History: Late Summer 480 BC
The Battle at Thermopylae, chronicled in
Herodotus's Histories, was an early chapter in King Xerxes'
carefully planned campaign to fold Greece into the Persian Empire.
The progress of his impossibly large army ground to a halt in
central Greece as it was funneled through a narrow pass between
cliffs and sea on the Malian Gulf between Locris and Thessaly and
into the spear tips of the most highly trained soldiers the ancient
world ever produced.
the Spartan king Leonidas had led some 7000 troops to Thermopylae in
an effort to prevent, or at the very least delay, the Persian
invaders from spilling into the Greek heartland. There he positioned
his men in what the locals referred to as the "Hot Gates," a
corridor roughly two meters wide at its narrowest that would negate
the Persian advantage of numbers. For several days, Xerxes' soldiers
were fed into impenetrable Spartan phalanxes. Their losses were
considerable. The Persian king himself noted "he had in his army
many men, indeed, but few soldiers."
On the third day, Xerxes caught a break when the
Greeks were betrayed by Ephialtes, a local who revealed to the
Persians a path that would allow them to outflank Leonidas and his
men. Hearing of the treachery, Leonidas sent the bulk of the Greek
army home to mobilize a stronger resistance. Those selected to
remain behind included the famous 300
Spartan heavy infantry, plus 1100 Boeotians
and at least 900 helots (Spartan state-owned slaves). Surrounded and
facing certain death, the 300 fought ferociously to the last. When
spears shattered they switched to swords. When swords broke they
fought with bare hands and teeth. Xerxes' forces, fearing to close
with even unarmed Spartans, stood off and delivered them to the
afterlife on a tidal wave of arrow heads.
Not long after Thermopylae, Xerxes met defeat
against the Hellenic League, suffering a debilitating blow at the
naval Battle of Salamis. The following year, Spartan-led Greek
forces defeated the Persian army definitively at the Battle of
Leonidas' suicidal standoff gave inspiration to
the remaining Greek allies and remains a magnificent example of how
a small, highly disciplined, and well-led body of men can resist a
vastly larger enemy force. Thermopylae marked the origin of the
"Spartan Mirage"—the myth of the invincible Spartan warrior whose
choice in combat was a brutal one: win or die.
Graphic Novel: May 1998
The graphic novel adaptation of the Battle of
Thermopylae was published by Dark Horse Comics as a five-issue
series of comic books: Honor (May 1998), Duty (June 1998),
(July 1998), Combat (August 1998), Victory (May 1999), and was
quickly collected into a single hardcover volume (August 1999). The
series enjoyed instant critical and commercial success, due largely
to the reputation and talent of iconoclastic writer/artist Frank
Miller's career began essentially in 1979 in the
pages of Marvel Comics' Daredevil, which writer Stan Lee
and artist Bill Everett had launched in 1964. Miller started as
penciler on the series
but quickly established himself as an adept writer and was soon
pulling double duty on the monthly book. He breathed new life into a
tired character that had been on the brink of cancellation with
stories that transcended the typical "superhero foils supervillain"
formula. Daredevil evolved into an introspective, morally complex
character. A highlight of Miller's thirty-three month run on the
series was the introduction (and eventual death) of femme fatale,
Elektra Natchious, a Greek assassin named after Agamemnon's vengeful
Years later, without Miller's participation,
Marvel Comics gave Elektra her own monthly comic book series. In
2005, 20th Century Fox produced the film Elektra (2005), a
critical disaster that Miller cannot even bring himself to watch:
"She's my daughter so I'll always love her, but she's been sleeping
around all over town. I don't talk to her anymore."
In 1986, after a long, successful run on
Daredevil, Miller composed a work for DC Comics that completely
revitalized the comic book industry, establishing comics as an
artistically powerful and socially significant medium. Originally
released as four individual books and later collected into a
best-selling volume, The Dark Knight Returns ignited a renaissance
in the superhero genre.
Written and drawn by Miller, inked by Janson, and
colored by Lynn Varley (who broke from conventional coloring
techniques by actually painting the comic book's panels), The Dark
Knight Returns supplanted the campy Adam West-style Batman with
a completely retooled hero who spoke to a sophisticated, modern
audience. A fifty-five-year-old Batman emerges from a ten-year,
self-imposed retirement to put a crumbling and chaotic Gotham City
back on the rails. The sixty-year foundation DC Comics had given the
character was an important subtext of the narrative, though the key
to the title's breakout success was Miller's filtering of that
history through a dark lens. The book "deconstructed and criticized
nearly fifty years of comics history, and stretched the boundaries
of the genre … bringing new meaning to its stock formula."
Miller's Batman was an "anti-hero," rejecting heroism in the classic
sense. Several times during the narrative, the postmodern Dark
Knight Detective denies himself the reward of martyrdom, choosing
instead to instruct a younger generation and perpetuate his ideals.
|#1 - The Dark
|#2 -Hunt the
|#3 - The Dark Knight
|#4 - The Dark
Comic books were never the same again. Frank Miller had
brought grown-up, complex themes and controversial storylines to
what had previously been breezy entertainments for kids (and adults
who lived in their mother's basement). The Dark Knight Returns
garnered massive media attention, which expanded its audience well
beyond the subculture of comic book collectors. It has been a
perennial bestseller and has never gone out of print.
This retailored Batman so enthralled fans that the entire industry
entered what came to be known as the "grim and gritty" period.
Reinterpretations of many classic heroes swept across the pages of
comic books with varying degrees of success.
Miller followed up The Dark Knight with a series
of solid works and began focusing on creator-owned properties that
allowed him full creative and legal control over his own characters
and stories. His greatest success in this arena is the hard-boiled
black-and-white Sin City (1991– ). This brutally violent crime noir
anthology features recurring characters that double-cross, bully,
murder, and scheme their way through intertwining stories. Miller
stocks these stories with short-lived heroes who rarely ride off
into the sunset. The tough-talking protagonists often sacrifice
themselves (usually for a "dame") at the expense of their
reputations, their honorable intentions known only to themselves and
|A Dame to Kill For #1
||The Big Fat Kill #4
||That Yellow Bastard #1
||That Yellow Bastard
Miller's next undertaking represents the first
time Herodotus's account of Leonidas at Thermopylae was put in comic
book form. His interest in the Spartan culture began with Rudolph
Maté's 1962 film The 300 Spartans. "I was about perhaps six
years old when it came out, and my parents took me and my brother to
see it, and I was utterly astonished by the power of the story, the
pure heroism involved. And that led to a lifelong fascination with
ancient Greek history...."
This was a formative experience for him, defining the theme of
heroic sacrifice that motivates nearly all his protagonists,
including Elektra, Ronin, Batman, Marv, Hartigan, Carl Seltz, among
others. "It was an epiphany to realize that the hero wasn't
necessarily the guy who won."
Before undertaking the Thermopylae project
percolating in the back of his mind since The Dark Knight Returns,
Miller spent several weeks in Greece studying the terrain and
steeping himself in the history. "I couldn't have understood it
properly had I not seen the cliffs and that angry sea and actually
sailed on it."
300 is an idiosyncratic interpretation of
Herodotus's account. Miller hones the already spare original
narrative down to its barest essentials. He eliminates much of the
historical back-story, offering little character development and no
subplots or extraneous elements that might distract from the
singular theme of heroic sacrifice. The Spartans in 300 are
amplified versions of their historical selves—pared down to capes,
shields, and hair, evoking the "heroic nude" style of Greek vase
painters and sculptors. "It was very important to streamline the
appearance of characters to make them more dynamic and to lose the
sense of this being an old story. It's not an old story; it's an
Miller's execution of his vision breaches
standard comic book formatting. Rather than confining the artwork
within fixed panels on each page, Miller depicts individual scenes
in full-page spreads. The dialogue is minimal, the story driven by
the actions of simple figures drawn in bold, deliberate lines.
Greatly enhancing the work is the expert painting of long-time
collaborator (and wife) Lynn Varley, whose dramatic red and gold
palette and watercolor washes give the artwork a rich texture and
gritty atmosphere that intensify Miller's characteristic engrossing
compositions and camera angles. "I didn't know how I could do it
without her. I knew it had to be a color story. It wouldn't work
without the atmosphere, and without those red capes. And I also
couldn't imagine anyone else working on it, so I did the logical
Printed on glossy, heavy-stock paper, the whole project takes on a
coffee-table art book aesthetic.
|300 - Honor
||300 - Duty
||300 - Glory
||300 - Combat
||300 - Victory
The series was a massive success. Individual
issues sold out quickly and the over-sized hardcover, which
beautifully presents each two-page spread in the comic as a single
undivided page, has been a bestseller, running through multiple
printings. 300 won three Eisner Awards and two Harveys in 1999.
Movie: March 2007
Although Frank Miller had had a positive
experience translating Sin City into a successful movie, he bristled
at the prospect of working within the Hollywood system to film what
he considered the "crown jewel" of his career: "'300' means an awful
lot to me, so to see it homogenized into something like 'Troy,'
which manages to turn the Iliad inside out, would betray it."
Despite hesitations, he was eventually won over by producer Gianni
Nunnari and director Zack Snyder's enthusiasm for the project and
dedication to preserving the visual integrity of the book.
