I think that it would not be fair to call Henry Ford "ignorant," this man who knew so much about cars and business. When it came to machinery, assembly lines, and business generally; the man seems to have been a true genius; and if you'd talked to him about these things, you would have seen that he was a tremendously smart individual. But much like certain people I could name today (but won't at this time), this elitist newspaper had no respect for practical intelligence; and went out and praised thinkers to the exclusion of praising doers. The satisfying thing about this story was seeing their attacks on his education backfire on them - instead of permanently humiliating him, it created sympathy for him among the public. Suffice it to say that it was probably the least scandalous thing that anyone could have printed about him, and it had the opposite effect of making him a sort of folk hero - a humorous effect that must have been satisfying for Ford.

Henry Ford and Barney Oldfield with a racing automobile

A review of “The Men Who Built America” (History Channel)

"The Men Who Built America" is something of a rarity in the world of documentaries, because it is one of the few history programs out there that actually focuses on the private sector. Most history programs focus on either heads-of-state or wars, and there's nothing wrong with this - public-sector history is definitely worthy of study; and it is well that our schools spend so much time teaching it. Nonetheless, there is much of importance that happens in the private sector as well; and our focus on "politics and the military" should not preclude us from talking about these things on occasion, if not frequently.

In that spirit, I set out to talk about this remarkable program; which is one of the few programs that talks sympathetically about the contributions of businessmen. When liberals talk about businessmen at all, it's usually in a negative sense, to paint them as greedy "robber barons" who will stop at nothing to make a buck. Fortunately, however, this show seems far enough to the right that they don't slow down the narrative with inappropriate rants about capitalism, and instead focus on the human story of what happened - showing the considerable accomplishments of these men, while not omitting the more sordid details of how they sometimes went about getting their massive fortunes.

A review of “The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression”

We've all heard stories about how bad things were during the Great Depression, with extensive poverty and massive unemployment - perhaps the only economic crisis worse than our current one. But the history classes don't often go into the question of why; leaving the complicated subject of causation to economists, rather than the historians of the subject. When history classes do comment on the "why" of the Depression, they often paint a glowing picture of big government, with some economics classes not being much better in this regard.

Poor mother and children - Oklahoma, 1936

A review of PBS's “Transcontinental Railroad” movie

"[The Congress shall have the power] To establish post-offices and post-roads ..."

- The United States Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Paragraph 7

It allowed a continent to be crossed in just a week, where before it had taken six months or more. It enabled fast transport for trade goods of all kinds, connecting the economies of the continent's East and West coasts. And it unleashed a wave of settlement and colonization, which would have massive effects on the population spread and distribution in the West - and by extension, the history, politics, economics, and even geography of the country.

Snow gallery (a portion of the railroad), while under construction

Adam Smith and the Pin Factory

"The greatest improvements in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment, with which it is anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour. The effects of the division of labour, in the general business of society, will be more easily understood, by considering in what manner it operates in some particular manufactures."

- Opening lines of Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" (Book I, Chapter I)

If your parents have ever divided household chores among you and your siblings, then you know what the division of labor is. So-and-so mops the floor, so-and-so does the vacuuming, and so-and-so cleans the toilets. (Lucky for them, huh?) The labor gets divided among multiple people, with each person getting a certain kind of task.

The concept is not a new one, and labor has been divided among several people for centuries. But it was not until comparatively recently that its advantages were systematically explained. The Scottish economist Adam Smith explained it well more than 200 years ago, and his words about its importance still have relevance today. There are advantages to dividing the labor, and these advantages have great importance for society. So with that in mind, I will now turn to what he said about this concept.

Adam Smith