Beyond Exemplar Tales: Women's Biography in Chinese History

This volume brings together accounts of biographies of women covering a span of history from the Han dynasty to the mid-twentieth century.Its aim is to define and provide interpretive clues on the genre.It is,as the editors Joan Judge and Hu Ying point out,partly a study of epistemology,as many of the authors grapple with the issue of whether or not historians can claim to know the lives,including the inner worlds,of Chinese women through time,using biographical information.That seems to me a bit of a "straw wo/man," for knowledge of historical subjects is always mediated by sources.Nonetheless,the contributors,writing from the perspective of history or literature studies,bring a wide variety of viewpoints to bear on questions of the usefulness of women's biography for understanding changes in society,and in the process introduce some fascinating Chinese women.     

Beyond Consumption: Functionality, Artifact Biography, and Early Modernity in a European Periphery

This paper considers the functionality and biographies of artifacts in the context of historical archaeology. It is argued that in order to understand how human life in the recent past unfolded in relation with material culture, artifacts must be recognized to perform various unobvious functions and also be conceived as processes rather than bounded physical objects. The paper begins with a theoretical discussion and then focuses on the post-acquisition life of artifacts and human-artifact relations in the seventeenth-century town of Tornio, northern Finland.     

张叔驯先生的集钱生平

浙江湖州南浔鼎盛时期在清末民初,由于经营丝绸、盐运起家,致有"四象、八牛、七十二磴狗"之称.大富者则有:刘、张、庞、顾四姓,他们既富且仁,在发展经济的基础上都重视推进文化教育事业.     

Empire: The View from Beyond

JOHN M. MACKENZIE. The Empire of Nature: Hunting, Conservation and British Imperialism. Manchester: Manchester University Press; dist., New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989. Pp. x, 34a. £40.00;

STEPHEN CONSTANTINE, ed. Emigrants and Empire: British Settlement in the Dominions between the Wars. Manchester Manchester University Press; dist., St. Martin's Press, 1990. Pp. x, 208. £40.00;

J.A. MANGAN, ed. Making Imperial Mentalities: Socialisation and British Imperialism. Manchester: Manchester University Press; dist., New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990. Pp. xi, 227. £40.00

RONALD HYAM. Empire and Sexuality: The British Experience. Manchester: Manchester University Press; dist., New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990. Pp. ix. 234. £10.95 (paper);

W.J. READER. ‘At Duty's Call’: A Study in Obsolete Patriotism. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988. Pp. viii, 152. £45.00;

JACQUELINE BRATTON et al. Acts of Supremacy: The British Empire and the Stage, 1790–1930. Manchester: Manchester University Press; dist., New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991. Pp. vii, 248. £40.00;

P.J. RICH. Elixir of Empire: The English Public Schools, Ritualism, Freemasonry, and Imperialism. London and New York: Regency Press, 2nd. ed., 1992. Pp. 152. £9.95.     

The Politics of Communist Biography: Alfred Kantorowicz and the Spanish Civil War

After the German communist author Alfred Kantorowicz's breakwith Communism in 1957, he was lionized by his supporters asan icon of humanism and antifascism, and vilified by his formerallies as a turncoat and traitor. In his autobiographical writings,Kantorowicz portrayed himself as a victim of Stalinism, whohad always been opposed to the authoritarian and repressiveaspects of Communism. Again and again he returned to his timein the International Brigades as a way of illustrating bothhis commitment to antifascism and the betrayal of grassrootsCommunism by the party leadership. But contemporary recordsreveal a more ambiguous picture: not only was Kantorowicz along-time functionary, he was also more involved in the repressiveaspects of Communism than he later cared to admit. This articleargues that, like many ex-Communist biographies of the ColdWar, Kantorowicz's memoirs are shot through with retrospectiveself-justification. Given his post-1957 loathing for Communism,he needed to explain why he had joined the party in the firstplace, and then remained an active member for twenty-five years.By organizing his life around the dichotomies of footsoldiersand functionaries, antifascism and Stalinism, and censorshipand truth, Kantorowicz was able to avoid discussing his ownculpability as a Communist functionary.     

清代官修纪传体国史史料价值探微

纪传体国史纂修是清代官修史学的重要组成部分。卷帙浩繁的纪传体清国史记录了有清一代近三百年的历史沧桑,为后世保存了大量珍贵的史料。纪传体清国史是清代人物传记之渊薮、典章制度之总结、民国初年所修《清史稿》的重要史源,并可校补《清史稿》舛误。虽然纂修者为维护统治者的形象和利益,不惜曲笔隐瞒历史真相是纪传体清国史之不足,但从整体上看,尊重历史,秉笔直书,仍然是清国史纂修的主流。