The movie was shot in sixty days inside a
Montreal Studio on bare-bones sets in front of blue screens. After
the live actors had been filmed, Computer Graphic (CG) artists spent
months in post-production adding sweeping backdrops, dramatic
weather effects, legions of soldiers, and oceans of spraying blood.
This "digital backlot" technique makes for a challenging acting
environment, but gives maximum control to the art director. This is
the same technology weathermen have been using on television for
decades, now realized with a technical polish that makes it
impossible to discriminate a virtual wheat field from the real
Despite the incredible scope of the film, the
lack of elaborate sets, expensive shooting locales, and pricey
A-list actors kept costs to a reasonable $65 million (for
comparison, less than a third the production costs for Wolfgang
Petersen's 2004 sword and sandals epic Troy). The movie earned back
that investment in its first three days of release, with the entire
theatrical run grossing nearly half a billion dollars world-wide.
300 was not the first major studio release shot
entirely on blue screen. Paramount Pictures' Sky Captain and the
World of Tomorrow (2004) originated on a Macintosh IIci in
director Kerry Conrad's living room.
Sky Captain captured the tone of low-budget sci-fi serials of the
30s and 40s, Hollywood's "Golden Age." The stylized visuals lent
themselves well to the blue-screen technique, allowing the
filmmakers to hide limitations in the technology. Starring Jude Law,
Gwyneth Paltrow, and Angelina Jolie, Sky Captain was filmed almost
exclusively in a warehouse in Van Nuys. Promotion of the movie
(mis)led audiences to expect a more traditional action-adventure
film. Consequently, though it was a critical success, the film's
theatrical run recouped barely half its production costs.
Frank Miller's screen adaptation of Sin City
(2005) was spearheaded by maverick director Robert Rodriguez, who
persuaded Miller to oversee production
and share a co-directing credit. Filmed at Rodriguez's ranch in
Austin, Texas, Sin City was a slavishly faithful adaptation of the
comic. Stark black-and-white visuals alleviated the technical
difficulties of "digital backlot" film-making. Dialogue, locations,
and even camera angles were pulled directly off the pages of the
books. The result was an enormously successful film with a unique
|Kerry Conrad (right) &
||Robert Rodriguez (left)
||Frank Miller, San
300 represents a marked improvement in the
blue-screen film-making technique. The Greek countrysides are an
idealized version of reality posing technical challenges beyond the
stylized environs of Sin City and Sky Captain. Over a dozen special
effects companies scrupulously refined the cinematography to create
a vivid, sometimes dream-like reality. Each scene is beautifully
framed for maximum balance and visual appeal. Lynn Varley's
(prominently credited) artistry underlies the film's rich color
palettes and moment-by-moment visual texture. Jeffery Silver, 300's
producer, said "Zack [Snyder, the film's director] developed a
recipe where you'd crush the black content of the image and enhance
the color saturation to change the contrast ratio of the film ….
Every image in this film went through a post-image processing. The
crush is what gives this film its distinct look and feel."
This nuanced, carefully calculated cinematography
is in sharp juxtaposition with the brutal violence of the combat
sequences. The rigorously choreographed fight scenes unravel in a
variety of film speeds like an ethereal, blood-soaked ballet. There
are moments when the action slows dramatically, allowing viewers
just enough time to drink in the chaos before returning to normal
speed. The combat strikes a high note of historical realism with the
depiction of the Spartan phalanx. This hallmark of Hellenic
heavy-infantry warfare involved locking shields in an impenetrable
wall. The close-quarter ground-level perspective thrusts the
audience right into the thick of the battle.
300 unfolds with the broad, exaggerated strokes
of a Wagnerian opera. Those hoping for a straight recital of
Herodotus's Thermopylae account will be disappointed. 300 is, like
Sin City, an exceptionally faithful adaptation of a Frank Miller
graphic novel and can fairly be judged only as such. The spirit of
Leonidas's accomplishment is intact, but art wins out over
Where history is concerned, the movie provides
more than a striking rendition of phalanx warfare. The basic
elements are preserved: messengers kicked down a well,
marching 300 red-caped Spartans to fend off vast numbers of Persian
invaders, Xerxes' "Immortals" and countless archers, the treacherous
Ephialtes—but these are just an armature on which to hang a gory
operatic retelling. The many departures from Herodotus's narrative
do not keep the film from delivering the underlying meaning of the
event. 300, like The Histories, demonstrates how
Leonidas' heroic sacrifice achieved an inspirational moral victory.
In Miller's words, "Heroic sacrifice is the essence of
Still, inaccuracies and outright absurdities in
the film are as commonplace as decapitations. The elevation of the
Spartans into the rarified air of comic book superheroism pales
beside the outrageously superfluous parade of Persian sideshow
freaks. It doesn't take a classical scholar to surmise there were
probably no ten-foot mutants with axe-hands in the ancient world.
Ephialtes has been transformed from greedy miscreant into deformed
abomination anxious to don a Spartan uniform but too disfigured to
fight effectively. The physical stature of the man now matches his
unseemly betrayal. And was that actually a lute-playing goat-man in
Xerxes' tent of malformed debauchery? As repellent as these details
are to the historian, they neatly forestall any assumption of
historical veracity by viewers unacquainted with the ancient
The film departs from the graphic novel's
appealing, straightforward approach to the story by, in particular,
completely fabricating the side story of Queen Gorgo (wonderfully
played by the foxy Lena Headey), which unfortunately hinders the
momentum of the action. Gorgo, looking for a troop surge to save her
king, schemes with the diabolically over-the-top politician Theron
(Dominic West). It's all a minor distraction from the heart of the
epic tale, valuable only for its rare portrayal of a strong feminine
The action of the film is recounted by one
which somewhat mitigates the fantastic embellishments and gross
inaccuracies. As Miller himself put it, "I always wanted this to be
like a story told by a soldier over a campfire."
* * *
Response to 300 has been sharply divided
along generational lines. The film was savaged in the establishment
but Leonidas and his unwaveringly noble ideals found acclaim in
publications, both print and online, catering to a younger crowd,
including military personnel.
However mixed the critical reaction, the film has enjoyed
spectacular financial success. 300 shattered box office records for
the month of March; its opening weekend take was the third highest
for an R-rated movie, after Matrix: Reloaded and The Passion of the
Christ. It clearly resonates among those who choose not to be
encumbered by the baggage of history.
It's a short jump to postulate how the timing of
the release contributed to its exceptional success. 300's clear,
concise military operation is a refreshing change of pace from the
exhausting stream of disheartening reports emerging from the
quagmire in Iraq. Watching a highly trained force engage in a
straightforward military operation has an almost restorative effect.
The thematic stakes are high. Leonidas and his men fight with
unflinching heroic resolve, with the burden of defending freedom and
democracy upon their well-muscled shoulders as they strike terror in
the hearts of a culturally distinct enemy. The movie delivers an
uncomplicated truth—a comforting escape in the midst of the gleeful
wanton violence. The overt moral dichotomy between the Spartans and
the Persians is as simple as good and evil, right and wrong.
Both the film and the book idealize the Spartan
way of life—the 300 have been purified of the complicated facts of
history. Leonidas extols the virtues of freedom, but fails to
mention Sparta's quarter million helots, who were regularly
terrorized and murdered by their brutal masters. Spartans could
afford to devote themselves from childhood to rigorous military
training, since the helots handled their agricultural needs. Spartan
warriors are depicted as charismatic Caucasians with chiseled
By contrast, storming the shores of Greece are "the Others."
Decadent, tyrannical, and often deformed, the Persians of 300 are
easy to identify and play strongly to racial biases. Xerxes himself
is sexually ambiguous and his Immortals inhuman creatures.
Such historical distortions aside, the film
provides fast-paced entertainment that speaks with a visual language
rooted in comic books. The cinematography is simply beautiful. Every
shot is thoughtfully composed. The combat is intense and wonderfully
choreographed. The goal was to bring 300 the comic book to the
screen, and on that front it succeeds wildly. As always with
Hollywood, entertainment is the first imperative, historical
fidelity a distant second.
It is difficult, however, not to consider the
abandoned historical narrative. 300 wouldn't require much editing to
accommodate Herodotus: the excision of approximately ten minutes of
flagrantly unhistorical material spread throughout the film, the
toning down of Persian deviancies, and the insertion of some helots
into Sparta's golden digital wheat fields. The result
would have made Herodotus proud with no loss of appeal to modern
audiences. We've been given an impressive, artistically exaggerated
version of history, but I can't help wondering, wasn't history
* * *
"This is the best damn story I've ever gotten my
hands on." —Frank Miller
Histories, rev. ed., trans. A. de Sélincourt,
ed. J.M. Marincola (NY: Penguin, 1996) 7.210. See, for a
recent, very readable account of the campaign, Paul Cartledge,
Thermopylae: The Battle That Changed the World (Woodstock
& New York, NY: Overlook Pr, 2006), with Donald Lateiner's
review at MWSR 2007.01.01 <link>.
