“Special Forces”: A Stereotype of Benjaminite Soldiers in the Deuteronomistic History and Chronicles

This article explores one point of contrast between the characterizations of Benjamin-Judah relations in the DtrH and Chronicles. The argument is that the Deuteronomist offers a stereotype of Benjaminite “special forces,” which the Chronicler then co-opts in service of his own agenda. The remarkable aspect of this cooption is that the Chronicler does not retain or adapt any of the Deuteronomistic material that contributes to this Benjaminite stereotype, only the stereotype itself—i.e., the stereotype only manifests itself in the Sondergut material. The article suggests that the Chronicler repurposes the stereotype in service of a conciliatory agenda: the reincorporation of wealthy Benjaminites into the Jerusalem temple’s sphere of influence.

The irony of “Benjaminite” left-handedness is not a new observation; this essay suggests that they should be linked to the motif of “skill with long-distance weapons.” The two motifs are linked in three ways: 1) in practice, they represent a deviation from “regular” hand-to-hand warfare; 2) they overlap within the narratives; and 3) both are specifically linked to Benjaminites—left-handedness by the irony of the name, and long-distance weaponry by the fact that Benjaminites are characterized uniquely among the tribes by that skill (i.e., whenever Benjaminites are noted in a tribal list as having skill with the sling or bow, they are the only tribe that possesses that skill).     

略论文史研究中地方志的利用

地方志对于解决文史研究中的很多问题,诸如政治、经济事件的来龙去脉,历史人物生平活动,文学作品的系年等等,有着极重要的作用.以明代世庙大狱、明中期陕西盐政、明初陕西文学以及王安石文系年等问题为例,说明地方志在文史研究中的价值.     

用事实回答三大历史叩问——《中华人民共和国简史(1949-2019)》评介

中国社会科学院当代中国研究所著《中华人民共和国简史(1949-2019)》一书,于2019年9月由当代中国出版社出版。该书共6章、15万多字,记述了新中国成立70年来波澜壮阔的历史,展示了党和国家取得的重大历史性成就,是中华民族从站起来、富起来到强起来的真实写照。历史是最好的教科书。作为梳理新中国历史经验的优秀读物,该书可以帮助广大干部群众学习新中国史,并且已经被中共中央组织部、中共中央宣传部列为学习新中国史的重点教材之一。     

The battle of London (1554) – reconstructing a renaissance battlefield

Abstract

The confrontation outside London (7 February 1554) between the rebel army of Sir Thomas Wyatt and forces loyal to Queen Mary Tudor has been frequently characterized as a bloodless contest of will rather than a military conflict. This view, however, fails to account for the action’s wider significance in the study of Tudor warfare, a field arguably distorted by the limited number of battles fought within the sixteenth-century British Isles. Furthermore, the encounter is unusually well-documented by written narratives, while its location ensures that the battlefield is depicted on several near-contemporary and subsequent maps, providing opportunities for more detailed investigation through terrain reconstruction. This article will use methodologies of map regression to define the historic landscape of the battle, permitting tactical-level consideration of the engagement and helping to discern the site’s archaeological potential. By doing so, it will also facilitate a reassessment of the battle’s key events and implications.     

Professionals’ and amateurs’ pasts: a decolonizing reading of post-war Romanian histories of gendered interwar activism

This article provides an illustration of a decolonial and gendered approach that can shape ‘new global labour histories’ by re-reading histories of Communist women’s interwar activism produced in state-socialist Romania with attention to the power context in which they were created and the clues about the work of social reproduction during the interwar that these histories provide. After discussing the main concepts and rationale in the first section, in the second section the author shows that women’s history and women historians were marginalized in Romania after 1958 despite promising post-war beginnings. She shows that this evolution was made possible by the symbiosis between nationalist historians and autochthonist politicians in search of a break with Stalinist policies. She then hones in, in the third part of the paper, on the content of the Revue des Etudés Sud-Est Européenes (RESEE) and two women’s history volumes, as publications issuing from the conditions described in the second part. With regard to the standalone volumes, the author shows that in this body of work, the interwar period is described as one of women’s increased activism within the social-democratic or Communist movements. On the other hand, the period is also described as one of worsening living conditions for proletarians. The intersection of these two narratives creates in this rather limited historiographical body the surprising effect of granting high visibility to reproductive labour.     

‘The Conscience of the Community’: the Au Vaine of Rarotonga

ABSTRACT

The Au Vaine (‘several women’ in Cook Islands Māori), grassroots women’s committees, worked to promote agricultural efforts and food security in Rarotonga during the 1920s and 1930s. A unique organization, the Au Vaine actively encouraged the growing of commercial crops alongside subsistence plantings at a time when women were being pushed towards the home and hearth, and men pulled to wage labour jobs. These women illustrate the powerful and often unheard voices Pacific women retained throughout this period, as well as the critical role of food in Pacific history. In this article I examine the context within which the Au Vaine emerged, discuss what distinguished them from other women’s committees in Polynesia, highlight their purpose and impact on Cook Islands foodways, and explore some of the reasons they declined by the 1940s.     

