Science,industry and the colonial state: a shift from a German- to a Dutch-controlled cinchona and quinine cartel (1880–1920)

This study shows how control over delicately balanced supply chains from raw material to the final product shifted from one national industry to another. By 1920, Dutch cinchona producers and quinine manufacturers dominated the international cartel that controlled the worldwide production and distribution of quinine (an antimalarial), quinine sulphate (a semi-finished product) and cinchona (the raw material). Twenty years earlier, however, this cartel had been controlled by the German pharmaceutical industry. How can we understand the shift of power in the world’s first pharmaceutical cartel? We argue that the internal shift of power was largely the result of the following three factors: a global industrial laboratory revolution; the vertical integration of a transoceanic network of cinchona producers, quinine manufacturers, (colonial) scientists and state officials across the Dutch Empire; and Germany’s economic isolation during the First World War.     

Painted Textiles in a Buddhist Temple

Abstract

This article investigates women's dye practice at a time when natural dyes were deemed obsolete, or when created by men working from an artisanal studio, transformed into idealized labour more consistent with the ideals of the Arts and Crafts Movement. The objective of this article is to assess the extent to which gender plays a role in the historical and contemporary determination of the aesthetic, cultural, and social value of natural dyeing. Another goal is to move away from the term 'craft work' with its acquired pejorative context and locate dyeing within 'artisanal practice' as an occupational choice. Current studies on women's participation in the Arts and Crafts Movement raise questions as to the distinction between amateur and professional status among practitioners in many media. The only dyer deemed to be 'professional' was William Morris; yet in north-west Ireland, the Scottish Highlands, and England's Lake District, female dyers contemporary with Morris also made important contributions. That their production of colour originated from the separate sphere of home need not mitigate against professional status nor historical value, but there is a lingering perception that men such as Morris possessed inherently superior abilities. The focus of this article is also to analyze the mythology of natural dyeing which has limited the opportunity to recognize female dyers whose practice aligned with the utopian ideals of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Three examples are discussed here against a brief summary of centuries of women's involvement in the business and trade of dyeing. The Arts and Crafts dyers discussed in this paper are also compared to Morris. Women's abilities as colourists were as worthy of professional designation as were those same skills when they emanated from men who comprised the Movement's elite.     

David's 'Hatred' for the Lame and the Blind (2 Sam. 5.8A)

Abstract

Scholars have often dismissed the rendering of veyigga' batsinnor (2 Sam. 5.8) as 'get up the water shaft' or 'get up the water canal' on the grounds that it has no natural connection with David's expressed 'hatred' for 'the lame and the blind'. This article argues that such a dismissal is perhaps hasty, and that David's reference to the physically afflicted alludes to the custom of their gathering at pools and springs (which were widely held to possess healing powers).     

The aceramic production of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Betula pubescens</Emphasis> (downy birch) bark tar using simple raised structures. A viable Neanderthal technique?

Following on from our previous research into the prehistoric aceramic distillation and production of birch bark tar, this series of exploratory experiments investigated the use of raised structures within a fire. These field-based experiments were conducted using sand, gravel, wood fuel, and bark from Betula pubescens (downy birch). The structures that were created were simple raised sand mounds, which reflected known Neanderthal combustion surfaces from the Middle Palaeolithic. The bulk of the experiments were recorded throughout using a thermocouple to provide temperature readings from the base of the bark pyrolysis chamber. The experiments proved successful at producing birch bark tar and several containers were used to catch the tar for later analysis. Based on the results, the authors contend that not only could Neanderthals control fire but that regular birch bark tar production by Neanderthals was most likely a result of specific chaînes opératoires in order to provide the necessary control and outcomes.     

Natural Right and The Origin of Species

Abstract

This article concerns the relationship between Abraham Lincoln's natural right argument against slavery and contemporary Darwinian biology. It is frequently supposed that the latter undermines the former. I argue to the contrary that natural right has been rediscovered independently by modern Darwinian biology, and that it largely confirms Lincoln's understanding of human nature.     

The Literature of English Post-Medieval Pottery

Abstract

A modern construction management technique—the Gantt chart—is used to examine how builders organized the erection of four surviving farm buildings for Sir Daniel Fleming of Rydal Hall between 1659 and 1688. His accounts allow detailed bar charts to be drawn to show the number of men employed on each trade and the duration and succession of their work.

As considerable savings could accrue from selling oak bark for tanning, tree felling was delayed until late Spring to ease bark peeling. Thus the use of unseasoned timber was encouraged, for barns had to be weather-tight by harvest time. These dual constraints imposed on builders a need to schedule their work carefully, however informally, if they were to meet their target dates.     

