清末买官卖官的公开化与合法化

以捐纳制度为标志的公开化、合法化地买官卖官,为中国历代秕政,至清末登峰造极。其品种之齐全,可谓挖空心思,五花八门。朝廷公然以此作为财政收入,中饱"公"囊。市场官场化,有所谓"红顶商人";官场市场化,到处是买官赚钱。卖官之滥,使得官职候补几十倍于编制。卖官卖掉了江山,如此腐败黑暗,不亡实无天理。请看《清末买官卖官的公开化与合法化》一文。     

宋代官田鬻卖规模考实

两宋的官田鬻卖引人注目,是“官田私田化”说的主要论据。鬻卖官田说明土地的交换价值受到重视,是国家土地产权强化的体现。被鬻卖的主要是没官田,鬻卖恢复了其原有的民田形态,且规模不大。官田鬻卖是在私田官田化和公用水面田产化的基础上实现的,不是影响官田总量的决定性因素。在官田鬻卖的同时,学田、职田、屯营田以及沙田、湖田等官水利田仍在扩展,其规模远远大于所卖官田。     

明代兵部尚书路迎的廉政事迹

明代嘉靖年间,时任浙江按察使路迎到属地嘉兴视察,嘉兴知府觐见时以赠送"水手银"(过往路费)的名义,私下呈上银两若干作为礼品,路迎当场予以严词拒绝,并提笔在礼单的空白处写道:此物悉从来,奈何污我!事后以为官不谨的罪责将嘉兴知府免职。这一举动在浙江官场引起强烈震动,官员们没想到一向待人宽宏大量、气度温文尔雅的按察使行事竟是这样严肃峻厉、嫉恶如仇。从此个个谨小慎微,无人再敢生行贿受贿之念,当时官场盛行的迎来送往、贪污腐败之风得到极大遏制,路     

宋朝经筵制度补阙

在宋朝经筵制度的设计和运行过程中,存在着一些学界以前尚未论及的问题。比如宋高宗南渡以后,出现了有经筵而不授经筵官的情况,还有重新以元祐时期的经筵官＂翰林侍读学士＂授人的情况。这是因政局动荡时期,朝廷制度建设不完备所致。此外,宋朝经筵官有职能分工之别,有任期,而经筵官的选任,还存在自荐、兼任的特例。     

宋代官员分司制度

宋代官员分司主要有自请、责降、叙复和优待四种方式,神宗以前,自请和优待者居多,神宗以后则以责降为主。分司官有一定任期,但职事简单,并逐步虚化,直至全无,由此也导致了分司官之分司地与居住地由完全一致向完全分离转化。官员分司之初官职一般会发生变动,或升或降取决于分司方式。分司官可享有升转官资、荫补亲属为官等政治特权以及以俸禄为主的经济待遇,但分司官之间、分司官与现任官之间都存在一定差别,并因时而变。宋代官员分司制度既承袭了前代的做法,也有自己的创新,形成了比较完备的体系,但对宋代以后的作用并不明显。     

魏晋九品官人法释疑

笔者《九品官人法再探讨》(《历史研究》1995年6期)一文提出,九品中正制是九品官人法的一部分,应放弃用九品中正制代替九品官人法的观点。张旭华先生于《中国史研究》2001年第2期发表《魏晋九品中正制名例考辨》一文,对笔者上述看法提出批评。笔者认为:一,回顾该问题研究的学术史,古今中外学者对曹魏吏部尚书陈群所创制的官员选拔、任用制度,究竟怎样称谓确实是没有统一起来。二,张先生否定九品官人法观点的不妥之处,在于失之搜讨,逻辑推导不成立。而九品官人法概念不误。九品之制、九品则是九品官人法的省称。三,从语法角度分析,从制度本身是官员任用之法定义,当称九品官人法合适。陈群创制的“九品官人法”是魏晋时期人才选拔、任用制度的综合。中正所掌握的人才评价制度——即中正九品制或九品中正制,仅是个人获品途径中的一种,不能用其替代九品官人法。     

浅谈清代陋规横行的原区

陋规作为清代官员低俸政策的孽生物,伴随着清朝的覆亡,始终不曾根除,虽然它的存在有其合理性,但是它始终在制度外游离,官员有时对它深恶痛绝,可又不得不依靠维持公私之用,统治者似乎也不能耐他如何．陋规横行于清代官场,而归根结底受害者都是广大百姓,陋规种类之繁多不胜枚举,但陋规的存在却有着众多原因,清代低俸制度和统治者对陋规的态度是造成陋规泛滥的两个重要原因,作为“一人”政府的州县官,没有州县的财政收入。只靠个人俸禄,维持一个县的运转,而其俸禄仅为几十两;清代从康熙到末年对陋规的态度宽严不一,也并没有从根源解决这问题,造成陋规成为清代官场不成文的制度,危害清代官场风气,甚至对清代的灭亡有加速作用。     

