The Best time to have been alive #4: Al-Andalus

Des kand meu Cidello venid/ton bona al-bishaara /com ray de shol yeshed/fi waad al-hiraaara*

When my Lord Cidello comes, what good news! He shines like a ray of sun on Guadalajara

When someone suggested we tackle Muslim Cordoba at its peak (roughly, the Emirate and Caliphate, 750 -1031 AD in the western calendar), we were unprepared for the cornucopia of historical riches that awaited. But, as both frequent holidaymakers in the Iberian peninsula, and speaking a smattering of Spanish at least, here goes anyway.

The story starts with Abd al-Rahman I, the “Falcon ” who fled a purge in Baghdad and founded the Emirate of Córdoba in 756. His survival story—crossing the Euphrates, losing his brother, and arriving in al-Andalus as a lone prince—is cinematic. He united fractious Muslim territories and laid the groundwork for a multicultural society. Córdoba became a haven for Muslims, Christians, and Jews, with Arabic, Berber, Romance, and Hebrew spoken in its markets and courts. The Great Mosque (Mezquita), begun under his reign, symbolized this fusion—its horseshoe arches and layered aesthetics echoing both Damascus and Iberia

Under Abd al-Rahman III, who declared the Caliphate in 929, Córdoba reached its zenith. The city boasted paved streets, public baths, and over 400,000 catalogued books in al-Hakam II’s library. Irrigation systems turned Andalusian soil into a breadbasket, exporting silk from Toledo, leather from Córdoba, and steel from Damascus- Scholars like Ibn Masarra and later Ibn Hazm flourished, while Jewish thinkers such as Hasdai ibn Shaprut advised the Caliph and translated medical texts. The court at Madinat al-Zahra shimmered with diplomatic prestige, hosting envoys from Byzantium and the Holy Roman Empire.

But all golden ages come to end. After the fall of the last strongman, Al Manzor, the Caliphate quickly declined into petty little kingdoms called taifas, each jealously guarding its privileges and rights. Easy prey indeed for the larger Christian states to the north. Yet the legacy of convivencia—coexistence—echoed through European Renaissance thought. Andalusia wasn’t just a place, but a possibility. A cultural experiment in coexistence, beauty, and intellectual ferment[2] which makes it a contender for one of history’s “best times to be alive.”

[1] Al-Andalus – Wikipedia

[2] The Ornament Of The World by Maria Rosa Menocal | Waterstones

*Yehuda Halevi celebrating Yosef ibn Ferrusiel in a kharja ending a muwashshah c 1100 AD

* Kharja attached to a muwashshah attributed to Yehuda Halevi c 1095 AD

#al-Andalus #islaam #abd-al-rahman #Cordoba #Caliphate #Emirate #Spain #Portugal #Arabic

Co-LAB-oration, or why its good news UK is back in Horizon

Science is good for economic growth. It’s theme we’ve touched on before in this blog(LSS 4 10 23; 1 3 24) So any initiative that builds on this incontrovertible fact will meet with our approval. if only because we want a higher standard of living next year. Which is why we showcase this article by Lisa O’Carroll of the Guardian [1] which reviews progress of the UK’s revived membership of the EU administered Horizon Programme, which tries to bring together the efforts of scientists technologists and scholars from across many countries.

It may soothe the objections of our more rabid eurosceptic readers, to learn that almost half the members (20:27) are not in the European Union, but are located as far afield as Canada and New Zealand (“is that Bri’ish Empoire enuff fer yer, Guv?”) But because science is a collaborative process it helps if you can recruit your teams from close neighbours, if only because it saves on things like travel costs on the day of the interview. We need not discourse long on close financial and technological links as Lisa covers them well in her article. It’s a cultural link of a different stripe which makes us think that rejoining was the right decision.

For what the UK and its fellow members have in common is that they are open societies, where information and people flow freely. The other possible partner, the USA, is showing strong signs of both damaging the free flow of information as well as launching major attacks on both the funding and the very work of scientists, as our readers well know. The Horizon programme and the countries that contribute, are the genuine heirs of both the Renaissance and Enlightenment. Societies that abandon the practice of truth and reason soon fall into cultural and economic stagnation. Just as being in UEFA is a sound bet for British Football Clubs, so is Horizon for British Universities. A good news day forr once

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/aug/12/uk-recovers-position-horizon-europe-science-research-eu-brexit

[2]https://commission.europa.eu/funding-tenders/find-funding/eu-funding-programmes/horizon-europe_en

#science #technology #economics #EU #UK #renaissance #enlightenment #donald trump

The Best Time to have been alive #2: Rome under Augustus

Imagine a group of friends sitting in the late afternoon in the square of a little town in northern Italy. A retired soldier, perhaps. A few successful traders-builders. metal workers, maybe a small-scale farmer or two. In the shade of some cypress trees they nibble at bread and olives, sip the deep red wine of the region, and discuss the latest news. But this is not modern Italy: this is a town like Bolonia¹ or Mutina² in the Age of the Emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus. And the news they discuss is simple. The profound peace that has settled over the whole world from the northern shores of Gaul to the deserts of Syria.

