Healing Charms in Use in England and Wales 1700–1950

The collection and analysis of Anglo-Saxon and early medieval healing charms has long generated an active interest in their content and application. However, despite the quite extensive ethnographic evidence concerning the content of healing charms in use from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, there has been no attempt, so far, to make an extensive collection of charm formulae from this period. This paper seeks to begin that task. It is hoped that this inventory, not only serves to highlight an important aspect of the English and Welsh tradition of folk medicine, but also serves to indicate the long history of that tradition. An examination of these charms also provides an illustration of the importance of the written word in the transmission of popular knowledge.     

Food markets and shops in Manchester 1770–1870

It is one of the minor oddities of the recent “boom” in urban history that we know so little about so central an activity as how the people living in nineteenth-century towns bought their food. Of course, there are always a great number of subjects that we would like to know that little bit more about, but after all, the purchase of food did represent a half to two-thirds of working-class budgets for much of the nineteenth century. And we are a nation of shopkeepers! Yet until recently, the subject of food distribution within nineteenth-century industrial towns was a long way down the agenda of research topics. ^[2] We would like to think that this was not through lack of interest but was due to the authoritative nature of one major work on the subject, J. B. Jeffery's Retail trading in Britain, 1850–1950.     

French cosmographers and navigators in England and Scotland, 1542–1547

The term “social geography” was used by French sociologists of the Le Play School by 1884 and, perhaps independently, by the geographer Elisee Reclus in 1895. Neither Le Play's sociology nor Reclus’ geography was very influential in university circles, but they were adopted and modified by Patrick Geddes in Great Britain. The term “social geography” has had some popularity in Britain since 1930, but Americans did not readily adopt it, perhaps because their “cultural geography” had similar content. In the postwar period, the term has gained currency in Europe and North America, and the present‐day social geographers often espouse views that are reminiscent of; Reclus and the Le Playists even though the latter are little read today. This paper is an historical sketch of French and English usage, and it does not seek to define social geography or to suggest guidelines for future work.     

Changes in Japanese strategy in 1939–1940 and the internationalization of the Sino–Japanese War

In the early stage of the Sino–Japanese War, Japan was trying hard to limit the conflict to within a scope where it could be resolved bilaterally between only the two nations involved. However, her actual behavior was in stark contrast to her wishful desire to be at peace with the United States, pushing the latter step by step instead in the direction of aiding China and thwarting Japan. Caught in a dilemma created as the United States abrogated the American–Japanese Treaty of Commerce and Navigation, and faced with the changes in the European situation, Japan’s policy makers were eventually pushed by their obsession with the “New East Asian Order” and by their yearning for the “Extended New East Asian Order” which was to include Southeast Asia, deciding to steer the Sino–Japanese War in the direction of “international resolution,” which was just an alternate route to the same goal sought by China. Subsequently, not only did Japan refuse to withdraw from China, she actually took one step further in an expansion southwards, trying to kill several birds with one stone. The war thus spilled over from China to encompass a much greater area. In this process, Japan’s diplomatic corps was often several steps ahead of the military, reflecting the carefully considered background in Japanese policymaking.     

Isabella Bird Bishop (1831–1904) and Her Travels in Persia and Kurdistan in 1890

Isabella Bird Bishop was one of the remarkable Victorian women who traveled independently in both Persia and the neighboring countries of the Ottoman Empire. She came to Persia as a very experienced and respected travel writer who had journeyed alone and adventurously in the Americas, Australia, Japan and Malaya. Her travels in Persia in 1890 were possibly the hardest and most challenging of her life. She meticulously observed, recorded and finally published all that she saw—the terrain, meetings with the Qajar court, Bakhtiari and Kurdish tribal chiefs and the families, and the daily life and customs of the people.     

Remeasuring and rethinking social cleavages in Russia: Continuity and changes in electoral geography 1917–1995

This paper examines the role of social cleavages in creating spatial associations between major pre-Revolutionary and post-Soviet political parties at the guberniya-level statistical aggregates. The paper begins with a theoretical discussion of social cleavages and a literature review of cleavage theory research applied to various Russian elections. The analysis of spatial associations between the pre-Revolutionary/post-Soviet parties involved elaborating a new measurement framework, creating a spatial database using GIS, transformation of thematic social–economic–geographic attributes, calculating the strength of the linear relationship among regional spatial units and utilizing probit statistical models. This research empirically supports the hypothesis that contemporary Russian parties are expressions of rediscovered cleavages as well as of conflicts engendered by the Tsarist and Soviet and post-Soviet periods of development. It appeared that the constituent assembly election of 1917 and parliamentary election of 1995 tend to be “maintaining” elections for the liberals. The situation appeared different for the communitarian parties. A critical realignment – significant changes in the left electorate and a split in this electorate did occur. The 1995 election results indicate that only parties with developed networks and local and regional organizations faired well in the election and that nationalization of Russian political life was still weak in 1995.     

