How green is their valley? Political ecology in France

Abélès, M., Le Défi écologiste (L'Harmattan, 1993), 188pp., 110F., ISBN 2 7384 1820 1

Lipietz, A., Vert espérance. L'avenir de l'écologie politique (La Découverte, 1993), 144pp., 85F., ISBN 2 7071 2207 6

Piétrasanta, Y., L'Echarpe verte. Combats pour une nouvelle écologie (Albin Michel, 1993), 301pp., 98F., ISBN 2 226 06645 4     

Byron to D'Annunzio: from liberalism to fascism in national poetry, 1815–1920

ABSTRACT. From Byron's death at Missolonghi in 1824 to D'Annunzio's capture of Fiume for Italy in 1919, the nationalism of universal liberalism and independence struggles changed, in literature as in politics, to cruel dictatorial fascism. Byron was followed by a series of idealistic fighter‐poets and poet‐martyrs for national freedom, but international tensions culminating in World War I exposed fully the intolerant, brutal side of nationalism. D'Annunzio, like Byron, both a major poet and charismatic war leader, was a key figure in transforming nineteenth‐century democratic nationalism into twentieth‐century dictatorial fascism. The poet's ‘lyrical dictatorship’ at Fiume (1919–20) inspired Mussolini's seizure of power in 1922, with far‐reaching political consequences. The poet became the dangerous example of a Nietzschean Übermensch, above common morality, predatory and morally irresponsible. This article shows how the meaning of nationalism was partly determined and transformed by poets, illustrating their role as ‘unacknowledged legislators of the world’.     

Provocation Versus Performativity: Launching la littérature coloniale française in 1909

In 1909, the colonial newspaper La Dépêche coloniale launched an enquiry entitled La Littérature coloniale de la France comparée à celle d'Angleterre. It was through this initiative that the idea of a ‘French colonial literature’ first caught wider public attention and generated polemics in literary circles and beyond. The aim of this article is to study the aesthetic and ideological agendas driving the enquiry and the polarised reactions it produced, from a sociological perspective inspired by Pierre Bourdieu's work. The author argues that La Dépêche coloniale's questionnaire encoded a set of assumptions designed to guide the answers and impose a vision of colonial literature, rather than elicit debate. One of the respondents, Pierre Mille (1864–1941), preferred provocation: in a piece published in a high-circulation daily Le Temps ahead of the results of La Dépêche coloniale's enquiry, he proclaimed Rudyard Kipling to be the model colonial author, only to conclude that French colonial literature was inexistent. The ensuing debate marked a watershed in the conceptualisation and the institutionalisation of French colonial literature, by setting in motion a process that would be brought to completion in the interwar period.     

Maps,Painting and Lies Portraying Napoleon's Battlefields in Northern Italy

A comparison of Giuseppe Bagetti's landscape sketches, watercolours, oil paintings and engravings with contemporary maps and the existing landscape reveals that in the creation of Bagetti's landscapes, narrative played a role that differed in cartographic and artistic representations. The comparison also demonstrates that his images were powerful constructions that were more successful in reflecting a narrative of glorious conquest than was possible through cartography. This paper offers a critical examination of Bagetti's representations of Napoleon's northern Italian campaign, which he sketched and painted between 1802 and 1809. Bagetti's paintings were neither pacifist nor an expression of Piedmontese patriotism but instead were inspired by, and constructed according to, a narrative about the conquest that reflected the views of the French authorities. The narrative found expression in formal written instructions from the central cartographical office in the Dépôt de la guerre, Paris, in verbal and written instructions from Bagetti's immediate superior, Jean François Martinel, and in letters personally addressed to Bagetti from the officer commanding the Dépôt. It is clear from a careful reading of the correspondence and from a comparison of Bagetti's paintings with both the present landscape and maps made at the time that Bagetti's disputes with his supervisors revolved around protecting his artistic integrity and reputation rather than resisting the authority of a foreign regime.     

Scraps of English Folklore,IV

Mythes et Légendes D'Australie : Études D'Éthnographie et de Sociologie. Arnold van Gennep. Paris, E. Guilmoto, N.D. [Preface Dated November, 1905.] By. E. Sidney Hartland.

