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istoríaV O L . 19, N O . 2 • NOVEMBER 2005

N E W S L E T T E R O F T H E U C S B H I S T O R Y A S S O C I A T E S

History PhD Wins NationalPrize For Best Dissertation

New FacultyBolster Dept

How Alms FuelIslamic Terrorism

BY DEBRA BLUMENTHAL

THIS FALL, THE UCSB History Depart-ment welcomes two new faculty membersfrom the comparatively colder climes ofIllinois and Finland: Salim Yaqub, associ-ate professor of US Foreign Relations, andPekka Hämäläinen, assistant professor ofU.S. Spanish Borderlands and NativeAmerican history.

Prof. Yaqub comes to UCSB from theUniversity of Chicago, where he was assis-tant professor of American and interna-tional history.

“What excites me most about coming toUCSB,” Dr. Yaqub explained, “is that theuniversity has such tremendous strength inall the areas of particular interest to me:20th-century U.S. history, Middle Easternhistory, international history, global stud-ies, public history and public policy.

“I’m especially excited about workingwith the Center for Cold War Studies,which provides an excellent forum for pro-moting study in all of these areas.”

While Prof. Yaqub’s first book, Contain-ing Arab Nationalism: The Eisenhower Doctrine

Prof. Thomas Sizgorich

FOR THE SECOND TIME in a row, a UCSBHistory dissertation has won the nationalprize for Best Dissertation in the Humani-ties and Fine Arts, awarded by the Councilof Graduate Schools (CGS), an associa-tion of more than 450 universities in theUnited States and Canada.

Dr. Thomas Sizgorich received the prizefor his dissertation on Monks, Martyrs andMujahidun: Militant Piety in Late Antiquityand Early Islam, which won the campus’sLancaster Prize for best dissertation in thehumanities last Spring.

The prize is awarded in a triennial rota-tion with science and social science disser-tations. The last humanities award, in 2002,went to Dr. Bev Schwartzberg (Cohen)for her study of Grass Widows, Barbarians

C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 4

“FOLLOW THE MONEY” was the famous ad-vice of “Deep Throat” to Washington Postjournalists Robert Woodward and CarlBernstein as they sought to untangle themysteries of Watergate.

Using the same advice, Robert Collins,professor of History emeritus, tracked theroute of charitable contributions in theIslamic world to write Alms for Jihad: Chari-ties and Terrorism in the Islamic World, to bepublished next year by Cambridge Uni-versity Press.

Prof. Collins will give UCSB HistoryAssociates a preview of his findings from

7:30 to 9 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 8 at aspecial forum in the First PresbyterianChurch Fellowship Hall, 21 E. ConstanceSt.

A central point will be to explain howthe money of pious Muslims who thoughtthey were contributing to schools and hos-pitals wound up being used to financeinternational terrorism.

According to Prof. Collins, an interna-tionally recognized expert on African his-tory, the problem started in Afghanistan,when troops of the then-Soviet Union in-vaded and installed their own puppet gov-ernment in 1979.

A number of new charities were with theostensible purpose of aiding Afghans. In-creasingly, these charities used their fundsinstead to finance global terrorism.

In his talk, Prof. Collins will name thecharities involved and reveal the secretfinancial networks that allowed these net-works to fund conflicts in such disparateareas as the Sudan, the Balkans and thePhilippines.

Author of more than 30 books, Prof.Collins has remained active as a speakerand author since retiring in 1994. In recentmonths he has spoken in Durham, Bergen,and the Peace Institute in Oslo.

Earlier this year, Prof. Collins was namedDickson Emeriti Professor at UCSB for2005-06.

The event is being co-sponsored by theUCSB Affiliates and the Chancellor'sCouncil. Reservations, at $8 for membersand $10 for non-members, can be madethrough the UCSB Office of CommunityRelations, (805) 893-4388.

C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 2

2Published by the UCSB

History Associates

istoríaVol. 19, No. 2 November • 2005

Edited ByDebra Blumenthal

Hal DrakeMike Osborne

Two Giants FallImmanuel Hsu,Alfred Gollin DieWithin Days

Prof. Immanuel Hsu, 1923-2005 Prof. Alfred Gollin, 1926-2005

and the Middle East (Universityof North Carolina Press, 2004)examined U.S. foreign policyin the Arab Middle East in the1950s, his current project tack-les the 1970s. “The 1970s werea pivotal decade,” he explained.