Augustus’ political settlement has ended the long decades of war and instability that tore the old Roman Republic to pieces. It’s one man rule now, and no elections are truly contested. But the legions are fully paid up and back on the frontiers. Behind them, a network roads links towns like this to an almost uncountable number of similar ones. There is increasing uniformity of architecture, arts , language as Latin and Greek spread even into the forests of Germany. Above all the seas are open again, with a single Roman fleet dominating the whole Mediterranean basin. There is a universal system of laws and money, all well enforced. No wonder trade is picking up and everything seems to be getting better year by year. It’s unlikely anyone in our group were literate. But maybe one or two of their sons will go on to study law or engineering in one of the cities like Rome or Mediolanum³. In which case they may well encounter the works of writers Livy, Ovid and Horace, or architects like Vitruvius, all active in this time. Compared to previous generations, this group has a lot to be thankful for.

There were deficiencies of course: the facade of a golden age always hides them. The position of women and slaves was not to be envied. Even non-Roman provincials were very much second class. All power was, in the last resort, concentrated in the person of one man, which made i things potentially very unstable. And, though they could not have known it, the empire was living through a very favourable era called the Roman Climatic Optimum (200 BC-200AD). Its breakdown would produce some very uncomfortable consequences for Augustus’ distant successors. But that is to anticipate. Augustus was a first rate political genius, whose settlement brought over two hundred years of peace and prosperity, with a single brief exception. To have been there, at the beginning, must have made it a very good time to live indeed.

1 Bologna 2 Modena 3 Milano

#roman empire #augustus #peace #ovid #pax romana

The best time to be alive: Candidate #1 Tang Dynasty China

Imagine you lived in the greatest city in the world. Its streets are bustling with merchants who buy and sell goods from every known country, and many more that lie beyond the limits of knowledge. Such was Chang’an, (now Xi’an) capital and chief entrepot of China’s Tang dynasty (618-903 CE)[1][ With nearly a million residents and over 100 ethnic communities, it was more Babel than Beijing. Zoroastrian fire temples stood beside Buddhist pagodas and Nestorian churches; street food fused Middle Eastern spices with Chinese noodles. Foreign diplomats rubbed shoulders with camel-driving traders from Samarkand. The city was so tolerant and worldly that speaking Turkic or Persian on the street raised no eyebrows. Poets such as Li Bai and Du Fu flourished , as did artists such as Han Gan and Zhang Yuan. There were far reaching technological advances such as wood block printing and all presided over by relatively benign Emperors backed by a professional and highly educated Civil Service.

We’ve picked the Tang because it illustrates the essential doctrines of the great Professor RH Davis who knew that it was trade that made cities, and cities which make humans civilised. He was writing about Europe. Yet Chang’an under the Tang was one example of what humans can achieve when they try. No wonder the modern Chinese feel they need take no lessons from westerners in how to run a civilisation. The Silk Road was essentially a Chinese invention. It was, and maybe still is, the greatest trading system in the world.

It all ended in tears of course, as did many of the other examples we shall consider in this series. The Lushan rebellion of 755-763 inflicted economic and human wounds so deep that the dynasty never fully recovered. And obviously there have been many advances in technical knowledge and in things like medicine, since the Tang fell. But if you wanted to give an example of when the ordinary Joe, people like you and me, could step from their house and feel a glad confident good morning, Tang China is a very good place to start.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_dynasty

[2] RHC Davis: A History of Medieval Europe from Constantine to St Louis 2nd edition Longman 1988

#china #Tang dynasty #trade #silk road #civil service #history

When was the best time to have been alive? Start of a new series

When was the best time in History that you could have lived in? With all the problems facing us now, like climate change, rising xenophobia, faltering economies-it’s natural for the mind to wander to other times and other places , where they had it good, in ways that we just can’t seem to manage.

It’s easy to idealise bits of the past when you didn’t have to live there and use the toilets. It’s also easy to make mistakes. “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive!” declared Wordsworth, while on a tour of Revolutionary France. He just got out with his life, as did many other deluded middle class intellectuals. And even the Nazis tried to drum up a cultural vibe, what with Leni Reifenstahl and all that modernist architecture. That duly said, it is possible to pick out certain periods when the humans really did seem to be doing better for a while. Like a football team putting together a run of successful results. We will try to identify those times using the following criteria, if you will forgive us, gentle readers.

