Women as Pilgrims: Memoirs of Iranian Women Travelers to Mecca

A hitherto neglected aspect of the Iranian women's lives and activities is their traveling and travelogues. A number of Iranian women pilgrims to Mecca and the Shi'ite holy shrines of Mesopotamia during the past four centuries have left behind memoirs of their travels. They recorded interesting details about their spiritual experience as pilgrims to the holy lands of Islam and of the difficulties of the journey, especially the notoriously dangerous land route from Iran to Mecca through the Arabian Desert. This paper examines four examples of that genre, the oldest dating from the early eighteenth and the other three from the late nineteenth centuries. As expected, the authors were all members of upper class families: one was a princess, another a former queen, and the other two were also affiliated with the ruling families in one way or another. However, they shared the same goals with all other female, and male, pilgrims: to perform their Muslim religious duty of hajj and to do it right. They all wrote about their spiritual satisfaction but also of the disadvantages and the extra burden that a woman experienced in her pilgrimage journey, simply for being a woman.     

革命与生意——以辛亥革命时期的上海为例

From 1911 to 1913, in big streets and small lanes, in famous parks and thriving stores, and in tea houses and grand restaurants located in such cities as Shanghai, Nanjing, Beijing and Wuchang, numerous business opportunities were born out of the Revolution of 1911. By using the political giants and military leaders around Shanghai, business firms skillfully dealt with the difficulties of the continually changing political situation and managed to keep their businesses afloat, succeeding in their response to the consumption demands of the public. It can be argued that the Revolution of 1911 played a distinct role in the development of businesses in Shanghai during that time. __________ Translated by Zhong Chen from Shilin 史林 (Historical Review), 2008, (3): 137–150     

“文化大革命”时期日本人的文革论

中国化大革命,日本各界始终都十分关注。《朝日新闻》社等大众媒体的报道,知识分子的学术研究,由于观点和立场的不同,所表现出来的日本人的革观也是复杂多样的。有赞美支持,有批判否定,有理解的批判,也有指责中国理念变质。     

Breaking Away from Revolution

Post-Soviet society again faces certain problems associated with modernization that confronted the Russian Empire in the years before its collapse. An analysis of the choices made in the early twentieth century by P.A. Stolypin reveals alternatives and pitfalls of potential use to contemporary policy makers.