#11, October 19, 2003

Never the Twain

On arriving at a Bombay hotel in 1896, Samuel Clemens witnessed a German cuffing a “native,” his servant, on the cheek. This at once reminded Clemens of his youth: he had not seen any similar act for almost fifty years. He recalled his father cuffing a slave in this manner, and remembered another occasion, somehow connected, when he had witnessed the death of a slave by his master. At the time, these acts had seemed to him quite natural, just as this German’s act seemed natural to the German now. The connections between Colonial India and the Old South, although separated by many decades, were brought together quite clearly in Clemens’ mind. He wrote:

It is curious – the space-annihilating power of thought. For just one second, all that goes to make the me in me was in a Missourian village on the other side of the globe, vividly seeing again those forgotten pictures of fifty years ago, and wholly unconscious of all things but just those; and in the next second I was back in Bombay, and that kneeling native's smitten cheek was not done tingling yet! Back to boyhood – fifty years; back to age again, another fifty; and a flight equal to the circumference of the globe – all in two seconds by the watch!

Such is the nature of global interaction and connection. Two separate worlds inextricably linked, distance and proximity jumbled in perceptions of layered meaning, at their source inexplicable and defying assumptions of difference, but through contrast of now and then, West and East, providing both with some meaning.

Historians witnessing events from Mumbai to Baghdad from Sarajevo to Oklahoma City now need to be as mentally agile as Clemens in this Bombay hotel, circumnavigating the world in seconds and traveling back and forth in time to provide meaning for events that occur in front of their eyes. But this has always been the case. While the end of the Cold War may have made political commentators and historians alike more sensitive to “globalization”, this phenomenon was evident even before the slave trade made it obvious.

Let this be a guide to those who would “internationalize” what is already internationalized, namely American History. It will not done by adding to our well rehearsed American History narratives; neither is it done by comparison of us with them; it begins with the recognition that the connections and comparisons have been there all along, but like Mark Twain we had forgotten them until they had slapped us around the face (well, not us, maybe a servant or graduate student).

© Rob Gregg, 2003