新世纪以来中华人民共和国史研究的发展和成熟

新世纪以来,中华人民共和国史研究作为一门新兴的历史学科,取得了显著的成绩和进步。近十余年来,随着国史学界对国史研究基本问题认识的不断深化,出版了一批具有通史性的国史著作、资料性研究著作、专史性研究著作,使国史重大问题的研究取得了新的进展。认真研究已有成果,评述国史研究的发展状况,并提出推进国史研究的一些思考,将为这一新兴学科的发展提供有益借鉴。     

男女平权抑或性别政治中的革命——清季女性精英身份认同的两种路向及其书写

近年来,女性史研究是社会文化史的重要亮点。清季以秋瑾、吕碧城为核心的女性精英身份认同呈现的路向及其书写尤值得考量。近代意义上的才女不仅涉及女性才貌,还关联着社会转型过程中女性的自我定位及其身份认同,这其中涉及女性才貌的社会文化分析。由男女平权转向性别政治中近代女性史学探索还涉及性别话语分析及其社会意义的解读等。而社会文化史框架下的女性史书写关联着书写对象的思想,也涉及论证材料的选择,有其难度。处理思想与材料的勾连,涉及研究对象内在的主体性及其外在形象的客观性的把握,等等。唯有处理好这些关系,女性史书写才能有所前进。     

秦内史置县研究

对于秦县的研究,恩师史念海曾在上世纪30年代写过一篇《秦县考》。从此后很少有人问津,之所以如此,是由于史料缺乏,随着近些年关于秦县考古资料的不断发现,才使对这一问题的进一步研究成为可能。本文仅就秦在内史地区的置县加以研究,作为对先生文章的补充。并以此文作为对先生辞世三周年的沉痛悼念。     

Effects of mothers’ deaths on children’s schooling in Matlab subdistrict,Bangladesh

This quantitative analysis examines evidence for the impacts of mothers’ death on the schooling of their left-behind children (ages 6–17 years) in the Matlab Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS) area of the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh. The analysis compared the completed levels of primary and junior secondary schooling in 2005 (respectively Class 1 among ages 6–17, Class 5 among ages 12–17 and Class 7 among ages 15–17) of children whose mothers had died during 1982–2005 (from maternal and/or nonmaternal causes, and any cause) with the completed schooling of children of surviving mothers in 2005. The results, after controlling for selected socioeconomic variables, indicate that children whose mothers had died had lower completion of schooling levels, and that those children from poorer households fared worst.     

新时代高校国史教育的调查与思考——以山东泰安高校为例

对山东泰安高校开展问卷调查,目的是了解当前国史教育在省属本专科院校的基本状况,了解新时代大学生对国家一些重大政策和决策的学习认知情况,为完善和改进以高校思想政治理论课为依托的国史教育提供依据。通过数据统计和分析可知,当前高校国史教育成效显著,绝大多数大学生具备基本的国史素养,同时发现大学生的国史素养、认同水平、教育效果与其专业、年级、政治面貌有关。为了在当代大学生中继续深入开展国史教育,建议要进一步理顺高校国史教育的体制和机制、开设“中华人民共和国史”课程、打造一支高水平的国史教育队伍、创新国史教育模式和加大高校国史教育的督导检查力度。     

The East Anglian chronicle

Abraham's sacrifice. Very early on, this Biblical theme became the subject of a number of representations who did not vary much, having a rich and precocious theology as their base: the sacrifice of Isaac prefiguring that of Christ on the Cross. The anecdotal development is one of the major variants. The dramatization of the scene in miniatures, especially noticeable from the 13th century onward, enriched the stylistic effects. The social changes that took place in medieval western Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries (the place of children, attitudes to death...) provoked a final evolution. The previous embellishments were reorganized to take into account the preoccupations of the day.     

The Qing Dynasty Ministry of Justice Memorials and “The New History”

The Qing Dynasty Grand Secretariat Archives are considered to be among the four great ancient texts discovered in modern Chinese history, and the memorials from the Ministry of Justice have garnered particular attention due to their well-preserved socio-economic content(s). From the 20th century onwards the New History, with its emphasis on drawing upon the social sciences’ discussions of citizens, communities and society, came to replace the more traditional “Imperial Genealogy” style of historiography, affording us a grander view of history. Progressing forward with “the times,” the New History continued to innovate and diversify the field; in terms of Qing dynasty social historical research, it brought about constant exploration and change within the field, first having shifted from socio-economic history to social history, then moving on to life history, the investigation of the “seeds of capitalism,” class relations, lower-class society, marriage and family relations, law and justice, gender studies, daily life (“life, livelihood and environment”), and so on, continually pushing the boundaries of academic research. Yet, underlying all this change was a close relationship between the use of the Ministry of Justice Memorials and the field’s overall development. This article not only introduces several findings made by academicians in using the Ministry of Justice Memorials, but also sets out to further reveal the relationship between the New History and the memorials themselves, probing into the deeper question of broader changes in historiography and their relationship with generational shifts in intellectual thought.     

‘More Hateful because of its Hypocrisy’: Indians,Britain and Canadian Law in the Komagata Maru Incident of 1914

Recent remembrance and memorialisation of the Komagata Maru incident of 1914 has neglected the global and imperial implications of the incident, as well as the role that direct actions by the Indian passengers and Indians in Vancouver took against Canada’s discriminatory law. While the legal loss the passengers suffered could be regarded as simply tragic, the implications for the British Empire behind the Komagata Maru incident are more complex. More than just a legal battle between would-be Indian migrants and the Vancouver immigration authorities, the incident is a highly visible clash of two different understandings of the British imperial legal system. In contrast to any view that imperial harmony and the rights of all its subjects should supersede local concerns within the empire, Canadian immigration and legal officials instead viewed their rights as a self-governing dominion to make and pass their own laws (particularly around areas of racial desirability) as more important than issues of imperial membership, loyalty or harmony. The British government’s decision, in turn, not to contradict Canada’s eventual ruling against the Komagata Maru passengers and the decision to deport them, exposed the legal hierarchies of supposed imperial belonging, citizenship and ‘British liberty’ in the empire at a critical moment in the early twentieth century. What the incident highlighted, then, was an increasing legal distinction between settler colonies and colonies of exploitation within the empire.