The Revolt against the West: Decolonisation and its Repercussions in British International Thought, 1945–75

It has been suggested that British intellectuals were either indifferent to decolonisation or sought to downplay its impact. As a consequence, historians of international thought have overlooked the extensive debates that occurred among scholars and intellectuals concerned with British foreign policy and international relations. This article addresses those debates, examining the responses of internationalist, Whig, realist, and radical thinkers to decolonisation and to what they thought to be the changes it brought about in contemporary world politics. It argues that far from being indifferent to decolonisation, many British students of international relations were deeply worried about what some called ‘the revolt against the West’, and that those concerned helped shape the distinctive character of British international thought in the formative period of the discipline of International Relations (IR).     

Mapping Medieval Geographies: Geographical Encounters in the Latin West and Beyond, 300‒1600

Abstract

As the most important specialized enterprise in eighteenth‐century Germany, the Homann map printing firm affords a good case for an investigation of the factors underlying map production. Commercial success seems to have rested on the production of maps which made a political statement as well as presenting geographical and topographical information. Publication of maps concerning specific events, such as sieges, or based on new surveys had no chance of success until the publishing firm had achieved commercial stability with its basic stock of maps.     

Indentured servitude and convict labour in the Danish-Norwegian West Indies, 1671–1755

The article explores how indentured servitude and the use of convict labour began and evolved in the Danish-Norwegian West Indies in the period 1671–1755. It examines the intentions and realities behind indentured servitude and convict labour on the islands, and compares these with the workings and use of indentured servants in the British West Indies.

Similar to conditions in the British West Indies, the lowest social strata of white society in the Danish-Norwegian West Indies consisted of a small population of convicts and indentured servants. The use of these groups as part of the labour force took place from the onset of colonisation in 1672 until 1755, the period in which the islands were governed by the West Indian and Guinean Company, WIGC (Vestindisk-Guineisk Kompagni). The analysis reveals that the importation and deployment of indentured servants and convicts can be divided into two distinct periods. Until 1700, the objective of the WIGC was to provide cheap labour for the colony. After 1700, however, the aim was to recruit qualified personnel and to secure the planters against slave rebellion by increasing the white Danish population. As convicts provided neither qualifications nor security, convict transportations to the Danish-Norwegian West Indies ceased after 1700. After 1755, when the Danish-Norwegian Crown purchased the colonies from the WIGC, Danish convict labour and indentured servants were no longer imported to the colony. By contrast, in the British West Indies, imports of indentured servants and convicts continued to play a significant role.

The article explores the physical and legal conditions of the indentured servants and convicts, who constituted the lowest social group in white colonial society and were in some respects considered slaves.     

‘The Toynbee Convector’: The Rise and Fall of Arnold J. Toynbee's Anti-Imperial Mission to the West

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the historian and internationalist Arnold J. Toynbee (1889–1975) conducted a highly public campaign against Western imperialism, arguing that the West needed to acknowledge and atone for its aggression if the world was to find peace. His efforts met with considerable resistance, damaging his reputation as a scholar and a political thinker. This article examines the origins of Toynbee's anti-imperialism in his philosophy of history, his public arguments of the postwar period, and the reaction they provoked.     

Literature and society in Medieval France: The mirror and the image, 1100–1500

Society has to be understood as a process of fast changes (revolutions) and slow transformations (reformism). This is what has been happening in Central Europe, where the big changes of 1989–1990 were preceded by several small social, political and ideological transformations. When analysing Central European societies, one should also remember that there is an ‘official’ society and a ‘hidden’ society.     

Communities and archaeology under the Soufrière Hills Volcano on Montserrat,West Indies

Abstract

The volcanically devastated landscape of Montserrat and its social fabric comprise what Maria calls a “traumascape”—a site of tragedy and catastrophe that is also a place of coping and resilience. How Montserratians engage with trauma is evident in how they remember their recent and historical pasts, and in how they are reinventing aspects of their heritage in order to sustain a distinctly Montserratian identity for the future. Such a process of coping presents challenges for conducting archaeology in collaboration with the community. In this article, we describe the experiences of a recently established project on the island (Survey and Landscape Archaeology on Montserrat) and discuss the potential for, and the obstacles involved in, developing longer-term, sustainable forms of collaboration between archaeologists and local Montserratian communities when facing the unusual circumstances of volcanic disaster and hazard.