“Many of the features thatdefine U.S.-Arab relations to-day—the rising animosity be-tween the US and much of Arabsociety as well as the growingvisibility and acceptance ofArab Americans and MuslimAmericans—are rooted in de-cisions made and patterns es-tablished in the 1970s.”

Describing his forthcomingmonograph as a “multidimen-sional history,” Prof. Yaqubsaid he will “look not only atpolitical and diplomatic rela-tions but cultural, psychologi-cal, and demographic issues aswell.”

Prof. Hämäläinen comes toUCSB from Finland. He re-ceived his PhD from the Uni-versity of Helsinki and, be-tween 2003 and 2005, was afellow at the Helsinki Col-legium for Advanced Studies.

Prior to coming to UCSB,Prof. Hämäläinen was an as-sistant professor in early Ameri-can history at Texas A&MUniversity.

When asked to describe hisinitial impressions of the UCSBdepartment, Prof. Hämäläinenreplied that everyone is “unbe-lievably smart, intelligent, andcollegial. This is a really easycommunity to come into.”

Prof. Hämäläinen’s teachingand research interests rangebroadly, from U.S, NativeAmerican, and Latin Americanhistory to environmental his-tory and comparative border-land studies.

His current research project,

TWO FACULTY WHO helpedguide the department throughthe tumultuous growth of the1960s and 1970s died withindays of each other last month.

Prof. Immanuel Hsu, whotaught modern Chinese historyhere from 1959 until his retire-ment in 1991, died Oct. 24 ofcomplications from a bout ofpneumonia. He was 82 yearsold.

Prof. Alfred Gollin, whotaught modern British historyfrom 1966-1994, died six dayslater, on Oct. 30, of liver andkidney failure. He would havebeen 80 next February.

Both men served as chair ofthe History department, Prof.Hsu from 1970-72, and Prof.Gollin from 1976-77.

Both were also exceptionallecturers, although with entirelydifferent styles. History Asso-ciates still remember Prof. Hsu’stalk to them on the Chinesecrackdown in TiananmenSquare in 1990. His quiet in-tensity held everybody spell-bound.

Prof. Gollin was a spellbinder

of a different sort. With hishoarse voice (according to gradstudent lore, the result of mus-tard gas in WW I; in truth, theside-effect of an operation forcancer of the larynx) and magis-terial style, Prof. Gollin ruledthe classroom like a British na-bob.

Profs. Hsu and Gollin were"part of a cadre of faculty whoput our department on the map,"History Chair Ken Mouré said."Both served as chairs of thedepartment in an era of remark-able growth."

Prof. Hsu published majorstudies of modern Chinese in-tellectual and diplomatic history.His most widely read publica-

Profs. Salim Yaqub (l.) and Pekka Hämäläinen.C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 3

C O N T I N U E D F R O M P 1

Dept AddsStrength InU.S. Appts

C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 5

Soto LaveagaGives NationalPlenary AddressPROF. GABRIELA Soto Laveagagave the plenary presentationat the National Academies inWashington, DC for the Con-ference of Ford FoundationFellows on September 29,2005.

Based on her in-progressbook manuscript, Jungle Labo-ratories: Peasants, Mexican Iden-tity and the Global Quest for Hor-mones, the presentation drewan audience of 400 fellows andmembers of the Academies.

Prof. Soto Laveaga joinedthe department in 2003 as aspecialist in both Mexican his-tory and the History of Sci-ence.

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“LOVE,” FR. VIRGIL Cordanotold the UCSB History Associ-ates last month, “means delight-ing in people who differ fromyou.”

Surveying a spiritual jour-ney that began during his child-hood in Sacramento and con-tinues today in his present posi-tion as director of Public Rela-tions for the Santa BarbaraMission, the 86-year-old Fran–ciscan said that one of his “guid-ing principles is focusing onwhat unites us while respecting

diversity.”“There are fundamentalists

in all churches,” he observed.“What’s wrong with fundamen-talism is that God speaksthrough minds that are histori-cally and culturally limited.

“It’s as if saying we alwayshave to be a small child.”

The occasion for these re-flections was publication Padre:The Spiritual Journey of FatherVirgil Cordano,” an oral historyprepared by Prof. Mario García

One Small Step for a Historian...BY MICHAEL OSBORNE

A “NANO,” FOR readers unfa-miliar with the term, is more, orperhaps something less, than theGreek word for dwarf.

