Popular geographies and scholarly geographies in provincial France: the Société Normande de Géographie, 1879–1937

Geographical societies were established in many provincial cities of France during the final quarter of the nineteenth century. Through lectures and publications, these organizations promoted popular geographies at a time when academic geography was in its infancy. The Geographical Society of Normandy was founded at Rouen in 1879 and survived for six decades. Unlike some of its counterparts, it did not provide commercial information after its early years nor did it receive funding from the local chamber of commerce. Its annual Bulletins presented aspects of popular geography at the time and elucidated views held by explorers, colonial administrators and other contributors. Tales of expeditions to distant lands were reported enthusiastically, but assessments of opportunities for European settlement were not always optimistic. European affairs rose to prominence in the life of the Society in the years surrounding World War I. Its popular geographies conveyed in public lectures continued to enjoy success but contacts with academic geographers were intermittent. Largely forgotten geographical societies, such as that in Normandy, played a significant role in raising knowledge of the world before geography became firmly established as a university discipline.     

Eco‐urbanism and the Eco‐city,or, Denying the Right to the City?

This paper critically analyses the construction of eco‐cities as technological fixes to concerns over climate change, Peak Oil, and other scenarios in the transition towards “green capitalism”. It argues for a critical engagement with new‐build eco‐city projects, first by highlighting the inequalities which mean that eco‐cities will not benefit those who will be most impacted by climate change: the citizens of the world's least wealthy states. Second, the paper investigates the foundation of eco‐city projects on notions of crisis and scarcity. Third, there is a need to critically interrogate the mechanisms through which new eco‐cities are built, including the land market, reclamation, dispossession and “green grabbing”. Lastly, a sustained focus is needed on the multiplication of workers’ geographies in and around these “emerald cities”, especially the ordinary urban spaces and lives of the temporary settlements housing the millions of workers who move from one new project to another.     

Try Again,Fail Again,Fail Better? War,the State,and the ‘Post–Conflict’ Challenge in Afghanistan

This article investigates the challenges currently facing Afghanistan. It argues that ‘post–conflict’ peace and reconstruction in Afghanistan may depend on a dramatic expansion of institutionalized economic interdependence: this will not necessarily require obeisance to standard international policy paradigms and it will have to draw on existing patterns of interdependence, even though many of these are rooted in brutally exploitative war economy conditions. The authors argue further that neither peace nor economic development will hold without a centralized, credible and effective state, that the emergence of such a state is a political problem more than a technical problem, and that it will depend on a monopolization of force by the state. Such developments cannot be envisaged without policy being based on a close reading of the long and decidedly non–linear, conflictual experiences in state formation and failure in Afghanistan, a history whose patterns and implications are summarized in this article.     

Comment expliquer le déclin de Montréal comme centre de transports aériens: une question de géographie économique?

L'objectif de cet article est de comprendre l'évolution des activités aériennes à Montréal. Plaque tournante majeure dans les années 1960, Montréal voit ses activités aériennes ralentir dès le milieu des années 1970. Quelles sont les origines véritables de ce ralentissement? Ce déclin est souvent attribuéà la construction d'un second aéroport international à Montréal‐Mirabel en 1975. Mais qu'en est‐il exactement? Ceci nous amène à nous interroger sur les facteurs de localisation des activités aériennes de manière générale. S'agit‐il d'une activité de service qui se localise selon une logique de places centrales, en fonction de la taille des villes? Faut‐il plutôt chercher ailleurs, par exemple dans les conditions technologiques et réglementaires propres à l'industrie? Pour y répondre, nous proposons une analyse en deux temps. D'abord, nous nous servirons des outils de régression afin d'évaluer l'importance du poids de l'économie locale comme facteur explicatif du trafic aérien. Cette première partie est essentiellement statique. Dans un deuxième temps, nous effectuerons une analyse à caractère davantage historique des activités aériennes de Montréal depuis 1945, pour renouer à la fin avec les résultats de l'analyse de régression.     

Beyond ‘the toad beneath the harrow’: geographies of ecological science, 1959–1965

This paper traces the distinctive shifts in ecology and conservation in Britain during the late 1950s and 1960s. These were the last six years of the Nature Conservancy, the state research council responsible for ecological research, the conservation of nature, and for providing expert advice. Drawing on work in science studies and the geography of science, the paper addresses the changing spatialities of official ecological knowledge and the ordering of nature in this period of British modernity. The paper examines the Conservancy's construction of the form and relationship of research to practice: the connections between local spaces of research – the laboratory and the nature reserve – to the ‘right’ government of land and management of resources more universally. This putative ‘single great mission’ is traced through examination of the politics and practices of doing ecological research at the time, including the creation of a new Experimental Station, the growth of ecology as public discourse, and, importantly, government reviews of science. The paper concludes by considering how this mission was tempered and reconfigured by institutional change.     