There has to be peace, or general political stability, over a wide area. We”ll illustrate this with a counter example: Beethoven and Schubert wrote some pretty good music during the Napoleonic wars, but you wouldn’t have wanted to have lived through those wars would you?

Learning is advancing, preferably big time : despite all the wars and coruuption, Big Stuff was happening in Renaissance Italy- arts, sciences, architecture, you name it. By that criterion. all those Cardinals and Condottieri have to be in with a shout

Trade must boom According to the great Professor Davis, this is the great sine qua non of civilisation

The staging must be right The backdrop of islands and temples etc gives the Classical Greeks an enormous leg-up before they even take the pitch. Whereas Lancashire in the Industrial revolution? You mainly died at thirty, after a lifetime of bracing hard work. Although it probably felt like much longer.

There must be a long running cultural movement No one sat down one day and declared “OK chaps, it’s the Bronze Age and humanity stands on the edge of a bright new frontier. Put away all those stone tools and mammoth skins, and let’s start living in cities!” The periods we refer to must be embedded in a long movement of progress and general moving forward.

And all too often they come at the end of it. The swinging sixties ended in strikes and inflation. The Renaissance city states were leaned upon, terminally, by much bigger places like France and Spain. The long peace of Rome degenerated into the Crisis of the Third Century. But we are nothing if not triers here. And so our first try in the next blog of the series will be China in the Tang dynasty 618-907 AD, using the western calendar. Let’s see if they were really, really, like, cool?

#renaisance #history #china #greeks #learning #science #society

Is Donald Trump a Socialist? #2: some readers responses

A few months ago(LSS 7 4 25) we published a blog called Is Donald Trump a Socialist? It was one of those end-of -the -day tired pieces which we expected to be soon forgotten, by ourselves and everybody else. Instead it turned out to be one of the most read, and remarked-upon pieces we have put out in months. Sadly, much more so than our ones on antibiotic resistance ones which was what this blog is supposed to be all about.

The essence of the piece boiled down to this. Capitalists, Liberals, Neo-liberals, call them what you will, believe that individual liberty is the only true basis of a healthy society and a prosperous economy. People making their own choices on how to spend their money, whom to hire and whom to fire, where to live, etc will allow the optimum possible outcome in the supply of Capital, Goods and Labour. The essence of socialist belief is that people cannot be trusted to make those decisions and that the state must often step in to ensure the best possible social and economic outcomes. In that sense, Mr Trump’s attempts to control the supply of Labour by immigration controls, and of Goods by tariff controls are socialist policies, not capitalist ones. The responses have been coming ever since. Here are a few which are broadly representative . (We protect the respondents anonymity for all sorts of reasons)

MC from Edinburgh pointed out that if a Communist like Mr Xi could run a capitalist economy in China, why shouldn’t a Capitalist like Trump run a socialist one in America? (intriguing!)

DG from Texas said that Mr Trump’s policies were not Socialist, they we Nationalist (that doesn’t make them Capitalist, we thought)

JS from Massachusetts said he had studied economics at Princeton. And that essentially we had “placed Trump on a New Deal continuum, with fewer unions and more nationalisation” (We are still struggling to understand this)

V. from Mumbai wondered “if all leaders become Socialist when it comes to steel and swing states”

As we write an actual self-proclaimed Socialist called Zohran Mamdami is running for Mayor of New York, that Holy Ground Zero of Capitalism. If we are right, he and Mr Trump may find more in common than they realise. Maybe it’s all about what you do, not what you call yourself, that counts.

But we feel exceedingly grateful for your reactions. Keep ’em coming.

#Donald Trump #Xi Jinping #Capitalist #communist #socialist #liberal #neo liberal #free market #tariff #immigration control

No that last blog does not make us a bunch of Communists

Every so often one of our blogs engenders some intriguing feedback . Alongside the usual welcome comments with all their nods and frowns, we occasionally get one that is a little-uh- longer, yet expresses its views with passionate clarity, to push euphemism to its limits. Such was the case today, when a reader alleged that our criticism of fossil fuel and tobacco companies was a sure sign that we were under the influence of Communists, who aim to tear down the free market system and replace it with a “nightmare of bureaucratic state socialism” of the sort found in places like Venezuela and North Korea. In particular the reader observed:

“What you’ve got to remember is that markets not governments are best at allocating resources. Intervening in fossil fuel markets is crypto socialism- it will only distort price signals, stifle innovation and lead to unintended consequences”

When we asked if this was true for immigration control as well, they replied

“Absolutely! Free markets mean the free movement of labour. Anything else is protectionism in disguise.

