本杰明·富兰克林与早期费城的公共社会

以富兰克林在费城社会活动的轨迹为视角,通过对城市精英在推动城市社会公共领域的发展、促进公民公共意识的形成等方面的作用的考察,可以得出如下结论：独立前的北美不同于近代早期的欧洲,殖民政府很少承担城市的公共事务;在城市精英的组织和领导下,公民积极参与和管理公共事务,开创了近代城市的管理模式。     

When Words Fail: William Pitt, Benjamin Franklin and the Imperial Crisis of 1766

Passage of an American stamp tax in 1765 produced a sharp political backlash before the year was out. That new tax was part of a larger programme of imperial reform championed by the Grenville ministry. Now out of power, Grenville and his supporters resisted the growing desire in both houses of parliament to end the imperial crisis by repealing the new tax. During debates that began in early 1766 there were those few, most notably William Pitt, who wanted to discuss constitutional ultimates as part of the move toward repeal. Pitt contended that parliament did not have the authority to tax the colonies directly. Grenville disagreed and warned that if parliament accepted any limit to its supremacy the colonists would eventually claim legislative autonomy. When debating the distinction – if indeed any such distinction existed – between taxation and legislation, and between internal and external taxes, Pitt, Grenville and their parliamentary contemporaries raised questions about authority and power that they could not answer. There were no words to describe perfectly the imperial relationship, a relationship that, as Benjamin Franklin hinted in his testimony to the Commons, was always subject to change anyway. Avoiding constitutional questions had not seemed to work; trying to answer them did not work any better, at least in the contentious atmosphere of that moment.     

Eisenhower and Nixon: A Friendship of Unequals

Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon are linked forever in the history of the American presidency, yet only recently have scholars paid notable attention to their relationship. While this uptick in research about how the two men related to each other has been important, it has not fully grappled with the political implications of their relationship. This article argues that understanding the friendship the two men had, including how it changed over time, provides insight into the way each viewed and conducted his own politics. I argue that the two most often shared an Aristotelian friendship of utility, which provided Eisenhower with a rising conservative politico and Nixon with a respected national figure for a mentor. Though neither would ever come to fully understand the other they influenced each other in profound ways.     

《中苏友好同盟条约》与《中苏友好同盟互助条约》之比较

中苏两国于1950年2月14日签订的《中苏友好同盟互助条约》是新中国成立后对外签订的第一个双边关系条约。该条约的签订反映了人民革命胜利后,中华人民共和国与苏联之间建立了完全新型的关系,标志着中苏关系从此走向一个全面合作的历史时期。通过对《中苏友好同盟互助条约》与苏联同中国国民党政府在1945年8月14日签订的《中苏友好同盟条约》的比较来看,《中苏友好同盟互助条约》是中苏双方在充分协商、积极对话的基础上产生的,所强调的不仅是同盟,更是互助与合作。