The department’s severalfans of Star Trek’s “Next Gen-eration” have informed this re-porter that the series featuredevil Borg characters who in-jected nanoprobes into their vic-tims.

For scientists, the “nano” is ameasurement meaning one-bil-lionth of something, andnanotechnology is a branch ofscience and engineering devotedto extremely small electronic

devices and circuits built fromjust a few atoms and molecules.

If this obscure philology ofthe “nano” has piqued yourcuriosity, consider Prof. PatrickMcCray, the department’s his-torian of the physical sciences,who spent much of last yearand this summer learning aboutthe “nano.”

Prof. McCray, and medicalanthropologist Barbara Hart-horn, are the co-directors ofUCSB’s new National Centerfor Nanotechnology in Soci-ety.

The Center, established witha $5 million National ScienceFoundation grant, will be lo-

cated in North Hall and alsohave an office in the newestbuilding on campus, the Cali-fornia NanoSystems Institute.

Prof. McCray’s academictraining includes graduate de-grees in materials science andengineering.

He came to UCSB from theAmerican Institute of Physics.Some Historia readers may re-member the late Prof. RobertE. Kelley’s insistence that his-torical study had something tooffer planning professionalsgrappling with decisions aboutcontemporary and future poli-cies.

Cordano Finds Love in Diversity

tentatively entitled, “TheComanche Empire: Euro-American Colonialism and In-digenous Power in the Ameri-can Southwest, 1700-1815,”highlights Native Americanagency in the making of colo-nial America.

Reevaluating the traditionalcolonial power dynamic, hepresents the Comanches as anindigenous imperial power thatdominated and exploited thesurrounding Euro-Americancolonies in the Southwest forover a century.

Prof. Hämäläinen is offer-ing two courses this Fall, anupper level undergraduate lec-ture course, “Native Ameri-can History to 1838,” and agraduate reading course ex-ploring the historical literatureof the North American Bor-derlands.

Struck by the quality of boththe undergraduate and gradu-ate students at UCSB, Prof.Hämäläinen enthused, “I amimpressed by their eagernessto learn and their openness tonew ideas.”

C O N T I N U E D F R O M P . 2

C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 5

Down to Business

History's new grad students meet with Graduate Secretary Darcy Ritzau (6th from left) and Grad Director Nelson Lichtenstein (on right).

New Faculty

TWENTY-TWO STUDENTS joinedthe graduate program in His-tory this Fall, bringing the to-tal number of students cur-rently enrolled to 120.

The largest contingent (9)came to study aspects of U.S.history. Medieval Europeanhistory attracted three new stu-dents, as did the History ofScience field.

The new students and theirmentors are:

Steven Attewell (O’Con-nor); Megan Bowman(Cohen); Julia Brock (Plane);Jeffrey Dinkler (Guerrini);Jessica Elliott (Farmer).

Sarah Griffith (Spickard);C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 5

C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 5

Variety MarksNew Grad Class

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LET USHEAR FROM

YOUIf you are a grad trying to getin touch with an old class-mate, or a community mem-ber or alum with an article orstory, why not drop us a line?

Send your letters to:Editor, HistoríaDepartment of HistoryUniversity of CaliforniaSanta Barbara, CA 93106-9410

or email:drake@history.ucsb.edu

From The ChairC O N T I N U E D F R O M P . 1

SizgorichWins TopPhD Prizeand Bigamists: Marital Fluidity inLate Nineteenth Century America.

All dissertations producedduring the three-year periodare eligible for consideration.

“This is a pathbreaking dis-sertation that will put Tom atthe forefront of the next gen-eration of scholars in the rela-tively new field of Late Antiq-uity,” his mentor, Prof. HalDrake, said.

“It is a completely novelstudy of the way both Chris-tians and early Muslims drewon the common motif of theascetic warrior to construct andunderstand their own identi-ties.”

Now assistant professor ofHistory at the University ofNew Mexico, Dr. Sizgorichwill be honored at the annualmeeting of the CGS in Decem-ber, where he will receive aplaque and a $1,000 hono-rarium.

CGS member schools ac-count for more than 95 per centof all the doctorates awarded inthis country.