So, where does that leave us at LSS? Having worked for many years in the Government Employ and thereby known the ways of Civil Servants, we can more and more share the view that Free Markets really do work better. No, it’s the “unintended consequences” that pulls us up. Free markets can have those too. Totally unregulated sales of tobacco produced an epidemic of cancer. We suspect that over enthusiastic marketing of certain foods and drinks will one day produce an epidemic of obesity. As for gushing out vast quantities of poisonous mineral oil and burning it with heedless abandon-well we wish people had been better informed before this was started. To call for better product information, and to ask that consequences of free markets are cleaned up, or at least controlled, does not make one a Communist. Or anything like it.

Thanks for the feedback, and we appreciate that in view of this respondent’s employment, they must remain anonymous

#climate change #free markets # global warming #immigration #communism #socialism #capitalism #hayek #marx

Forensic Science shows why privatisation doesn’t work

Being an employee of the UK Forensic Science Service used to open doors back in the year 2000. Even if you you were too lowly to personally know the top people, you worked for them,: you saw them in corridors and said good morning. People as far away as San Francisco wanted to know about their pioneering DNA techniques, excellence in evidence handling and preservation, in new intellectual approaches like Bayesian statistics. It was like playing for Manchester United (then popular and successful exponents of the game of Association Football)

But lurking in the background was a disease that would kill this particular goose and the golden eggs it laid. “Private sector good, public sector bad” It was a mantra that had taken deadly root in the Thatcher years. The private sector, it held, was full of hard working go getting, sharp- suit- wearing entrepreneurs who cut through the red tape and got things done. Civil servants(the FSS and its predecessors were Civil Service bodies) were lazy, hidebound, slow, risk averse pen pushers who needed nothing so much as a good kick up the backside The result was that anything and everything (except police and armed forces) was sold to private investors. Eventually even the Forensic Science Service went under the hammer. The results are made clear in this story by Hannah Devlin of the Guardian [1] We cannot begin to do justice to the wasteland of failed justice, loss of expertise and collapsing confidence which has resulted. All we can do is quote this extract-and beg you to read the whole thing

Forensic science in England and Wales as currently configured isn’t working for anyone – not for the police, not for the lawyers or for the courts, not for the scientists themselves, and not for the general public who get caught up in the criminal justice system,” said Prof Angela Gallop, co-chair of the Westminster Commission on Forensic Science.

“Like a plane hurtling downwards in what has become known as a ‘graveyard spiral’, with the pilot in desperation making increasingly erratic decisions, it can only be a short time now before it impacts the ground.”

Perhaps the Manchester United metaphor was not so facile. Things sort of function- but at laughable shadow of their former glory.

This is what happens when a country is seized and held by a single doctrine. When the lazy self interested opinions of journalists and the gin sodden flies who hang around golf club bars are substituted for rational policy No one would deny that Forensic Science under the Government had its inefficiencies, or the odd passenger. It contained more than a few fools who loudly praised the tax cuts and bought the gas shares that Thatcherism created. Its even arguable that some industries did benefit from the injection of private capital and techniques (water is not one of them) But like water, the whole sorry mess now needs clearing up. And none of it ,none of it , needed to have happened. That’s the biggest injustice of all.

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2025/jun/09/forensic-science-crisis-miscarriages-of-justice-england-and-wales-report

#forensic science #justice #police #courts #evidence #economics #privatisation #thames water

Simon Kuper on how to Make the Transition to Intelligence and Wisdom

One of Saturday morning’s great pleasures, an hour or so before Spanish class, is to settle down in Costa with a coffee and a hard copy of the Financial Times. And one of the best writers in that journal is Simon Kuper. He’s clear, he’s brief, he deals in the currency of short sentences and defined concepts. He’s also a polymath, covering subjects as diverse as politics, urban planning and football(he’s even done a very workmanlike guide to the affairs of Barcelona FC . [1] In fact, he’s exactly the sort of writer we ought to showcase here, because he believes in our core LSS values of evidence, reason, and reserved judgement.

