Psychiatry and race during World War II

Although the American literature on "war neuroses" expanded during World War II, psychiatrists remained more interested in dramatic instances of "combat fatigue" than in the problems of soldiers who broke down far from the field of battle. This bias in the medical literature shaped both diagnosis and treatment. It had an especially powerful effect on African American soldiers who, in the "Jim Crow" army of World War II, were assigned in disproportionate numbers to service units. When military neuropsychiatrists did write about troubled young African Americans, many revealed a racial conservatism that was surprising given the liberal environmentalist paradigm of the day. (Here, a particularly useful source is the two-volume history of Neuropsychiatry in World War II, produced by the Medical Department of the U.S. Army.) The major challenge to such views came from the National Medical Association (NMA). Despite its many criticisms of military medicine, the NMA argued that African American soldiers and veterans needed more, not fewer, psychiatric services. NMA members also joined their white counterparts in the campaign to diminish the stigma of mental illness, especially among the families of soldiers returning home. We need more investigation of the subsequent history of race and psychiatry, especially within the Veterans Administration.     

The Recall of Edmond Charles Genet: A Study in Transatlantic Politics and Diplomacy

Edmond Charles Genet's brief but tumultuous diplomatic mission to the United States in 1793 has been a frequently studied episode in American history. American historians have established its origins in a specific phase of Girondin revolutionary diplomacy, described its impact on the development of American neutrality and American attitudes toward the French Revolution, and delineated its catalytic effect on the formation of the first American party system. But they have not satisfactorily explained the dynamic interaction between the climactic events of this episode—the Washington administration's decision to demand Genet's recall less than three months after he arrived in the nation's capital as the French Republic's first minister to the United States and the French government's ready acquiescence in the matter. While correctly pointing out that the root cause of the demand for Genet's recall was his pointed defiance of American neutrality policy, American scholars have misconstrued the divisions among President Washington and his cabinet officers that shaped this decision and been too ready to account for French acceptance of it as a simple function of the shift in power from the Girondins to the Jacobins and the beleaguered French Republic's need for friendly relations with the United States.¹     

Rationalizing medicine and the social ambitions of physicians in classical Greece

Political and social circumstances in the late Classical period increased upward social mobility in Greece and provided some doctors with an opportunity to improve their social status. By adopting rational medical theories and prescribing an upper-class oriented regimen, these doctors appealed to the elites who favored the teachings of natural philosophers and sophists at that time. These doctors' goal was to be accepted into circles of the social elite as intellectual companions. Their ambitions contributed to the fact that rational medicine in the Classical period did not become an empirical science. Instead, speculative theories were selectively used to explain the causes of health and disease and to guide these doctors' practices, because natural philosophical speculation was considered a "superior" form of knowledge by the Greek elites. Eryximachus provided an illustrative example of this strategy by attaining acceptance into the highest social circle of a Classical Greek city.     

Promoting a Different Type of North–South Interactions: Québécois Cultural and Religious Paradiplomacy with Latin America

ABSTRACT

The historiography on Canadian–Latin American relations states that economic incentives, along with geopolitical concerns during the Second World War, have always been the chief reason behind Canadian interests in the region. This article argues that social groups from Quebec had other incentives to establish connections with Latin America. Quebec’s civil society became well connected with Latin American groups before the North American Free Trade Agreement facilitated economic and political cooperation, thanks mostly to the intensive Catholic missionary effort in the region, and positive representations of Latino culture in French Canadian sociopolitical circles in the 1940s and 1950s. As a result, Francophones’ interests diverged from Canada’s main objectives in the region; Quebec’s civil society’s engagement was distinctly more cultural and social in nature. Because of the difference of objectives, this article shows that social groups from Quebec attempted to influence Canadian–Latin American relations to suit their interests.     