The Cult of the Heavenly Twins. By J. Rendel Harris, M.A., D. Litt. (Dubl). Cambridge University Press. 1906. By R H. Connolly.

The Jâtaka, or Stories of the Buddha's Former Births. Vol V. Translated By H. T. Francis, M.A. Cambridge: 1905. By W. Crooks.

Simla Village Tales, or Folk-Tales from the Himalayas. By A. E. Dracott. London: John Murray, 1906. By W. Crooks.

The Childhood of Fiction. By J. A. MacCulloch. London: John Murray, 1905. By W. Crooks.

Recueil De Memoires et de Textes Publiés en L'honneur du XIV Congrès des Orientalistes. Pierre Fontana, Algiers, 1905. By J. B. Andrews.     

Two dramatic treatments of the ‘Déirdre’ legend: a case study in Irish betrayal

During the heightened cultural activity of the Celtic Revival, the moral ownership and utilisation of Ireland's literary remains became an important cultural issue. At the same time, many nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Irish writers were concerned to ‘retell’ ancient stories in ways which explored their relevance to the modern world. One of the most retold tales from the period was the story of Déirdre and the Sons of Usnach. The story of Déirdre broaches one of the most ubiquitous of human experiences – betrayal – and it does so in relation to both political and interpersonal behaviour. This essay examines two dramatic treatments from the early years of the century: W.B. Yeats's one-act Deirdre (1907) and J.M. Synge's Deirdre of the Sorrows, unfinished at the time of his death and finally published in 1910. This essay looks to account for the particular ways in which each author inflects the legend in terms of their own concerns, and in particular how both Yeats and Synge engaged with a discourse of betrayal that – although always significant in Irish cultural history – was moving to a position of centrality in Irish national life in the years leading up to the revolutionary period.     

Reforming the Italian constitution

Abstract

The third parliamentary Bicameral Committee established to reform the Italian constitution conducted its business from January to June 1997. The results have been controversial and have attracted a great deal of criticism. The Committee's recommendations are subject to amendment by parliament and must then be approved (or rejected) in a general referendum. The Committee ended up recommending what is essentially a French‐style semi‐presidential system. It is accompanied by an electoral law that offers a premium of an additional 20 per cent of the seats to the majority, 55 per cent to be elected in simple majority electoral districts, and 25 per cent to be distributed nationally on a proportional basis. PDS leader Massimo D'Alema, chair of the Committee, has claimed victory since the Commitee produced a positive outcome, yet in fact he has certainly lost since he preferred a strong ‘premier’ model and a majority runoff electoral system. The Committee demonstrated that small parties, especially the former Christian Democrats, can exert influence over larger ones, that the parries retain firm control over the process of institutional reform, that the three major party leaders — D'Alema, Berlusconi and Fini — preferred their own reciprocal legitimization over the attainment of any major reform, and that Italy's political‐institutional transition is not yet over. Indeed, the proposed reforms are likely to prove neither sufficient nor adequate.     

Dünya Giizeli: Cavafy's folkloric Odalisque

Abstract

Cavafy's overlooked poem ‘Dünya Güzeli’ reflects the seminal influence of folklore on the early writings of the poet, an influence which significantly shaped the contours of the Cavafy canon. The poem is a sophisticated attempt to synthesize the flourishing discourse of λαoγρα??α with the fashionable literary and painterly trends of Orientalism. It thus warrants a fuller appreciation as a complex text that documents Cavafy's emerging craft and anticipates his poetic hybridisation of East and West which finds its fullest expression in Cavafy's Orientalising Hellenism.     

Rehabilitating the Réfractaires

Senneville, G. de, La Défense, le pouvoir et l'argent (Albin Michel, 1992), 299pp., 110F., ISBN 2 226 05672 6

Jazouli, A., Les Années banlieue (Seuil, 1992), 220pp., 89F., ISBN 2 02 013185 4     

Tzvetan Todorov,the ‘Responsible Intellectual’, and the new world disorder

This article assesses Tzvetan Todorov's intellectual evolution from structuralist literary critic to ‘responsible intellectual’. It contrasts his notion of the responsibility of the intellectual with traditional definitions of commitment, and analyses why for Todorov figures such as Camus, Aron, and Tillion are exemplary, whereas Communist intellectuals are not. The article examines Todorov's positions vis‐à‐vis current crises and controversies, including the bombing of Kosovo, the validity of the ICT, and America's war in Iraq. Finally, it discusses Todorov's ideas for a stronger and more independent Europe as articulated in his most recent book, Le Nouveau Désordre mondial.     