Personalities and Institutions in Americanist Archaeology, 1850–1950

Between 1850 and 1950 Americanist archaeology evolved from an inchoate blend of antiquarianism, literature, and field digging undertaken by untrained but enthusiastic amateurs into an increasingly disciplined and institutionalized field of inquiry. While personal speculation and style became less pronounced, institutional (university/museum) support provided financial grounds for long-term research and teaching agendas. At the same time, while institutionalized archaeology certainly did not eliminate strong personality differences and professional disagreements, it did provide channels within which to confront and resolve them. The overlapping generations of Ephraim Squier, Alfred Maudslay, and Byron Cummings clearly demonstrate this trajectory of professionalization.     

Ideology and British expansion in Bengal, 1757–72

Accounts of the early stages of British expansion in India have tended to emphasise its unplanned and opportunistic character; they have often seen the motors of expansion lying within unstable Indian states or in the need of the East India Company to meet the costs of fast-growing armies. Reviewing the evidence from Bengal between 1757 and 1772, this article argues that a distinctive kind of frontier patriotism generated in the East India Company's Indian settlements constituted an important ideological context for its conquests. Company servants routinely derided Indian rulers as Asiatic despots, or ‘faithless’ Muslims. Their sense of Indian rulers as degenerate and corrupt both fuelled military aggression, and also made some Britons suppose that the East India Company could effect rapid reforms in Bengal, drawing out previously untapped surpluses from the agrarian base. At the same time, the need to forge alliances within the old regime encouraged some Company officials to adopt a more conciliatory tone, and to imagine that viable systems of political order existed within the traditions of the Mughal empire.     

Transactions,space and Otherness: borders and boundaries in Palestine–Israel

In the context of conflict narratives, boundaries, borders and borderlanders serve as facilitators or inhibitors of peace. In Palestine–Israel, demarcation is enacted through the separation wall, the Green Line and the smart fence along the Gaza Strip. To the established boundaries, informal demarcations are added, running through the land and communities physically, in the case of Firing Zone 918, and ideologically through Othering and transactions in the zones of transition. This article considers Othering and the negotiation of space in the context of (un)official boundaries in the West Bank and deconstructs the intersection of culture, politics and place, as well as the boundary practices enacted by the state, community and the individual. First, the article distinguishes between the types of borders and boundaries in the West Bank, before considering the manner in which Otherness is practiced in the context of movement and the separation wall, as residents negotiate the transition through and around the barrier. From Othering in the transition zone, the study questions how far the experiences of Palestinians and Israelis correlate with the broader border/boundary discourse, the extent to which negative reciprocity is practiced at the checkpoints, and whether subliminal boundaries and (re)naming influences stability in the region.     

The association between maternal employment and child survival in India, 1998–99 and 2005–06

While many studies contend that a mother's economic activity may generate positive outcomes for both mother and children, empirical results from less developed countries actually indicate higher mortality rates among children of working mothers. This article examines the association between maternal employment and child survival using India's National Family Health Survey. Using propensity score matching, the study compares working with matched nonworking mothers in child's risk of death. To address the heterogeneous nature of working mothers, the employment-survival relationship is analysed across various occupational categories. A supplementary analysis examines gaps between children of working and nonworking mothers in nutritional status and low birth weight (LBW). Our results show that high risk of mortality and low nutritional status are more pronounced among children of mothers working in low-status occupations. The results indicate insignificant differences in LBW, a finding that favours the explanation that the mortality disadvantage of children of working mothers emerges primarily after birth most likely because of inadequate childcare. The article discusses these findings in relation to various potential mechanisms mediating the negative association between maternal employment and child survival.     

Decolonisation and Wildlife Conservation in Kenya, 1958–68

Several of Kenya's wildlife conservation areas were established from the late 1950s through efforts by the international conservationist lobby to decolonise African conservation programmes initiated by colonial administrations from the late nineteenth century. The prospect of African independence induced conservationists to look for ways to give Africans a stake in their own wildlife, with a view to securing the future of conservation under independent governments. Kenya's internal politics shaped these efforts on the ground, giving birth to community-controlled wildlife conservation projects such as game reserves. Although the government of independent Kenya had started to transform the conservation programme in favour of state-controlled wildlife areas by the late 1960s, the legacy of the community game reserves persists today. This paper analyses the impact of the internal politics of decolonisation on Kenya's wildlife conservation programme.     

Marx–Lenin–Rotten–Strummer: British Marxism and youth culture in the 1970s

This article uses the debate on youth culture that took place in the pages of Marxism Today (1973–75) to explore the ways by which cultural changes and identity politics began to challenge, complement and redefine the British left. The debate revealed much about the tensions that ultimately pulled the Communist Party of Great Britain apart. But it also uncovered faultlines that had ramifications for the left more generally and, perhaps, the wider British polity.