Die Französische Revolution im Spiegelbild. Die Reaktion der deutschen Ärzte auf die Revolution und das Revolutionieren

The German physicans and medical scientists reacted to the French Revolution in several ways, if you judge only from the medical literature:

• 1 At the beginning of the French Revolution, the scientist answered with still silence, whereas the young intellectual generation was filled with enthusiasm. But after the battle of Valmy (1792) this enthusiasm vanished and they resigned to execute an equal revolution in Germany.
• 2 When, in the middle of the 1790s, scientists gave commentaries on revolutionary acts, they despised the revolution itself. This could only destroy the old – and even better – order. They argued that you can have recourse to science to avoid the political and socially deranged situation.
• 3 This rejection against the political revolution was combined with a rejection against the influences of natural philosophy on medicine. Schelling's philosophy plays the role as an scientific revolution with all negative aspects like the political one. In this sense, the science in the old scientific manner has to be an accepted refuge.
• 4 But in this retreat they developed ideas of German national science to conteract on the French influences. The consciousness of nationalism was supported by the scientists of romantic movements.
• 5 The following degree is characterized by a mental leap. Now, they argued, it will never be necessary to revolutionize the medicine: in science all the ideals of French Revolution are realized – freedom, equality and fraternity.
• 6 Consequently, only in a formal sense did they respond to the French Revolution and so they avoided recognizing, that science is influenced politically and also science itself exercises on in a political way.

     

Did J. Marion Sims deliberately addict his first fistula patients to opium?

American surgeon J. Marion Sims (1813-83) is regarded by many modern authors as a controversial figure because he carried out a series of experimental surgeries on enslaved African American women between 1846 and 1849 in an attempt to cure them of vesicovaginal fistulas, which they had all developed as a result of prolonged obstructed labor. He operated on one woman, Anarcha Westcott, thirty times before he successfully closed her fistula. Sims performed these fistula repair operations without benefit of anesthesia but gave these women substantial doses of opium afterwards. Several modern writers have alleged that Sims did this in order to addict them to the drug and thereby to enhance his control over them. This article examines the controversy surrounding Sims' use of postoperative opium in these enslaved surgical patients. The evidence suggests that although these women were probably tolerant to the doses of opium that he used, there is no evidence that he deliberately tried to addict them to this drug. Sims' use of postoperative opium appears to have been well supported by the therapeutic practices of his day, and the regimen that he used was enthusiastically supported by many contemporary surgeons.     

稻盛和夫的经营与日本的文化模式

美国人类学家本尼迪克特在《菊与刀》中提出的“耻感文化”的概念已经为学界熟知,实际上,这一概念的理论基石——“文化模式理论”更有助于我们全面地认识日本文化。本文将运用“文化模式理论”分析稻盛和夫的经营活动,并且指出,稻盛哲学具有明显的日本特色:讲求实用主义,固守民族传统,提倡“和魂洋才”等。     

Private Conflict and Policy Passage: Interest-Group Conflict and State Medical Malpractice Reform

James Madison argued in Federalist 10 that "rival political factions" work against the public good. In contrast to Madison's pessimistic account, I suggest that factional conflict can lead to more representative public policy, and thus further the will of the people. I theorize that elected officials often seek a safe political position—one that corresponds to the preferences of the public at large—during periods of high conflict. I assess this theory in one, salient policy area, medical malpractice. I measure conflict with contributions for state candidates given by (i) the health and insurance industries, which generally support malpractice laws, and (ii) lawyers, who frequently oppose the laws. I find that group conflict matters to policy outcomes. I also find evidence that, under conditions of elevated conflict, adopted policies are more likely to move toward the general ideological preferences of the public at large. These results suggest that group conflict affects both the quantity and character of policy in the American states.     

From Science to Religion: Justifying French Pacific Voyaging and Expansion in the Period of the Restoration and the July Monarchy

Abstract

What explains the generous state sponsorship of the French Pacific voyages of scientific exploration in the period of the Restoration and the July Monarchy, and what links did these voyages have with the beginnings of a French Pacific empire from 1842? While it is argued that the early voyages owed much to state advancement of science, this goal receded as a reviving France became increasingly imperial minded. In justifying imperial expansion into the Pacific, the French monarchy turned increasingly to another source of national identity and global influence: the activities of French missionaries. Though the promotion of French missions did not constitute a primary goal of French Pacific expeditions, their reports helped to strengthen the alliance between French missions and an increasingly expansionist state. Ironically it was the voyagers’ attention to religion rather than science that was to be more directly linked with the foundations of a French Pacific empire.     