 Foreshadowing the dangers of the mission,
Leonidas had selected only men with living sons to carry on
their family line (Herodotus 7.205).
these, 700 were Thespians who stayed (and died) voluntarily, 400
were disloyal Thebans, who defected to the enemy as soon as the
outcome was clear (Herodotus 7.222).
axiom so ingrained in the culture, a Spartan mother handing a
shield to her son departing for battle once said: "son, either
with this or on this"—Plutarch, Moralia 241, in Richard J.A. Talbert, ed. & tr.,
Plutarch on Sparta (NY: Penguin, 1988) 161.
created many other famous heroes, including Spiderman, the
X-Men, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Iron Man, et al.
 Klaus Janson handled the inking;
the two men collaborated productively for years to come. The
assembly of a comic book typically requires the efforts of a
writer, an editor, a penciler, an inker, a colorist, and a
letterer. As Miller's career progressed, he would assume nearly
all these roles.
Miller, in Daniel Robert Epstein, "Frank Miller, 300 Interview,"
UnderGroundOnline (n.d.) <link>.
 Anne Magnussen
& Hans-Christian Christiansen, eds., Comics &
Culture: Analytical and Theoretical Approaches to Comics (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum,
 "Over 1 million copies in print"—Business Wire
(5 Dec 2001) 1.
Frank Miller, in Shawna Ervin-Gore, "Interview: Frank Miller,"
DarkHorse.com (n.d.) <link>.
 NY Times
(26 Nov 2006) 2.9.
Frank Miller in "300 Part One," fxguide (25 Feb 2007) <link>.
Eisners for "Best Coloring," "Best Writer/Artist," "Best Limited
Series"; Harveys for "Best Limited Series," "Best Colorist."
These awards are the comic book equivalents of Oscars.
 Star Wars director George Lucas prophesied that with the
advancements in special effects technology, it would not be long
before the next Hollywood blockbuster was filmed by a couple
kids in a garage.
 Miller had been soured on film-making in general
after a bad experience developing the scripts for the second and
third Robocop films.
 Even though it was a comic book property lacking high
profile characters such as Spiderman or Superman, thanks to the
film's considerable box-office receipts, Sin City became
the greatest creator-owned success in the comic book industry.
Conflated from the run-up to the battle of Marathon ten years
earlier: see Herodotus 7.133.
is worth noting the exceptional performance delivered by Gerard
Butler, who inhabits a note-perfect Leonidas. He's a magnetic
presence on the screen, exuding leadership and inspiration.
Will Lawrence, "The High Priest of Heroism," Telegraph (9 Mar
 Before the final, fatal engagement in the pass,
Dilios, who has sustained an eye injury, is given orders to
return to Sparta and preserve the memory of Leonidas's
accomplishment. This may be a tip of the hat to Herodotus, who
recounts (at 7.229-231) the story of Aristodemus, who missed the
battle because of a severe eye inflammation, much to his
Scott, NY Times (9 Mar 2007): "the script for '300,'
which [Zack Snyder] wrote with Kurt Johnstad and Michael B.
Gordon, is weighed down by the lumbering portentousness of the
original book, whose arresting images are themselves undermined
by the kind of pomposity that frequently mistakes itself for
genius.... '300' may find its cultural niche as an object of
camp derision .... At present, though, its muscle-bound,
grunting self-seriousness is more tiresome than entertaining" <link>.
Stephen Hunter, Washington Post (25 Mar 2007): "There's
no sinuous continuity in his film, which is mostly geared toward
re-creating images from the comic book, as if that's [sic]
David Denby, New Yorker (2 Apr 2007): "the movie is a
porno-military curiosity—a muscle-magazine fantasy crossed with
a video game and an Army recruiting film" <link>.
Peter Travers, Rolling Stone (7 Mar 2007): "prepare your
eyes for popping—hell, they just might fly out of their
sockets—in the face of such turbocharged visuals" <link>. Todd Gilchrist,
IGN Movies (12 Feb 2007):
"Ultimately, this film combines an archetypal conflict, an
ancient storytelling tradition reaching back as far as the
Greeks themselves, and technique that makes it relevant to
modern audiences. In other words, it's not clear whether great
movie myths are born or bred, but 300 is unequivocally
one of them" <link>. Chuck Vinch,
Army Times (n.d.): "
culminates in an ending that will raise the neck hairs and
moisten the eyes of anyone who has ever felt that freedom and
liberty are ideals worth defending—with the East vs. West theme
sure to resonate strongly against the landscape of our own age.
A sensory feast from start to finish, '300' is larger-than-life
storytelling that qualifies as the first true CGI-enhanced epic" <link>.
told everyone, "You guys have got to be in crazy shape, in
superhero shape,"' … [director] Snyder said. To inspire the
troops, he had T-shirts made that read, 'I died at Thermopylae'"—see note 11, above.


British Romantic Literature Main Lesson
In this main lesson, students are introduced to several major British Romantic poets: Burns, Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, and Shelley. In addition to studying the biographies and major works of these poets, students learn about the ideals and themes of Romanticism, and the social and political upheavals that led artists and intellectuals to reject the values of the Age of Enlightenment. Students create an artistic anthology containing favorite poems by each author, and write poetry and essays on their interpretations of the styles and themes in the primary poetry.
Medieval Literature, Parzival Main Lesson
This main lesson focuses on Wolfram von Eschenbach’s medieval romance, Parzival, the story of the quest for the Holy Grail. The legend gives rise to many modern day parallels and metaphors which address questions juniors often ask. As an experiential component, the class travels to Pennsylvania for a week at the Kimberton Hills Camp Hill Village, a community for developmentally handicapped adults, founded on the social principles of Rudolf Steiner.
English III: Full Year Class
In this course, grammar studies are reviewed with an emphasis on refining writing skills. The literature relates to themes of individualism and self-transformation. Readings reflect the transition between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance; ideals of the Age of Enlightenment and the Age of Romanticism are also studied. A year-long research project on an author of the student’s choice deepens their ability to analyze and discuss literary topics as well as develop skills in citation and critical reading.
Advanced Literature Elective *
This course offers students with a keen interest in literary topics a venue for discussion, research and creative writing. Much of the work involves a coordination between reading primary texts and literary criticism so students develop their own position vis-à-vis a particular work of literature. Such works as Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn are complemented with Wayne C. Booth’s The Company We Keep: an Ethics of Fiction. The autobiography might be pursued by reading excerpts from Benjamin Franklin, Vladimir Nabokov or Barak Obama; then writing one’s own life story. The concept of rhetoric might be deepened by discussing two pieces of classical philosophy, The Gorgias by Plato and Aristotle’s The Rhetoric. Narrative genre and technique might be examined in the short stories of James Joyce, The Dubliners, or his novel, Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, both works revealing the literary idea of “epiphany” and the “limited point of view.”
Creative Writing Elective *
This course addresses the genres of poetry, playwriting, short story and journalism through a workshop format in which students read their work aloud and learn from one another.
* Not all electives or courses are offered every year.
Medieval/Renaissance History Main Lesson
This main lesson chronicles the rise of Christianity and Islam as world religions, and the interaction between Christians and Muslims. It also examines Europe’s emergence as a distinct cultural area, and the continent’s increasing global predominance in the High Middle Ages and Early Modern period. Other topics covered may include the fall of Rome, Byzantium, feudalism and the Crusades.
Social History Elective
The Social History elective is a discussion based course where students practice sharing ideas, analyzing texts, taking notes, and writing papers. As course reading, students generally work their way through a series of complete social history monographs. Past topics have included the lives of slaves and free blacks; women and public virtue in the antebellum U.S.; the Western frontier; Native Americans; the Great Migration of African Americans to northern cities; and gender in peasant society. Each unit concludes with a major writing assessment that challenges students to synthesize ideas from class and readings.
20th Century History Elective
The 20th Century elective is a discussion based course, where students practice sharing ideas, analyzing texts, and writing papers. As course reading, students generally work their way through a series of complete monographs in 20th century history. Past topics have included Gandhi and Indian independence; communism in Eastern Europe; post-Mao and contemporary China; the Cuban Revolution; the industrialization of Japan; World War II; and war and peace in the Middle East. Each unit concludes with a major writing assessment that challenges students to synthesize ideas from class and readings.
Mathematics and Allied Sciences
Introduction to Calculus Main Lesson
This main lesson provides a guided exploration of the exotic borderland where finite and infinite meet. One path is to investigate sequences and series, looking for patterns of convergence. Another is to distinguish structures or procedures with finite, countably infinite, and otherwise infinite elements or steps. A third way is to concentrate on the idea of one-to-one correspondence as the cornerstone or mathematical reasoning about transfinite things. Other essential concepts include counting number (cardinal), neighborhood, rate of change, bound, limit, and, ultimately, derivative. Students also encounter the binomial theorem, the number e, and the rudiments of proofs.
Advanced Geometry Main Lesson
This course introduces the mathematical concept of projection in conjunction with the basic trigonometry of the sphere. One direction emphasizes visual relations, as in perspective drawing techniques and solid geometry principles, while a second emphasizes analytic relations, as in invertible functions and trigonometric ratios. A natural union to these directions is the idea of a map, and the course gradually builds to a twofold exploration of this thought: via the Mercator Projection to get a picture of the entire Earth, and via the Law of Cosines to calculate the distance between any two points on the planet.