Gregor Mendel: the genius of genetics

Abstract

'The Genius of Genetics', an exhibition celebrating the work of Gregor Mendel through science and art, opened in Brno on 21 May 2002 at the Abbey of St Thomas, where Mendel lived from 1843, becoming its Abbot in 1867. The exhibition is intended to be the first step in a larger programme to reestablish the abbey as a centre for life sciences, and its opening was accompanied by a major international conference on 'Genetics after the Genome'. This essay traces Mendel's intellectual development through his education in Vienna, his meteorological and astronomical studies, and his seminal experiments in plant breeding which at the time went unnoticed but fifty years later formed the foundations of classical genetics. The question is asked how it was that Mendel, an Augustinian friar in an out of the way abbey in Moravia, was able to make his momentous discovery. It is suggested that his was the most singular career of any of the great scientific innovators, and that his genius derived from his commitment to natural philosophy in the old sense, from his application of experimental techniques from the mathematical sciences to subject matter situated firmly in the natural sciences.     

Archaeological Identification of Stone Fish-weirs Mentioned to Freycinet in 1819 on the Island of Guam

ABSTRACT

In 1819, when the French corvette L'Uranie anchored off Apra Harbor in the Micronesian Island of Guam, its captain Louis Claude de Freycinet was told of the former use there of stone fish-weirs. This reference has long puzzled archaeologists and historians who assumed Freycinet was misinformed or such features were no longer in existence, given the frequent typhoons that affect the region. Recent archaeological surveys of Apra Harbor tidal flats, however, have identified low-walled coral enclosures at the mouth of two freshwater estuaries. At first. these were hypothesised to have been built to foster shellfish production under the Japanese occupation of Guam during World War II. However, controlled excavation of small sites adjacent to one of these complexes yielded late Latte Period pottery and wood charcoal radiocarbon dated to AD 1645–1725. This historic timeframe is within the plausible memory of the oldest generation of Freycinet's informants. These archaeological findings, combined with interviews, research of historical accounts and ethnographic comparisons of fishing practices in Micronesia and further afield suggest that Chamorro fishermen may have used the weirs to feed local populations and visiting sailors during the seasonal arrival of the Manila galleons for a long period after Ferdinand Magellan's visit in 1521. This conclusion has practical and contemporary implications for Chamorro today.     

Spatiality,sweatshops and solidarity in Guatemala

Uneven development in Guatemala has been fuelled by international investment flows and a 1984 law that established a patchwork pattern of each factory as its own free-trade zone. The spatial and social flexibility of this form of labour regulation requires workers to be creative in defending their rights. Our paper explores the creative potential of transnational worker/consumer/student alliances, or mixed coalitions as we call them, to influence global production. We analyse one international solidarity campaign (1991-1999) focused on a shirt factory of Phillips-Van Huesen, the world's largest manufacturer of men's shirts. A co-ordinated strategy linking Guatemalan workers with the US-based anti-sweatshop movement led to the approval of the first collective bargaining agreement in the maquila sector in Guatemala, yet long-term results proved illusive. The factory shut down shortly after the contract was signed and production moved to lower-wage maquilas in the same city. The struggle at the Phillips-Van Huesen shirt factory illustrates the importance of critical geographical knowledge for labour organizing and solidarity politics.     

The Cooper in Liverpool

Abstract

This report assesses the efficiency in timing and layout of the mass-production system at the Portsmouth Dockyard block mill in the early 1800s. It is based on study of the extant buildings and machines as well as pictorial and written evidence from the past. Early output figures for some of the block-making machines reveal 8 to 17 per cent discrepancies from perfect coordination in timing. This difficulty was apparently offset by use of duplicate machines and by short-term stacking up of semi-finished parts between machine processes. An old line shafting diagram implies that the three sets of machines for making pulley-block shells of different sizes were arranged on one shop floor in a hollow rectangle, each set in its own production sequence. Although not ideal, the machinery's coordination and layout showed a greater rationality of design for efficient production 'flow' than has heretofore been documented for it.     

The exploitation and control of woodland and scrubland in the Byzantine world

Abstract

A welcome and necessary aspect of the renewal of studies of the Byzantine economy has been the analysis, sometimes in both the technical and the broader organisational aspects, of the production and redistribution of particular goods. One only has to think of some recent work concerning mining and metallurgy, minting, silk-production, glass-making, potteries, shipping, and salsamenta, to realise the potential significance of such studies, the need for the historical study of all types of economic activity, and how unilluminating has become the incantation of such statements as that the Byzantine economy was ‘overwhelmingly' rural (almost invariably made with reference to the primary products of a narrowly defined agriculture), or that centres of population were ‘characterised by consumption', or even that commercialised redistribution was ‘feeble’ and stagnant in the Early Byzantine period.     

Early Railways 6: Papers from the Sixth Annual Early Railways Conference

Abstract

Mass production of decorative tiles enabled nineteenth and twentieth century builders and architects to 'beautify' the 'halls of the noble and the churches of the peasant'. Tiles were also used for public houses, fire stations, inebriates' homes and turkish baths, etc. Maw of Jackfield in the Ironbridge Gorge and Craven Dunnill and Company of the same place, were two of the most important manufacturers of decorative tiles, and their products, a triumph of Victorian mass production, can still be seen in many places.     