Defending the Individual: the Personal Rights Association and the Ligue des droits de l'homme, 1871–1916

This article investigates the conceptual and organisational connections between late nineteenth-century civil-liberties activism and the emerging human-rights paradigm of the twentieth century. The comparison of the two largest and most influential civil-liberties organisations to emerge in Britain and France before the First World War (the British Personal Rights Association and the French Ligue des droits de l'homme) has three objectives: to place the two groups in a wider context of civil-liberty organisations of the pre-First World War era and to identify personal connections and inspirations. Secondly, by analysing functional definitions of ‘rights’ and who these rights should apply to, the article argues that although one group conceptualised their activism on the basis of ‘civil liberties’ and the other on ‘human rights’ there were significant similarities between the approaches of the two groups. Moreover, differences stemmed from internal politics within each group rather than the dissimilar conceptual framework. Finally the article seeks to understand why the Ligue des droits de l'homme was much more successful than the British Personal Rights Association both in its ability to mobilise supporters, and in inspiring sister organisations in other European countries.     

Excavator Bias at the Site of Pech de l'Azé IV,France

Abstract

Existing archaeological collections hold great potential for archaeologists who seek to answer specific research questions with minimal investment of time and money. Unfortunately, biases introduced in the field and during curation require us to evaluate and reorganize collections before and during analysis. Biases are reflected in collections as a result of research design, recovery methods, interpersonal variability, and the storage of both objects and documentation. By comparing collections from two different excavations at the Middle Paleolithic site of Pech de l'Azé IV, France, a number of biases in the older collection were identified and corrected. While all older collections are not affected by the same problems, our experience serves as a useful example to others who work with them.     

The dyer and the cook: finds from 8 Pilestræde,Copenhagen, Denmark

Abstract

Excavation by the Museum of Copenhagen in Pilestræde, Copenhagen, in 2004 revealed a 17th-century dyer's workshop, in which the first example of a dyeing vat known from excavations in Denmark was examined. Evidence is presented to show that this would have been used in dyeing indigo. A well-preserved latrine dating from the beginning of the 18th century was also found. Multidisciplinary study showed that both the vat and the latrine contained well-preserved remains of plant foodstuffs that were exotic for their time. The finds are exceptional, not only because post-medieval archaeology is a new discipline in Denmark, but because opportunities for excavation rarely arise in the city.     

‘Ulster's love in letter'd gold’: the Battle of the Somme and the Ulster Memorial Tower, 1918–1935

This paper employs ideas of distance and proximity in exploring the diverse meanings of the Ulster Memorial Tower at Thiepval, France, between 1918, when the idea of an Ulster memorial was first proposed, and 1935, when responsibility for its maintenance was passed to the Imperial War Graves Commission. The Tower, erected in 1921 as a memorial to men from Ulster who died in the Great War, can be read in a number of different but not necessarily easily reconciled ways. The construction and subsequent life of the memorial is inseparable from the politics of Irish partition and the consolidation of a unionist state in Northern Ireland. It is argued that that the meanings of the Tower were constructed both internally within Northern Ireland as an identity marker but also externally directed as the prime symbol of Britain's debt to Protestant Ulster. The paper concludes that the Tower's geographical distance from the society which had erected it was crucial, both to the external statements it made and to its ultimate lack of internal relevance to Ulster.     

‘Too little,too late’? Science,policy and Dutch Elm Disease in the UK

The Dutch Elm Disease outbreak of the late 1960s and early 1970s was arguably one of the most dramatic environmental events to affect the British countryside in the last fifty years. The demise of over 28 million elms destroyed the much celebrated, and publicly valued, ‘elmscapes’ of lowland England and brought about extensive habitat loss. During the middle and later phases of the epidemic, the policy response from the UK Forestry Commission, Ministry of Agriculture and local government came to be seen as ‘too little, too late’. Yet forty years after the outbreak it is still unclear whether the epidemic could have been better managed and how far any lessons can be drawn for the way present day disease risks to trees should be tackled. Drawing on the extensively documented (but hitherto unexplored) public record of the outbreak held at Forest Research and the National Archives, together with materials from retrospective interviews conducted by the authors with scientists and policymakers closely involved in the epidemic at the time, this paper presents a fresh analysis of Dutch Elm Disease in the UK. The paper seeks to explain the catastrophic outcome of the outbreak, not only in terms of the underlying (and highly malign) pathology of the disease itself, but also because of an initially inaccurate scientific assessment of the nature of the threat constructed within a small but influential community of forest pathologists and policy officials.     