Sequences and Series Main Lesson
This main lesson provides an introduction to mathematical reasoning that requires the quantitatively infinite. Sequences, series, and patterns of convergence are the leading ideas, and their gradual development yields new formulas for calculation, new ways to evaluate boundaries, and even new numbers—viz. the all-important constant e. The concept of one-to-one correspondence receives special emphasis in proofs, perhaps most vividly in a comparison of the harmonic series with seemingly related forms. The course usually finishes with a derivation of Binet’s Theorem (yielding the Fibonacci numbers) via an inquiry into recursively defined structures that are equivalently sequences, series, and polynomials.
Math III, Advanced Algebra, Trigonometry and Allied Sciences: Full Year Class
The accelerated 11th grade course in math introduces essential language and techniques for handling elementary functions (polynomial, exponential, trigonometric), and gives special attention to new modes of representation (polar coordinates, complex plane, column vectors). Though abstract structures receive special emphasis, practical manifestations or departures include the calculation of continuously compounded interest, the estimation of a formula for sunrise times of a given locality, and the construction of electrical circuits as an exercise in logic. Undoubtedly, the program is intellectually demanding, but it is not a race to “cover” a set number of topics; instead, the recurring challenge to see one structure as another (e.g. regular polygons as the nth roots of 1) is also both an important manner of review and a first glimpse at the network of higher mathematics.
The standard 11th grade math course works largely with graphing algebraic functions and associated concepts. The beginning of the year focuses on inequalities, circles, and parabolas and the second half of the year includes factoring and graphing polynomials, and analytic geometry as pertains to circles, parabolas, ellipses, and hyperbolas. In addition to this work,the entire eleventh grade comes together to complete blocks on graphing sine waves, using slides rules, and manipulating electric circuits.
Botany Main Lesson
The Botany main lesson is an in-depth look into the world of plants. Students compare plant and animal cells, and identify the characteristics that make plants unique, in particular photosynthesis. The class discusses plant anatomy by examining major taxonomic groups of plants with regard to the order in which they evolved and the structures they developed. Students grow plants, look at slides, observe plants in the park, and make observations during a field trip to the New York Botanical Gardens.
History of Chemistry Main Lesson
The junior History of Chemistry block recaps the development of chemistry from its roots in Greece to the time of John Dalton in the mid-19th century. Although chemistry, as such, did not exist in Greece, two approaches to the world were recognized: the work of the craftsmen who studied the manipulation of natural materials and the production of goods; and the philosophical approach of scholars who studied the world at large. Though the atomic theory of Democritus remained unpopular for two millennia, the philosophy of Aristotle took root and lead to Alchemy. For centuries, alchemists probed the chemical properties and reactions of substances, and developed much of what later evolved into modern chemistry. The History of Chemistry lab takes students back to traditional experiments. Extracting metals from their ores as it was done two thousand years ago leads to the exploration of mass ratios and the development of the Law of Fixed Ratios and the Law of Multiple Proportions. Students also explore the reactions of alchemy and its eventual yield to quantitative chemistry.
Finally, with the advent of Lavoisier and the rise of the British Empire and the Royal Society, modern chemistry and rudimentary atomic theory began to take root. By re-doing and re-evaluating many earlier experiments, the class establishes the precepts through which chemistry has grown. By examining the phenomena themselves and thinking the thoughts of the giants who led science forward, we too determine some of the pathways of substance as it created our world.
The Ecology elective is an opportunity for interested 10th and 11th graders to explore ecology on several levels. The course focuses on the ecology of New York City including ecosystems found in Central Park and the Hudson River. As the year progresses other topics explored include global warming, air and water pollution, and human ecology. Lab activities and Central Park are used as often as possible and much attention is given to current events with regard to ecological issues. Students complete independent research projects each term on a topic related to what is being discussed in class. In addition to research projects grades are based on tests, assignments, and class participation.
Physics Main Lesson: Electricity and Magnetism
In the eleventh grade, students are ready to take up the invisible and intangible phenomena of physics. Juniors cross the conceptual divide between the discrete, solid bodies we studied in tenth grade, to the continuous, immaterial field. Now they are challenged to form an exact understanding of an area of effect detectable only by its influence on other bodies. We consider electric and magnetic fields first separately and then united in the phenomena of electromagnetic radiation.
French Level III
This course focuses on a thorough review of the grammar from levels I and II and the study of advanced grammar and vocabulary. Reading materials include: Suivez la piste, a detective thriller based on a French language television course produced by BBC; the synopsis of the film, Papa, maman, la bonne et moi, and selected chapters from Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. These materials develop the students’ vocabulary, conversational and writing skills through numerous class discussions and written assignments. In the second semester, a substantial amount of class time is dedicated to the students’ preparation for the French language SAT II.
French Level IV
This course promotes a greater knowledge of French culture and language. It aims to further the development of students’ proficiency in speech, writing and comprehension. Students read, discuss, and analyze unabridged modern and classic French novels, French press, watch French films, and write essays based on the material. In addition to the above curriculum and depending on the students’ choice, this course can be used to prepare for the Advanced Placement French language test.
German Level III
German III focuses on reading original texts by German authors, such as J.W. Goethe, Franz Kafka, Ilse Aichinger and Gabriele Wohmann. The majority of the coursework consists of reading, and developing conversational skills. There is usually an oral presentation of an artist and his work. This class deepens the understanding of grammar by learning advanced topics, such as the passive voice and subjunctive. Students write summaries and submit compositions about themes evolving around the texts that are read. The class also prepares for SAT II tests, depending on student’s needs. This class also watches and discusses a German movie.
German Level IV
German IV is geared towards the needs of students to review and deepen grammar. Reading texts include newspaper articles, short stories and novels that are reviewed and discussed orally and in writing; the students also present a basis for essays. The course strives to reach greater fluency in conversation and discussion, and focuses on student’s everyday life, personal interests, and a deepening of his understanding of German culture.
Spanish Level III
The class works with the book and workbooks, activities, grammar and vocabulary, culture and literature in Expresate! Spanish Level III. The goal of this course is to improve technical skills in grammar, thereby increasing fluency in reading, writing, and oral communication. The class reviews grammar covered in Level I and Level II. Systematic acquisition of vocabulary and improvement of listening skills are stressed. Selected cultural and literary texts are examined. Students write summaries and submit their interpretation of certain themes in these stories. Students also work with Spanish idioms and take practice SAT II tests to prepare for the exam. At least one film is shown and one play is seen.
Spanish Level IV
This is an advanced course in Spanish composition and conversation. The course focuses on extensive reading, the enrichment of vocabulary and idioms, and the further development of conversational skills. Students are expected to recognize and discuss the literary merits of highlighted authors and their contributions and influence on Spanish culture. A great deal of emphasis is placed on sentence structure, especially the most difficult points of grammar and usage. Students study the work of Spanish painters and watch various films related to their work and life. Oral presentations are assigned, and at least one play will be seen during the year.
Watercolor and Mixed Media Painting
This course in Watercolor and Mixed Media seeks to develop each individual’s skill with the medium of watercolor, both in terms of color and composition. Students learn to mix paint with the intention of achieving subtle nuances of tone as well as vivid contrasts. Pastel and/or pencil are also available to students who wish to incorporate them into their long-term projects, thus creating a mixed media painting. Students explore form and volume through diversified subject matter.
In Bookbinding, students learn to use materials and tools to make paste paper, and they create a book using these papers for the cover. They fold drawing paper to create four signatures, each consisting of twenty pages, giving their books a total of eighty blank pages. These are sewn to the spine, and the front and back covers are held together with binding tape. This is one of many ways to create a book. Each book is unique; some are made with care and precision, others with great artistic decoration, and a few combine both qualities. The process of bookbinding requires attention to detail and awareness and care of materials, especially keeping paper flat and using glue with precision. Each student’s goal is to create a beautiful and well-crafted book.
This course is designed to give students the opportunity to do one major project in wood or stone. They are given a wide range of choices with respect to material, shape and size, and then challenged to imagine the sleeping forms inherent in the piece of material. The students try to realize their own mental pictures by cutting away and shaping their work. Students in this course use chisels, various rasps, and sandpaper, and develop their skills of gouging. Besides realizing their ideas in a three dimensional form, the students in this class also work to reveal the beauty of the material they have chosen.
Shakespearian Drama Main Lesson
The Shakespearian Drama block provides the opportunity for the 11th Grade to experience the genius of William Shakespeare. The students delve deeply into the texts of his tragedies, not only through reading and discussion, but by preparing scenes and monologues as well. Students are encouraged to find meaning and connection to the characters they portray as they discover qualities about themselves as individuals. An evening performance for family and friends is traditionally connected with this performance art block. Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and Macbeth are among the plays explored by the students in this block.
Eurythmy is a series of expressive movement exercises unique to Waldorf education. In Eurythmy classes, students learn how to bring music and poetry into physical expression, thereby gaining a better understanding of these arts. Eurythmy also teaches dexterity, grace, poise, balance, and concentration.