Présidente: le grand défi. Femmes,politique et médias

Mathieu, J.‐L., La Défense de l'environnement en France (Presses Universitaires de France, 1994), 128pp., 45F., ISBN 2 1304 5939 0

Prendiville, B., Environmental Politics in France (Westview, 1994), xiii‐190pp., $27.00, ISBN 0 8133 8822 8. Translated from L'Ecologie, la politique autrement? Culture, sociologie et histoire des écologistes (L'Harmattan, 1993), 200pp., 110F., ISBN 2 7384 1864 3     

Defences of classical learning in St. Augustine's De Doctrina Christiana and Erasmus's Antibarbari

New information technology can be an invaluable aid to research in the history of ideas provided it is built on scientific foundations. This article discusses the case of Diderot and D'Alembert's Encyclopédie and analyses its use of earlier dictionaries (the Dictionnaire de Trévoux, Chambers's Cyclopaedia and Moréri's dictionary). It also shows how neglect of existing research in the history of ideas and ignorance of how these eighteenth-century European publications were elaborated, combined with inappropriate use of software for detecting plagiarism, have led to totally mistaken findings. These findings, widely publicised thanks to the Internet, constitute a real danger for future research. The article concludes that the intellectual community urgently needs to invest seriously in the digital humanities in order to safeguard future research.     

The Italian political system and détente (1963 - 1981)

This article examines the impact of détente on the Italian political system, linking together internal and international dynamics in both the political and the economic spheres. Relying on various new archival sources, it analyzes the conflicting effects on Italy of both the relaxing of Cold War tension and bipolarism, and the 'bipolar' strategy to reassert US hegemony: the failure of the reformist design of the center?-?left of the 1960s; the 'strategy of attention' in 1969?-?71 and its sudden halt; the building of a 'devaluation model' after the end of Bretton Woods, and the consequent shift from Kissinger's neo-centrism to 'national solidarity'. Détente favoured a crisis of the centrist pattern of Italian politics but at the same time the 'bipolar' features of both the US and the Soviet 'strategies of détente' led to a decline in US hegemony, relaunching the DC's centrality and its ability to manage external constraints. Reaganism was to recast US hegemony on a new basis.     

What France?

Cordellier, S. [et al.], L'Etat de la France 1992 (La Découverte, 1992), 635pp., 149F., ISBN 2 7071 2100 2

Kimmel, A., Vous avez dit France? Pour comprendre la société française actuelle (Hachette/CIEP, 1992), 191pp., 106F., ISBN 2 01 018890 X     

BRATSK–PIONEERING CITY IN THE TAIGA

Impressions of a visit to Bratsk on a field excursion with 25 students of the Geography Institute of the University of Düsseldorf in May 1986. It was the author's third visit to Bratsk, enabling him to make comparisons over time. He identifies features of the Bratsk urban scene that strike him as evidence of a pioneering city under Soviet conditions. (For another impression of Bratsk, see Paul E. Lydolph, “A visit to Bratsk,” Soviet Geography, November 1977.)     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Paul Gregory, Socialist and Nonsocialist Industrialization Patterns: A Comparative Appraisal. Celso Furtado, Obstacles to Development in Latin America. Eugene Staley, Planning Occupational Education and Training for Development. Albert Meister, Participation, Animation et Développement; a partir d'une étude en Argentine. Katherine Marshall Johnson, Urban Government for the Prefecture of Casablanca. Enver Khoury, The Patterns of Mass Movements in Arab Revolutionary-Progressive States.     

Charms

ATTIC TRAGEDY IN THE LIGHT OF THEATRICAL HISTORY. By EGILL ROSTRUP, Ph.D. Trans, by INGEBORG ANDERSEN. [Constable, 1923]. Copenhagen; Gyldendalske Boghandel, 1923. pp. 166. 7s. 6d. n. Reviewed by W. R. Halliday.