History vs. Fiction

Ken MouréChair

Catherine Morland, in Jane Austen’s NorthangerAbbey, remarked of historians, “If people like to readtheir books, it is all very well, but to be at so muchtrouble in filling great volumes, which, as I used tothink, nobody would willingly ever look into, to belabouring only for the torment of little boys and girls,always struck me as a hard fate; and though I know it isall very right and necessary, I have often wondered at

the person’s courage that could sit down onpurpose to do it.”

Austen contrasted ponderous historicaltomes with novels, a relatively new literaryform, arguing that novels were not utterlyfrivolous and deserved a serious reader-ship. Henry Tilney, Catherine’s futurefiancé, sprang to defend “our most distin-

guished historians,” insisting “that by their method andstyle, they are perfectly well qualified to torment readersof the most advanced reason and mature time of life.”

History and the novel have both changed enormouslysince Jane Austen wrote Northanger Abbey. Leavingaside qualifications to torment readers, the relationshipbetween history and fiction has become much morecomplex. Novelists regularly challenge history’s author-ity to record “what happened.” The Portuguese novelistJose Saramago, in the opening to his novel The History ofthe Siege of Lisbon, has a historian and a proofreadercontemplate the fracture between real life and history:“It has always struck me that history is not real life,literature, yes, and nothing else, But history was real lifeat the time when it could not yet be called history, Sir,are you sure, Truly, you are a walking interrogation anddisbelief endowed with arms...”

Historical fiction is a major publishing genre, indicat-ing a widespread interest in historical knowledge con-veyed in story form. If history and the novel weremutually exclusive categories, one fact, one fiction, howcould the historical novel exist? As historians, sittingdown on purpose to write history, we all consider atleast implicitly just how we separate fact from fiction.Better yet, though, we can borrow from fiction in decid-ing how to plot our narratives, and we can draw fictioninto our work as historical evidence. The relationshipbetween history and fiction is long and complex; ulti-mately, we probably steal more from fiction than novel-ists do from us, and the ongoing relationship works tothe benefit of all.

Prof. Douglas Daniels

PROF. DOUGLAS DANIELS washonored by the San FranciscoAfrican American Cultural andHistorical Society at its 50thAnniversary Celebration lastmonth.

The Society presented Prof.Daniels with a plaque “In ap-preciation of his support andcontributions to his professionand to the SFAAHCS.”

Particular mention wasmade of Prof. Daniels' PioneerUrbanites: A Social and CulturalHistory of Black San Francisco, apioneering study published byTemple University Press in1980 and re-printed by Uni-versity of California Press in1990.

Prof. Daniels gave the key-note address at the anniversarycelebration, speaking on “Ama-teur and Professional Histori-ans: They Need Each Other.”

Since writing Pioneer Urban-ites, Prof. Daniels has movedinto the history of Jazz.

Lester Leaps In: the Life andTimes of Lester 'Pres' Young waspublished by Beacon Press in2002.

His most recent book, pub-lished in 2005, is One O'ClockJump: The Unforgettable Historyof the Oklahoma City Blue Devils.

SocietyHonorsDaniels

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Business as Usual

It was business as usual for History department staff on Oct. 31. But just to spice things up,

Undergraduate Secretary Mike Tucker (l.) came as a magician, because "in this job I'm always

having to pull rabbits out of my hat." Personnel Secretary Catherin Salzgeber (c.) came as the

computer fairy. "Computer problems?" she chirped. "I can make them go away just by throwing

them against the wall." Asked why she came as a cat, receptionist Deanne Day just purred.

in collaboration with the long-time pastor of Santa BarbaraMission.

In introducing Fr. Virgil,Prof. García said he came toappreciate the importance ofFr. Virgil’s career while serv-ing on the search committee forthe Religious Studies depart-ment’s endowed chair in Catho-lic Studies.

The book is "a local historythat also tells about changes inthe nature of the CatholicChurch in the 20th century,”he said.

David Marshall, dean ofHumanities and Fine Arts, ech-oed these sentiments in sayingthe Center will promote theunderstanding of nanotechno-logy “in its historical, cultural,and social contexts and will helpour society to chart the futureas this exciting field unfolds.”

Prof. McCray, who recentlydeveloped a team-taught courseon “Contemporary ScientificIssues” with me and Prof. AnitaGuerrini, is particularly inter-ested in emergent technologiesand especially how they canprovide a crucible for the studyof government, university, andbusiness relationships.