History Through Music Main Lesson
Beginning in ancient Greece and moving through to the present day, this course explores the development of music through the cultural and historical settings in which it was created. Students listen to a variety of masterworks, discuss and analyze the elements within a given piece in terms of melody, such as Tuvan throat chanting, aboriginal ritual dances, and Japanese Zen monk mantras.
Participation in Chorus for one and a half periods per week is required. Students sing a wide range of music and experience a variety of genres. Self-expression becomes a window into communal music-making and into other cultures. The process of preparing music is as important as the final result; students are graded on their participation in the Thanksgiving, Holiday and Spring Assemblies, and graduation.
Guitar and Fretted Instruments Elective
The goals of this class include playing in time together, sight reading and playing by ear, building up left- and right-hand technique, and caring for the instrument. An even more important aim is to encourage both a regular habit of practice and a willingness to explore music one might not initially prefer. Though fretted instruments are the focus, other string instruments are welcome in the mix. Although the ensemble is principally instrumental, singing with accompaniment happens nearly every week.
Jazz Band Elective
The Jazz Band plays music from standard jazz charts as well as big band and swing arrangements. Students are taught basic jazz theory and improvisational skills and are encouraged to perform solos at each concert. The Jazz Band is frequently featured at school benefit functions, and also performs at assemblies, the annual Spring Concert, and graduation. The Jazz Band meets weekly.
The orchestra plays music from the standard symphonic repertoire. Works from the Baroque through our own era are featured at school assemblies, concerts and various community functions. Music performed in recent years includes Bizet’s Carmen Suite, excerpts from Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite, and Copland’s Hoedown from his ballet Rodeo. The orchestra meets weekly.
West African Drumming Ensemble, Caribbean Drumming, Brazilian Drumming
These ensembles provide students without prior training an entry point for community music-making. Percussion is taught through imitation, similar to the way young people are taught in an indigenous setting. Students are also exposed to the cultural and ethnic context of the music, and learn the reasons for and meaning of the music. Classes meet weekly and ensembles perform at concerts and assemblies.
Recorder Ensemble Elective
This beginning ensemble provides students with little or no musical training an entry point for group music making. Students learn the fundamentals of pitch, rhythm and notation and learn to play in a group. Although students begin on the soprano recorder, they are also encouraged to pick up alto and tenor recorders to learn the various qualities and challenges of each instrument. The advanced ensemble is for students with prior recorder training who wish to advance their skills.


“…for he has no right to give names to objects which he cannot define.” –Charles Darwin
Do “races” exist as meaningful biological categories? Physical anthropologists and human biologists have been studying race (i.e., blacks vs. whites, or Europeans vs. Asians) for centuries. For most of that time, they subscribed to the perspective that race was a taxonomic category, and they sought to identify the biological characteristics (such as cranial shape or skin color) that characterized and defined these different groups. This perspective assumed that each individual was a member of a single racial category, that the differences between racial categories were biological, and that these categories were predictive of other traits (such as ancestry, temperament, intelligence, or health).
But it gradually became clear that this understanding was not scientifically sound. Groupings of people by skin color did not produce the same result as groupings of people by skull shape, nor of blood type. Furthermore, as scientists began to study human variation with the tools of genetics (in the process creating my fields, anthropological genetics and human population genetics), it became apparent that human genetic variation does not divide humans into a few discrete groups. There are virtually no sharp boundaries, either with physical features or with patterns of genetic diversity, that show where one population “ends” and the next “begins”.
These observations have led the majority of physical anthropologists, human biologists, and human geneticists in recent decades to conclude that the racial groups we recognize are social categories constructed in a specific cultural and historical setting, even if we consider physical features when categorizing people. These social categories can have biological consequences (for example, someone who experiences the stress of racism may be more likely to develop high blood pressure and hypertension than someone who does not).
Racial groupings differ from culture to culture. For example, although in the United States Chinese and Japanese peoples are usually viewed as one “race” (Asian), they are seen as members of different racial groups in South Africa. Racial groupings also vary over time within a single culture, as can be seen below in the United States census classifications of race over several decades.
However, according to former New York Times science writer Nicholas Wade, we should never have stopped thinking of race as a biological taxonomic category. In his new book, “A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History”, Wade takes it upon himself to educate scientists about the errors of our interpretations of human genetic diversity.
Wade claims that the latest genomic findings actually support dividing humans into discrete races, and that the genetic makeup of different races contributes to behavioral and economic disparities. In a spectacular failure of logic, he asserts that those who disagree that races are meaningful biological categories in humans must ALSO think that human populations do not differ genetically, or have not been affected by evolution.
There is a lot to criticize in this book, particularly Wade’s imaginative storytelling in chapters 6-10 (“a much more speculative arena,” as he puts it). He explains that English populations have a “willingness to save and delay gratification”, which “seems considerably weaker in tribal societies” (pp. 184-185), and these differences must be genetically based, despite his admission that “the genetic underpinnings of human social behavior are for the most part still unknown” (p. 15), and numerous critiques of this hypothesis. In chapter 8, he asserts that Jews are adapted for capitalism in a manner analogous to the Eskimo’s adaptation to survival in an Arctic environment (p. 214) — an assertion unsupported by scientific evidence, to put it mildly. (Wade seems to be unaware of the consequences of laws prohibiting Jews from owning land and farming over much of Europe for centuries – and instead speculates that “their genes were adapted for success in capitalism”).
But others have already critiqued these aspects of his book. I’m far more interested in the central premise of Wade’s argument, which is passing unchallenged by all but a few reviews: “At least at the level of continental populations, races can be distinguished genetically, and this is sufficient to establish that they exist” (p. 122). If Wade is right and races are distinct biological categories, then we would reasonably expect that they would be unambiguously different from each other genetically and physically (as well as behaviorally, according to Wade). One should be able to define each race with a set of objective criteria, which could be used by any person to independently reach the same classifications (and number of classifications) as Wade. Furthermore, these categories should have predictive power; that is, features that define race should be in concordance with new discoveries of genetic diversity.
What is race?
To begin with, Wade can’t provide a clear definition of “race.” He tries to rely instead on loose associations rather than definitive characteristics, which forces him to conclude both that physical traits define race but that the traits can vary from person to person: “races are identified by clusters of traits, and to belong to a certain race, it’s not necessary to possess all of the identifying traits” (p. 121).
With such a shifty, casual footing, it’s no surprise that Wade’s conclusions are unsound. He can’t keep the number of races straight:
Wade can’t settle on a definite number of races because he can’t come up with a consistent, rigorous definition of what “race” means. He uses terms like “major race”, “race”, “subrace”, “group”, or “population,” but doesn’t provide any serious, objective ways to distinguish between these terms for arbitrary groupings of people arbitrary groups.
Rather than just announcing his subjective opinions about race, Wade wants to ground them in science. He tries to use genetics: “Such an arrangement, of portioning human variation into five continental races, is to some extent arbitrary. But it makes practical sense. The three major races are easy to recognize. The five-way division matches the known events of human population history. And, most significant of all, the division by continent is supported by genetics.” (p. 94)
To support his claim, Wade relies heavily on a 2002 paper (by Rosenberg et al.) that used a program called structure to group people based on similarities in markers distributed across the genome. He notes that the program identified five major clusters in this 2002 study, which corresponded to the major geographic regions (Africa, Eurasia, East Asia, Oceania, and America) of the world. Therefore, Wade argues, these results clearly show that humans are divided up into racial categories that match continents.
Charles Murray, author of The Bell Curve, who recently reviewed Wade’s book in the Wall Street Journal, agrees:
A computer given a random sampling of bits of DNA that are known to vary among humans—from among the millions of them—will cluster them into groups that correspond to the self-identified race or ethnicity of the subjects. This is not because the software assigns the computer that objective but because those are the clusters that provide the best statistical fit.
But Wade and Murray are both wrong. Structure didn’t simply identify five clusters. It also identified two, three, four, six, and seven clusters. (Rosenberg et al. 2002 actually identified up to 20 divisions, but 1-7 are the primary ones they discussed. They also divided their worldwide sample up into regions, and then ran structure within those regions, to look at more fine-scale population structure.)
Why? Researchers using structure have to define the number (K) of clusters in advance, because that’s what the program requires. The program was designed to partition individuals into whatever pre-specified number of clusters the researcher requests, regardless of whether that number of divisions really exists in nature. In other words, if the researcher tells structure to divide the sampled individuals into 4 clusters, structure will identify 4 groups no matter what–even if there is really only 1 group, or even if there are really 14 groups.
So, when Rosenberg et al. (2002) told structure to use K=6? They got six clusters, with the sixth corresponding to a northwestern Pakistani group, the Kalash. Does this make the Kalash a separate race? Wade doesn’t think so. When they told structure to use K=3? They got three clusters back, corresponding to Africa, Europe/Middle East/South Asia, and East Asia/Oceania/Americas. So are Native Americans and Australians not separate races? Rosenberg et al. never published any statistical evidence that justifies picking 5 races instead of 7, or 4, or 2 (although such methods do exist–see Bolnick et al. 2008). Wade seems to like K=5 simply because it matches his pre-conceived notions of what race should be:
“It might be reasonable to elevate the Indian and Middle Eastern groups to the level of major races, making seven in all. But then many more subpopulations could be declared races, so to keep things simple, the five-race, continent-based scheme seems the most practical for most purposes.” (p. 100)
Practical. Simple. Wade wants us to cut up human diversity into five races not because that’s what the statistical analyses show, but because thinking about it as a gradient is hard.