LA PASSION D'AL-HO SAYN-IBN-MANSOUR AL-HALLAJ, Martyr mystique de l'Islam. Par LOUIS MASSIGNON. Paris : PAUL GEUNTHNER. 1922. Vols i. and ii. Pp. 942. Reviewed by H. A. Rose.

JOHANNES PAULI, SCHIMPF UND ERNST, herausgegeben von JOHANNES BOLTE. Zweiter Teil, Berlin : Herbert Stubenrauch Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1924. Pp. 56b. 25 gold mks. Reviewed by M. Gaster.     

ON THE ROAD TO PARADIS: NEW INSIGHTS FROM AMS DATES AND STABLE ISOTOPES AT LE DÉHUS,GUERNSEY, AND THE CHANNEL ISLANDS MIDDLE NEOLITHIC

We here report the results of a programme of AMS dating and stable isotope analysis on human remains from the chambered tomb of Le Déhus, Guernsey. An early use‐phase in the range 4100–3900 BC is indicated, confirming the monument's attribution to the Middle Neolithic II as defined in western France. Late Neolithic burial activity is also identified. Stable carbon isotope measurements provide little or no evidence for the consumption of marine foods, although stable nitrogen isotope values are unusually high. These results are situated in the wider context of Neolithic mortuary monuments of the Channel Islands and Normandy.     

HONOURING ‘ONE OF THE GREAT FORCES OF THE DOMINION’*: THE CANADIAN PUBLIC MOURNS McGEE

Urban publics - the self-conscious interest groups that emerged to characterize much of the social and political climate of city life - claimed attention, contended for influence, and celebrated their values through performances of a wide variety of rituals in urban public space. In this paper our attention will focus on one dramatic and important episode expressing the nature of public ritual in Confederation-era Canada: the memorialization of Thomas D'Arcy McGee, assassinated in Ottawa, and buried in Montreal on Easter Monday, April 13, 1868. In paying homage to McGee, urban publics in Montreal and across the Dominion seized an almost unparalleled opportunity to bear witness to their images of themselves, in the very particular circumstance of an intensely felt moment in time. The nature of this ritual allows us to explore one significant aspect of a social geography of the city that is otherwise not easily recoverable and often forgotten: the evanescent but powerfully signifying geography of behaviour in public space. Les publics urbains - ces associations gênées qui ont émergé pour dépeindre I'essentiel du climat politique et social de la vie en ville - se faisaient remarquer, préten-daient à I'influence, et célébraient leurs valeurs à travers des performances de rites d'une grande variété dans un espace urbain public. Dans cette dissertation nous exa-minerons surtout un épisode dramatique et important qui exprime la nature du rituel public dans le Canada de I'ère de la Confédération: La commémoration de Thomas D'Arcy McGee, assassinéà Ottawa, et enterréà Montréal le 13 Avril 1868 - le lundi de Pâques. En rendant hommage à McGee, les publics urbains à Montréal et à travers la Confédération profitèrent d'une occasion sans pareil pour porter témoignage des images qu'ils se faisaient d'eux-mêmes, dans la circonstance très particulière d'un moment perçu très intensément dans le temps. Le caractère de ce rituel nous permet d'explorer un aspect important d'une géographie sociale de la ville qui, autrement, n'est pas facilement récupérable et sou-vent oubliée: La géographie éphéèere, et pourtant puis-samment significative, du comportement dans I'espace public.     

L'action de Józef Retinger en faveur de l'idée européenne 1940–46

Considéré comme un “Père de l'Europe” par les historiens actuels, Józef Retinger reste un personnage mystérieux et insolite, souvent décrit dans la littérature existante comme un homme de l'ombre, une éminence grise ayant ses entrées partout. Le présent article désire, au delà des accusations que certains portent sur son action, lever en partie le voile à propos des motivations de l'action européenne de Retinger, marquée par une forte continuité depuis la fin de la première guerre mondiale. Le moment le plus fécond de son activité politique en faveur de l'idée européenne se situe pendant la seconde guerre mondiale, lorsqu'il était le plus proche conseiller du général Sikorski, premier ministre du gouvernement polonais en exil. Déplorant la scission de l'Europe en deux causée par l'antagonisme entre les grandes puissances, il fonde avec le Belge Van Zeeland, en 1946, la Ligue Européenne de Coopération Economique.