Nanotechnology, the newscientific darling of sorts, likeembryonic stem cell research,is extremely polyvalent inmeaning and future prospects.It is also interdisciplinary re-search at its best.

Although nanotechnology isa highly technical endeavor, theCenter’s mission includes build-ing a Web-based archive, form-ing a library, and serving as aninformation clearinghouse.

For those who are interestedin emergent technologies andinnovation, Prof. McCray re-iterated the new Center’s nameand especially emphasizedwords “Nanotechnology in So-ciety.”

He is trying to develop op-portunities at the Center forcolleagues and graduate stu-dents in specialties beyond thehistory of science such as pub-lic history, history of policy,business and labor history.

tion was undoubtedlyThe Riseof Modern China, published byOxford in 1970 and long thestandard work in the field. Hepublished China Without Mao,also with Oxford, in 1983.

During his career, Prof.Hsu held Fulbright andGuggenheim fellowships. In1971, he was named FacultyResearch Lecturer, the Aca-demic Senate’s highest award.

Prof. Gollin’s reputationwas first established by hisbooks on British press barons,especially Proconsul in Politics(1964), a study of Lord Milner,and Balfour’s Burden (1965).

In later years, his interestturned to military history, andhis discovery of British spyingon the Wright brothers re-sulted in a sensational book,No Longer an Island (1984),which was followed by TheImpact of Air Power on the BritishPeople and their Government,1909-1914 (1989).

He held three Guggenheimfellowships and researchgrants from the National En-dowment of the Humanities.In 1976, he became a Fellowof the Royal Historical Soci-ety and in 1986 the Royal So-ciety of Literature.

C O N T I N U E D F R O M P . 3

Fr. Virgil

McCray PutsA Nano inDept Future

Dept MournsGollin, HsuC O N T I N U E D F R O M P . 2

C O N T I N U E D F R O M P . 3

MICHAEL ADAMSON (PhDBrownlee/Logevall 2000) pub-lished “Must We Overlook AllImpairment of Our Interests?”Debating the Foreign Aid Roleof the Export-Import Bank,1934–41" in the September is-sue of Diplomatic History.

Eric Boyle (Osborne) de-livered conference papers onlegal limits of the 1906 FoodAnd Drug Act at Brown Uni-versity and on medical phil-anthropy at Truman StateUniversity last Spring.

Eric Fournier (Drake/Digeser) presented a paper onthe Vandal persecution ofChristians in 5th centuryNorth Africa at the 30th

Patristics, Medieval and Renais-sance Studies Conference, atVillanova University last month.

Larry Schweikart (PhDBrownlee, 1984) has co-auth-ored A Patriot’s History of theUnited States (Sentinel, 2004).The book was featured on the“700 Club,” the Laura Ingrahamand Hugh Hewitt shows. RushLimbaugh interviewed Schwei-kart for the “Limbaugh Letter”in March.

After only four months, thebook was in its fourth printing,making it the biggest-sellingnon-textbook in the history ofthe University of Dayton, whereSchweikart is a full professor ofHistory.

Grads Keep Up the Pace

C O N T I N U E D F R O M P . 3

Michael Hinckley (Galla-gher); Chrissy Lau (Spickard);Lindsey O’Donnell (Digeser);John Pietkiewicz (Sonnino).

Roger Pryor (Jacobson);Alicia Rivera (Garcia); OliverRosales (Garcia); NicholeSater (Majewski).

John Scholl (Lansing); MiraSczygiol (Marcuse); RyanShapiro (Guerrini); BrianThomasson (Guerrini).

Jessica Weiss (Lansing);Blythe Wilson, Jt. PHS Pro-gram starting at CSUS (Simp-son); Lily Welty (Mendez), andKirsten Ziomek (Frühstück).

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istoríaNEWSLETTER OF THE UCSB HISTORY ASSOCIATES

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So That‘s Where!

Historía photo by Mike Tucker

Attired in his authentic Francesco Petrarca outfit, Paul Sonnino proudly presentsgrad student Joe Campo (Marcuse) with a box of Sonnino’s world famous sun kingavocados, in appreciation of Joe’s correct identification of Sonnino’s laboriousrecreation last spring of Petrarchs legendary ascent of Mount Ventoux in 1332(left), the event which, as every medievalist knows, brought an end to the DarkAges and inaugurated the Renaisssance.