Wade isn’t even using the tools of genetics competently. The authors of the paper he relied on, as well as subsequent studies, showed that different runs of the program with the same data can even produce different results (Bolnick, 2008). Structure’s results are extremely sensitive to many different factors, including models, the type and number of genetic variants studied, and the number of populations included in the analysis (Rosenberg et al. 2005). When Rosenberg et al. (2005) expanded the 2002 dataset to include more genetic markers for the same population samples, they identified a somewhat different set of genetic clusters when K=6 (Native Americans were divided into two clusters and the Kalash of Central/South Asia did not form a separate cluster). In fact, Rosenberg et al. (2005) explicitly said:
“Our evidence for clustering should not be taken as evidence of our support of any particular concept of ‘biological race.’”
Finally, the creators of structure themselves caution that it will produce rather arbitrary clusters when sampled populations have been influenced by gene flow that is restricted by geographic distance (i.e. where more mating occurs between members of nearby populations than between populations that are located farther apart, a pattern we geneticists refer to as isolation by distance). As this pattern applies to the majority of human populations, it makes the results of structure problematic and difficult to interpret in many cases. These limitations are acknowledged by anthropological geneticists and population biologists, who interpret the results of structure cautiously. It’s very telling that Wade, a science reporter, chose to ignore the interpretations of the experts in favor of his own.
Human biological variation is real and important. I’ve studied it my entire professional career. We can see this variation most easily in physical traits and allele frequency differences between populations at extreme ends of a geographic continuum. Nobody is denying that. Let me repeat this: no one is denying that humans vary physically and genetically. All anthropologists and geneticists recognize that human differences exist. But Wade, and others who agree with him, have decided that certain patterns of variation—those which happen to support their predefined notions of what “races” must be—are more important than others.
Wade’s perspective fits with a larger pattern seen throughout history and around the world. Folk notions of what constitutes a race and how many races exist are extremely variable and culturally specific. For example, the Bible claims that all peoples of the world are descended from Noah’s three sons, mirroring the popular concept of three racial divisions (Caucasians, Africans, and Asians). On the other hand, the five-part division of races seems most “logical” to Wade. Anticipating confusion on this point he claims: “Those who assert that human races don’t exist like to point to the many, mutually inconsistent classification schemes that have recognized anywhere from 3 to 60 races. But the lack of agreement doesn’t mean that races don’t exist, only that it is a matter of judgment as to how to define them” (p. 92).
A matter of judgment. So, rather than being defined by empirical criteria, as Wade had asserted so confidently earlier in the book, it really is just a subjective judgment call. The differences between groups are so subtle and gradual that no objective lines can be drawn, so Wade draws his own on the basis of his own preconceptions.
How subtle is the gradient that Wade is chopping up? Humans are incredibly similar genetically. We only differ by about 0.1% of our genome. Compare that to chimpanzees, our closest relative. Individual chimps from the same population show more genetic differences than humans from different continents.
The genetic differences that exist in human populations are important, because they help us understand our evolutionary history. The most genetic diversity is found in populations in Africa, where our species originated. Subsequent migrations across the continents resulted in sampling a subset of the genetic diversity present in the ancestral populations; thousands of years of localized evolution and cultural practices have produced region-specific adaptations, such as the ability to thrive at high altitudes. These adaptations have influenced particular genes and traits, but the overall pattern of genetic variation is clinal, meaning that for the most part it varies gradually with geographic distance. Groups that live close together are more closely related to each other (and more genetically similar) than they are to groups farther away. (People marry and have children more frequently with people who live close to them than they do with people who live farther away). Other evolutionary forces (founder effects, selection, drift, and migration) have all contributed to patterns of genetic diversity that we see in populations today.
But these patterns of human diversity don’t give us a scientifically viable definition of race as a taxonomic unit. As Agustin Fuentes puts it, with emphasis added:
“when you compare people from Nigeria, Western Europe and Beijing you do get some patterned differences…but these specific groups do not reflect the entire continental areas of Africa, Europe, and Asia (the proposed “continental races” of African, Caucasian and Asian). There are no genetic patterns that link all populations in just Africa, just Asia or just Europe to one another to the exclusion of other populations in other places. If you compare geographically separated populations within the “continental” areas you get the same kind of variation as you would between them. Comparing Nigerians to Western Europeans to people from Beijing gives us the same kind of differences in variation patterns as does comparing people from Siberia, Tibet and Java, or from Finland, Wales and Yemen, or even Somalia, Liberia and South Africa— and none of these comparisons demonstrates “races.”
In fact if you use the common level of genetic differentiation between populations used by zoologists to classify biological races (which they called subspecies) in other mammals, all humans consistently show up as just one biological race.”
(Also see Templeton AR, 2013. Biological races in humans. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsc.2013.04.010)
Wade even seems to agree with population geneticists that there aren’t any races, just clinal distributions of genetic diversity: “Because there is no clear dividing line, there are no distinct races—that is the nature of variation within a species.” (p 92).
In other words, he can’t define distinct races. He just knows them when he sees them
I’ve focused a lot of this review on numerous technical details because I think that it’s very important that non-geneticists understand the degree to which Wade is distorting the results of recent research on genome-wide human variation. I won’t speculate whether this distortion is deliberate or a result of simple ignorance about genetics, but it is serious. There is a great deal more in this book that also needs to be critiqued, such as Wade’s assertion that the genetic differences between human groups determine behavioral differences, resurrecting the specter of “national character” and “racial temperaments”. But as I’ve shown here, Wade’s book is all pseudoscientific rubbish because he can’t justify his first and primary point: his claim that the human racial groups we recognize today culturally are scientifically meaningful, discrete biological divisions of humans. This claim provides a direct basis for the whole second half of the book where he makes those “speculative” arguments about national character. In other words, the entire book is a house of cards.
It’s also worth noting the extent to which Wade’s argument here is a variation on the Galileo fallacy: the fact that one bravely holds a minority view in science is considered to be sufficient evidence of the worth of one’s position. I’ve seen it used over and over again in responses to my criticisms of pseudoscience, and it’s no more persuasive for Wade than it is for creationists or homeopaths.
“If scientists were to make the arbitrary decision that biological race is real, can you think of a positive outcome?” –a nice piece by Holly Dunsworth: http://ecodevoevo.blogspot.com/2014/05/if-scientists-were-to-make-arbitrary.html
Agustin Fuentes’ online debate with Wade: (https://aaanetevents.webex.com/ec0606l/eventcenter/recording/recordAction.do?theAction=poprecord&AT=pb&internalRecordTicket=00000001fcaac3649dadd2c6e78a2511ed436c75acea0fcceaf7ff0731dc4216dec6996b&isurlact=true&renewticket=0&recordID=8614987&apiname=lsr.php&needFilter=false&format=short&&SP=EC&rID=8614987&RCID=e801bfd96855006077205e3d2e023699&siteurl=aaanetevents&actappname=ec0606l&actname=%2Feventcenter%2Fframe%2Fg.do&rnd=4944230866&entactname=%2FnbrRecordingURL.do&entappname=url0108l)
“The troublesome ignorance of Nicholas Wade”, also by Agustin Fuentes:
“On the origin of white power” by Eric Michael Johnson:
A critique of Structure:
Bolnick DA. Individual ancestry inference and the reification of race as a biological phenomenon. In: Koenig BA, Lee SS-J, Richardson SS, editors. Revisiting Race in a Genomic Age. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press; 2008. pp. 77–85.
Jon Marks: “The genes made us do it: The new pseudoscience of race.”
Barbujani and Colonna, 2010. Human genome diversity: frequently asked questions.
Many thanks to Deborah Bolnick, Colin McRoberts, Jay Kaufman, Jonathan Kahn, Troy Duster, and Rick Smith.
Please review my Site Policies before commenting. Disagreement with me is fine; bigotry is not.


European Rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus)
Rabbit is the common name for small mammals in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha, characterized by long ears and legs, large hind feet, a short and bushy tail, and young born without fur and with closed eyes. All other members of Leporidae are placed in the Lepus genus and are known as hares, characterized by longer ears, generally larger size and faster running speed, and young born with fur and with open eyes (Angerbjörn 2004).
The term, "rabbit" sometimes is used as a collective term for all members of the Leporidae family, including the hares, and sometimes for all members of the Lagomorpha order, a group that also includes the pikas, which are placed in family Ochotonidae. Some true hares (genus Lepus) also have the name rabbit (jackrabbits). This article will encompass all members of Leporidae family placed in genera other than Lepus.
Rabbits are an important component of their native ecosystems in which their high reproductive rate makes them integral to terrestrial food chains, as they consume plant matter and provide food for such animals as foxes, raptors, cats, ferrets, and raccoons. Where humans have introduced rabbits into ecosystems like those of Australia in which there are few controlling predators, however, rabbits have proliferated excessively and caused environmental problems, including habitat degradation, loss of unique native flora and fauna, and agricultural damage.