American Girls and French Jeunes Filles: Negotiating National Identities in Interwar France

This essay is a transnational and comparative study of how gendered national stereotypes structured the experience of American women who studied in France in the 1920s and 1930s and how this cross‐cultural exchange contributed to cultural internationalism. In both the French and American popular imaginations, American girls and French jeunes filles connoted opposite modern and traditional notions of femininity. In the process of negotiating these two competing identities in popular consciousness and in daily life, some American women students came to appreciate the limitations of the stereotypes, as well as more complex underlying cultural differences, notably in their encounters with French youth's heterosocial practices and with French women students. I argue that the outcome of this process included women's construction of alternative identities for themselves and a new tolerance and appreciation for cultural difference that represents a distinctive development toward cultural internationalism. This study challenges the cultural asymmetry of United States and European relations between the wars and locates gender and women at their centre.     

Medical science and the military: the Allies' use of amphetamine during World War II

Although amphetamine was thoroughly tested by leading scientists for its effects in boosting or maintaining physical and mental performance in fatigued subjects, the results never provided solid grounds for approving the drug's use, and, in any case, came too late to be decisive. The grounds on which amphetamine was actually adopted by both British and American militaries had less to do with the science of fatigue than with the drug's mood-altering effects, as judged by military men. It increased confidence and aggression, and elevated "morale."     

Contesting France: French informants and American intelligence in the dawning Cold War

By integrating French archives and untapped US intelligence records, this article uncovers a debate within US government circles about the accuracy of the entrenched image of France at the onset of the Cold War as decadent and teetering toward revolution. In exchanges with the White House, State Department and military, right-leaning French sources bolstered this view. French contacts in the Resistance meanwhile shaped Office of Strategic Services analysis that France was a strong, worthy ally. France became a contested idea with warring factions in both capitals seeking to influence US policy – with repercussions for Franco-American relations for decades to come.     

Foucault and Technology

This article offers the first comprehensive analysis of the ways in which the French philosopher Michel Foucault (1926-1984) employed the terms ‘technology’ and the ‘technique’ over the course of his intellectual career. His use of these words in his mature writings, it is argued, reflects a profound ambivalence: Foucault sought to denounce the pernicious effects of what he called modern ‘technologies of power,’ but also deliberately evoked the more positive values associated with ‘technology’ to develop a philosophical standpoint shorn of the ‘humanist’ values he associated with existentialism and phenomenology. The article situates Foucault’s condemnation of power technologies within the broader skepticism towards ‘technological society’ that pervaded French intellectual circles following World War II. In the first phase of his career (1954-1960), Foucault built on these attitudes to articulate a conventional critique of technology’s alienating effects. Between 1961 and 1972, the theme of ‘technology’ fell into abeyance in his work, though he often suggested a connection between the rise of technology and the advent of the ‘human sciences.’ Between 1973 and 1979, ‘technology’ became a keyword in Foucault’s lexicon, notably when he coined the phrase ‘technologies of power’. He continued to use the term in the final stage of his career (1980-1984), when his emphasis shifted from power to ‘technologies of the self.’ The essay concludes by addressing Paul Forman’s thesis on the primacy of science in modernity and of technology in modernity, suggesting that in many respects Foucault is more of a modernist than a postmodernist.     

Braucht die Theoretische Physik den Religiösen Glauben ? Neo-Scholastik und Positivismus in der Dritten Republik

As common wisdom has it, Pierre Duhem was one of the most important proponents of French philosophy of science around 1900. Usually, his conception of physical theories is regarded as the incarnation of the ancient — proto-positivistic - programme of “saving the phenomena”. This view is correct, but it needs to be supplemented by taking account of the discursive context of Duhem’s position. In this paper it is argued that Duhem’s philosophical colleague Abel Rey played a central role in this connection.     