宋元明时期景德镇官窑监造官考辨——兼论官窑监察制度

宋元明时期与景德镇官窑相关的考古资料和传世文献中有“监造”“监陶”“董陶”“督陶”等内容,通过梳理相关文献,并分析各时期景德镇官窑中的官员委派制度,可证上述概念均为同一含义的不同表达,指监督景德镇官窑中的生产管理事务。北宋时期景德镇官窑中专职监造官的职能主要为收取瓷业税和管理生产。元丰五年(1082)八月以后(至迟不晚于重和元年),由于专职瓷业税官“瓷窑博易务”的出现,景德镇官窑中的监造官制度发生了改变,兼职监造官取代了专职监造官,仅负责管理生产事务。地方官窑中的监造官并非中国古代官手工业中的监察性质官员,二者选派来源不同,职能也不同,监察官员并不直接参与生产管理,而是根据相关规定对地方官窑中官员的业绩进行考核,提出赏罚意见。     

清朝的“宰白鸭”

白鸭者,为钱替人顶死罪的无辜人是也。“鸭不知,竟尔宰”,可见官场之黑暗。何以?“官避处分图结案,明知非辜莫区判!”     

唐宋田赋的“损免”与“灾伤检放”论稿

随着两税法的建立 ,田赋灾免成为与唐宋国计民生关系更为密切的政府行为 ,如何做到及时、如实 ,是宋朝改进唐朝田赋灾免制度的立法考虑 ,其中有不少合理成分。在实施过程中 ,宋朝一直存在地方官员讳言灾伤或检放不实的弊病 ,其原因包括检放程序过于繁细 ,以及其他制度如地方官员考课制度、财政利益分配制度等方面的牵制等 ,不宜以“吏治腐败”一语以概之。     

Telling small stories: spaces of knowledge and the practice of geography

This article examines how the practice of learning geography, and the arenas in which knowledge-making takes place, can be usefully positioned within changing histories of the discipline. It contends that networks of action – understood through the intersection of social sites, subjects and sources – present a conceptual framework and narrative focus for the re-consideration of specific episodes from geography's past. The interventions made here are informed and illustrated by a 'small story' about the doing of geography. Based on different personal accounts, the story revives a series of events, encounters, dialogues and images dating back to the winter of 1951 at Glenmore Lodge, Scotland. This educational institution in the Cairngorm mountains offered children from urban areas the opportunity to learn field studies and the skills of 'outdoor citizenship'. Initially, the focus falls on Margaret Jack, a 14-year-old field-course participant. Her learning experiences are traced through personal letters, a diary and a field journal dating from that time, and her recent recollections of this event. Margaret's account dovetails with the story of her field studies instructor, Robin Murray. Robin's role is traced through his learning experiences as a geography undergraduate at Aberdeen University, and the recent recollections of Catriona Murray, his wife.     

Das Wissen der Schulden. Recht,Kulturtechnik und Alltagserfahrung im liberalen Kapitalismus

The Knowledge of Debt: Law, Media Technique, and Everyday Experience in Liberal Capitalism. Performing an object such as ‘the economy’ hinges on practices of formatting knowledge. The article proposes to look at such instituting moments in connection with social conflicts over the legitimate rules of exchange. This is exemplified by way of recounting the story of the codification of Swiss bankruptcy law in 1889. In order to homogenize the legal procedures of debt collection and bankruptcy, two subject categories were instituted: ‘merchants’ and ‘non-merchants’. These different categories were thought to account for the diverging temporalities and spaces of credit exchange in everyday economic life. The introduction of the commercial register, a media-technical apparatus, enabled a formal distinction between ‘merchants’ and ‘non-merchants’. However, this boundary was contested and proved to be porose.     

Two radiocarbon dates for freshwater shells from hierakonpolis: Archaeological and geological interpretations

Shells of two species of freshwater bivalve (Unio willcocksi Bullen Newton and Etheria elliptica Lamarck) from the predynastic Gerzean (Nagada II) Decorated Tomb at Hierakonpolis, Egypt have given dates of 5000±90 bp for the tomb, and 12,900±120 bp for an episode of Nile terrace accumulation (correlated here with the Sahaba-Darau aggradation event). The archaeological and geological significance of these results is discussed, together with an outline of problems associated with radiocarbon dating of shell. Comparisons are made with the few other radiocarbon dates available for the Predynastic period in Egypt and possible reasons for the presence of shells in the tomb are considered.     