Unsociable Sociability and the Crisis of Natural Law: Michael Hissmann (1752–1784) on the State of Nature

Summary

This article studies the impact of the debate about human sociability on the crisis of natural law in the later eighteenth century examining the Untersuchungen über den Stand der Natur of 1780 by the Göttingen scholar Michael Hissmann. It makes the case that this crisis ensued from Rousseau's Discours sur l‘inégalité and a revival of neo-Epicurean trends in moral philosophy more generally. The sociability debate revolved around the question to what extent society was natural or artificial to man. This had important implications for the problem of whether distinctions between right and wrong or just and unjust were natural and inborn, or had developed at a much later stage of mankind's history, reflecting merely the respective needs and utility of different societies and cultures. Hissmann's essay summarises this European debate concisely. His point of departure is Rousseauian premises, yet his political conclusions turn Rousseau upside down. Here, Hissmann's essay opens up several questions regarding the allegedly radical political character of one-substance theories in philosophy.     

Editorial: The Challenge of Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship in Wales

Editor's Note This editorial from Jane Davidson, Minister for Education and Lifelong Learning in the Welsh Assembly Government, is developed from the keynote address [1] to the conference ‘Education for Sustainable Development: The Challenge for Higher, Further and Adult Education’ (University of Wales Swansea, 17 March 2003) [2]. Sustainable development has to be a focus for us all and a challenge we must confront and win. Sustainability is a powerful concept, but achieving it is not a simple task. Our challenge here in Wales, and that of the world, is to modify our social and economic institutions and living patterns so that the way in which we go about meeting the needs of the present does not compromise our ability to meet our own future needs and those of our younger generation. The history of human beings is one of change—sometimes the slow change of evolution, sometimes the dramatic change of revolution. Twenty years ago the first Earth Day increased our appreciation of the value of the natural world, an evolutionary consideration to improve our guardianship of the Earth's resources. Today we ask ourselves if this evolutionary improvement is enough. We cannot really afford to change slowly; perhaps the significance of sustainability demands revolution in our management of, and indeed our relationship to, our planet Earth. We still face the same problems that were encountered in that first Earth Day, plus more. Acid rain is changing the chemistry of lakes and the soil, stressing and killing forests worldwide. Much of the earth faces shortages of water, or fuel, or both. The overall problem is not only bigger than we thought, it is a different sort of problem.     

Benjamin Franklin,Georges‐louis le rouge and the Franklin/Folger chart of the gulf stream

Abstract: While in Paris as minister to the French court, Benjamin Franklin arranged for the production of a French version of his famous chart of the Gulf Stream, which had been based on a sketch by Timothy Folger and first printed in London c. February, 1769. This paper recounts Franklin's collaboration with the Parisian cartographer Georges‐Louis Le Rouge from their first meeting in 1780, and pieces together the history of the Le Rouge chart. Two open questions have been when the chart was engraved, and whether its purpose was primarily military, commercial or scientific. Evidence suggests that it was produced for French merchant and packet captains in the months following the end of the American War of Independence.     

Feature Reviews

Abstract

Thomas Jefferson, in his Notes on the State of Virginia, first published and distributed to the American public in 1787, presented his mature thoughts on politics, amid a vast array of themes reflective of his own encyclopedic studies. The diverse contents and unusual form of the work have often led modern readers to neglect its overarching political purpose. We argue that when read as a unified whole shaped by an explicit literary structure and rational method, Jefferson's Notes lays the foundation for a new science of republican politics. By engaging and revising key aspects of both the Bible and Enlightenment science, whenever either asserts authoritative claims beyond rational scrutiny that obscure or distort nature, Jefferson overturns false idols that impede our inquiry into natural laws and natural right, and the proper grounds of republican government.     

From the Preface to the French edition of Une exigence infinie

Abstract

In 2008, Rowan Williams sparked a huge controversy in Britain by pleading for more recognition of shari'a law. The present paper aims to explore Mike Higton's suggestion that this plea actually results from Williams's defence of the Enlightenment. The paper will first show that Williams's plea for increased recognition of shari'a is in line with the Enlightenment ideal of sociability. It will subsequently show that this does not mean that Williams gives up on the importance of the secular law. Special attention will be given to the two fundamental principles behind Williams's views on shari'a and these principles will be developed with the help of Edward Schillebeeckx's view of ‘the humanum’. Finally, the paper will also indicate that Williams's two fundamental principles offer a way to better understand the biblical commandment to love one's neighbour—a view that will be developed with reference to the work of Slavoj Zizek.     

Confronting Contradictions: Genre Subversion and Feminist Politics in Agnès Varda's L'une chante,l'autre pas

French filmmaker Agnès Varda's career has been largely defined by contradiction. She is acknowledged as influential, yet often discussed independently from the advanced filmmaking practices and intellectual debates of her New Wave generation. Her musical, L'une chante, l'autre pas, was particularly misunderstood: film critics and feminist scholars praised the film's feminist storyline, but found that the unexpected musical numbers undercut the seriousness of the feminist message, resulting in a film that is ultimately incongruous. Through archival excavation of Varda's sources, I argue that the film's incongruity was in fact intentional, an expansion of advanced filmmaking theories and strategies, in dialogue with influential Brechtian texts and contemporary feminist debates. This essay reveals specific social and economic factors that influenced the production and reception of the film and reconsiders apparent contradictions in Varda's career.