How appropriate therefore that his last column was called Seven Intellectual Habits of the best thinkers., for there can be no better short guide. [2] The problem is that access is behind a paywall. As LSS is such an important institution, and our readers so avid for wisdom, we rang the Editor of the Financial Times a to demand that this be lifted as a Special Case., and that he/she/ they might like to buy us lunch to discuss the matter further. The young person on the switchboard thanked us very much and promised they would call us back. So far they have not done so(that was three days ago) but doubtless there were other callers. So, while we are waiting, we thought that we could offer you a distilled reproduction of Simon’s thoughts:

1 Read Books ” Their complexity is a check on pure ideology” People who simplify the world are the ones who fall for conspiracy theories or the offers of charlatans.

2 Don’t use screens much Apparently, biochemist Jennifer Doudna, who invented CRISPR technology gets her best insights when she’s out weeding her tomato plants. Obviously you have to use screens a bit, or you couldn’t read this! But we get Simon’s drift: a little screen time is a lot.

3 Do your own work, not the world’s The same Doudna got a gig at Genentech, leading their research. She lasted two months before hightailing it back to Berkeley where the true intellectual freedom led her to the Nobel Prize. We agree: people who spend all their time on office politics actually accomplish very little that is either interesting or of value.

4 Be multidisciplinary Kuper cites the examples of Hayek, Godel, Van Neumann and others who all studied one thing, trained in another and did their best work in a third. Daniel Kahneman is cited as another multi-disciplinarian polymath of formidable intellectual power. Rather worryingly, our AI system has set his book as homework for us. Where’ are John and Sarah Connor when you really need them?

5 Be an empiricist who values ideas Kuper cites the case of Isaiah Berlin and his marvellous work the Hedgehog and the Fox , a masterpiece of political philosophy. Incidentally Winston Churchill got him mixed up with Irving Berlin and invited the wrong one to dinner.”My British Buddy” as Berlin himself would later remark in song.

6 Always assume you might be wrong Yep: in this country we are still trying to repair the effects of the blissful certainties of Brexit. You will doubtless have examples from your own lands

7 Keep learning from everyone “Only mediocrities boast as adults about where they went to University at 18.They imagine that intelligence is innate and static. In fact people become more or less intelligent through life depending on how hard they think. The best thinkers are always learning from others, no matter how young or low status” We quote Kuper rather fully here as the first part seems one of the most admirable and accurate summaries of the sorts of people one met on a daily basis during long decades in the Scientific Civil Service. Now there’s intelligence indeed.

[1]https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/products/barca-book-simon-kuper-9781780725543?sku=NGR9781780725543&msclkid=6c7699156a7f1cc4c9f2f1238

[2]https://www.ft.com/content/c42cb640-a03c-441b-868f-d1a92d78bcb7

#wisdom #intelligence #FC Barcelona #isaiah berlin #daniel kahneman #thinking #financial times #simon kuper

Is this a collapse of Civilisation?(they’ve happened before)

Do Civilisations collapse? Do elaborate trade networks fall apart? Giant cities turn into uninhabited ruins? Ancient systems of law, education and custom vanish entirely ? Leaving nothing but an illiterate dark age, racked by violence and disorder? Yes, they can. We’ve alluded once or twice here to the collapse of the Greco-Roman world (LSS 10 3 21; 17 12 22) Professor Harper makes a convincing case for climate change and disease pandemics as the causes of that one. We in western countries are haunted by the Fate of Rome; it was relatively close in time. But there have been others.

The Bronze Age collapse 1200 BCE is further back in time, and has left fewer records, That it occurred there is no doubt. [2] For several centuries a large network of trade had built up across regions which we now call the Near East and Europe. There were cities, elaborate systems or wring and belief, Considerable prosperity; for some, and by the standards of the time. Around 1200 BCE all this was suddenly and violently cast down, with waves of wars and invasions. It took four or five hundred years at least for order of a sort to be restored and progress to resume, Further afield , the collapse of the Shang dynasty in China (c. 1050 BCE) and the Olmec Civilisation of Central America (c, 400 BCE) are chilling reminders that civilisational collapse is not unique to the West.

Art this distance in time it is possible to see a pattern. The natural human instinct to trade and ma make a bit of spare cash gradually leads to the growth of larger and larger cities. These require common systems of law to maintain the rising levels of prosperity. The resulting peace is very pleasant to live under for a few generations. But lurking in the trade routes are the pandemic diseases which can shake societies to their foundations. When you combine that with the ability to cause massive changes in climate(no one would dream of blaming the Myceneans for that!) the potential for sudden catastrophic failure is multiplied exponentially.

Such an event would confront the educated classes(of which the readers of this blog are such valuable members) with a number of inconveniences. We will look at possible responses in the next few blogs,

[1]Kyle Harper The Fate of Rome Princeton University Press 2017

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse

#olmecs #shang dynasty ##kyle harper #pandemic #climate change #global warming #collapse