Humans in many parts of the world have used rabbits as a source of food and fur, hunted them for sport, used them in laboratory research, and raised them as pets. Rabbits add to the human enjoyment of nature and are a feature in culture, whether in books and paintings, or as symbols, such as for fertility or rebirth.
Rabbits, hares, and pikas comprise the order Lagomorpha, which is divided into two families: Leporidae (hares and rabbits) and Ochotonidae (pikas). Originally classified as rodents (order Rodentia), the lagomorphs are separated based on having a second, small, peg-like upper incisor sitting behind the first, large, continually growing incisor, whereas rodents possess only a single, upper incisor (Smith 2004). Also, lagomorphs have a single layer of enamel in the front incisors versus the double layer in rodents (Smith 2004). Lagomorphs have relatively large to huge ears, short tails (not visible in pikas), and cannot grasp food with their paws (Smith 2004).
Lagomorphs have a very large digestive system, apparently adapted to digesting large amounts of plant material whose nutrient content is difficult to extract (Smith 2004). The caecum tends to be giant—up to ten times larger than the stomach—and it has a rich fauna of bacteria and other microorganisms that help to break down the plant matter (Smith 2004). Lagomorphs also practice coprophagy, whereby they eat their feces to undergo re-digestion, which helps yield up to five times as many vitamins as in the original food (Smith 2004).
The Leporidae family comprises 11 extant genera and 61 species of hares and rabbits (Angerbjörn 2004) with one genus, Lepus, comprising all the true hares, while rabbits are classified into the other 10 genera. Leporids tend to have brown or gray as the base of the soft fur, although some forms turn white for winter, and two species are striped (Angerbjörn 2004). There also is the black Amami rabbit, Pentalagus furnessi, of Japan. Leporids all have long legs, long ears, and large hind feet, as well as a short and bushy tail. Each foot has five digits (one reduced); rabbits and hares move about on the tips of the digits in a fashion known as digitigrade locomotion.
Full-bodied and egg-shaped, wild rabbits are rather uniform in body proportions and stance. Rabbits tend to range in size from 25 to 50 centimeters (cm) in length (10 to 20 inches), and weigh from 400 to 3,000 grams (14 ounces to 6.6 pounds) (Angerbjörn 2004). Hares tend to be larger in size, ranging up to 6,000 grams (13.2 pounds) and 75 centimeters (30 inches) (Angerbjörn 2004). Hares tend to have longer legs and ears (often with black markings on the fur of their ears) and tend to be faster. The smallest rabbit is the pygmy rabbit, Brachylagus idahoensis, at only 20 cm in length and 0.4 kg (0.9 pound) in weight.
Rabbits are clearly distinguished from hares in that rabbits are altricial, having young that are born blind and hairless. In contrast, hares are generally born with hair and are able to see (precocial).
Rabbits are often known affectionately by the pet name "bunny" or "bunny rabbit," especially when referring to young, domesticated rabbits. Originally, the word for an adult rabbit was "coney" or "cony," while "rabbit" referred to the young animals. More recently, the term "kit" or "kitten" has been used to refer to a young rabbit. A group of young rabbits is referred to as a "kindle." Young hares are called "leverets," and this term is sometimes informally applied to any young rabbit. Male adult rabbits are called "bucks" and female adult rabbits are known as "does." A group of rabbits or hares is often called a "fluffle" in parts of Northern Canada. A group of rabbits is called a "herd."
Rabbits are ground dwellers that live in environments ranging from desert to tropical forest and wetland. Most rabbits are found in forest and shrubs and live underground in burrows or warrens (interconnected maze of burrows); hares are more common to open areas and live in simple nests above the ground. Some rabbits do not build burrows, but live in dense cover or hollows underground. The eastern cottontail, Sylvilagus floridanus, nests in holes, where the young are raised (Angerbjörn 2004).
Rabbits are found in most areas of the world. The natural geographic range of rabbits encompasses the middle latitudes of the Western Hemisphere, and in the Eastern Hemisphere, rabbits are found in Europe, portions of Central and Southern Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Sumatra, and Japan. The European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) has been introduced to many locations around the world, and all breeds of domestic rabbit originate from the European.
Most rabbits live solitary lives and are non-territorial, although the European rabbit is "extremely social," living in a warren (a maze of burrows connected together) with 6 to 12 adults and controlled by a dominant male at the top of a linear dominance hierarchy (Smith 2004).
Rabbits tend to stay in the vicinity of safe hiding places in home ranges or territories and to escape predation by running into burrows and holes (Angerbjörn 2004). Hares, on the other hand, may travel considerable distances and have large home ranges, and tend to escape predators by running away (Angerbjörn 2004). Many species of rabbits and hares have distress calls or thump their hind feet to warm of predators (Angerbjörn 2004). The large, laterally set eyes of rabbits provide a nearly circular field of vision, which allows them to detect motion and avoid predators (Smith 2004).
Rabbits have a keen ability to detect odors and communicate largely through the sense of smell (Smith 2004). Utilizing glands on their cheeks, groin, or chin, they rub pheromones on their fur during grooming and deposit scent marks on rocks or shrubs, or use urine or feces to leave scent markings (Smith 2004). Such odors advertise their reproductive status or mark territories (Smith 2004).
Their diet contains large amounts of cellulose, which is hard to digest. Rabbits solve this problem by coprophagia—ingesting their own droppings (feces), as is common with all lagomorphs. Rabbits are hindgut digesters. This means that most of their digestion takes place in their large intestine and caecum. A soft feces is excreted from the caecum and reingested and then digested in the stomach and small intestine (Smith 2004). They also produce hard round dry pellets, separated in the digestive system by a mechanical separation, and generally consisting of poorer quality particles; these hard pellets are passed quickly (Smith 2004). While literature often states that hard pellets are not eaten, research has shown that lagomorphs also regularly eat hard feces (Smith 2004). Basically, leporids tend to feed on fresh food during the evening and night and excrete the hard and soft feces during the day and reingest them (Smith 2004).
Males and females are promiscuous, not forming lasting pair-bonds, but rather mating with different individuals. Females of the European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus)—and presumably other rabbits—are reflex (or induced) ovulators that require the act of copulation to stimulate ovulation, which occurs about 12 hours after mating (Smith 2004).
Most rabbits produce many offspring each year, although scarcity of resources may cause this potential to be suppressed. A combination of factors allows the high rates of reproduction commonly associated with rabbits. Rabbits generally are able to breed at a young age, and many regularly conceive litters of up to seven young, often doing so four or five times a year due to the fact that a rabbit's gestation period is only about 30 days (Smith 2004). They may mate again soon after giving birth. (Some hares actually mate and are impregnated again prior to giving birth.) As an example, the eastern cottontail, Sylvilagus floridanus, normally has three to five litters per year, but can have up to seven, and the mean litter size is typically two to six individuals, with fifty percent of the juveniles breeding their first year (Angerbjörn 2004).
Newborn rabbits are naked, blind, and helpless at birth (altricial). While the European rabbit is social, for most other rabbits the young do not receive much parental care (Smith 2004). While mothers typically make a nest, sometimes lined with fur from their own belly and plant material, they may nurse their young only one time a day, for a few minutes, although the milk is highly nutritious (Smith 2004). This rare attention to the young may be an adaptation to reduce the likelihood of predators finding the juveniles (Angerbjörn 2004).
Angerbjörn (2004) reports that there are 29 extant species of rabbits in 10 genera: Oryctolagus (1 species, the European rabbit), Sylvilagus (17 species, cottantails), Brachylagus (1 species, pygmy rabbit), Bunolagus (1 species, riverine rabbit), Pentalagus (1 species, Amami rabbit), Pronolagus (3 species, red rock-hares), Caprolagus (1 species, hispid hare), Poelagus (1 species, Bunyoro rabbit), Nesolagas (2 species, striped rabbits), and Romerolagus (1 species, volcano rabbit).
The following is one taxonomy, with a partial listing of the Sylvilagus species:
Rabbit breeds are notably different varieties of domestic rabbit created through selective breeding or natural selection both as pets and as a meat source. Breeds recognized by organizations such as the American Rabbit Breeders' Association (ARBA) may be exhibited and judged in rabbit shows. Breeders attempt to emulate the breed standard by which each breed is judged. The ARBA lists more than 40 different rabbit breeds. They range in size from the 3 pound Dwarf Hotot to the giant German Grey rabbit, which has attained a record weight of 23 pounds and has been imported into North Korea as a new food animal. Colors range from white to brown, grey, and black, with a variety of spotting patterns. The "lop" varieties are notable for their long floppy ears.
Rabbits are an important component of many ecosystems. They also provide humans with economic, nutritional, and recreational benefits and as well play a part in the aesthetic dimensions of diverse cultures.
Rabbits are integral to food chains, as they consume vegetative materials and in turn are eaten by predators, including foxes, raptors (such as eagles), lynxes and other cats, ferrets, and raccoons. Rabbits are a favorite food item of large pythons, such as Burmese pythons and reticulated pythons, both in the wild, as well as pet pythons.