Some chronological implications of a fossil molluscan assemblage from a neolithic site at Brook,Kent, England

The later post-glacial history of a valley in the chalk escarpment near Brook, Kent, is described, based on molluscan stratigraphy, archaeological evidence and radio-carbon dating. Differences in size and colour banding, respectively, of fossil and living representatives of two species of land snails, Pomatias elegans (Müller) and Cepaea nemoralis (L.), are correlated with climatic change during the post-glacial period. The problems of the use of fossil shells of these species as samples for radiocarbon dating are discussed.     

China's Dynamic Industrial Sector: The Internet Industry

A Singapore-based economic geographer explores and analyzes the spatially uneven evolution of the Internet industry in China, arguing that the country's immense regional disparity in the provision of Internet services is best explained by the interplay of place- and path-dependence. The author demonstrates how the highly uneven regional endowments in relevant industrial and entrepreneurial resources have led to the substantial and persistent regional imbalance within China's emerging "new economy." His initial survey of the country's 100 leading Internet content providers (firms), identified from a listing of ca. 11,700 commercial websites, is selectively augmented to reflect an increase of over 70 million Internet users in 2007, reaching a total of 253 million in June 2008, and thus overtaking the United States as the world's largest Internet market. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: L10, L86, O30. 6 figures, 1 table, 53 references.     

The 1911 International Exposition in Rome: architecture, archaeology, and national identity

This paper discusses the 1911 International Exposition in Rome and illustrates how this patriotic celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Italian Sate utilized symbolic landscapes of architecture and archaeology to promote nationalist sentiments of italianità and romanità centered on the young capital of Rome. Through modern art exhibitions at the Valle Giulia, scientific conferences at the Castel Sant’Angelo, archaeological exhibits on the Roman Empire in the Baths of Diocletian, and regional Italian pavilions in the Piazza d’Armi, exposition officials offered a complex representation of Italian national identity that was modern yet ancient, cosmopolitan yet bucolic, European yet regional, and imperial yet developing.     

The Rise and Fall of Alexander the Great – The Need for Medical Analysis: Reply to Commentaries

Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. from an unknown cause. By elucidating the nature of his death, we can better interpret various aspects of Alexandrian history. Alexander’s death may have ensued from the sequelae of a congenital scoliotic syndrome. It would therefore be of significance to note that one of the greatest leaders in history who conquered much of the then known world may have been suffering from a physical disability.     

Hospital Drama: Visual Theatres of the Medical Rendezvous from Asylum to Hospital with Reference to Specific Works by Anna Furse

Abstract

This paper is informed by Furse’s practice as a theatre maker in two fields of output that are connected by two factors: first, the presence of the woman patient — hysteric/subfertile respectively — within the clinical gaze; second, the significance of the womb to each pathology. In the treatment of each (explored in Furse’s theatre), lens based technologies play their part, whilst the cultural and medical can be seen to have overlapped to produce specific meaning with regard to Her body and its spectacularity. The article presents an overview of some of the key issues in precisely how the woman’s body becomes spectacular within this prosthetic medical gaze and how the medical — and theatrically designed spaces to represent these — become meaningful and potent proxemics that in turn inform medical/ theatrical spectatorship. Overarching nineteenth-century protocols at the Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris (where Furse’s Augustine (Big Hysteria) is set) to contemporary imaging technologies used in the treatment of subfertility with Assisted Reproduction Technologies (the topic of her Art of A.R.T. projects), it examines the way in which photography develops through cinema to X-Ray, ultrasound and then 3D/4D ultrasound to ‘capture’ the woman’s body in ways by which she becomes muted and exposed. These occular technologies that extend the gaze, first to an exterior subject and then, eventually, traversing the flesh without knife, lend specific performativity to the ‘patient’ women, within the context of hysterias and reproductive impairments respectively. Finally, issues of suspension of disbelief are addressed. The spectator’s faith in the screen-based image of Her spectacular body is interrupted in Furse’s work, which is also keenly interested in the effect of such imagery on the woman’s sense of Self. The historical and cultural leaps in this article argue that there is indeed a trajectory through the history of medical imaging since the first application of photography to anatomy to the more advanced scoping technologies of medical imaging today, and that in each era, the production of these images remain fraught with cultural implications.     

The Death of Alexander the Great – A Spinal Twist of Fate

Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. from an unknown cause. Physical depictions of this historical figure reveal the likelihood of a cervical scoliotic deformity. This is substantiated with the medical history and is correlated with his untimely death. For the first time, it is concluded that Alexander’s death may have ensued from the sequelae of a congenital scoliotic syndrome.