76 Culture TheEconomistFebruary12th 2022
RadicalhistorySmallvoices,
bigideas
O
ncetheyspread,thequietwordsofti
ny groups can trigger big changes.
Stepping off from that commonplace, Gal
Beckerman asks two intriguing questions.
“Radical change”, he notes, “doesn’t start
with yelling.” How, then, do those who
challenge conventional wisdom get them
selves heard? And how do they find and
communicate with each other? Radicals,
by nature, are a minority. To start an ava
lanche, a rock needs neighbours to budge.
Rather than answering directly, Mr
Beckerman offers short portraits of dissi
dents and naysayers in history. He focuses
on the technical and political drawbacks
they faced in attempting to stay connected
and spread the word. Some succeeded.
Others failed. His gallery ranges over poli
tics, culture and science. He has talked to
many of his presentday outsiders himself.
Political portraits include Feargus
O’Connor, an early19thcentury Irish radi
cal, newspaperman and leader of the
Chartist push for universal male suffrage
in Britain; NNamdi Azikiwe, editor in the
1930s of a west African anticolonialist
newspaper harried by the British, who
became independent Nigeria’s first presi
dent; and Natalia Gorbanevskaya, a
pioneer in the 1960s of samizdat, the un
derground press that helped undermine
the Soviet Union. His webera examples
include Wael Ghonim, a Google employee
in Egypt, whose net campaign against po
lice brutality in 2011 led to the Tahrir Square
movement for democracy.
What the radical pamphlet was for poli
tics, aesthetic manifestos were for modern
art. In the early 1900s Filippo Marinetti, an
Italian Futurist, poured them out. Mr Beck
erman concentrates on his fellow Futurist,
Mina Loy. Fed up with the posing and
bullying of male colleagues, she left them
to write a manifesto for feminism. A nice
echo, eight decades on, is the feminist
punk scene of the 1990s that was sparked
by a homemade “zine”, Riot Grrrl.
Although Bay Area counterculture and
Silicon Valley are often treated as cultural
poles, Mr Beckerman unites them in an af
fectionate portrait of John Coate, godfather
of social media, who started a chat network
on a primitive computer from a boathouse
in Sausalito in 1985. Among the failures he
cites is Nicolas Peiresc, a 17thcentury sciThe Quiet Before.By Gal Beckerman.
Crown; 352 pages; $28.99.
Bantam Press; £20GumshoesofyoreAvenger in a
raincoat
I
n“crimeandpunishment”Raskolni
kov, the murderer and antihero, is tor
mented by a detective. Porfiry Petrovich
seems to know Raskolnikov is guilty from
the start and keeps reappearing in the hope
of provoking a confession. Richard Levin
son and William Link, two American
screenwriters, had studied Fyodor Dos
toyevsky’s great novel at university and
drew on the figure of Porfiry when creating
an investigator of their own.
The lasting success of the character of
Columbo and the television series of that
name owed much to Peter Falk (pictured),
the actor who played the main part.
Although others had taken brief turns in
the role, Falk, with his shabby raincoat and
cigar, became a tvgreat with his portrayal.
(He won four Emmys and a Golden Globe
for his efforts.) The show attracted other
rising stars, too. An early episode was di
rected by a promising young auteur named
Steven Spielberg, with a script by Steven
Bochco—who later developed “Hill Street
Blues”, “laLaw” and “nypdBlue”.
“Columbo” was a hit in spite of its un
usual format: in nearly all the episodes, the
identity of the murderer is known from the
start. The viewer sees an apparently perfectcrimebeingcommitted.Columboappears
after 15 or 20 minutes,andthereafterthe
mysteryliesinhowhewillcatchthekiller.
The detective initially seems absent
minded or bumbling—an apparent guile
lessness that leads the villain to under
estimate him. But before long he spots a
small inconsistency, then another and
another. He worries away at the crime like
a terrier shaking a rat.
The series is set around Los Angeles and
the murderer is often a celebrity of some
kind. Columbo exploits the baddies’ fame
to undermine their defences, sometimes
by claiming his wife is one of their biggest
fans. But the suspects quickly become ex
asperated by the detective’s persistence, as
Columbo repeatedly turns up to inquire
about “just one more thing”.
The culprit may attempt to evade
Columbo’s suspicions by taking further
action to cover up the original crime, such
as killing a witness or trying to incriminate
someone else. This second offence usually
proves their downfall. The finale frequent
ly involves Columbo playing a trick on the
murderer that forces them to confess or re
veal their guilt. Sometimes the viewer may
wonder whether Columbo’s tactics—and
some of the vital evidence—would actually
stand up in court. But such concerns are
quickly forgotten: this is comfortfood
storytelling rather than gritty realism.
The episodes released in the 1970s are
by far the best and feature a variety of guest
murderers including Dick Van Dyke, Leon
ard Nimoy, Janet Leigh and Johnny Cash.
When the series was revived in 1989, the
episodes were longer, more meandering
and relied heavily on Falk’s charm. Today
the original show offers a welcome dose of
familiarity to veteran viewers and reassur
ance all round, like the comedies of P.G.
Wodehouse or the mysteries of Agatha
Christie. No matter how ingenious or po
werful the villains mightbe,it insists, a
little scruffy guy like Columbowill always
be there to catch them out. n“Columbo” demonstrates the benefits
of asking just one more thinghome
entertainment