Rabbits are a meat source for humans in Europe, South America, North America, some parts of the Middle East, and China, among other places. Rabbit is still commonly sold in United Kingdom markets, although not frequently in supermarkets. At farmers markets and the famous Borough Market in London, rabbits will be displayed dead and hanging unbutchered in the traditional style next to braces of pheasant and other small game. Rabbit meat was once commonly sold in Sydney, Australia, but quickly became unpopular after the disease myxomatosis was introduced in an attempt to wipe out the feral rabbit population.
When used for food, rabbits are both hunted and bred for meat. Snares or guns, along with dogs, are usually employed when catching wild rabbits for food. In many regions, rabbits are also bred for meat, a practice called cuniculture. Rabbits can then be killed by hitting the back of their heads, a practice from which the term rabbit punch is derived.
Rabbit meat is a source of high quality protein. It can be used in most ways chicken meat is used. Rabbit meat is leaner than beef, pork, and chicken meat. Rabbit products are generally labeled in three ways, the first being fryer. This is a young rabbit between 1½ and 3½ pounds and up to 12 weeks in age. This type of meat is tender and fine grained. The next product is a roaster; they are usually over 4 pounds and over 8 months in age. The flesh is firm and coarse grained and less tender than a fryer. Then there are giblets, which include the liver and heart. One of the most common types of rabbit to be bred for meat is New Zealand white rabbit.
There are several health issues associated with the use of rabbits for meat, one of which is tularemia or rabbit fever. Caused by a bacteria, Francisella tularensis, tularemia can affect both animals and humans and can be contracted by eating rabbit meat that is not cooked well, among other means (UTDH 2001). Another illness is called rabbit starvation, and it is the form of acute malnutrition caused by excess consumption of any lean meat (specifically rabbit) coupled with a lack of other sources of nutrients. It is due most likely to essential amino acid deficiencies in rabbit meat and synthesis limitations in human beings.
Another economic value of rabbits is as a source of fur, such as the pelt of the cottontail rabbit (genus Sylvilagus) sometimes being used for clothing and accessories, such as scarves or hats. Rabbits are very good producers of manure; additionally, their urine, being high in nitrogen, makes lemon trees very productive.
Rabbits also are a source of hunting for sport, with cottontail rabbit particularly popular in North America.
Rabbits also are kept as pets. They typically are kept in hutches—small, wooden, house-like boxes—that protect the rabbits from the environment and predators. Rabbits kept in a home as pets for companionship are referred to as house rabbits. They typically have an indoor pen and a rabbit-safe place to run and exercise, such as a living or family room. Rabbits can be trained to use a litter box and can learn to respond when called. Their diet typically consists of unlimited timothy hay, a small amount of pellets, and fresh vegetables. House rabbits are quiet pets, but are unsuitable for households with small children as they are easily frightened by loud noises and can be harmed by mishandling. Domestic rabbits that are not house rabbits also often serve as companions for their owners, typically living in an easily accessible hutch outside the home. Rabbits as pets can find their companionship with a variety of creatures, including humans, other rabbits, guinea pigs, and sometimes even cats and dogs.
It was commonly believed that pregnancy tests were based on the idea that a rabbit would die if injected with a pregnant woman's urine. This is not true. However, in the 1920s, it was discovered that if the urine contained the hCG, a hormone found in the bodies of pregnant women, the rabbit would display ovarian changes. The rabbit would then be killed to have its ovaries inspected, but the death of the rabbit was not the indicator of the results. Later revisions of the test allowed technicians to inspect the ovaries without killing the animal. A similar test involved injecting Xenopus frogs to make them lay eggs, but animal assays for pregnancy have been made obsolete by faster, cheaper, and simpler modern methods.
Rabbits can provide an aesthetic joy in the wild. They also have been used as objects for paintings, novels, and other art works, and have symbolic value in culture as well. Rabbits are often used as a symbol of fertility or rebirth, and have long been associated with spring and Easter as the Easter Bunny. Rabbits are often used as symbols of playful sexuality, which also relates to the human perception of innocence, as well as its reputation as a prolific breeder.
The rabbit often appears in folklore as the trickster archetype, as he uses his cunning to outwit his enemies. In Chinese literature, rabbits accompany Chang'e on the Moon. Also associated with the Chinese New Year (or Lunar New Year), rabbits are also one of the twelve celestial animals in the Chinese Zodiac for the Chinese calendar. It is interesting to note that the Vietnamese lunar new year replaced the rabbit with a cat in their calendar, as rabbits did not inhabit Vietnam.
In Japanese tradition, rabbits live on the Moon where they make mochi, the popular snack of mashed sticky rice. This comes from interpreting the pattern of dark patches on the moon as a rabbit standing on tiptoes on the left pounding on an usu, a Japanese mortar. A popular culture manifestation of this tradition can be found in the character title character of Sailor Moon, whose name is Usagi Tsukino, a Japanese pun on the words "rabbit of the moon." A Korean myth similar to the Japanese counterpart also presents rabbits living on the moon making rice cakes (Tteok in Korean), although not specified as mochi (rice cakes that have sweet red bean paste fillings).
A Vietnamese mythological story portrays the rabbit of innocence and youthfulness. The Gods of the myth are shown to be hunting and killing rabbits to show off their power. In Aztec mythology, a pantheon of four hundred rabbit gods known as Centzon Totochtin, led by Ometotchtli, or Two Rabbit, represented fertility, parties, and drunkenness. In Ugandan folklore, Shufti the rabbit was the leader of the peoples when the sun God burnt the crops to the ground after the skull of the golden albatross was left out on the plains on the first day of the year. In Native American Ojibwe mythology, Nanabozho, or Great Rabbit, is an important deity related to the creation of the world.
On the Isle of Portland in Dorset, United Kingdom, the rabbit is said to be unlucky and speaking its name can cause upset with older residents. This is thought to date back to early times in the quarrying industry, where piles of extracted stone (not fit for sale) were built into tall rough walls (to save space) directly behind the working quarry face; the rabbit's natural tendency to burrow would weaken these "walls" and cause collapse, often resulting in injuries or even death. The name rabbit is often substituted with words such as “long ears” or “underground mutton,” so as not to have to say the actual word and bring bad luck to oneself. It is said that a public house (on the island) can be cleared of people by calling out the word rabbit and while this was very true in the past, it has gradually become more fable than fact over the past 50 years.
In the African-American slave culture of the Southern United States, the trickster Bre'r Rabbit is thought to have emerged as a conflation of a hare trickster that figures prominently in the storytelling traditions in Central and Southern Africa and rabbit trickster myths of the Native American Cherokee. Many have suggested that Br'er Rabbit represents the black slave who uses his wits to overcome circumstances and to exact revenge on his adversaries, representing the white slave-owners. Though not always successful, his efforts made him a folk hero.
These stories were popularized in printed form in the late nineteenth century by Joel Chandler Harris, who wrote them up using the voice of an old former slave, Uncle Remus, telling stories to the grandson of his former owner. Bre'r Rabbit and his nemesis Bre'r Fox are central protagonists in episodes filled with intrigue, humor, wit, deception, and moral and practical lessons. In one noted example, Bre'r Fox used a tar baby, a human figure made of tar, to capture Br'er Rabbit by playing on Br'er Rabbit's vanity and gullibility to goad him into attacking the fake baby and becoming stuck. Walt Disney made an animated movie of three of the stories in the mid-twentieth century. The stories have fallen out of popularity due to their being deemed racially offensive by some and the Disney Company has declined to release a home video version of the film for the same reason.
Bugs Bunny, a rabbit-like cartoon character, is an animated icon of American popular culture. Created in the 1930s, Bugs Bunny has feuded on screen with such cartoon characters as Elmer Fudd, Bucky Buzzard, Daffy Duck, and Wile E. Coyote. He usually wins these conflicts, but maintains the sympathy of the audience because the antagonist characters repeatedly attempt to bully, cheat or threaten him. In 2002, TV Guide celebrated Bugs Bunny as the No. 1 greatest cartoon character of all time.
Cases in which rabbits have been introduced into an ecosystem that lacks natural predators to control their population provide, by counterexample, a good illustration of the balance and harmony of nature. The most striking case may be the introduction of the European rabbit, Oryctolagus cuniculus, to Australia in 1859. Twenty-four introduced rabbits multiplied to an estimated 750 million rabbits by 1950 (Smith 2004). As a result of their appetites, and the rate at which they breed, uncontrolled wild rabbit populations raise major problems for both agriculture and the environment. In Australia, rabbits have degraded the habitat, caused the loss of many of Australia's unique flora and fauna, and affected the livestock. Rabbits in Australia are considered to be such a pest that land owners are legally obliged to control them.
Efforts to control rabbits in areas to which they have been introduced have included gassing, barriers (fences), shooting, snaring, and ferreting. The disease myxomatosis was used in Australia as a biological control agent and was initially very effective, killing nearly all rabbits in most populations, but subsequently the rabbit populations have developed immunity and have rebounded (Smith 2004). The disease calicivirus also has been used in areas. In Europe, where rabbits are farmed on a large scale, they are protected against myxomatosis and calicivirus with a genetically modified virus. The virus was developed in Spain, and is beneficial to rabbit farmers, but there remains a risk of this virus getting into introduced populations and creating a population boom.
|Extant Lagomorpha species|
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