Can Histories Be True? Narrativism,Positivism, and the “MetaphoricalTurn”

Narrativism, as represented by Hayden White and Frank Ankersmit, can fruitfully be analyzed as an inversion of two brands of positivism. First, narrativist epistemology can be regarded as an inversion of empiricism. Its thesis that narratives function as metaphors which do not possess a cognitive content is built on an empiricist, "picture view" of knowledge. Moreover, all the non-cognitive aspects attributed as such are dependent on this picture theory of knowledge and a picture theory of representation. Most of the epistemological characteristics that White and Ankersmit attribute to historical narratives therefore share the problems of this picture theory.
The article's second thesis is that the theories of narrative explanation can also fruitfully be analyzed as inversions of positivist covering-law theory. Ankersmit's brand of narrativism is the most radical in this respect because it posits an opposition between narrative and causal modes of comprehension while simultaneously eliminating causality from narrativist historical understanding. White's brand of narrativism is more of a hybrid than is Ankersmit's as far as its theory of explanation is concerned; nevertheless, it can also be fruitfully interpreted as an inversion of covering-law theory, replacing it by an indefinite multitude of explanatory strategies.
Most of the striking characteristics of both White's and Ankersmit's narrativism pre-suppose positivism in these two senses, especially their claim that historical narratives have a metaphorical structure and therefore no truth-value. These claims are had to reconcile with the factual characteristics of debates by historians; this problem can be tracked down to the absence in "metaphorical” narrativism of a conceptual connection between historical narratives and historical research.     

Rationalisation, <Emphasis Type="Italic">Kunstwollen</Emphasis> et Moyens Techniques de L’Expressivité

Cet article cherche à retracer quelques-uns des éléments à la fois empiriques, historiques et sociologiques de la Sociologie de la musique de Max Weber. Même si ce dernier s’intéresse en premier lieu au processus de rationalisation qui traverse la civilisation occidentale, sa Sociologie de la musique est fondée sur l’idée de médium technique, qu’il explore dans plusieurs directions différentes. Nous revisitons ici cette idée au moyen de quelques exemples tirés de la musique occidentale et en particulier du répertoire romantique pour le piano.     

For all the Wrong Reasons? Re‐evaluating Truman,Domestic Influences,and the Palestine Question

This essay is a re‐evaluation of President Harry Truman's foreign policy in Palestine and whether his decision‐making was influenced by domestic issues, events and attitudes. The article both weighs in on the current debate of whether Truman was susceptible to electoral influences and the Jewish vote, and argues that Truman never knowingly placed American interests in jeopardy by going against the recommendations of his State Department. Rather, the advice of his closest aids convinced him that a pro‐Zionist policy would not detriment American interests in the Middle East. Thus, Truman could then seek to gain political and electoral advantages from a policy that he believed was already in America's best interest. In addition, I will argue that American anti‐Semitism and a revival of nativist attitudes in America resulted in an environment in which America would not accept its share of the displaced persons. As a result, Truman advocated a policy of refugee Zionism with regards to the Palestine Question, which ultimately undermined the British, who were too weak to uphold the Palestine Mandate following the war. Thus, the influence of American domestic issues took many forms and was one integral factor in the eventual outcome of the Palestine Question.     

Palaeolithic dog skulls at the Gravettian P?edmostí site, the Czech Republic

Whether or not the wolf was domesticated during the early Upper Palaeolithic remains a controversial issue. We carried out detailed analyses of the skull material from the Gravettian P?edmostí site, Czech Republic, to investigate the issue. Three complete skulls from P?edmostí were identified as Palaeolithic dogs, characterized by short skull lengths, short snouts, and wide palates and braincases relative to wolves. One complete skull could be assigned to the group of Pleistocene wolves. Three other skulls could not be assigned to a reference group; these might be remains from hybrids or captive wolves. Modifications by humans of the skull and canine remains from the large canids of P?edmostí indicate a specific relationship between humans and large canids.