Trading Places: Competitive Cities in the Global Economy

This paper reports the findings of an ESRC funded study of innovation in five European cities. It is argued that the contemporary emphasis on local production clusters as the basis of economic growth provides only a limited explanation, in certain types of cities, of what drives growth. The argument developed here is that export base theory should be revisited as a more likely explanation of virtuous circles of growth. The evidence presented suggests that such circles are composed of innovation and trade in the context of the types of externalities found in core metropolitan international gateway cities.     

美籍华裔杰出科技人才成才机制研究*A

论文从创造教育学视角就美籍华裔杰出科技人才成才机制进行了分析探讨,认为世界上有2000多个民族、五大文化圈和众多的亚文化圈,不同民族和文化圈的科技发展水平差异甚大,杰出科技人才在不同民族和文化圈中所占比例亦有重大差距。即使在同一文化圈中,不同民族的科技发展水平和杰出科技人才所占比例差距也不小,而同一民族在不同文化圈中也有不同表现。美籍华裔科技人才是直接或间接受东亚文化圈影响的杰出华人科技人才,他们的成才机制必然有科技人才成才的共性逻辑,但也与其种族和文化有些许相关。美籍华裔科技人才成才机制受社会文化和个体素质内外因素的相互影响,一流科学家群落是美籍华裔科技人才成才的适宜组织环境;文化基因匹配是科技人才成才的精神土壤;优秀天赋是科技人才成才的物质基础;创新素质是科技人才成才的内在动力。     

Anglo-American Rivalry in the Middle East: The Struggle for the Buraimi Oasis, 1952–1957

Some French writers, most notably Jean-Baptiste Duroselle and André Tardieu, have argued that French strategic interests during the early decades of the twentieth century had been seriously harmed because, alone among the Great Powers of Europe, France lacked a ‘diaspora’ in the United States. As a result of this, they have claimed, France had no advocacy group prepared to defend the interests of the European ‘kin state’ at a time when France’s great rival, Germany, was amply endowed with a sizeable demographic presence in the United States, willing to speak out in defence of Germany and its foreign policy. Moreover, a second large European diaspora had become established in the United States, whose numbers would swell after the mid nineteenth century: the Irish. Not necessarily committed to promoting German interests, the Irish-Americans did militate strongly and consistently against British interests, such that by the time France and Britain had become close security partners preceding and during the First World War, what worked against British interests would also work against French ones. This article constitutes a critical examination of the Duroselle-Tardieu thesis regarding France's allegedly ‘missing’ diaspora, and cautions against attributing too much geo-strategic influence to either the German-American or Irish-American ‘lobby’.     

Beyond the Visual: Considering the Archaeology of Colonial Sounds

Many historians and archaeologists have focused on trade goods in the French colonies, yet few have examined how these items were animated in colonial contexts. Here, the issue of colonial performance as it related to trade goods (such as hawk bells, brass tinklers, glass beads) is examined and it is argued that the power of these objects was more than purely visual. Case studies from French Louisiana are presented to discuss the intersection of bodies and objects, of the exotic and the erotic towards understanding the sounds that emanated from colonial communities and households.     

Neurological caricatures since the 15th century

During the Renaissance, different artists began to draw medical illustrations from various viewpoints. Leonardo da Vinci was among those who sought to portray the emotional as well as the physical qualities of man. Other European artists described caricatural aspects of medical activities. In Northern Europe, Albrecht Durer, Hieronymus Bosch, and Pieter Brueghel were also famous for drawing caricatures. Later English artists, notably William Hogarth, Thomas Rowlandson, James Gillray, and the Cruikshanks, satirized life in general and the medical profession in particular. In Spain, Francisco Goya's works became increasingly macabre and satirical following his own mysterious illness and, in France, Honore Daumier used satire and humor to expose medical quackery. Also physicians such as Charles Bell and Jean-Martin Charcot were talented caricaturists. Their own personal artistic styles reflected their approach and gave a different "image" of neurology. Caricatures were popular portraits of developments in science and medicine and were frequently used whenever scientific language was too difficult to disseminate, in particular in the field of neurology.